I read a quote last week from a University of California administrator. It was about how the school wanted very much to get to the bottom of why one of its recently fired employees was allowed to conduct himself in ways it said were "appalling, wholly unacceptable and have no place in our department, on campus or anywhere."

It piqued my interest because Sandy Barbour was the school's athletic director for 10 years of the man's tenure in the school's athletic department. She came to Penn State in 2014 to be its AD shortly after resigning at Cal.

The former employee in question was Mohamed Muqtar, fired on May 11 for violation of the school's sexual harassment and violence protocol after a quarter-century at the school, most recently as its assistant athletic director for student services.

After ESPN's Outside the Lines reported a lengthy expose on the athletes' accusations against Muqtar, Cal athletics said this:

"Regarding whether we should have known about such allegations sooner, that is something we want to know and are looking into in order to gain an understanding of what did or did not occur previously."

One person mentioned in the Outside the Lines report thinks more could have been done to remove Muqtar earlier and that Barbour could have been the one to do it. She is former Cal student-athlete Jenna Rais.

I spoke to Rais by phone on Friday. In the context of Penn State's well-documented recent history of inaction, I think her story is compelling.

Rais is the type of student-athlete that universities and the NCAA love to hold aloft as a shining example of what young adults under their guidance can achieve.

Jenna Rais

Rais is a former swimmer who used her degree to become a wildlife biologist in the Bay Area. Now 34, she does environmental consulting work. Among other duties with her company, she helps city and county governments to follow California Department of Fish and Wildlife guidelines and monitor the status of various threatened and endangered species. She's also now pursuing a master's degree at the University of San Francisco.

Rais accomplished all of this by first achieving a degree in integrative biology (Cal, 2005) that included a research program abroad her senior year while competing for her first three years on the Golden Bears' swimming team (2001-04) - an overwhelming load most students simply would not attempt.

"I was very stressed out and pushed to the max," Rais said. "I was swimming 2 hours in the morning, 21/2 hours in the evening and going to organic chemistry lab for 3 hours in the middle of the day as well as another class.

"It was very stressful. But, you know, I didn't have a social life. My social life was essentially hanging out with the swim team at practice."

So, Rais endured plenty in order to earn her undergraduate degree in four years.

But she said she overcame something in her first year at Cal more daunting than her workload, more insidious and upsetting than anything a 18-year-old college freshman should have to face - a middle-aged school athletic administrator. Rais said Muqtar sexually harassed her in abhorrent ways after building her trust as a confidant in the first few months away from her Nevada home.

His case came to light this year after a sexual-assault lawsuit was filed by a Cal women's basketball player against him and the school. The civil suit against Cal was thrown out due to the state statute of limitations.

Barbour at Cal in 2011

What makes this case relevant locally? The Cal athletic director for 10 years of Muqtar's tenure was Barbour, now in the same capacity at Penn State. And Rais said she warned Barbour and the Cal chancellor about Muqtar in a 2010 email and got no response.

Rais described in a phone interview how Muqtar managed to gain her trust initially:

"He was very friendly, initially. Very welcoming. And I was a freshman from Reno. Kind of a lost puppy, homesick, very impressionable, young. He was very friendly and invited me to come visit him in his office and [he] could tell that I was homesick.

"We would talk about - I would ponder things like: Why am I swimming? Why am I at school? What is the purpose of life?

"Later, our conversations... When I came to his office, he kind of won me over by being friendly and open and nice. But then, during inappropriate conversations, he would close the office door. And he started questioning me about my sexual experiences, my sex life, the sex lives of my teammates."

Rais was asked how Muqtar would broach sexual topics:

"He would make comments such as, 'Ohh, so you're having sex now.' He would ask me questions like, 'What are you doing with yourself? You're having sex now? Who are you sleeping with?'"

Based on a benign comment?

"Yeah, like: 'I went to have a sandwich. I hung out with these people.' They may have been teammates that were male and female. [And Muqtar would say:] 'Oh, so are you sleeping with them?'"

Muqtar

What did Rais say then?

"I didn't respond. I was quiet. I didn't tell him anything. And I would leave his office.

"There were other things that would happen."

Those "other things" included deviant behavior described by the six other accusers in the Outside the Lines story, but Rais felt uncomfortable divulging them for print.

Rais soon after had to deal with what she said was a more serious but unrelated physical sexual assault from another person in 2003 that she ended up reporting to police and Cal's Title IX authorities in 2009 with the encouragement of her parents.

She never reported the 2001 and 2002 incidents with Muqtar in such a way. I asked her why:

"Simply put, I was afraid that they wouldn't believe me. And he was so accepted by the Cal athletic department that there was a lot of social pressure to be socially accepted by him as well. I really think no one would have believed me."

Ongoing is Cal's investigation of how and why Muqtar, 61, was allowed to stay on at the school this long. In the Outside the Lines piece telecast on May 17, he was accused by former Cal basketball player Layshia Clarendon of using his fingers to forcibly assault her vaginal area in 2009. University officials said they wanted to get to the bottom of why Muqtar was allowed to linger when red flags were raised at several points during his career there of 25 years.

One piece of evidence they are surely considering is an email written by Rais in January 2010 to then-chancellor Robert Birgeneau and then-athletic director Barbour. It was evidence in Cal's own recent investigation.

