Lawsuits filed over professor posing on sex site
Suit claims UNM improperly handled sexual harassment investigation
Two professors have filed lawsuits against the University in yet another chapter of the story that has plagued the creative writing program since associate professor Lisa Chavez posed with students on a sadomasochistic Web site.
The professors, Teddy and Sharon Warner, who are married, claim University administrators retaliated against them because Sharon has continued to speak out against the University’s handling of the incident.
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“One of the main reasons I decided to file a lawsuit was that there really didn’t seem to be any other way to get UNM administrators to listen to the very serious issues that my colleagues and a number of students have raised regarding both the (administration’s) behavior and Lisa Chavez’s,” Sharon said.
But Chavez said administrators have already taken care of the situation.
“The University investigated this very thoroughly, and this all should be over by now,” she said in an e-mail to the Daily Lobo.
Sharon Warner is an English professor, and she was director of the creative writing program when the photos of Chavez with her students were discovered. Sharon Warner filed her lawsuit Sept. 26, seeking damages for breaches of implied contract, covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and retaliation.
Teddy Warner, a professor at UNM Health Sciences Center, filed his lawsuit Tuesday. In it, he claims the University cut his pay by 20 percent because of spousal affiliated retaliation.
Teddy Warner was not available for comment.
Sharon Warner said the University cut her husband’s pay because she wouldn’t stay quiet about University administrators failing to complete a proper sexual harassment and ethics investigation into Chavez’s activities.
Carrie Moritomo, spokeswoman for the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, said the Human Rights Bureau investigated Teddy Warner’s claim and determined a probable cause for complaint on July 17. Moritomo said the bureau inspected information provided by Teddy and the University.
University spokeswoman Susan McKinsey said the University couldn’t comment on pending litigations or on details of the complaint in the lawsuit. However, McKinsey said the University has followed protocol in regard to the Chavez situation.
“We do want to say that from first awareness of the allegations in question, the University has treated this matter seriously and has devoted extraordinary time and resources to its investigation, exhaustive review and resolution, including the hiring of both an independent investigator and an outside facilitator, and a thorough review through the levels of upper administration,” she said in an e-mail to the Daily Lobo.
How it all got started:
An anonymous letter about Chavez’s activities with a sex-for-pay organization — signed by “appalled parents” — was sent to then English department chairman David Jones. According to the lawsuit, the letter stated Chavez was “putting herself in the public eye on the Internet by offering sexual conversation and private rendezvous for money.”
Sharon Warner was ordered to check the Web site peplove.com to see if the allegations were true, and if Chavez appeared with graduate students in the pictures. Sharon Warner found Chavez posing as Mistress Jade with one former graduate student and two graduate students who were in the program at the time. Chavez posed as a dominatrix professor disciplining her misbehaving students.
“From the time that I looked at that Web site until now, my whole life has been turned upside down,” Sharon Warner said. “All I did was what my department chair asked me to do.”
Nancy Ava Miller, who runs the People Exchanging Power phone-sex organization, said the pictures on the Web site were posed and Chavez didn’t have a sexual or romantic relationship with the graduate students.
“When you read about it, it sounds as if there was an older person taking advantage of maybe an underage child, but the graduate student in question was an older, married woman and a dear friend of Professor Chavez’s,” she said.
Sharon Warner said Jones reluctantly submitted an e-mail requesting a sexual harassment investigation to UNM’s Office of Equal Opportunity after he learned about the pictures.
Jones declined to comment.
Miller said Chavez quit her job at People Exchanging Power, though she’d worked there less than a year, shortly after the situation arose at the University.
Sharon said the University stopped the OEO investigation and hired an independent investigator to look into the matter.
Attorney Beth German, who conducted the independent University investigation, declined to comment.
Sharon Warner said the investigation was not about Chavez’s activities with students, but about how Sharon Warner had fabricated the accusations, her behavior and the alleged pictures. Sharon Warner gave the investigator a copy of the pictures, which had been removed from the Web site, to prove she wasn’t lying. Sharon said the investigator then closed the investigation and said there were no instances of sexual harassment, a hostile learning environment or illegalities in the case.
