This editorial is in reference to this story: Dining services supervisor investigated for ‘inappropriate boundaries’

I get it, I’m no Bob Woodward.

Middle school was when people started to notice it. Some of my teachers would remark about my “inquisitive nature,” but most of my friends just called me nosy. So when college came, this compulsion for asking questions and seeking out information could mean only one thing. I should major in journalism.

So here we are, two and a half years later, and it’s been going pretty well. Thanks to CWU’s communications department, I’ve had some amazing opportunities. I’ve worked for the college radio station, written articles for our student magazine and even risked my life covering a cattle drive for our student television newscast. Cows are meaner than they look, FYI.

So when it came time to work as a student reporter for The Observer, I felt prepared. I was assigned to the scene section, covering local events and lifestyle subjects. I wrote about restaurant openings and the dating scene here in Ellensburg. 

Then, in one of our pitch meetings where we discussed potential story ideas, several student reporters described complaints they had heard from employees of Dining Services detailing a difficult work environment. I knew no one at Dining Services, mostly ate off campus and had no preconceived judgment or bias. It was more than likely because of this and the objectivity it allowed that I was assigned this story.

The news cycle moves fast and so do our deadlines, so that same day I began doing my research and trying to find dining employees to talk to. I got a few names from some of the student reporters who pitched the story, but all except one were not interested in talking to me. So in desperation, I did the only thing I could think of: I headed down to the SURC and started talking to employees.

I bet you thought this was all going to be a little more high-tech, didn’t you? Nope. Just me randomly approaching Dining Services employees trying not to seem creepy and getting a feel for what was going on and if there was even a story at all.

I started to catch on that many of the employee complaints had to do with working conditions that were often a direct result of understaffing, an issue that was prevalent on campuses throughout the country due to the many challenges related to COVID-19. So my story started to take a direction.

That story was almost complete and I was wrapping up a final interview with an ex-employee referred to me by my editor. Expecting to hear some of the same complaints I had heard from many of the employees regarding feeling overworked and underappreciated, I was completely unprepared for what came next.

Witness #1, as they will be referred to, detailed a situation involving an official investigation into supervisor Ryan Aspiri’s allegedly inappropriate behavior toward female students working directly under him.

Witness #1 added that three of their coworkers had filed an official complaint with HR regarding the supervisor. “We were told the solution was that he was getting transferred to a ghost kitchen which essentially [means] no students would be around,” they said. “That lasted for two weeks until he was back with the students.”

Woah. I tried to stay professional and act like I heard information like this regularly. Inside, I was panicking. My deadline was tomorrow and I was almost done with my understaffing story, what do I do with this? It felt far too important and something I didn’t feel fully qualified to be hearing and something I knew shouldn’t be rushed.

Upon asking Witness #1 follow-up questions born out of a little bit of shock and a whole lot of human curiosity (i.e., nosiness, see paragraph 1), I learned more about the employee who filed the initial complaint that led to the investigation. Witness #1 offered to reach out to that former employee, who will be referred to as student employee #1, to see if they would be willing to talk to me. 

I scheduled a Zoom call with student employee #1 within minutes and learned about their specific experiences with the supervisor in question, which led them to file an official report that resulted in an investigation through CWU’s Human Resources Department. Student employee #1 said they ultimately quit their employment at Dining Services as a direct result of their experience with this supervisor, the subsequent investigation and retaliation they felt they experienced.

They also forwarded me the final HR report and I learned that this same supervisor who was the subject of the investigation still worked at Dining Services.

I was able to conduct interviews with all three accusers, two of the seven witnesses interviewed in the HR investigation and HR Executive Director Staci Sleigh-Layman, who oversaw the investigation and wrote the report. I also read through many pages of HR reports, policies and procedures and interview transcripts. I should now be full of answers, ready to report with the utmost confidence and blow the lid off of this story, right?

Not even close. 

While the specific facts, timelines and interview quotes can be read in the accompanying story, I can honestly say I have more questions now than when I started working on this story. Some of this is due to the fact that while claimants and witnesses were very transparent and specific in their interviews, I was unable to get the same type of clarity from HR and management. 

