Washington – The American Association of University Women Legal Advocacy Fund is supporting two women in their cases against Feather River Community College in Quincy, CA. Michelle Jaureguito and Laurel Wartluft filed separate suits against the college, Wartluft for sex discrimination, and both for retaliation for complaining of sex discrimination.
Jaureguito worked at Feather River Community College for five years. She held various positions, including Talent Search Director and Director of Upward Bound, a program that assists underprivileged high school students attend college. In 2005, Jaureguito was alerted by a college residential assistant (RA) that a male employee at the college was intoxicated and bringing alcohol to the Upward Bound high school student dorm. Jaureguito was also told that the employee had made sexual advances to the female RA and female program participants. Jaureguito and the athletic director, Paul Thein, visited the employee’s home where they witnessed him consuming alcohol with underage students. Other students reported that night to Thein and Jaureguito that the male employee sexually harassed them.
Thein and Jaureguito reported the incident to the college president and Thein urged the president to contact the authorities. Jaureguito says the college president warned them to "protect themselves" from possible retaliation from the employee’s father, a person with influence on campus.
In August 2005, Jaureguito was threatened with termination for providing alcohol to minors – a rumor provided by the male employee to the human resources director. Other staff members allege that the HR director pressured them to say that Jaureguito – not the male employee – provided the students with alcohol and was drinking with them. The threat of termination was not kept confidential, in violation of the college’s policy. Unable to tolerate continued harassment from college faculty and staff in retaliation for reporting the employee, Jaureguito left the college in April 2006.
"Between the Juareguito and Wartluft cases, Feather River College has had a disturbing pattern of charges leveled against it," said AAUW Director of Public Policy and Government Relations Lisa Maatz. "It’s time the school takes a hard look at its policies and takes serious steps to improve the campus climate for everyone."
Laurel Wartluft is the former head coach of the women’s basketball team and former faculty member at Feather River Community College. The women’s basketball coach had been a part-time position, while the men’s basketball coach was a full-time position – a potential violation of Title IX regulations. In spring 2005, the president agreed to make the job a full-time tenure track position and Wartluft applied. Wartluft voiced concerns to her superiors that the college discriminated against women in the way it funded, selected, hired, and compensated women’s athletic coaches. Wartluft was ranked the number two choice by the hiring committee – the number one choice had no previous collegiate coaching experience, while Wartluft had coached at several colleges. One committee member allegedly called Wartluft a "closet lesbian" – a false accusation and unprofessional personal attack, unrelated to the qualifications for the job.
In June 2005, Wartluft was offered and accepted the full-time tenure track coaching and teaching position, withdrawing her candidacy for consideration at another college. One month later, the college president said she was considering making the women’s basketball coach position part-time, or not funding it at all. She allegedly said Wartluft "wouldn’t fit in…because she was a lesbian."
In August, the college president changed Wartluft’s employment terms to a temporary part-time position with no job security. Wartluft worked for two months as a full-time employee and was not compensated. After repeated requests for a written contract, Wartluft was terminated without receiving the salary owed to her. She was replaced with a less qualified male employee.
Jaureguito and Wartluft both filed suit against Feather River Community College in November 2006. AAUW recently adopted the cases and has provided $5,000 to each case so far.
"You send your kids to college expecting that they’ll be in a safe environment and Michelle Jaureguito lost her job doing what every parent in the country would want her to do – protect their kids from a sexual predator," said Jaureguito’s lawyer Michael Terhorst, of Beeson Terhorst LLP. "It’s appalling that the college, instead of supporting and congratulating Michelle, did just the opposite."
Wartluft is currently the head women’s basketball coach and assistant athletic director at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio. She was inducted into the 2007 Kent State University Varsity "K" Hall of Fame on in February 2007 for contributions as head coach and administrator. Jaureguito is now Campus Visit Coordinator at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington.
Read more about Jaureguito v. Feather River Community College and Wartluft v. Feather River Community College.
To schedule an interview with AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Interim Director Lisa Maatz, please contact Rebecca Leaf, senior media relations associate, at 202/785-7738, leafr@aauw.org or Ashley Carr, director of communications, at 202/785-7745, carra@aauw.org.