“They just basically wanted everybody to shut up about it and not say anything,” Sharon Warner said. “So much damage was done to so many students and to faculty members by this enforced silence and by never really looking at what happened.”
Sharon Warner said she later resigned as director of the creative writing program.
This case and the pending litigation against head football coach Mike Locksley for a physical altercation with former wide receivers coach J.B. Gerald parallel in the way the University handled them, Sharon Warner said.
“The similarities to the Locksley case are really quite striking, because in both cases somebody abused their power relationship,” she said. “Then the University pretended to do an investigation and the truth didn’t come out but they just said, ‘We’ve investigated; here are our findings; now go back to work.’”
Sharon said she would like to see the University do a proper investigation into Chavez’s actions with students.
“I would really like if the University would uphold its own policies,” she said. “I want to make it hard for them to mistreat somebody else the way they’ve mistreated me and students and to bring this out into the open, because this University needs to uphold its sexual harassment policy and it doesn’t. It doesn’t protect students at all.”
Miller said no harm was done to students through Chavez’s actions, but she can understand why Sharon Warner feels compelled to file a lawsuit.
“It’s clear when I read the lawsuit that this is not just something (Sharon Warner) is doing to get money,” she said. “She strongly feels that she needs to do this to protect the school and herself and the students, and she feels that the students have been somehow harmed by the situation, but I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think anyone’s been harmed.”
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by EW
I agree that there are too many incidences where we are told to shut up and look the other way. In this case it sounds like the majority of the issue was handled properly and the part that is being swept under the rug is the fact that Sharon was asked to verify that these pictures were online.
David Jones is an idiot for asking Sharon to verify these images. And Sharon, what were you thinking agreeing to it? Way to drag yourself into a shit storm.
by jay schaeffer
Sharon claims she was “just doing what she was told” but would have refused if she did not concur. Her defense is disingenuous. The website portrays protected behavior engaged in by consenting adults. The world could use fewer Sharons who appoint themselves as our “protectors”. If she can’t stop whining maybe she should just go away.
by amused
What, no $500,000 payout to keep quiet?
Who’s running UNM these days? Doesn’t seem like they could manage their way out of a paper bag.
by Don't be so Naive
Jay,
Sexual behavior that takes place between two people of unequal positions such that one person has potential or actual coercive power over another (e.g. a professor and his/her student, regardless of age) cannot be presumed to be “protected” and “between consenting adults.” Unequal power dynamics between people (bosses and secretaries, politicians and interns, professors and students) are at the root of abusive sexual relationships all of the time. Don’t assume that because they were “friends” that Professor Chavez/Mistress Jade’s S&M sidekick was completely comfortable with the situation.
Sharon Warner’s lawsuit is not about trying to protect you from online porn. It is about being able to work in a place that is free of coercion with people who have the dignity and intelligence to “supplement their incomes” in manners that do not involve the sex trade. That is to say, it is about protecting herself and the English Department from being sullied by people like Professor Mistress Jade. More power to her.
by Swift
I propose a no-holds-barred celebrity duel between Mike “Suckerpunch” Locksley and Lisa “Mistress Jade” Chavez to be held in Smith Plaza next Friday at high noon – 15 rounds or until one of our UNM celebrities can fight no longer – tickets will be sold to the public and all proceeds will go to settle lawsuits against UNM resulting from the earlier escapades of “Suckerpunch” and “Mistress Jade” – Come one, come all – see the show of a lifetime – and shake hands with the man who brought you the whole thing, Ringmaster David Schmidly!!!
by Corrections
Two untruths have appeared in nearly every story, including this one, and including the lawsuit Warner filed. They are:
1) Chavez posed with ONE current graduate student. The other person to whom the lawsuit refers was NOT a student at UNM. That person was NOT connected to UNM in any way at that time. “Students” seems to keep appearing to help make the story bigger.
