CONTEXT
The recent media coverage of College of Marin Professor Joe Mueller’s Title IX violations, and resulting community discourse, brought to light that this professor’s behavior has been problematic for multiple decades. 

Although the community is grateful that the College of Marin is taking action now, this action happened only after a student went to the media to break the silence around this issue. The extreme and pervasive nature of this situation has made it apparent that College of Marin’s existing culture, processes, and procedures are wholly inadequate for addressing similar situations in the future. 

The community discourse about Joe Mueller has disclosed multiple instances of unacceptable behavior: several sexual relationships with students, quid pro quo, discrimination, public shaming and humiliation, berating students to tears, grade manipulation, financial exploitation, American with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations, and more.  These behaviors have persisted for decades without effective responses from the College of Marin. Additional information about his behavior is provided via the links in the FAQ below. 

Critically, Professor Mueller’s negative behavior is not simply hostile, but alters the educational trajectory and life options for any student affected. These significant consequences are exactly why laws and regulations are in place: to prevent a single professor, acting on personal prejudices and desires, to decide who gets the benefit of an education and who does not. 

The laws and policies in place to protect students are only effective if they are implemented in a way that is more than just lip service. 

Fear of Retaliation Led to Culture of Complicity
All staff and faculty of the College of Marin are Mandated Reporters. Community college district employees must report suspected Title IX sexual harassment or discrimination to the campus police or the campus Title IX Coordinator.  Staff and faculty openly discussed Professor Mueller’s abusive behavior towards students and that he had sexual relationships with some of his students, and yet in most cases, the mandatory reports were not made.  Members of the College of Marin’s administrative staff have confirmed that students have regularly raised the issue about Mueller’s behavior towards students to the administration.  

For Title IX regulations and laws requiring mandatory reporting to be effective, the institutional culture must support these rules.  The culture must encourage victims and witnesses to speak up and demonstrate that they can do so  without fear of retaliation.  At the College of Marin, both employees and students were afraid of retaliation, which perpetuated this situation.  

Staff and Faculty
Professor Mueller was in several positions of power at the College of Marin: he was tenured faculty, chair of the department, and served on the Executive Council of the faculty Union.   

Adjunct (no job security, contract hired each term) faculty expressed reasonable fear they would not be hired again to teach the next term if they spoke up.  Tenured faculty expressed fear that the College would do nothing meaningful to stop the situation even if they spoke up (e.g. the perpetrator would just be sent to another training), and they would suffer under Professor Mueller’s demonstrated history of retaliation (e.g. hostility, accusations, removal from teaching courses, loss of professional opportunity).  Staff expressed fear of losing their jobs.  Some were unaware of their responsibilities as a Mandated Reporter in the first place. 

Thus, there is a culture of complicity at the College of Marin that allowed the situation to persist for decades and suggests that the same could occur in the future.  

Students and Community Members
Inspirational speakers can still cause harm. 

Professor Joe Mueller is a charismatic speaker who teaches engaging subjects.  His charisma is on display outside the classroom as well as inside of it; he speaks at events for multiple ecological and wildlife groups in the community.  He has worked as a fundraiser for various community and college projects. Many donors and community members who only interact with Professor Mueller in these spaces often sing his praises and reference that his engaging, humorous speeches charm audiences.  Many were unaware of his problematic behavior. He was issued several awards by local environmental organizations, and this show of community standing served to intimidate and silence his victims of abuse, many of whom were teenagers.  

In the classroom, Professor Mueller favors some students, treating them kindly, praising them publicly, encouraging their aspirations, and inflating their grades. Those students he does not favor shared their experiences, including some with disability accommodations, those who don’t share his political beliefs, and those who happened to sit near or talk with other students he was sexually interested in, and they were targeted with actions including hostility, public humiliation, and/or negative grade manipulation. 

Many of the favored students provide a degree of loyalty that is similar to those of some community members, either oblivious to Professor Mueller’s abusive behavior or forgiving of it.  

Lacking the assured support of their fellow classmates and community, the negatively targeted students feared coming forward against a powerful and influential individual, and the people in the classroom and/or community that he could mobilize against the student to undermine their accounts or harass them directly. This fear silenced students who were not willing or able to withstand the emotionally grueling processes of officially reporting.  

