After his resignation as a Resident Assistant earlier this year, one student said he felt he’d been harassed by security director Russ Hewitt.
Hewitt declined to comment on the incident.
Senior Neil Hatfield resigned from his Resident Assistant position earlier this year, after problems with an incident that occurred outside Burrage Hall. A burglary had been reported in Burrage early in the morning on March 2.
The following night, Hatfield heard noise outside Burrage and went outside to find a group of students beating a stereo system with a baseball bat. Hatfield was not on duty at the time of the incident, but responded to it and subsequently filed a report. However, Hatfield said he did not have time to write and file the report until the afternoon after the incident occurred, because he didn’t have time immediately following the incident.
In the e-mail with his report, Hatfield described the incident and his report saying “It started after 12 a.m. and ‘fell’ in to my lap so I took care of it. I have in there that this is not a formal ‘write-up’ in my mind. I am merely documenting some thing that happened that may come up in other places.”
Resident Director Tolu Kayode immediately responded to Hatfield’s report in another e-mail saying, “Thank you Neil, I have reviewed the document and it was well written. Since this is only documentation I do not believe that there will be any other follow up.”
The report was also sent to Russ Hewitt, security director. Hewitt, in an e-mail to Hatfield, expressed his dissatisfaction with the report. Despite his immediate response, Kayode sent another e-mail to Hewitt, saying that Hatfield did, in fact, violate policy and that Resident Director Lai Monte Hunter had talked with Hatfield. In addition, Kayode said director of Residence Life Kevin Bollinger was also planning to meet with Hatfield about how he handled the incident.
In his e-mail to Hatfield, Hewitt said Hatfield had failed to follow regular procedure, and made a decision outside of regular policy. It was this e-mail that Hatfield claims was the source of harassment from Hewitt.
The e-mail from Hewitt read:
“I just finished reading this report. Your lack of following procedure is about as ridiculous as this report. Our offices are under direction from the President of this college as to how incidents like this will be handled in the Quads. As it happens your report received half a day later relates to those that are currently under investigation for the burglary in the quads last night. Your over-inflated ego and belief that you know what the best decisions are regardless of what you have been directed to do is unacceptable.
If you can’t follow directions you need to consider if this job is for you before that decision is made for you.”
When Hatfield received the e-mail, he said he felt harassed, and consulted the harassment policy in Doane’s student handbook. Hatfield said he found a policy that he felt applied to his situation. In Section 5.04 of the student handbook on page 100, the harassment policy states:
“The type of harassment that is prohibited may take many forms and includes, without limitation, verbal harassment (derogatory comments and/or slurs), physical harassment (assault or physical interference), visual harassment (posters, cartoons, drawings), use of the Internet or e-mail to harass or embarrass, and innuendo or false rumors. Further, harassment includes conduct that has the purpose of effect of unreasonable interfering with an individual’s work or academic performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work or academic environment.”
Hatfield said that he felt Hewitt’s comments constituted a verbal harassment. He added that since the comments were made via e-mail, he thought the e-mail was being used to harass him.
After looking up the harassment policy, Hatfield said he filed a grievance with Julie Schmidt, vice president for financial affairs. Under Doane’s grievance policy, Hatfield said, he could either file a formal or informal grievance. He said he chose to file an informal grievance with Schmidt, and attempt to solve the problem.
Schmidt then forwarded the grievance to Kim Jacobs, vice president for enrollment management and student leadership. When Hatfield felt the incident had not been dealt with properly, he filed a formal grievance with Schmidt, who forwarded the grievance to Laura Sears, personnel director. Sears said she did not believe the e-mail constituted harassment, so Hatfield filed an appeal with President Jonathan Brand, and Hatfield met with Brand shortly after. According to Hatfield, Brand said he agreed that Hewitt was unprofessional in his e-mail, but said he did not think that Hewitt’s e-mail was a source of harassment.
As a result of the incident, Hatfield said Jacobs also fired him from his summer job as a Resident Director on campus. Jacobs cited policy in the student workers’ handbook that says anyone who is fired from any campus employment position on campus cannot seek campus employment at a later date. Hatfield said that, since he had been forced to resign from his RA position, he could not be a summer RD.
Hatfield said that nothing more has come of his harassment grievance, but that he was considering seeking legal counsel since he wanted to prevent any similar incidents from occurring with other students in the future. He said he had not yet decided whether he would continue to pursue the grievance.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Hatfield said.
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