A top University of St. Thomas administrator accused the university of botching the investigation of a sexual misconduct allegation, encouraging her silence and retaliating against her after she reported receiving a lewd photo via email from a colleague in federal lawsuit filed Monday.
Siobhan Fleming, the university’s associate vice president for academic affairs, said in the lawsuit that she received the nude photo via email in 2015. She has now filed multiple complaints regarding the photo and how the university responded to her complaint of sexual misconduct, including a lawsuit in county court that she later withdrew.
In August, she sued two colleagues who she said sent and received the email, Adam Martinez and Dominic Aquila. Martinez, director of the college's faith and culture program, sent the photo, Fleming said in the August filing. Aquila, then-provost at St. Thomas, also received the email and told Fleming to delete it, Fleming says in Monday's lawsuit.
Aquila said days after that August lawsuit was filed in the Harris County Courts that he would leave his position as provost but remain a St. Thomas employee, a decision he said at the time was unconnected to the suit. Fleming withdrew that suit months later.
Monday's lawsuit offers new allegations as to the contents of the email she said she received and what occurred after she said she reported it.
The federal filing – which accuses St. Thomas of retaliation and discrimination against her based on her gender – said Fleming has also filed complaints with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the Texas Workforce Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging retaliation and sex discrimination.
The email, the lawsuit said, was an “obscene sexual photograph” accompanied by text that “she interpreted to suggest that (the sender) was masturbating at home and planned to come in later ‘to do as much of this as I can.’”
Fleming accuses the university and its employees of silencing her accusations, improperly investigating her report, and paring back her job responsibilities after she complained -- all allegations not present in her earlier lawsuit.
"The email and the image itself were highly disturbing for her," said Alexander Zalkin, a California-based attorney representing Fleming. "What was more disturbing and cause for more distress was St. Thomas' response."
Richard Ludwick, St. Thomas' president, said in a statement Tuesday through a spokesperson that the university was "surprised and disappointed to learn of the lawsuit."
"University of St. Thomas' internal investigation was conducted appropriately, and we had a third party, independent investigator," his statement read. "We have confidence in that process. The university's actions were appropriate in the investigation and the handling of the complaint. We did not retaliate."
A University of St. Thomas spokesman declined to comment on Tuesday on questions about the university's response. Aquila and Martinez did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
The university, like others across the city, was closed Tuesday due to Houston's weather.
Fleming said in the federal suit filed Monday that the university's investigation was a “sham.”
First, she said in the suit, Aquila encouraged her to “delete (the email) immediately and not tell anyone about it” when she talked to him that day about the photograph.
After she said she urged the university to investigate the email as a violation of the school’s sexual misconduct policy, she said Aquila told her that the email did not violate St. Thomas’ policies “because the sender did not intend to harass Dr. Fleming,” according to the lawsuit.
St. Thomas' sexual misconduct policy names “distribution of pornographic material” as a form of sexual misconduct.
Under federal law, St. Thomas’ policy reads, most university officials “who receive a report of sexual assault, whether from the employee or student involved or a third party, must share that information with the appropriate university authorities for investigation and follow-up. The university is obligated under the law to investigate the complaint, to take action to eliminate sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, prevent its recurrence and address its effects.
“The University believes that no person should bear the effects of sexual misconduct, sexual assault, or related violence alone. When sexual misconduct, sexual assault or some form of related violence occurs, the university’s paramount concern is for the safety, health and well-being of those impacted,” the policy reads.
She said in the suit that shortly after receiving the email, she told her brother, then a board member, about the complaint. He alerted the board chair and then-president Robert Ivany about the complaint, she said in the lawsuit.
“Aquila confronted Dr. Fleming in her office and berated her for informing members of the board about the obscene image she received,” the lawsuit says. That notification, she said in the suit, prompted the university to investigate.
The university’s Title IX coordinator – an administrator who is responsible for compliance with the federal nondiscrimination law – did not interview Fleming during the investigation, the lawsuit said.
That administrator, Randy Graham, told her that St. Thomas investigated the email as a potential violation of the university’s technology resources policy and “did not find any pornography” on the sender's computer, according to the lawsuit.
“It became apparent that while all the men involved in the incident had been interviewed, she, the complainant and the only woman, had not,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit says that when Fleming asked why St. Thomas did not investigate the allegation as sexual misconduct, Graham said Fleming did not report it as such. Fleming, however, said in the suit she repeatedly asked the university to investigate the email as a violation of the sexual misconduct policy.
Fleming said in the lawsuit she was removed from her position on multiple committees, including the staff affairs policy committee and the president's cabinet meeting group.
Her “job responsibilities have been reduced to virtually nothing,” the suit reads, and she has been “completely isolated.”
According to the lawsuit, “Aquila’s and St. Thomas’ actions have been, and are, clearly intended to make Dr. Fleming’s work environment so unbearable that she resign.”
When she complained of retaliation in June, St. Thomas hired an outside firm to investigate but “did not offer any final report or relay the outcome of any investigation” after the investigation was completed in August, according to the lawsuit.
University publications say Fleming is a St. Thomas alumna who returned to the university as an administrator in 2013.