To be fair, management directed me to HR and HR was unable to speak about this case specifically and could only speak about the general investigation process. I was told via email by Sleigh-Layman before the interview, “I’m happy to discuss the general investigation process, but I can’t talk about specifics in any case. I can’t even tell you if I know of a case.”

As a journalist, especially a new one, I want to be transparent with both my readers and my sources and not only report what I have learned over the course of my interviews and research, but also report what I don’t know – and why.

Here are the main questions our reporting on the handling of this investigation has raised for me and my editors:

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Why didn’t this behavior rise to the level of sexual harassment?

The supervisor in this HR investigation allegedly made sexual comments to several coworkers that left them feeling uncomfortable. The CWU policy states that sexual harassment is defined as creating an “intimidating, hostile or offensive” environment. 

According to the HR investigation, two claimants and two separate student witnesses all detailed specific conversations they had with the supervisor regarding women’s breasts. Why was the supervisor’s word taken against four other people’s on this topic? After interviewing claimants, witnesses and the executive director of HR, I still ask what behavior would rise to the level of “direct sexual behavior” if not talking about wanting to be intimate and describing women’s breasts to multiple people?

Seeking an answer to that question, but knowing that Sleigh-Layman could not discuss specifics of the case in question, I asked her if I could give her general examples of behavior and if she could share if that type of behavior would be severe enough to rise to the level of a hostile work environment. She replied no, “I can’t do that. In the context of no context. Because each of them is specific to the context. And so I don’t feel comfortable even going down that path … a hostile work environment is really hard to prove.”

However, in the HR report and in my interviews with the claimants, they gave several specific examples of how the supervisor’s alleged sexual comments created a work environment that was uncomfortable and offensive to them. 

Student employee #2 wrote in their report that the supervisor “talked about wanting to be intimate with some of the females that work at dining services.”

In the HR report, student employee #3 said, “He has talked to me inappropriately about experiences he had with attractive women, going as far to describe the shape of a woman’s bare breasts.” This person also detailed another conversation in the HR report they allegedly had with the supervisor where he talked with them “about short women with large breasts.”

According to the HR report, student employee #3 reported wanting to “get away” from Aspri.  

In an interview with The Observer, Witness #1 said customers would complain that he made them “extremely uncomfortable” with his sexual conversations and “flirting.” 

And both Witness #1 and student employee #1 said they quit as a direct result of what they described as a hostile and offensive work environment that the supervisor allegedly created. 

In an interview with The Observer, student employee #1 said, “I would still run into him in the back kitchen and have a panic attack … and that was the biggest catalyst and I told them I was quitting because of that.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, cited in the HR report, provides guidance on evaluating the seriousness of behaviors, stating that conduct must be “so objectively offensive as to alter the ‘conditions’ of the victim’s employment.”

If two different employees say they quit as a result of their supervisor’s behavior, why does that not qualify as altering the condition of the victims’ employment? 

Are punishments for certain behaviors standard policy, or are they decided on a case-by-case basis?

The claimants alleged that they were retaliated against by the supervisor once he found out they had reported him. The HR report details multiple reports of retaliation towards the claimants, including that the supervisor allegedly no longer fulfilled some of the duties of his job and that he bad-mouthed some of the claimants to other employees. The report said the supervisor, “talked directly about the complaint with student employees,” the same evening he was informed about it.

The HR report concluded the supervisor was found “more likely than not” guilty of retaliation, however he was not subject to the full range of applicable sanctions.

In the HR report, additional witnesses interviewed described specific instances of retaliation. Witness #4 said that when “he doesn’t like you, he nitpicks your work.” The supervisor admitted he was “avoiding” student employee #1 in the HR investigation.

The HR report also concluded: “This retaliation was not overt; rather it was passive aggressive.”

In an interview with The Observer, Sleigh-Layman was unable to share the consequences because “‘Guilty of retaliation’ isn’t like a defined thing. So there’s gradations of what retaliation looks like … And so I can’t answer the question on a one-to-one basis because so much can be in there.” 

