Editor’s Note: This article includes possibly triggering issues such as sexual harassment and sexual assault.
According to reporting by CBS 8, urban studies lecturer Juli Hinds filed a legal tort claim alleging that former San Diego County Supervisor and former UC San Diego Professor of Practice Nathan Fletcher and San Diego County officials retaliated against her.
Hinds states that they terminated their contracts with her after she filed a Title IX report against Fletcher, claiming that he sexually harassed one of her students.
The tort claims that Hinds reported the alleged “harassing conduct” to the Office of Student Disability Services on April 7, 2023, one week after separate allegations of sexual harassment against Fletcher were made public. The office administrator told Hinds to file a Title IX complaint.
Hinds alleges that her consulting firm’s contracts with San Diego County were terminated in the following weeks. The first instance occurred on April 13, 2023, less than a week after she made the Title IX complaint, and continued for two weeks.
“[The] county instructed UCSD … to eliminate [Hinds’s contracts] in retaliation for [Hinds’s] obligatory filing of a Title IX complaint against Fletcher, the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for the county, on behalf of her student who reported his harassing conduct,” Hinds’ tort reads.
Hinds is requesting approximately $280,000 in compensation for lost wages.
Nathan Fletcher’s legal team responded in a statement denying the allegations.
Nathan Fletcher has no idea what any of this is about, has not harassed anyone, couldn’t have retaliated against someone he didn’t know existed and couldn’t have impacted a county action at a time he wasn’t there. Like other false accusations against Mr. Fletcher, time will show this one to be baseless as well,” the statement read.
Fletcher is also involved in another civil lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that Fletcher sexually harassed and retaliated against Grecia Figueroa, a former MTS information officer, for reporting Fletcher’s alleged misconduct.
Fletcher’s legal team recently responded to Figueroa’s claims by releasing additional screenshots of conversations between Fletcher and Figueroa and asked for the case to be dismissed. The 202-page document is filled with hundreds of screenshots between Fletcher and Figueroa.
“Additionally, the evidence also shows that Mr. Fletcher played no part in Ms. Figueroa’s termination from San Diego Metropolitan Transit System,” the response read. “She has always known — and has now admitted under oath — that he was not her employer or direct supervisor.”
However, Figueroa’s legal team disagreed with this claim.
“Although Fletcher was not Ms. Figueroa’s direct supervisor, he was the Chairman of MTS’ Board of Directors and carried a great deal of power and influence within the organization and within local government,” they said. “[We] also allege that MTS knew about these sexual relations and, uncoincidentally, Ms. Figueroa was terminated the same day Fletcher announced his intent to run for public office.”
The response made by Figueroa’s legal team pointed to the harsh circumstances that victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault can face when filing a case.
“Crucial to this case is the fact that survivors of sexual harassment/assault, like Ms. Figueroa, struggle to find the courage to tell their stories,” they said. “They feel that they will be dismissed and called liars simply because the truth is at odds with what their perpetrators, like Fletcher, are willing to admit.”
The UCSD Guardian will continue to update this story as it progresses.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Jan. 30 at 12:49pm to include a statement from Nathan Fletcher’s legal team, and to change the wording of the title.
