Additional reporting and video by Bob Conrad | Photos by Eric Marks

University of Nevada, Reno officials on Thursday prepared to kick off the institution’s 150th anniversary with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new business building. The gathering was met with several dozen protesters, mostly students, chanting, “Sexual violence is a crime!” 

The protesters lined Ninth Street as a backdrop to the ceremony.

“This whole day will be memorialized in the time capsule,” UNR President Brian Sandoval said, pointing toward the protesters in front of the campus. “I decided to write a letter to the president 50 years from now, and I’m going to document this day because a lot of things have happened here, and it’s really important to inform that future president and the students then about what happened here today.”

Students who led the demonstration said they’re fed up with the university’s lack of response and transparency with recent rape, sexual assault and discrimination complaints. Jamie, a freshman who said they did not want to use a last name, said more accountability is needed at UNR.

“Hearing this makes me wonder how they could possibly claim that they are protecting students from this if they are not even willing to admit that they failed to protect faculty,” the student said. 

UNR President Brian Sandoval spoke with the demonstrators for close to 10 minutes before the official ceremony, at times trying to be heard over shouts of, “No excuse for violent men.” 

Sandoval told This Is Reno he was proud of the university’s students.

“It’s important that they have a voice,” he said. “I’ve spoken with student leadership even this morning and want to chat with them. We’re going to work on this together.” 

While most people attending the groundbreaking kept to areas outside the main gathering, several community members approached the protesters to get more information on their cause. 

The group of students and concerned community members have organized as “Stand With Fei Fei,” referencing Feifei Fan, a mechanical engineering faculty member who launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover legal costs for a lawsuit against the university alleging rape, sexual slavery and misconduct she said were perpetrated by another tenured faculty member and from which she says the university benefitted. 

The students shouted: “Say her name! Fei Fei Fan!” 

Fan’s case is one of several This Is Reno has reported on this year related to sexual assault, harassment, sexual discrimination and retaliation at UNR. Student reporters at UNR’s The Nevada Sagebrush picked up Fan’s story over the weekend. 

News coverage spurred the Nevada Faculty Alliance this week to pen a letter to Sandoval—their second on the topic in less than a year—asking for operational improvements and greater accountability from UNR’s Title IX office, increased transparency, and stronger policies to hold administrators and employees accountable for violating Title IX protections. 

The faculty group wrote: 

“Nearly one year later, with only superficial changes made, complaints of sexual abuse and harassment, discrimination, and retaliation have gone unresolved, resulting in multiple lawsuits and individuals seeking financial support from the public to avoid insolvency while pursuing redress. 

“We have seen multiple instances of institutions retaliating against those making complaints by moving to terminate their employment. As it appears that instances of misconduct and mishandling of these complaints continue unabated, the NFA State Board has issued a second letter to regents, the interim chancellor, and institution presidents, calling for immediate action,” the faculty added.

Title IX office to investigate and report violations

UNR’s engineering school dean, in response to news stories, wrote a letter to faculty saying he could not comment on Fan’s case because litigation is pending. He also referred people to UNR’s Title IX office.

One UNR employee told This Is Reno that a complaint, filed with the Title IX office, was not addressed for months. 

“They don’t take the side of victims,” the employee said, adding that the person they complained about was allowed to retire with emeritus status and then the case was closed. Emeritus status is considered a retirement into promotion where a faculty or administrator gets free benefits for life.

“For months I would worry about him asking me to come into his office, after he inappropriately touched me, so I would take the long route around my building to come and leave. I would go the opposite direction to use a different restroom on a different floor,” the employee added. “It was all in my report to Title IX.”

The Department of Education’s Title IX “protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance” and the university’s Title IX office is responsible for investigating and reporting Title IX violations.

“Failing to adequately act on matters of discrimination and workplace misconduct emboldens those who cause harm to others,” said Jim New, NFA’s president, in a post on the group’s website. “Unfortunately, NSHE leadership has exhibited an appalling level of indifference for our prior attempts to address this matter. We hope that will change.”

NSHE officials at the event appeared to ignore the protesters. NFA recommended its colleagues bypass their Title IX process on campus and report complaints directly to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. 

Associated Students of University of Nevada, UNR’s student government group, also posted a statement on Instagram Thursday morning in solidarity with Fan and other survivors of power-based violence. The statement called for thorough investigations of Title IX issues and encouraged students to support victims’ efforts for justice.

In a news release sent before the protest, Jacob Holloway said, “Sandoval’s historical and current actions have raised serious concerns, especially in light of his prior presiding as judge to a similar case (Gaillard v. Nevada System of Higher Education) and his appointment of former Reno City Manager Andrew Clinger, previously accused of sexual harassment.”

The recent lawsuits and incidents reported by This Is Reno mostly took place before Sandoval became president in 2020. However, transparency concerns with the Title IX office have been raised under his leadership. 

USA Today reporter Kenny Jacoby in 2022 published a series of stories on Title IX, requesting data from more than 100 universities. UNR was one of six that refused to provide any Title IX data, including the number of sexual misconduct complaints investigated, the number of students involved and the number of sanctions issued. 

UNR’s communications staff told Jacoby that they didn’t have the resources to gather the information and that the information either didn’t exist or would be considered confidential. 

Sandoval said yesterday that actions have already been taken, including increasing staffing in the Title IX office and hiring a new leader with “decades of experience” with Title IX. UNR’s website lists four investigators for the office. The office’s new Director, Zeva Edmondson, started in June. Her experience includes 25 years as a Florida sheriff’s deputy and shows less than six years as a Title IX coordinator in higher education.  

Critics of UNR said the institution has a pattern of burying complaints, sometimes never informing complainants of the results of investigations. Former UNR graduate student Hope Loudon said she only got the results of a complaint she filed in 2015 last year. She had to file a public records request for it.

A number of people online have said similar problems have been rampant at UNR for decades. Some at yesterday’s protest called for the firing of UNR’s main attorney, Mary Dugan. Some allege she makes key decisions at the institution behind the scenes, and a lot of them are treated as confidential.

“Fire general counsel Mary Dugan!” a protestor shouted at the gathering. “Where are you, Mary?”

Changes slow to arrive

Nevada’s legislature this year passed Assembly Bill 245, which would overhaul the Task Force on Sexual Misconduct at Institutions of Higher Education and refashion it into the Commission on Higher Education Campus Safety. Nevada’s higher education campuses would also be required to provide programs on awareness and prevention of sexual assault and other forms of power-based violence. 

AB245 was passed as a “fix” to Senate Bill 347, passed in 2021. That bill included a provision that allowed the Board of Regents to collect data from each campus’ Title IX office on sexual misconduct.  

Nevada System of Higher Education’s Audit, Compliance and Title IX Committee report on June 8 noted that updated Title IX regulations had been in review for more than a year and would likely not be ready to present to regents until October. 

A search of NSHE’s website turned up no results for the draft regulations. 

One requirement outlined in NSHE’s codes related to Title IX is for the system’s policy to be distributed annually to all employees. The policy was emailed to UNR faculty and staff on Wednesday.