Statement of Purpose 
This situation highlights that the existing College of Marin policies and processes as implemented are entirely inadequate to effectively protect student victims from an influential faculty member who is abusive, discriminatory, or sexually harasses some of their students.  

Being an engaging lecturer and being fair towards select students, does not give a Professor rights to treat any other students in unacceptable ways.  

It is unacceptable that any single student experienced these behaviors from a professor - let alone multiple students over many decades.   

The College of Marin must take meaningful, immediate, and concrete action to prevent this from happening ever again with this Professor, and prevent a similar situation in the future.  

How Can You Help: 

1. Sign this Petition 
2. Leave a Comment: Share a specific memory of how Joe Mueller treated you, your classmates, or your friends and the impact this had. This helps survivors know they are not alone.  
3. Share this Petition: Forward this to any other COM alumni, students, or community members who were impacted by, or witnessed, Joe’s treatment of students.
4. Engage with the Board of Trustee
   - Join us in person to speak during the public comment section at the next Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, August 18 at 2:00 p.m. at the 
   - Center for Student Success on the Kentfield Campus.  
   - Submit a comment in advance of the meeting  using their online portal if you are not able to attend in person.

OUR DEMAND
We demand that the College of Marin take several steps to ensure that this does not happen again, including incorporation of the following policy changes: 

1. Improve the adherence to the requirements of Mandated Reporting, including:
   a.) Provide meaningful training to inform employees about Mandated Reporter Responsibilities, the College’s policies, and the civil, criminal, and employment consequences of failure to report.
   b.) Institute policies that define the enforceable consequences the College will undertake if  Mandated Reporting is not undertaken and that failure is later revealed.
   c.) Protect employees who exercise their responsibilities as Mandated Reporters from retribution from the accused.  For example, remove the accuser from positions of power over a reporter.
   d.) Establish a system that allows anonymous reporting by staff and faculty, similar to anonymous course evaluations.  This is to ensure the information about potential problems is received by Human Resources. To avoid abuse of this  system the actions taken on these reports would be investigative only and used to establish patterns over time in tandem with other sources.  
2. Upgrade the process for tracking and addressing reports of hostile and/or abusive behavior, Mandated Reports, and Title IX Complaints:
   a.) Contract an outside, independent service that does not have a relationship with faculty or the union to receive complaints and conduct investigations when a student or College employee makes a report. (Currently, initial reports are handled by the Dean or Title IX coordinator, who are employees of the College who work with the professors on a regular basis).
   b.) Define and make public a clear process that effectively tracks all complaints against an employee, whether by other staff or students, regardless of findings, so that patterns of problematic behavior can be identified quickly. This process should include a review of the employee’s  complete HR file.
   c.) Provide meaningful consequences when there are multiple complaints about abusive and/or sexually inappropriate behavior.  For example, prevent or remove a professor’s ability to serve in leadership positions on the Faculty Union or as Department Chair.  
   d.) Cease treating repeated anger management, sexual harassment or other behavior modification trainings as meaningful action.  
3. Refine the course evaluation system.
   a.) Provide students with anonymous course evaluations for every course in every term, including summer. 
   b.) Allow students to complete course evaluations through the time at which grades are posted, so they can speak freely without any concern it will impact their grade.  Even though in reality the faculty do not see these evaluations until after grades are submitted, the students do not fully trust that system enough to risk it.  
   c.) Require fully separate course evaluations for each instructor in courses that are co-taught. 
   d.) Recognize that positive evaluations do not necessarily cancel out negative evaluations.   If a professor is treating students differently, and abusing only some, the abused students' voices must be heard on their own.  
   e.) Recognize that classroom observations as part of the evaluation process will only identify problems with unskilled lecturers.   Professors whose abuse is manipulative, and whose actions are intentional and controlled, will not be identified through this observation - because they won’t do it in front of the observer.  
   f.) Encourage student participation and build trust about anonymous course evaluations.  
   -- Provide staff a script to share with students about the evaluations that must be provided to the students by each professor in writing, which explains how the evaluations are used and the importance of filling them out, and how the college assures anonymity.  
   -- Provide 10 minutes of class time for students to fill out the evaluations on the final class day, where the Professor must step out of the room.  
   g.) Establish an independent (non-COM staff) role to regularly review all reports and all evaluations across multiple years, including the human resources files (including sealed files), with the explicit purpose of flagging any patterns of abusive or otherwise problematic behavior.
   h.) There must be a process in place to escalate this information beyond the Department when abusive patterns are observed, and a process that will result in effective action.  
4. Use statistics of readily available course data to identify problematic behavior. Identify professors who have an unusually high number of students who drop their course compared to other similar courses.  Compare the retention rate overall, for students with ADA accommodations, gender-based, age-based etc.  Statistically evaluate if an usual number of high performing students get low marks in a professor's courses, and vice versa.  
5. Empower student centered response network
   a.) Students can be intimidated about approaching professors or the administrators with a problem, but they do confide in peers, teaching assistants, and tutors.  A student centered approach to providing a safe and effective reporting environment, starts with training student peers to recognize and know how to respond to:
   -- Teaching assistants and tutors should be trained to understand their Mandated Reporter requirements, what situations warrant reporting, and how to do so.  
   -- Student teaching assistants and tutors should be trained about how to support fellow students who come to them with experiences of abuse and/or harassment. 
   -- Lower the bar for students reporting problematic professors by developing and maintaining a student-led support group as the first resource for students experiencing a problem.  This group would be composed of students who are formally trained in recognizing staff/faculty behaviors that cross the line into prohibited and/or illegal actions.  The College of Marin would lead training for these students to understand fundamental district, state, federal policies related to professor/student interactions, as well as reporting procedures. These students would also be trained in providing ongoing support and resources for student victims as they navigate a potentially year + long reporting process.  
6. Mandatory orientation for new students each semester, discussing what is and is not appropriate behavior by professors with students: in the classroom, on field trips, and outside of class.  This orientation would provide all the resources and contacts, accompanied in tandem by a thorough explanation of why it is important to report any incident of misconduct (establishes a pattern, and protects future students). 
7. Current College of Marin policies will only consider the outcome of these official reports, not the overall patterns readily observed.  The College of Marin taking action against a professor for acting inappropriately/illegally against students cannot rest solely on the shoulders of often young and inexperienced students to officially report the professor and then effectively make their case against someone with more training, experience, and capability navigating the College of Marin system than they have. 
8. The College of Marin’s ultimate purpose is to educate students, employment of professors is secondary to the ultimate purpose.  The systems at the College of Marin need to change so that students are protected above protecting the employment of an individual and the appearances of the institution.  Student and community advocates should be part of the decision making process to assure these changes incorporate their insight, and truly center the students needs and safety.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Sheet

