In another embarrassing and potentially costly complaint against the state’s flagship university, a former student from South Korea alleges that University of Illinois administrators retaliated against her after she complained that a visiting researcher sexually harassed her while she continued her postdoctoral work.
In her recent $6 million civil rights lawsuit, Hye-Young Park said the U. of I.’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Access not only “turned a blind eye” last year after she sought help but also tried to derail her efforts to remain in the United States.
Park, 47, alleges that Charles Secolsky, 68, subjected her to unwanted, sexually explicit behavior while both were affiliated in 2014 with a curriculum evaluation center on the Urbana-Champaign campus.
Secolsky attempted to grope her and harassed her over the telephone, including while standing outside her apartment window, as well as exposed her to pornography and graphic details about his sex life, according to the lawsuit.
Reached at his home, Secolsky said it was Park who pursued him romantically. Secolsky said he helped Park with her book and in efforts to get a visa, but their relationship soured.
In an attempt to “get rid of her,” Secolsky said he did show her a few minutes of an adult film, but he said it was in the context of their conversation about American culture.
“She’s being vindictive,” said Secolsky, who lives in Mississippi. “It’s (about) rejection. … There’s a lot of hate.”
Park received her doctorate in August 2013 from the university’s College of Education and became a permanent U.S. resident in March.
After graduation, she was authorized under a student visa to stay in the country only for a year of practical training while working on an unpaid basis for a university professor. That professor, however, rescinded her offer to supervise Park within 24 hours after administrators handling her complaint learned of the arrangement, the suit states.
The federal complaint names as defendants the university’s board of trustees, two Office of Diversity, Equity and Access administrators, Secolsky and the research center director.
“If indeed university administrators tried to retaliate against her for her complaint, those are very serious civil rights violations,” said Park’s attorney Dennis Mickunas.
At issue is what responsibility the university had to Park because she had graduated and Secolsky was not an employee. The university’s affiliation with the Center for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation also likely will be hotly debated.
U. of I. spokeswoman Robin Kaler said the school has not funded CIRCE since 1996. She said Robert Stake, the current CIRCE director named in the lawsuit, retired in March 2010 after a nearly 50-year career as a university professor. The U. of I. never employed Secolsky, Kaler said.
The university was due to file its response to the lawsuit last week but instead asked for more time while its attorneys gather additional information, court records said. Kaler declined further comment.
Stake, 87, also declined to discuss the lawsuit or the research center.
The complaint is the latest black eye for the university after a summer of administrative departures, scandal and lawsuits over alleged student-athlete racial discrimination and other mistreatment.
On Friday, Illini head football coach Tim Beckman was fired over allegations he mishandled player injuries. Also last week, Provost Ilesanmi Adesida announced his resignation following the recent disclosure that private email accounts were used in an apparent attempt to circumvent state public records law. The emails showed that, beginning in 2014, Chancellor Phyllis Wise, Adesida and other top advisers used personal accounts concerning certain controversial university decisions.
Wise resigned Aug. 6, one day before the 1,100 pages of emails became public.
Park sued in late June.
She told the Tribune she is humiliated and did not want to make the allegations public. She said her self-doubt gave way to anger after the university she loved failed to intervene. In her lawsuit, Park said Secolsky offered to pay her $1,300 for his “breach of contract.”
Park said she originally sought an apology, training against sexual harassment and unspecified compensation from the university. After administrators maintained the U. of I. would not get involved because neither she or Secolsky was directly affiliated, Park said she felt compelled to sue.
“These are educated people at the University of Illinois who talk about diversity and equality. But it seemed they just wanted to get rid of me. No one cared,” she said.
Park said that with her husband’s support, she and their 5-year-old son came to the U.S. in 2000 while she worked on a master’s at State University of New York at Potsdam. She completed her degree in 2002 and chose the U. of I. for her doctoral studies. Over the next decade, Park said, she raised the couple’s son near the university while working toward her doctorate.
According to the lawsuit, Stake suggested to Park in winter 2013 that Secolsky, a “visiting researcher,” help her with her writing while she continued postdoctoral studies.