On CWU’s website, CWUR 3-45-010 Student Discrimination Complaint states: “Retaliation means harming, threatening, intimidating, coercing, or taking adverse action of any kind against a person because such person reported an alleged violation, or participated in any capacity in a university investigation. Retaliating against participants in these proceedings is serious misconduct, and is subject to the full range of applicable sanctions.” 

If the supervisor was found “more likely than not” guilty of retaliation, which the university defines as “serious misconduct,” why was he not subject to “the full range of applicable sanctions”?

The HR report also cites from a practical guide to investigating harassment and discrimination complaints that “every complaint that is a legitimate problem of an employee should be solved by the organization. Doing so creates trust in the complaint system, rights a wrong that affects someone’s work, and helps prevent other behaviors, including unlawful harassment.” 

According to the HR report, Denise Payton, assistant director of Dining Services said that Dining Services leadership has discussed expectations for student/staff interactions with managers. However, she was unsure if that information had “trickled” down to operational staff members.

The retaliation continued even after the complaints were filed. Aspiri met with his supervisors on March 15 to discuss the situation. 

In a follow-up email to HR on April 30, student employee #1 said, “He then told them how I was bringing up old stuff, that I’m misinterpreting the situation and making a big deal out of nothing … [He] is damaging my credibility.”

Was this not an example of continued “serious misconduct” that the Student Discrimination Complaint describes and do these alleged continual attacks on the claimants characters not warrant more sanctions?

Should students filing complaints to HR about a supervisor be allowed to remain anonymous?

In two different instances, claimants said they were upset that they were identified to the supervisor, thus allowing retaliation to take place.

In the first instance, student employee #1 and #2 were identified to Aspiri during the March 15 meeting with his supervisors. In this instance, the claimants did not say they asked to remain anonymous. According to student employee #1, they did communicate their fear of reporting to higher management because they “didn’t want to cause problems” and “didn’t want to get in trouble.”

Should dining services management have protected their identities more than they did?

CWUR 3-45-010 Student Discrimination Complaint states: “University personnel will inform and obtain consent from the complainant before commencing an investigation into a sexual misconduct complaint. If a sexual misconduct complainant asks that that complainant’s name not be revealed to the respondent or that the university not investigate the allegation, the university will inform the complainant that maintaining confidentiality may limit the university’s ability to fully respond to the allegations and that retaliation by the respondent and/or others is prohibited.”

In their written complain to HR, student employee #3 explicitly asked HR to protect their anonymity. “I understand that this is a large issue that needs to be taken care of, but I would like to reiterate that my name MUST stay out of this report. If he keeps his job after these reports I cannot risk him retaliating against me as a customer. I cannot afford to go off-campus for food. If he finds out I complained, he will likely make it difficult or extremely uncomfortable to buy food from any location he works at.”

In an interview with The Observer, Sleigh-Layman said she tells people when they file a complaint that it is “really hard for a state institution to keep names confidential. We are a state institution, we have [the] Freedom of Information Act, rules, regulations and I cannot move forward with a complaint without identifying to the respondent who is complaining about them. So I have to at least share that much.”

In an interview with The Observer, student employee #3 said their identity was revealed to Aspiri shortly after filing their complaint to HR. student employee #3 said they continue to not understand why their identity couldn’t have been more protected in this instance.

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As I’ve clarified already, I’m no expert. I’m a student reporter with a lot of questions that I haven’t been able to adequately answer despite my best efforts to be thorough.

Over the course of three months, I interviewed five student employees, HR, and met with the Student Press Law Center. Without the ability for HR to comment on the specific investigation, I am left with more questions than when I began writing this story. But I do know they are good questions that have a right to be asked.*

While I certainly don’t mean to vilify anyone at CWU — whether that be Dining Services management, HR or even the supervisor who was investigated – I do believe this is a situation that needs to be re-examined. 

Because while I will go back to my comfort zone of writing about dating, nightlife and restaurants, a zone where I am comfortable and feel safe, there are some who don’t have that luxury in their workplace and are still wanting answers.

*Editor’s Note: To protect the identities of the claimants and witnesses, The Observer did not use their names or genders. This editorial does not reflect the entire reporting process for length and readability reasons.