Eleven staff members – including an associate dean – at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) have been accused of sexual harassment since 2014, according to an open records request filed by Media Milwaukee, although the number rises to 18 when you count cases labeled as harassment and discrimination.
Documents obtained by Media Milwaukee through open records laws indicate there have been at least 85 complaints (including the 18 cases listed above) that MATC submitted to the Wisconsin Technical College System as part of its annual Title IX reporting. Most of those cases were redacted because those cases were filed by students against students, whereas Media Milwaukee requested only cases against staff. The disclosure stands in stark contrast to Milwaukee Public Schools, which was unable to produce any aggregate sexual harassment numbers after an open records request.
One April 2015 allegation at MATC was described as verbal sexual harassment by an associate dean and explains, “Complaint was investigated by outside legal counsel and all allegations were not substantiated.” Two sexual harassment cases at MATC from 2014 were still listed as “ongoing.” However, MATC noted in a clarification that, although listed that way on the provided chart, those cases are already closed. “The referenced sexual harassment cases from 2014 are closed. As this was a records request, the records produced were those we submitted annually to the state. At the time we submitted the 2014 report, the cases were still open,” MATC explained. MATC said some information is missing from the chart, though, as they were not able to locate all documents.
Sexual assault and harassment complaints have been recorded at Wisconsin colleges of all sizes. Media Milwaukee student journalist Seth Dittmer filed an open records request at Waukesha Area Technical College (WCTC), a community college with a total enrollment of 21,302 students. Between 2015 and 2017, only four cases of sexual harassment were recorded. In one case, a staff member was terminated. Two other staff members were faced with disciplinary action. Nicolet Area Technical College reported one case of sexual harassment/discrimination, which was deemed unfounded, information obtained by student journalist MacKenzie Lillund.
MATC officials provided student journalist Lauren Keene with the month and year of the complaints, the nature of the complaints as well as complaint outcomes and resolutions. Eleven cases against staff are related to sexual harassment while the others are listed as race discrimination, discrimination and harassment. MATC did not provide names.
In three of the sexual harassment cases reported between 2014 and 2017, MATC instructors were subject to disciplinary action. Details about the nature of the disciplinary action were not provided, and any incidents of termination were not documented. Some of the documented cases were not substantiated by MATC officials and remain closed or action was taken such as “student granted permission to complete course independently.”
Media Milwaukee obtained the information after filing the open records request with MATC seeking “the number of sexual assault and/or sexual harassment complaints filed and/or reports made against MATC faculty and staff members from Jan. 1, 2014 through present.” The technical college responded by providing the chart that included other cases involving students but only MATC cases against staff, as requested by the student news site, were not blacked out. Media Milwaukee is requesting a non blacked out version of the full chart.
MATC’s Equal Opportunity, Harassment and Nondiscrimination Policy strongly discourages any “romantic or sexual relationship between individuals in unequal positions, such as faculty and student,” citing “inherent risks.” Even though the policy describes such relationships as “unethical” in cases where there is direct supervisory authority, consensual relationships between students and staff are not explicitly prohibited by the technical school. The document says, “The college does not wish to interfere with private choices regarding personal relationships when these relationships do not interfere with the goals and policies of the college.”
MATC’s downtown campus. (Lauren Keene)
According to the policy, members are expected to report any sexual or romantic relationships with subordinates to supervisors. Reported relationships “will likely result in the necessity to remove the employee from the supervisory or evaluative responsibilities or shift a party out of being supervised or evaluated by someone with whom they have established a consensual relationship… Failure to self-report such relationships to a supervisor as required can result in disciplinary action for an employee.”
MATC’s numbers against staff are relatively low compared to other Wisconsin universities and Madison Area Technical College. An ongoing Media Milwaukee investigation found that at least 40 staff members at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee have been accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault since 2013. The UWM data involved one more year than MATC’s data, though. According to UWM’s website, the school’s current enrollment is 25,412 students. MATC has approximately 37,000 students currently enrolled.
An investigation by Madison-based publication The Capital Times found that 39 cases of sexual harassment were reported at Madison Area Technical College over the past decade. This total includes student/student complaints as well as student/staff complaints. Twenty-two cases were reported in the last year alone.
Madison Area Technical College has a consensual relationships policy that prohibits faculty members from becoming involved in “amorous or sexual relationships with students enrolled in their classes or subject to their supervision, even when both parties appear to have consented to the relationship.”
The University of Wisconsin System’s flagship university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the largest university in the state. Total enrollment in fall 2017 was 43,820. According to an ongoing Media Milwaukee investigation, at least 13 complaints related to sexual misconduct have been handled by UW-Madison’s Office of Compliance, formerly known as the Office of Equity and Diversity. In a written statement, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said the university has recorded 20 cases over the last 10 years.
Though Wisconsin universities and technical colleges have been able to provide aggregate numbers of sexual harassment and sexual assault complaints, some primary education institutions have not. According to an open records request filed by Media Milwaukee, Milwaukee Public Schools does not have a document indicating how many sexual harassment and sexual assault complaints have been made against MPS employees in aggregate fashion. Officials told Media Milwaukee that the school district does not keep centralized records of the cases. The request was filed by UWM student journalist Sloan Sullivan. No information has been provided since.
This story was updated to add the MATC clarification and correct the fact that the 85 cases are all from MATC, not from other WCTS schools.