Q&A: Utah Tech employees talk ex-president’s ‘shocking’ gag gift, allege toxic work culture in lawsuit

Since reporting she was harassed by top administrators at Utah Tech University, Hazel Sainsbury says her working atmosphere has only gotten worse.

Her co-workers, she said, have ostracized her to the point that she now avoids them. She takes the service elevator when she gets to the school. And she peers down the hallway to make sure it’s clear before walking to the restroom.

She compares the fallout over the last year to being left “in a snake pit.”

“I think they were banking on the idea that we would decide this was too difficult,” she said. “And it has been difficult.”

Sainsbury is the Title IX director at the southern Utah school, responsible for responding to complaints of sexual misconduct. She never thought she’d be subjected to the same problems that she works to address and prevent, she said.

But that’s what she and two other employees — Becky Broadbent and Jared Rasband, the top two attorneys for the university — say they’ve experienced. And trying to call out the problems, they say, only prompted pushback, retaliation and anger.

The three filed a high-profile lawsuit last week against the university and its leaders. Their concerns culminated, they say in the filing, when then-President Richard “Biff” Williams late last year left a gag gift for his previous Cabinet member, a vice president at the university: vegetables arranged to look like male genitalia. Williams signed a note accompanying the display with Sainsbury, Broadbent and Rasband’s names.

Williams, who left Utah Tech in January and is now president at Missouri State University, apologized Saturday for what he called a prank. But the three employees say they saw it as more than that — and still do. They view it as payback for their efforts to clean up what they call a toxic culture at the school.

Broadbent, meanwhile, has been put on leave, despite being a complainant and not an alleged perpetrator. Even though investigations into their complaints have largely wrapped up, she hasn’t yet been allowed to return.

Utah Tech University has said in a statement that it is aware of the lawsuit and “committed to working closely with all parties involved to reach a resolution.” The university has not yet filed a formal response to their complaint.

The three employees sat down with The Salt Lake Tribune recently to talk about the lawsuit. Here is a Q&A with some of their responses, which have been edited for length and clarity.

What pushed you to file this lawsuit? What do you hope comes out of it?

Broadbent • I never wanted to bring this lawsuit. What I wanted is to ensure that my direct reports and I have a safe, nonhostile work environment. And unfortunately, now a year later from the [gag gift] incident ... our workplace remains hostile and even more retaliatory.

Rasband • I never pictured myself in this position, but I do feel like it is necessary at this point.

Sainsbury • There just needs to be accountability. That’s what’s been missing out of this whole thing. The culture needs to change. We have great people working at Utah Tech who have devoted themselves to our students, and they deserve a productive, safe place to work.

What can be done to address the toxic culture you say permeates Utah Tech?

Broadbent • I think you can’t fix a problem without recognition that there is a problem. And that’s what’s been so lacking in our situation. ... They’ve gone out of their way to deny it and minimize it and even to blame us for it. I’ve thought: How hard is it for them to come out and say, ‘We’re sorry, this is all unacceptable conduct, and it will be fixed?’

Rasband • The pushback from upper-level administration that we’ve had in just trying to do our jobs — to comply with federal regulations, with state law, to protect people that make reports — it’s been a major, major issue at the university. And that’s fed into the toxic culture. I think accountability is the only way to really remedy that.

Sainsbury • There are wonderful people working at the institution who have committed their lives to supporting our students. And they need better than this. They need to be supported. And they need to know that they can rely on federal policies and my office, in particular, to grieve the issues that they can sometimes experience.

What do you think of former President Williams’ apology?

Broadbent • It was hollow. ... I think he’s trying to minimize it to a moment, a single act. But this was very much an intentional, targeted, retaliatory act against us for constantly standing up to the pushback that we were receiving for the work that [Sainsbury’s] office was doing.

Sainsbury • It was bankrupt of any real responsibility. He had every opportunity to afford us that apology. But instead, he’s making a recommitment to his new institution about the environment he hopes to create there; it’s just further sharing with us that he’s moved on.