2) PEP does not offer sex-for-pay. PEP offers phone conversation primarily. In-person meetings consist of legal BDSM activities. PEP has been in business for over 20 years. Would PEP still be operating—particularly after the last few years of news stories—if it were offering illegal services?
by Irrelevant Corrections
Dear Corrections,
So what?
1) She posed with one student instead of several – this is still a gross ethical lapse and an inexcusable oversight. The fact that one student was involved is enough. Period.
2) The fact that PEP is legal does not matter. I repeat: it is an ethical lapse to appear in sexually suggestive situations with your students. Paying for phone sex (or providing it) may be sleazy, but not illegal. That’s not the point: the point is that Lisa Chavez was involved in sexually suggestive activities with a student, which is problematic on many levels (see “Don’t be Naive” above).
Why don’t you direct further efforts at the behavior of Mistress Jade and others of her ilk.
by AA
Geez, so many uptight people. This is as silly as getting worked up about the piece on fatsos. Y’all need to take it out on the soccer field like Elizabeth Lambert here;
http://www.mcall.com/sports/all-sports-soccer-1106cn,0,320846.story
I think she picked up a few pointers from Locksley.
Good For YOUNM!
by slowhike
Botched investigations, reverse discrimination, appauling anti-american sentiment and second rate administrative staff are just somee of the many negative consequences and products of liberal relativism.
It starts with seeking equality for minorities, then the realization that there are many many minorities, not just Mexicans and African Americans. Minorities can be described as: Women, divorced people, single dads, single moms, homosexual, transvestite, transexual, unemployed, criminal, and the list goes on. Once that realization sinks in, it creates or generates frustration among the minorities who are vying for recognition. This appetite is no longer satisfied by seeking of mere equality, now they seek “special status”. It’s the “multicultural wave” or the “multicultural snowball” effect.
After the dust settles from the stampede of minorities anxious to be considered “special”, affirmative action, hate crime bills, anti-stereotyping law enforecment regulations and the like…… The concept of an “appropriate positive role model” begins to fade and gets lost in the shuffle. The question “What is an appropriate role model” can’t even be asked in politically correct circles, thus you have uncertain and nondiscriminating leadership from the graduate assistant professor all the way up to Locksley Schmidly, and the Reagents. What is needed is not only objectivity, but subjectivity where traditional values are concerned. The whole mess causes amnesia about what’s really important, what the real priorities are.
This is the stuff that people like Emile Durkheim talked about in the sociology circles of the past. He realized that when you define deviancy down to almost non-existance, everything becomes normal or acceptable. That’s why no one at UNM can appropriately handle issues like Locksley, and in this case Chavez. Because they’re afraid of being accused of being politically incorrect or even worse, discriminatory. It’s why we have to get back to traditional values.
UNM professors who think it’s OK to pose with their students in a dominatrix role on the internet can only be excused by little wit. Furthermore, any hesitancy to immediately extract and/or severly punish anyone who displays such poor behavior reflects negatively on, reduces the status of, and dimishes the value of UNM as a whole. It’s an outrage.
by Corrections
All corrections are relevant in terms of journalistic integrity, which includes a strive for accuracy. Inaccuracies may not affect your opinion, “Irrelevant Corrections,” but your opinion does not make this article’s inaccuracies irrelevant as a whole.
by Annonymous
An investigation into Dr. Hodge in these same murky waters should be lodged. I can personally attest for abusive treatment from this man, and I have seen very risque behavior exhibited by him and freshman.
by Integrity
Chavez, in her profile soliciting the public for money, advertised herself as a “stern teacher ready to punish unruly students.” Along with an image of her sexually punishing her unruly student. Is that an “inaccuracy?” And Chavez frequently encouraged her students to do sex work, which was already a problem. Several students formally complained about this, but were ignored by administration. But when Chavez actually strapped on a dildo and got photographed posing as forcing women to learn to “c__ksuck in public” as it stated with the pictures, for the purpose of making extra money – that is truly outrageous. UNM knows it is – which is why it tried to cover things up.
The reason such things can be written here is that they are true — Corrections.
