Tyler Mignault

The Title IX office is located on the backside of Irmagarde Tator Hall, the location is not mentioned on the Quinnipiac University official website.

Trigger warning: sexual harassment 

To the university officials who are probably going to need a fresh pair of pants after I publish this, trust me, I don’t want to write it as much as you don’t want to read it. But alas, some of your employees can’t get their crap together. So here we are.

I love Quinnipiac University. It’s become my home. I wouldn’t change the decision I made three years ago for the world. Yet, over the past year and a half, there has been one overarching issue elephant in the room for me: the Title IX office.

I was acutely aware of the issues with the office since I joined the editorial board of The Chronicle in January of my first year, when the amazing former News Editor Cat Murphy dropped the bomb that was the “QU loses second Title IX coordinator in last year,” article, literally two days after the semester began.

Then, another piece was in our Google Drive a few days later, announcing that the current Title IX Coordinator Patricio Jimenez was going to be taking the position in March 2024.

That was as far as my relationship with Title IX went until August of that year, when I got an on-campus job that required an extensive orientation. The orientation itself was great and informative, with presentations from the CARE team and others in senior positions.

Then came the Title IX presentation. The information given was helpful, but there was one part that stuck out to me. I interpreted Jimenez’s guidance as “Don’t worry about the victim, worry about if the school will get sued.” Come again?

I asked around to see if everyone else was on the same page as me, because maybe I was just overreacting. Nope. The other employees and I still discuss it to this day about how bad a taste that left in our mouths. But at the time, I let it go. 

Until the day came that I actually had to report something in 2024. I had gone on a trip with a small group. Two professors came with us. One professor had a meeting, so three other girls and I were left with the male professor. Already a little weird.

There’s something else I should mention about this one professor: He. Has. Multiple. Title IX. Reports. Against. Him.

After I reported him, multiple people came out and said that they did as well.

Let’s get into why I reported him, a man who has been reported countless times. The (not so) funny thing is that I went to a female professor because I felt uncomfortable with the way we were treated while alone with him. He was egging us on to call him “Daddy.” Ew.

There was a span of days where I kept this to myself with a disgusting feeling brewing inside me. I passed it off as just being a response to my past trauma with things of this manner, until I couldn’t anymore, and I told someone.

She told someone who was a department higher-up, who told her to report it. That was October 2024.

In mid-November, there was still no word from the office. The professor who filed the report followed up about a half a dozen times, but the office was absolutely mute.

Another thing I should mention is that the professor who was reported has been known to allegedly retaliate, so every second that I wasn’t hearing from the Title IX office, I didn’t know if this professor knew that there was a report or not. I didn’t know if he was going to beat the office to my inbox.

I expressed these concerns to my trusted professor, who urged me in an email on Nov. 4, 2024, to bring it up with the Title IX office when they reached out.

Jimenez did not reach out for another two weeks, with inconsistent response times afterwards. He expressed that he was out of the office dealing with a family emergency. I get it, it happens, and I hoped everything was OK. But time does not just magically freeze and the Title IX office still needs to be running. If you can’t help me, point me to someone who can.

The meeting finally happened on Dec. 5, 2024 — over a month after the initial report was filed.

A lot can happen in a month. And guess what? It did. While I was waiting for someone to reach out to me, this professor followed me around from building to building during an event. Because of the office’s inability to be efficient, my mental health was suffering and I was potentially in danger.

I mean, to use what seems to be the office’s own logic, imagine the lawsuit that could’ve resulted in?

I communicated with some of my professors about what was going on, and all of them were undoubtedly supportive — they understood.

They all had the same grievances, which were “I heard Title IX is backed up,” and “I can’t believe they still let him teach.” It wasn’t like these complaints were just rumors. Come to find out, these professors personally knew the multiple other students who reported the same professor I had. Nothing had ever been done.

When I told one of the professors that I hadn’t been contacted a month later, one professor contacted their friend, who worked in the office, who confirmed that the office was backed up. So imagine my surprise when the university denied this.

Only after they talked to their friend within the office, who was shocked that I wasn’t contacted, did I receive an email.

When I had the meeting, it was nowhere near productive. The options were: drop the complaint or have the professor sit through some sensitivity training, and he’d know it was me. I was told another very realistic possibility was that I’d have to drop the program that I was in. So I dropped the complaint. It would’ve made my life a hell of a lot harder, and his would’ve barely been affected. The professor will teach multiple classes this fall, after years of not teaching regularly, allegedly due to the reports.

My meeting was anything but reassuring. It felt like, because we had been reaching out constantly, this was just meant to check off a box. It didn’t feel like he wanted to help, but he wanted us to get off his back.

Before any of you university employees contact me wanting to “talk about it,” know that I really, really, do not want you to. No offense, or all offense (depending on who you are), don’t be surprised when I don’t respond.

There is nothing you can do to fix it, so let’s save us both the time. I’m almost out of here, and I’d really like to leave this behind.

But there are some faculty out there who like to claim that students are “whining” about their experiences. You know who you are. And yes, some students did see that social media post before you deleted it. You should know about a digital footprint at your grown age.

I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this because I’m able to have a unique platform to share this experience, while there are faculty who try to overshadow students’ experiences with empty, PR-trained words.