Ron Mittelhammer: When will the U. leadership be called to task?

It is exasperating that the leadership of the University of Utah continues down a path that allows clear and present dangers for women.

On the positive side, there finally seems to be a glimmer of understanding in University President Ruth Watkins’ prepared “Safety Matters” speech that the people delivering on the safety promise, and associated personal accountability and responsibility to do so, actually matter. This is a critical principle that many tried desperately to have them appreciate and implement. However, they still appear either incapable or unwilling to implement it fully with potentially dangerous consequences.

University Detective Kayla Dallof fatally failed Lauren McCluskey in egregious ways. She nevertheless received additional training, remained on the force and evidently was thought to have been adequately retrained to perform her job. She went on to repeat precisely the same behaviors that led to Lauren’s death, where this time it was a 17-year-old female who was issued a death threat, but Dallof nevertheless left work to take a few days off without making an arrest in the case, which her supervisor later said was a “complete dereliction of duty.”

She did not take the death threat seriously. Astonishing.

What’s the overarching point? Training, policies, procedures and safety slogans are not primary solutions in and of themselves. It’s primarily people who implement safety.

Rewind and repeat. University Officer Miguel Deras fatally failed Lauren McCluskey in multiple ways. He received training to address his deficiencies and then was sent back out on the streets. Incredibly, he also repeated behaviors that contributed to Lauren’s death, and that he was explicitly counseled not to repeat. A woman was attempting to report to Deras that she was being assaulted by her partner, but amazingly, Deras allowed the suspect to remain in the presence of the woman trying to make the report. Deras did not sequester her in a safe private environment to discuss the case. He did not check whether the suspect was on parole, which he was.

It is perplexing that while the female Dallof was fired, the male Deras wasn’t. Is this another symptom of women being treated differently than men on campus? Deras has been left on the force, perhaps to make the same mistakes a third time?

It doesn’t end with an officer and a detective. What about the sergeants and lieutenants who are managing their efforts? They set the culture of indifference and the discounting of women’s concerns. Many others at the U. failed Lauren, and their negligence, incompetence and/or feckless carelessness cost Lauren her life, and Jill and Matt McCluskey their beloved daughter.

Watkins now professes that there is a “no tolerance” policy in place, and people will finally be held accountable and responsible going forward. But there remains a critical and potentially fatal flaw in her approach. It is reactive instead of proactive. Enforcing accountability and responsibility in the way Watkins has decreed is an after-the-fact action.

Are the parents of the University of Utah’s student women comfortable with an approach in which there will be no tolerance going forward, but only after the next assault or death of a woman on campus? Of course not. The approach is lacking the critical element of proactivity.

There is now an easily definable list of individuals, working for the campus police, university housing and, quite possibly, also in student counseling, who should not be trusted to provide for the safety of students given their demonstrated monumental depth of failure to do so.

Dallof and Deras are the two so far who we know have repeated their mistakes. It is only through serendipity that their behaviors didn’t end in bodily harm, or yet another female’s death on campus.

Ron Mittelhammer is a regents professor in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University. The opinions expressed are his own personal views, and not necessarily those of his employer.