The article doesn’t yet mention the many formal student complaints (at least eight) that were ignored by UNM. One letter was over twenty pages long.
by Corrections
All the details in the comment above, “Integrity,” do not make the previous inaccuracies accurate. NOTHING can make those two statements accurate.
Many letters of support for Chavez, written after the initial investigation was conducted, are also on file—more than eight.
Does a letter’s length (20 pages) make it more valuable than others? 20 pages can be full of fallacies just as easily as it can contain truthful information.
by Even if
Even if some of Chavez’s student chums wrote in support (if that’s even true) – THAT is completely irrelevant. That would not allow administration to ignore the complaint of even a single student (and there were over eight complaints anyway).
There is plenty of hard evidence in this matter. The lawsuits may pile up.
by slowhike
Support can’t hold a candle to facts and figures. Don’t be silly.
by Jim Strathmeyer
“Botched investigations, reverse discrimination, appauling anti-american sentiment and second rate administrative staff are just somee of the many negative consequences and products of liberal relativism.”
7/10; top notch! Doesn’t really go anywhere, but that seems like the point. The disconnected, rambling drivel really adds to the perceived desolation of the writer far more than any misspelling could.
by Ha
slowhike, where do reverse discrimination and “anti-american” sentiment come into it (and, by the way, who gets to say which sentiments, exactly, are anti-american? No one I know…)?
by Unbelievable
She’s doing this because “So much damage was done to so many students and to faculty members by this enforced silence […]”? Laughable. From this interview with one of the students, apparently the graduate students actually involved aren’t the ones she’s worried about being damaged: http://sexinthepublicsquare.org/ElizabethsBlog/another-important-voice. Oh yes, I’m sure bringing this up yet again will fix the panic attacks and depression the student went through after the first time, when professors decided to judge her based on their moral stance and not her scholastic performance, and implied they’d keep her from getting a job elsewhere because she’s no longer “morally fit.” Apparently students being mistreated doesn’t involve professors refusing to teach or advise certain students or trying to keep them out of the workforce. Seems to me Professor Warner should have just edited out the parts about her worry for students. Then again, I’m not the English teacher.
by It’s Unbelievable! How Corrupt!
Where there is incompetence, corruption and scandals; which are a big part of the UNM’s administration; there will always be someone who gets hurt.
This quote from Sharon Warner is true: “The similarities to the Locksley case are really quite striking, because in both cases somebody abused their power relationship,” she said. “Then the University pretended to do an investigation and the truth didn’t come out but they just said, ‘We’ve investigated; here are our findings; now go back to work.’”
The cover up and destroying of documents pertaining to the assault J.B. Gerald – former wide receivers coach, by coach Locksley, sex and gender discrimination – Commander James Daniels, Dominatrix Sex Scandal – a former director of the creative writing program, pregnancy discrimination – a former HR Representative and the recently settled age discrimination and sexual harassment case of Administrative Assistant Sylvia Lopez.
The University should uphold its own policies. However, it is apparent that they have no intentions of doing so; instead we as faculty, parents, students and taxpayers should demand better. We should petition, protest, and or boycott something needs to happen. I will no longer support UNM athletics until these immoral administrators are dismissed.
by slowhike
UNM is rampant with negative USA sentiment. Lets start with the Mexican Flag Flying incident and move to the recent invitation of Vincente’ Fox to speak at UNM. UNM’s law school turns out a huge number of immigration attys due to their support for helping illegal Mexican immigrants in the sancuturary state, New Mexico. There are other examples, predominant ones are heard on KUNM, and affiliate of UNM radio program routinely encouraging breaking laws and thwarting border patrol officials. So there are multiple examples of anti American sentiment across the UNM campus, everyone knows that.
