The Gilroy Unified School District is investigating an anonymous complaint that the manager of the cafeteria at Christopher High School makes vulgar, sexual advances on his female employees.
On March 29, the Dispatch received a letter from someone claiming to be a relative of a female employee of the CHS cafeteria. The letter describes crude passes that 50-something Ruben Diaz has targeted at his employees for at least two years. The letter was also copied and sent to Superintendent Debbie Flores, all GUSD board members and members of City Council.
“(Diaz) told an employee in reference to another employee that he has dreams about her having her breasts in his mouth. After that he makes the comment that he needed to go to the bathroom because he is ‘leaking,’” the seven-paragraph letter reads.
Flores said that GUSD jumped on the complaint immediately.
“Even though this was an anonymous complaint, we are handling it as if someone filed an official written report,” Flores said. “We take these things very seriously, and should be done with our investigation by the end of the week.”
B.C. Doyle, a local representative for the Classified School Employees Association, said on Tuesday that he hadn’t heard anything about the issue.
“Unless the person being harassed comes to me, we just don’t drive around and jump into situations,” Doyle said.
By Wednesday morning, however, he said he was “investigating” the matter.
While Flores wouldn’t comment on anything specifically relating to the case, she said GUSD typically handles these types of claims by consulting attorneys and taking immediate action if there is enough evidence of sexual harassment.
“I’ve received anonymous complaints that are well founded and I’ve received anonymous complaints that are not,” she said. “We don’t want anyone to think we’ve determined the complaint is valid or not until we’ve continued the investigation.”
One of Diaz’s subordinates nervously spoke to the Dispatch this week on the condition of anonymity, about how violated she feels at work on a daily basis.
“He always tries to get behind us when we’re walking, and he’ll say ‘oooh and aaah, I like it.’ It makes you feel awful and ugly and uncomfortable,” she said.
This woman is the only person who consented to talk to the newspaper. Although she claims there are at least six other employees who feel the same way, none of them attested to this.
With a shaky, hushed voice over the phone, the woman explained how she and her colleagues began to report the incidents to their supervisors two years ago, but to no avail.
“We had this meeting (in December) with human resources, and they just said ‘some people take offense to small things and you have to be careful and professional,’ and it didn’t stop him at all,” the woman said.
She said that Diaz, during this December 2012 meeting, maintained that the female employees “instigate” his coarse manner.
The woman said that nobody, including herself, wants to be the one to speak up out of fear for their jobs.
“I’m so afraid,” she said, letting out a gasp between cries. “I feel like I am not going to be heard.”
Examples of Diaz’ alleged lewd actions, as relayed by the anonymous employee, abound: Once at a work birthday party, one female received a rolling pin as a gift, and Diaz supposedly said, “I like the way you grab that.” The employee also said that when she opens the cash register with him nearby, he says in a low, deliberate voice, “Excuse me, I don’t want my fingers going inside you,” referring to the cash register but hinting to something else entirely.
Once, when another female employee asked what she should get her husband for his birthday, he allegedly said, “Why don’t you put a pair of your dirty panties on your head so he can smell them?”
Sometimes, when an employee asks him what she should work on, he’ll motion to his lap and tell her to “sit right here,” or say, “go stand over there so I can look at you.”
According to data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 11,364 sexual harassment complaints were filed in 2011. A 2008 phone survey determined that 62 percent of sexual harassment victims did not report the incidents.
The woman who spoke to the Dispatch believes her union – the Classified School Employees Association – is “too entwined” to protect her.
Flores maintains that no official sexual harassment reports have been filed against Diaz in the past.
“I can say that we have never had a sexual harassment complaint filed against Diaz in the past. Now, that doesn’t mean that the district didn’t know about something before,” she said.
The Dispatch tried to reach Diaz by phone on Wednesday, but was told by a school secretary that Diaz was not at work today, though he normally works on Wednesdays. Flores was unaware of this, and said that if Diaz wasn’t at work, it was not because GUSD placed him on leave.
According to the anonymous cafeteria employee, she and her coworkers feel like they cannot approach Diaz’ supervisor, Patricia Carrejo, because she “adores” Diaz and protects him. Carrejo gruffly said she would not answer any questions before hanging up the phone Wednesday.
By Tuesday afternoon, GUSD mandated that their employees direct all questions to Flores, according to Kim Filice, GUSD’s human resources director.
As the group of seven female cafeteria workers dressed in orange shirts walked to their cars on Tuesday after work, they nervously declined to comment.
“We can’t talk about that,” one woman mumbled.
Flores said the district receives very few sexual harassment complaints (she has dealt with three in the last six years), and she credits the “extensive” harassment awareness training her administrators undergo.
The district provides nearly double the amount of sexual harassment awareness training the state mandates, Flores said. GUSD requires harassment workshops every August that last several hours.
GUSD board trustee Jaime Rosso said Wednesday that the district is taking the complaint seriously.
“We’re in the middle of investigating it, no resolution has been made,” he said.
