A woman is suing the Los Angeles Community College District and its board of trustees, alleging she was sexually assaulted twice by the same professor in 2018 and that a subsequent investigation was biased in his favor.
Plaintiff Mia Post is described in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit as a “double Grammy-nominated songwriter with hit songs broadcast on the radio around the world” who has been unable to productively work on her music since the alleged incidents at Los Angeles City College.
The professor is not a defendant in the suit, which was filed Wednesday and alleges negligence, civil rights violation and violation of the state Education Code. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
An LACCD representative could not be immediately reached for comment.
The lawsuit alleges LACC has “effectively assassinated Ms. Post’s character to falsely vindicate (the professor).”
Post alleges she was sexually harassed and assaulted by the same English professor at LACC on Jan. 22 and 25, 2018. A day after the second alleged incident, Post met with the campus dean to report what happened, according to her court papers.
“There is no dispute that the faculty member touched Ms. Post’s thigh during a class,” the suit alleges.
However, after Post’s meeting with the dean, LACC failed to comply with state law concerning sexual harassment at educational institutions and its own policies and procedures by attempting to “sweep (the professor’s) sexually harassing conduct under the rug,”: the suit alleges.
The plaintiff also alleges that administrators failed to notify her of her rights under Title IX and the title coordinator waited six months to reach out to Post, leaving her “unprotected and astray.”
Another four months passed before an investigation into Post’s claims began and she had to wait until January of this year to receive the written decision, the suit states.
The investigation found that it was not credible that the professor, “who understands what sexual misconduct and harassment are and the very severe consequences of engaging in such conduct with a student, would jeopardize his career at City College by engaging in the conduct alleged by complainant,” according to the suit.
The report concluded that was not likely that a professor who understands his responsibilities for the safety of his students, and who describes the alleged conduct as “morally reprehensible,” would act in the manner alleged by Post, according to the suit. The document also stated that no other students reported what allegedly happened to Post, but the investigator did not interview all or even most of the students, the plaintiff alleges.
“Simply put, LACC did not take Ms. Post seriously and acted with deliberate indifference towards her,” the suit alleges.