Toleration and support for Anti American sentiment is deviant behavior relative to country and patriotism. Due to the Constitution people can hide behind the 1st amendment, but that’s not what the founding father’s had in mind when it was written. A plethora of deviant behavior has become acceptable as a result of the wide acceptance of deviant behavior. It’s a snowball effect Ha. UNM is awash in it, open your eyes
by Summerspeaker
Keep it up, slowhike. You’re almost making me proud to be a UNM student. If only the university weren’t such an egregious war profiteer.
by Lawrence
Ah, slowhike – you blew it, man! Here I thought there was another issue we could actually agree on but then you had to go off topic onto other unrelated tangents.
As I have said before, I consider myself a *conservative Democrat, and though I am no prude, I was appalled like most when the details of the Chavez S&M web site situation were released two years ago. To Ha: yes, affirmative action is relevant here, as Chavez herself admitted that she threatened to file suit against the university for “discrimination” if she was to be punished in any way for her actions.
On this point, slowhike, you and I were in agreement — but then you had to get your “broad brush” and do a wide sweep to include everything from Mexico and immigration policy to hate crime laws, etc. I’m surprised you didn’t blame Obama. Oh well, maybe next time.
by Ha
Discrimination is not always about race. Could be discrimination against her sexual choices.
Everything is Obama’s fault, Lawrence. Don’t you forget it when we have a republican in the white house; the problems will be a result of Obama’s policies.
by CW student
Letters of support are not investigatable. It doesn’t matter who supports whom, or who likes whom. It matters whether there was an actionable offense occurring, which means it’s the letters of complaint which bear investigation.
As someone who wrote a damn letter talking about Chavez’ egregious violations of ethics, I can tell you that this is not about preference. This is about Chavez using her position in the department to create a hostile working environment. When you start telling your students to work in the sex biz, when you start blurring the line between a teacher, whose job it is to prepare people for a professional life and educate them, and someone who demands that their students ‘learn how to suck cock in public,’ you have effectively blurred the line between using the authority of a teacher to teach, which includes a great deal of power to hurt their careers, and using that authority for your own titillation.
And in this case, IF the pictures were staged, it doesn’t matter. Chavez was posing as the student’s dominant. For those of you who don’t know, that means that Chavez was posing as the sexual ‘owner’ of the student for clients. So I’m just curious—if someone pimps their student out but never has sex with them, is it still an ethical problem?
And it is disingenuous as all hell to say that PEP doesn’t allow in person meetings WHEN IT IS ON THEIR WEBSITE. When you advertise ‘in-person consultations’, what the hell do you think that means?
by Boycott UNM Athletics
From the Dominatrix Sex Scandal to Locksley’s assault on Gerald and other cases were the UNM administration has mishandled: This quote from Sharon Warner is true: “The similarities to the Locksley case are really quite striking, because in both cases somebody abused their power relationship,” she said. “Then the University pretended to do an investigation and the truth didn’t come out but they just said, ‘We’ve investigated; here are our findings; now go back to work.’” Until an independent investigation is performed and ALL those involved in the cover up are dismissed.
Boycott UNM Athletics!!!!!!!!!!!!
by UNM HSC Alum
Stop the hypocritical, grandstanding Witch Hunts already.
Prof. Chavez’ behavior may have been in poor taste but it was not at all illegal, harassing or threatening to her student and that’s why Ms. Warner’s concerns were likely addressed with a shut case.
This new lawsuit is nothing more than censor-loving attention-grabbing expense aimed at our public university who upheld the First Amendment in an admirable and courageous way.
I’ll make an additional donation this year to my university over their decision to investigate the case and conclude with factual evidence that no harm was done.
How tragic for a creative writing department to come down so insistently against free speech and free expression. Tsk, tsk. May your creative work not be treated so piously.
by plenty of evidence
The investigation was improper, as PILES of evidence show — and many student complaints were ignored.
This is not about free speech. A workplace has rules of conduct.
