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Ex-CSU Leader Castro’s Cal Poly Teaching Job Stirs Controversy

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Joe Castro
Former CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro plans to start teaching at Cal Poly SLO in spring 2023. (GV Wire File/Fresno State)
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Backlash is growing to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s granting of a teaching position to former Cal State chancellor Joseph Castro, who resigned in the wake of allegations he mishandled sexual harassment complaints against another administrator.

Oden Taylor

CalMatters

The controversy over the appointment of Castro as a professor of leadership and public policy in the university’s Orfalea College of Business revolves around a provision in some Cal State executives’ contracts that allows them to ‘retreat’ into the faculty once they leave their roles.

Those ‘retreat rights’ have come under increased scrutiny since figuring in a February USA Today investigation that documented the sexual harassment allegations against former Fresno State administrator Frank Lamas and Castro’s response. The university’s board of trustees last week passed the second of two measures restricting their use.

Castro plans to start teaching at Cal Poly in spring 2023. On Nov. 8, the university’s Academic Senate, which represents its faculty, published a resolution calling on Castro to turn down his appointment as professor, arguing that his presence at Cal Poly “will generate a chilling effect on our campus and classroom climate.”

“It makes people very nervous about having someone who has a potential history of not managing Title IX issues very well now put into the classroom as a mandated reporter,” said Academic Senate chair Thomas Gutierrez, referring to the federal law governing campuses’ handling of sexual harassment claims.

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