In a portion of that email, obtained by PennLive, Rais warns of Muqtar's behavior. Three redacted spaces in the email contained his name, Rais said. In it she describes the administrator's ogling of swimmers through adjacent office windows and engaging in inappropriate conversation with her:

During dialogues with [name redacted] in the UC Berkeley Athletic Department staff offices overlooking the pool, on several occasions, [name redacted] gave me descriptions of himself, other staff and student athletes watching students train, but notably I took offense when he attempted to verbally inappropriately offer myself to other student-athletes to "date" and more accurately to inappropriately verbally pawn me to "date" guests in his offices, student-athletes and other individuals - this person also physically harassed me in UC Berkeley Athletic Department staff office space where his office was located at the time. [Name redacted] also displayed verbally harassing and inappropriate behavior when he informed me that [another athlete] "... got in a lot of trouble..." for making a pornographic film.

I asked Rais why, after more than eight years, she decided to write this letter to Barbour and Birgeneau:

"What actually motivated me to write the letter was for a different case. I had been sexually assaulted by an employee of the Cal athletic department that wasn't Muqtar. I went through the investigative process with their Title IX office and Cal's official investigative process, but nothing came of it because [the other employee, not Muqtar] wasn't hired [yet] by the university at the time I was sexually assaulted.

"I was upset that I had this experience and that I had been harassed by Muqtar, as well. I was just upset that nothing came of it, that they didn't go any farther into it and they didn't address the issues."

Did Rais meet with Barbour and the chancellor at any point? Did they follow up? Did they get back to her?

"No. Nothing at all."

What did Rais do then? Did she try again to contact Barbour?

"Only the letter. I just wrote the letter. And, in hindsight, I think they could have directed me to file a complaint with their [Title IX] office of prevention of harassment. They could have done that, but they didn't.

Jenna Rais is now a marine biologist working for a company in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"I don't know how much they were aware of my sexual-assault case. They may not have been aware of that. But that's what initially motivated me to write the letter. Because during my interview with their investigative office for the sexual assault case of mine, I did mention that Muqtar had acted inappropriately toward me. But they weren't investigating him. They were investigating my sexual-assault case. So, I don't recall that they put that in the report.

"But it did occur to me that I could write a letter to the university. And so, I did. That I could indicate these things happened to me and I was upset about it."

"I was very upset that no action was taken."

Did Rais expect some sort of response?

"I expected something. You know, just a response confirming that they couldn't do anything. But really, looking back and realizing what, in their position, they could have done - they could have recommended to me that I report it through the official investigative process, everything that wasn't reported already on paper. It occurred to me that they should have that knowledge and that wherewithal to direct student-athletes to do that. But they didn't. There was no response at all."

No phone call?

"No phone call. No nothing."

No return email. No confirmation that, "We got your email?"

"No. Nothing."

Through Penn State's athletic communication office, PennLive appraised Barbour of the content of this story yesterday and requested an interview. She responded with a statement:

"The safety and well-being of student-athletes, providing them resources and opportunities that lead to an outstanding college experience while preparing them to make an impact after graduation has been my top priority throughout my career. I take seriously allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior of any kind. I'm confident this matter was handled appropriately. However, since UC-Berkeley is reviewing the situation, it would be inappropriate to further comment."

It's worth noting that Rais' account of the Muqtar case approximates a subsequent degree of inertia by Barbour in a case at Penn State. Two years ago, members of the women's gymnastics team felt it necessary to come to the PSU school paper The Daily Collegian and PennLive reporter Aaron Kasinitz in order to get their concerns about coaches Jeff and Rachelle Thompson acted upon. Only after team members publicly exposed their claims of abusive tactics by the couple did both finally leave PSU. Rachelle Thompson resigned in 2016; Jeff Thompson was fired in 2017.

I asked Rais what she thought of Barbour at Cal, in retrospect.

"I think she could have done more. I don't know her personally."

What does she think the job of any major college athletic director should be, in this context?

"They need to have the knowledge to address these issues, directly or indirectly. Which, in my case, would mean directing me to the appropriate office to report. Having the knowledge of their resources.

"And they should, in their position, take action.

Was she stunned that absolutely nothing happened after her email?

"I was shocked that nothing happened. I was even more shocked that I didn't receive any response, actually. To be honest, I thought that, if they really couldn't take any more action that they would let me know - you know: 'Thank you for your letter. I'm sorry but we can't take any more action.' Something like that."

Why is she talking about this now, more than a decade and half after the events?

"I'm hoping that, with the #MeToo/#TimesUp movement, by talking and stepping forward that more people will have courage to come forward with their stories, also. And that the process to investigate these horrendous situations will improve and that these incidents won't happen any longer."

It's too early to tell what conclusions, if any, Cal reaches about Barbour in its ongoing investigation into Muqtar. It could be there is an explanation for why Rais' email was left without response.

What we know and have seen before is what can happen, not just at Penn State, but Notre Dame, Baylor, most recently at Michigan State and a lot of other places in between, when athletic directors act more like fundraisers, marketers and bean-counters than caretakers. Increasingly, the job seems to be attracting people more interested in hop-scotching across the country to build revenue streams and resumes rather than protect the young adults under what should be their watchful eyes.

I don't know if Barbour fits that mold. I do know that, when those eyes don't watch or, worse, turn away, the young athletes are left to fend for themselves. And that should never be.

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