Rasband • This would’ve been so much more meaningful if he’d done an open and public apology right from the get go.

What was your reaction when you heard that your names were attributed to the vegetable gift?

Rasband • I’m at this board of trustees luncheon, and [two vice presidents] called me over to their table and started by asking me if I was a gardener, if I liked vegetables. ... It was shocking to me. I was in a situation where there was a major power differential. It’s not like I felt, at the time, that I could just be like, “This is completely inappropriate.” No, I felt pressure to go along.

I was put in a position of having to tell the table that I and my colleagues weren’t the ones who made a penis-shaped vegetable delivery. ... I went back to [Broadbent’s] office, and I immediately told her about it. We told [Sainsbury] about it. It just absolutely demoralized the work we’d been doing. ... We’ve been dealing with the aftermath ever since then.

Broadbent • It wasn’t until I got back to my office after the luncheon that [Rasband] told me about what he had just experienced. I couldn’t believe it. It felt very personal, very targeted and very, very embarrassing. In that moment, I was trying to process how I felt personally and professionally, but also as the supervisor to [Rasband] and [Sainsbury], who were my direct reports. … That night I developed just a huge migraine as I was talking to my husband about the fact that our last name — his name, my married name — was now circulating out in the community and it was associated with this obscene display. The next day I was physically ill, emotionally stressed out. ... My physical and emotional state only worsened as the days passed.

Sainsbury • It directly undermined everything I’d been working to do at that place. What kind of victim is going to approach my office if they believe that I participate in these types of vulgar jokes? How would a victim feel confidence in my work and in my handling of Utah Tech policy?

... The idea that it was shared in that room, with so many levels of leadership — we’re talking about trustees, Cabinet members, executive directors, associate provosts, various levels of the institution — and not a single one of them stuck up for us, made it stop, immediately reported it. Not a single one. It was the joke of the day. I felt victimized. I just felt like, l what am I even doing here? Have I not even developed enough relationships here that one person in that room could’ve stood up for me or stood up for us?

Rasband • I think it’s telling that my first thought was, “I think it was someone from the administration that did that.” In what world would that be a normal thought process? It was shocking that it was the president, but I instantly felt like it was someone from the administration.

Has the culture at Utah Tech improved since Williams left?

Sainsbury • After we formalized our complaints, we became essentially pariahs. ... There’s been a clear message that we’re not wanted, our work is not valued. And so why would anyone who’s looking for some kind of recourse for what they’re experiencing approach us?

Broadbent • Granted, I have been kicked out of my role for the last nine months, but in my perspective, nothing has changed following his departure because he was never held accountable for his actions by the university, or by the board, the system. His remaining senior administrators have definitely been emboldened. In these internal processes, they’ve revictimized us, they’ve minimized us, they’ve retaliated against us. Our lives have been a living hell this past year.

Rasband • It has gotten worse for me, I can say that. I had to witness my supervisor — [Broadbent] — get escorted out by two HR officials with about five minutes notice. She’s sitting there in tears, completely shocked and taken aback. I’m sitting here as a co-complainant, and what kind of messaging is that sending to me? ... Should I ask for supportive measures? Should I report retaliation? The answer was no.

Sainsbury • We’ve all relied on each other. But I know that I wouldn’t have made it without these two. ... My spouse works there as a faculty member and we’ve built our lives at Utah Tech, in helping our students. It’s just been really, really traumatic.

Would you consider leaving Utah Tech?

Rasband • Our families are there. My kids go to school there. And St. George isn’t somewhere you can easily find an equal job.

Sainsbury • I grew up in a village in South Africa. In [the early 1990s], they tried this experiment of integrating schools, and I was one of two Black kids who went to an all-white school. I spoke not a word of English. But I went there and it essentially broadened my mind to what was actually possible for me. … Then I came here; Utah Tech was my alma mater. That’s where I got my undergraduate degree.

