The University of Nevada, Reno allegedly failed to prevent, investigate or remedy multiple instances of sexual and race-based discrimination in its psychology department, according to a Jan. 7 lawsuit filed by three professors.
Court documents obtained by the Sagebrush describe multiple instances of discrimination in the department, as well as retaliation against the three psychology professors — William O’Donohue, Jane Fisher and Lorraine Benuto — for opposing it.
While the suit was filed against the Nevada System of Higher Education, it also names other university faculty and administrators in several allegations. Mark Mausert and Sean McDowell, attorneys based in Reno, are representing the three professors in Nevada District Court. District court judge Miranda M. Du was selected Jan. 8 to preside over the civil case.
Who else is involved?
Though he’s not a defendant in the case, Michael Crognale, the psychology department’s chair, is at the center of the discrimination allegations.
The court document alleges that Crognale showed Benuto, one of the three professors, “disparate treatment and hostility” from her 2016 hiring onwards. Crognale has allegedly “indulged […] in open displays of intense anger toward Dr. Benuto” in front of other faculty and at one point told Benuto to “keep your mouth shut and your head down”.
Crognale is described in the document as making “his prowess as a martial artist common knowledge among those who work and/or study in the psychology department”. The lawsuit goes on to say that Benuto had “a reasonable fear” of violence from Crognale.
The document also alleges that Benuto faced targeted professional obstacles during her time at the university, including inferior pay that didn’t match her experience and skill, and that Crognale reportedly refused to forward Benuto’s applications for tenure in 2019 and 2020.
Benuto has Mexican heritage, according to the document, and is also a registered member of the Maidu First Nations Tribe.
Crognale criticized the lawsuit in a statement to the Sagebrush via email.
“I am not named as a defendant in this lawsuit,” Crognale wrote. “All accusations of discriminatory or other objectionable behavior made therein about me and others are without merit and inaccurate. I believe that the sole purpose of this lawsuit was to bring disrepute to the University and myself.”
Mariann Weierich, another professor in the psychology department, is mentioned in the lawsuit as well, though she isn’t a defendant, either. The document describes Weierich showing hostility towards Benuto and O’Donohue, another of the three professors, as well as towards graduate students connected to them, allegedly telling the students that their research in trauma impacts on people of color was unimportant and unneeded.
In a spring 2023 graduate student-conducted survey, respondents said Weierich and other faculty engaged in “discrimination and bullying” against program students, according to the document.
The Mikawa Fellowship, which includes a distinguished professorship that Weierich currently holds, also appears in the lawsuit. The document describes the position as being intended for a clinical psychology scholar who has a record of working to advance ethnic minority students in the field. By giving it to Weierich, the document says, the university broke its word to the fellowship’s donors, the Mikawas.
“Prof. Weierich does not have a history of commitment to minority students,” the document says. “To the contrary, she has [been] the subject of a number of racial discrimination complaints.”
Weierich did not respond to a request for comment.
The document also alleges that the university gave Mikawa endowment funds to a white American student, in place of a qualified minority student who had also applied for the fellowship.
‘Irreparable damage to those currently receiving care’
O’Donohue and Benuto have both worked in The Victims of Crime Treatment Center, which provides psychological care to victims of sexually-related trauma.
The lawsuit alleges that the university appropriated about $32,000 from the treatment center’s government grant money for other, “external” purposes. It also alleges that O’Donohue’s longstanding involvement in the program came under threat due to university retaliation, and that the program’s potential closure or loss of services “will result in irreparable damage to those currently receiving care,” as well as prospective clients.
O’Donohue took “intermittent” family medical leave in fall 2024 to provide care for his daughter, according to the document, and tried to continue advising graduate students involved in the treatment center during his leave. The semester prior, O’Donohue’s wife, Jane Fisher, took family medical leave for the same reason, according to the lawsuit. Fisher is also a plaintiff in the suit.
The lawsuit alleges that administrators at the university refused to allow O’Donohue to continue working at the program, then failed to inform the Nevada agency that funds the program that he no longer managed it.
