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Lawsuit: MSU failed to properly respond to sexual harassment complaint against union president

The lawsuit was filed was in U.S. District Court on Nov. 1.
Credit: Rod Sanford, Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Michigan State University is being sued by a former employee who says she was sexually harassed by the president of her union and that the university failed to properly respond when she came forward.

Danielle Stoney claims in the lawsuit that she was the chief steward for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1585 Union when Union President James Rhodes began sexually harassing her and creating a hostile work environment.

"The sex-based harassment articulated in (Stoney's) general allegations was so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it deprived (Stoney) of access to union and employment benefits provided by the school," the lawsuit states.

►Related: Ex-MSU football staffer Curtis Blackwell sues Mark Dantonio

In October of 2014, Stoney reported the harassment to MSU's Office of Institutional Equity, which she said began after she ended a consensual sexual relationship between the two. She was told that she was a union employee, not an MSU employee, and this there was nothing they could do, according to the lawsuit.

Stoney was an MSU employee at the university bakery prior to becoming chief steward in the union.

She complained again about harassment to the Office of Institutional Equity again after she discovered Rhodes had accessed records sometime after February of 2016 that showed the death benefits she received from the university after her fiance' was killed in a crash, according to the lawsuit.

Rhodes was suspended in August of 2016 pending an investigation into whether he retaliated against someone who reported him to the Office of Institutional Equity. He was fired in January of 2017 for violating the university’s Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct policy and engaging in “retaliatory acts” against a woman who was a witness in an investigation by MSU’s Office of Institutional Equity, according to university records. He is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

"The university has not been served on this lawsuit, so we do not have a comment at this point," MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant wrote in an email.

The lawsuit was filed was in U.S. District Court on Nov. 1.

A grievance filed on behalf of the union was denied, prompting an appeal to arbitration. Rhodes was reelected as union president while arbitration was ongoing. An arbitrator upheld Rhodes' termination on Jan. 26, former MSU spokesperson Kent Cassella wrote in an email in February.

Rhodes' harassment led Stoney to step down from her role with the union and return to a previous job at the MSU bakery. Prior to doing so, she was subjected to "professional defamation by Rhodes and other forms of harassment," the lawsuit states.

Stoney's fiancé, also an MSU employee, died in a car crash in February of 2016. The lawsuit claims that in addition to Rhodes accessing Stoney's records with MSU to discover the amount of death benefits, Stoney told the Office of Institutional Equity that Rhodes was following her and taking pictures of her and her car.

An official in that office told Stoney she should expect to be contacted by police, which never occurred, according to the lawsuit. It's not clear what police department that official was referring to. Stoney's attorney, Patrick Boog, said his client took an early retirement from the university a few months ago.

Shawn Starr, a 20-year MSU employee, said Rhodes had to resign as president after the arbitration process. Starr, as vice president, stepped into the role in accordance with the union's constitution. The union represents hundreds of service workers across the university.

A lawsuit brought by Lisa Deavers, a former chief steward of the union, against Rhodes and the unionclaiming she was sexually harassed by Rhodes and that she was removed from her position as chief steward after reporting him to MSU, was dismissed in December of 2017, according to online court records. Another lawsuit against Rhodes and the union filed in April of 2017 by a former union employee alleging sexual harassment by Rhodes was dismissed in June.

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.

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