Park accused Stake, whom she knew as a professor since 2004, of trying to kiss her on “several occasions,” the lawsuit states. But it is Secolsky who is the primary focus of the 45-page complaint.
Park said Secolsky offered her a job as a research analyst, which would have helped her efforts in 2014 to get a more long-term visa, and she often worked with him in his home office. She said his alleged misconduct began in January 2014. After they completed work on a CIRCE grant proposal in his home, the suit said, she agreed to watch 15 minutes of a movie he said would help her become more acquainted with American culture.
Secolsky startled Park by showing her a sexually explicit video, the lawsuit alleges, and “when Park questioned why Secolsky would show her such a video, Secolsky responded that ‘Asian women like white men.'” The lawsuit said he grabbed Park’s arm, preventing her from leaving, and after she threatened to report him to Stake, Secolsky “fell to his knees, begged Park to forgive the incident, and apologized.”
Over the course of the next several months, according to the lawsuit, Secolsky’s misconduct escalated. He “attempted to grope her” and made remarks about “his sexual exploits,” the suit said. It also alleges that Secolsky asked her to go dancing and celebrate Valentine’s Day with him and encouraged her to become romantically involved with him to help her with her visa status.
Secolsky denied ever having a romantic interest in Park. “I think she was in love with me and was disappointed I never pursued her further,” he said.
In an online profile, Secolsky said he was a U. of I. “staff associate” beginning in August 2012. But in an interview, he said he was not affiliated with the university. Having received his doctorate at the U. of I. in 1980, Secolsky said he knew Stake and returned to campus to observe his classes so he could build his business as a program evaluator.
Though the university said Stake by then was retired, Secolsky said Stake still taught classes as a professor emeritus “out of the goodness of his heart.”
Secolsky said CIRCE does not have any funding now and “is just an acronym.” He said his name was on an office door, as alleged in the lawsuit, but “it was a piece of cardboard that Bob (Stake) taped up there. I did not teach a class.”
He said Park was inside his home “30 to 40 times,” and the two often socialized.
Secolsky said he did offer to pay Park after the pornography incident but only so she would leave him alone. If Park was so offended by the film, Secolsky said, why did she continue their professional relationship, which he said included traveling with him a few months later to a professional conference in Philadelphia?
He characterized allegations of sexual harassment as “a joke” and said he lost interest in sex years ago because of health problems.
Secolsky said he was dismissed last week from his job with the Mississippi Department of Education. He was not given an explanation, but Secolsky said he believes it is related to the lawsuit. The Mississippi agency confirmed Friday that Secolsky no longer works there but declined to provide more details.
In June 2014, Park said she finally complained to Stake and told him she may sue. Stake said any attempt would “100% fail,” according the lawsuit, because Secolsky was just a “visiting scholar.”
In the months that followed, Park said she reached out to several administrators — including Chancellor Wise — and the board of trustees, seeking corrective action. Administrators in the university’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Access met with her and interviewed Stake and Secolsky but, the suit said, they took no action.
On Aug. 14, 2014, the director of the university’s international student and scholar services emailed ODEA staff to clarify that Park had been doing research in an unpaid but official capacity under supervision of Nancy Abelmann, an associate vice chancellor, professor and one of Park’s dissertation directors.
The lawsuit states that the next day, on Aug. 15, Abelmann emailed Park stating, “I am no longer willing to support your OPT (optional practical training) because I am technically on academic leave.”
Among the lawsuit’s defendants are ODEA Director Heidi Johnson and staff member Michal Hudson.
“The suspicious timing of Professor Abelmann’s termination of Park’s training raises a strong presumption that the termination was orchestrated by the ODEA, and particularly by Hudson and Johnson,” the complaint alleges.
Abelmann is not a defendant in the lawsuit. She declined to comment but did say in an email: “My actions are fully my own.”
Last week, Park left for an extended trip to South Korea. She said she once hoped to be a university professor and continue her work on a campus known for its large international student population. Now, she said, the only certainty she has about her future is that it won’t be at the University of Illinois.
Twitter @christygutowsk1
