A legal action has been filed against the UC Regents in which an anonymous person is asking that his or her personnel information not be released in connection with retaliatory fallout found during an investigation into the UCLA School of Dentistry.
The petitioner in the Los Angeles Superior Court action is identified only as Person Doe. In addition to naming the UC Regents, the petitioner also identifies a downtown law firm, Cohen Williams LLP, as a real party in interest. A real party in interest is a person or entity with a direct, substantial stake in a legal action.
A UC Regents representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the petition filed Thursday.
In January 2018, Karis Chi, director of administrative policies & compliance at UCLA, received a whistleblowing report alleging that an international postgraduate orthodontics resident had been required to pay $30,000 annually for three years — for a total of $90,000 — which was an amount beyond the standard tuition and fees required of other residents.
Another $30,000 was collected from a second orthodontics student, according to the petition, which also states that the funds from both international students were deposited into a UCLA foundation donation fund.
In May 2020, another law firm, Hueston Hennigan, LLP, issued its “Report on Independent Investigation of UCLA School of Dentistry’s Orthodontics Section” that was commissioned by UCLA. While documenting “serious wrongdoing by three former members of the UCLA School of Dentistry faculty,” including requiring the international student to pay the higher tuition, the report also found examples of retaliation, the petition states.
The backlash included, among other things, the spreading of anonymous allegations of academic misconduct against faculty who had cooperated with a prior investigation and that were made with the intent to damage a colleague’s career, according to the petition.
Although UCLA has issued final determinations for some of the subjects of the anonymous complaint, the investigation remains ongoing and the petitioner’s privacy rights at stake, the petition states.
Last August, Cohen Williams submitted to UCLA a request through the CPRA for all records concerning an investigation by UCLA into allegations that UCLA Dentistry faculty members, professors and/or associate deans or deans published manipulated data, the petition states.
On Jan. 8 of this year, UCLA sent the petitioner, who was employed by the university in 2018, an email identifying the individual as the “respondent” in a report that is subject to disclosure under the CPRA, the petition states.
“Petitioner is informed and believes that UCLA intends to disclose the records at issue in this action to the real party (in interest) in response to its request for those records…,” the petition states.
UCLA agreed to delay release of the report until Feb.12 so that the petitioner could seek any legal action in opposition to its publication, according to the petition, which further states that to date, UCLA’s findings show that the allegations against the petitioner were largely unfounded and did not result in discipline.