I care about this place. And I care about our students. Education has been the only difference-maker between who I was and how I grew up to where I am today. I feel a personal commitment to this. We have to do better for our students. We have to do better for our faculty and staff, who understand the value of the work they do.

Broadbent • Growing up, my parents were both educators. Education has always been at the core of my family life. ... If you haven’t spent time on a college campus working, you’re missing out, because you don’t see what we get to see — which is the outcome of your work affecting students who are really at the beginnings of seeing what their lives can be and become. Education makes those possibilities transformational for many students, particularly at our institution, which is open education, with lots of first-generation students.

Broadbent, have you heard anything more about being on leave or being able to return to work?

Broadbent • During the time I’ve been out, no one has checked on me and my welfare. ... It’s been a very, very, very, very difficult time period. There’s a heavy burden for any complainant that brings forward concerns that they feel that they have been subjected to misconduct. For me, as a general counsel, the decision to push send when I was forced to formalize a complaint against my boss and colleagues of mine on campus, that was a very difficult, challenging decision to begin with.

... But I’m going to stand firm because I care about my teammates, I care about people who will come behind me, I care about my colleagues who are general counsels in the system, I care about the Title IX coordinators in the system, and I care about the students and employees that are entitled to the protections that we have not been afforded.

Sainsbury, you say you’ve been subjected to racism by administrators. Can you speak more about that?

Sainsbury • I don’t think the institution was prepared for someone like me to do the work so effectively that I do. I’ve been openly confronted, undermined publicly. ... They’ve attributed malice to my work and compared me to a previous a Black administrator that they found to be problematic. And so I think they were not prepared for a Black, educated female to hold their boys club to account.

What could the Utah System of Higher Education do to better respond to complaints against university presidents?

Broadbent • They need to stop covering up bad behavior, stop paying off bad actors and start owning up to the need to provide proper oversight of presidents and their administrators.

Rasband • All of our sister institutions in Utah look to USHE for leadership and guidance, and we should be able to expect a high level of care when their people, like the presidents, are engaged in misconduct.

Sainsbury • It was so shocking to me to think about how many women at USHE and women on the Board of Higher Education read my formal complaint and read [Broadbent]’s formal complaint and [Rasband]’s and still decided ... that preserving the former president was their top priority.

What do you want to see in the next president at Utah Tech?

Rasband • It has to be someone, I think, with the moral courage to — even if it’s their righthand person — not be afraid to call out and hold people accountable if they’re behavior has not met expectations.

Broadbent • Personally, I want to see someone who is not part of the existing boys club come in and hold people accountable to the values and the policies that the university espouses, so when we recruit in students and employees it’s not a facade. I would never have brought [Sainsbury] and [Rasband] and the rest of my team to Utah Tech if I had known what this culture was. There needs to be a commitment to transparency and mechanisms to audit that from external places to ensure that this sort of thing can’t be easily hidden and covered up.

Sainsbury • I think we ought to have someone who is worthy of our students. ... It might be somebody externally who has the fortitude and the moral courage to understand the mission and vision of higher education and fix it on behalf of our students.

What else should people know about your lawsuit?

Rasband • This is the scariest thing that I’ve ever had to do. I literally had a conversation with my wife — “Well, what if I get fired after taking this action?” And that still weighs on me.

After how I’ve seen how they’re treating us, and especially [Broadbent], putting her on leave and isolating her, it is super scary to come forward and take on a state entity. We did not obviously do this lightly.

Broadbent • We haven’t asked for special treatment from the institution or from USHE. We just asked for care and concern to the concerns of misconduct that we brought to them. ... They have not treated or respected us remotely as human beings to whom their actions and inactions have had devastating, permanent, life-altering impacts.

Sainsbury • What happened to me as a Title IX coordinator was unimaginable. I never imagined that a president would retaliate against me, his own Title IX coordinator, by fixing my name to this awful thing. … You turn to USHE, and they in turn protect their president. And you turn to the board and the board protects their president.

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