Part of the reason faculty and students are so pissed off is that Chavez and friends keep trying to pretend that poor Chavez is being attacked. (Yes, poor dildo-wearing Chavez, whipping a student)
How would you like your daughter to come to UNM to be trained to “suck c—k in public.” Sorry, but that’s what the evidence shows.
by Sociologo
HSC Alum,
Tsk, tsk, yourself. Too bad smugness so often comes along with being misinformed. Guaranteed freedom of speech simply means that we are not open to legal prosecution for speaking our minds. As an apparently proud HSC alumnus/a, you should know that plenty of professions (doctors, for instance) have professionally accepted ethical norms that they adhere to not because they will face legal prosecution but because those norms are conducive to making their work effective. For example, I wouldn’t tell my doctor about my raging case of herpes if I thought he’d tell everyone; telling everyone about my herpes is not going to land my doc in jail, but it is a transgression against his professional ethical norms. Same thing with MIstress Jade (Lisa Chavez): she may not have done anything patently illegal, but she sure as hell stepped over the line of professional ethics in posing with a graduate student and by putting her students in seriously uncomfortable situations.
Too bad your rigorous academic work at the HSC didn’t help you discover the difference between a legal and an ethical transgression. Right there in Schmidly in that respect.
by So Over This
Somebody call a whaaa!-mbulance for the Warners.
by slowhike
Chavez is a deterent to education not a professor. Chavez is a liability waiting to happen again and again, until the feeble cowardly UNM administration grows a pair. Her conduct is borderline or bipolar and most certainly histrionic.
by This Video Says It All
Check out this video from KRQE News 13 it reveals just how corrupt UNM’s Administrators truly are; Parents, students, faculty and taxpayers need to band together to put a stop to their incompetent.
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/sports/sports_blog/sportsblog_krqe_albuquerque_sports_office_short_locksley_and_otl_200911012043
by slowhike
Sexual deviates are not who we need in the class room. If you are a parent and thinking of sending your child to UNM, how do you think this impacts your decision to see a sexual deviate with multiple personality disorders in a professor’s position. This is great way to drive away tuition paying school candidates.
by Arkannis
Chavez is a crap professor. She can’t teach her way out of a wet paper bag. I should know, I’ve had a class with her. I don’t think a single person in that class actually learned anything, except some of the more sycophantic students might have learned how to write boring and uninteresting prose.
My point is this: Why is UNM spending so much effort protecting her? It’s not like they couldn’t fire her for cause over this incident. And it’s definitely not because she’s some kind of vital resource to the Creative Writing program.
I bet she has dirt on some administrator. I also bet it directly relates to “PEP”. That would be perfect.
by slowhike
Hey Arkannis, you make some very valid points and I have an answer for your question about Professor Chavez. The reason she is protected is because UNM has stepped into the proverbial mindless intellecutal leftism trap. That’s right, they are so bent on being politically correct and favoring the minorities (which by the way begins with favopritism toward Hispanics as always)that they are “stepping over quarters to pick up pennies”. In other words they are afraid, and their fear is self-generated. They would rather risk ethics violations, bad press for current and future students, poor sportmanship (in the case of the make-believe sports program at UNM)and even professionalism in favor or either supporting or “over looking” intolerable behavior. Now this favoritism is extended ONLY to minorities, any conventional or traditional injustice had better be ready to feel the wrath of the UNM Minority Machine.
It’s a phenomenon that is rampant in many areas, and UNM is certainly one of them. It’s no wonder, because academics have always preferred to look at themselves as the “elite intellectuals”, and they compound that self-evaluation by the assumption that their lot in life, their highest calling is to thwart the conservative establishment. The best way they can come up with to do this is to support deviant behavior and any minority subject that they can get their hands on.
by BDSM
There is no more freedom in this world.
Government are taking it away from us.
Work places take it away from us.
Banks take it away from us.
When will we be free?
by sergiu
Ass Booty
by sexy ass
I love Big Ass
by unbelievable
Are the above two comments ads posted? Fits right in with Lisa Chavez’s second job with her students. Unbelieveable that the Univ. would say they couldn’t do anything. It was with the students, for pete’s sake. I can tell you one way UNM can improve its image: Deal with the mess of Lisa Chavez, who made all that money sexworking with her students. Unbelievable that she just got away with it all. She’s probably laughing it up at the s m stripclub every night.