Mark Mausert, one of the two attorneys representing O’Donohue, Fisher and Benuto, stressed the importance of the program.
“It’s invaluable to the community,” Mausert said. “It’s treated about 1,000 people for free for sexually-related trauma, it’s helped a lot of my clients, and it’s just a wonderful, wonderful program. It’s one of the best things the university does, and it would be a real shame if it is a casualty of internal acrimony in the psychology department.”
‘Studied failures to act’
The lawsuit argues that the university was aware of ongoing discrimination and retaliation, calling its alleged lack of adequate investigation and preventive measures “studied failures to act.”
In October 2020, the university put the Clinical Psychology Program, in which all three of the professors work, under temporary administrative governance, or TAG, status, where it still stands, according to the document. In the lawsuit are additional allegations that the university kept TAG status in place for the purpose of retaliating against the three professors.
Jeff Thompson, who now serves as Executive Vice President and Provost at the university, allegedly didn’t recommend any investigation into the state of the program despite knowledge the document argues he possessed as of November 2020. At the time, Thompson was dean of the College of Science.
The document also alleges that Thompson made a disparaging comment about Benuto’s work with the Latino community, saying “[i]t sounds like a circus”. Though not a defendant, Thompson is mentioned, along with Weierich and Crognale, as being responsible for other instances of “race-based hostility” reported by graduate students to the three professors, according to the document.
Thompson did not respond to a request for comment.
Alleged fraud by omission
The lawsuit also includes allegations of fraud. The court document claims the university kept knowledge of the Clinical Psychology program’s TAG status for months from the American Psychological Association, or APA, the group that does its accreditation. The three professors reportedly weren’t informed whether or when the university told the APA that the Clinical Psychology program was under TAG, or why.
Accreditation is like quality assurance for a college degree. In the United States, that means both government and organizations outside the government, like the APA, evaluate colleges on their programs. Evaluators would be interested in potential issues with a program — which is why the lawsuit’s allegations that the university kept them under wraps could have implications for accreditation.
The court document argues that this alleged omission threatens the university’s accreditation from the APA. It also alleges that the university “engaged in systemic fraud by omission” against all psychology students, in general, by risking the accreditation.
O’Donohue was reportedly stopped from meeting with investigators from the APA, according to the court document, which argues that the university allegedly did this to conceal its own conduct from the APA.The university is also alleged in the document to have “defrauded (or at the very least misled)” Clinical Psychology program applicants with “bogus positive portrayals” of conditions in the program.
‘Graduate students have become ‘weaponized’ in these conflicts between faculty’
An External Review Report on the Clinical Psychology program, conducted by outside reviewers in 2023, is quoted in the document. According to the External Review Report, one unnamed university administrator was well aware of the contrast between Clinical Psychology’s recruitment messaging and its reality, saying “it is bad advertisement when a current graduate student cries during interviews with applicants.”
The External Review Report also describes a program fractured into two sides, expressing concerns mentioned in interviews “that graduate students have become ‘weaponized’ in these conflicts between faculty,” according to the court document.
Several students interviewed as part of the 2023 External Review Report said they went to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX, now known as the Center for Civil Rights and Equal Access, after they faced “abusive” and “intimidating” interactions with an unnamed faculty member. They told reviewers that they’d gotten no response from the office despite reporting over a month before, according to the External Review Report.
Graduate students “regularly” went to O’Donohue, Fisher and Benuto over alleged instances of racial hostility from Weierich, Thompson and Crognale, according to the lawsuit. The court document says all three experienced retaliation for attempting to stand up for them.
William Follette, a professor emeritus in the department, allegedly said, “[i]f Lorraine [Benuto] is going to keep accepting minority students, we are going to have to accept that we will need to change [i.e., lower] our standards,” according to the document. Follette is not named as a defendant, and did not respond to a request for comment.
The university has told the Sagebrush that it does not comment on pending litigation.
Peregrine Hart can be reached via email at peregrineh@unr.edu or on Instagram @pintofperegrine.