Who are we? 
We are a collective of students, alumni, parents of students, faculty and staff, and members of the Marin conservation community.  Collectively, we have witnessed multiple decades of Professor Mueller’s harmful behavior towards students and the College of Marin’s shocking lack of meaningful action in response.

Why organize this petition?
To ensure the College of Marin acts according to its own findings and determinations, which resulted from following Title IX established procedures, and follows through with  the termination of Professor Mueller’s employment.  Further, we want to ensure that the College of Marin enhances the protection of students, faculty, and staff from abuse by any individual associated with the College going forward. 

What is the current situation?
As reported by several news outlets (see Resources in the FAQ section below) following the findings of a Title IX investigation, and comparing that to the long documented history of unresolved abusive behavior towards students, the College of Marin started termination proceedings against Professor Joe Mueller. These proceedings are based on a pattern of behavior, not just the results of this specific Title IX investigation. All of the systems that allowed this behavior to persist for decades must be revised to prevent such abuse from occurring unchecked in the future. 

Why are some people in our community defending the Professor?
Abusive people do not abuse everyone and abusive people can also be influential, popular, and do positive things in the community.  

Professor Mueller was an engaging lecturer who taught charismatic and inspiring topics, and led field trips to the great outdoors. Professors who teach inspiring topics are often beloved by students, who associate their love of a subject with the person who opened their eyes to that world. 

Professor Mueller did not behave maliciously towards all of his students. He was magnanimous and fair to select favored students in his classes.  He provided expertise to community organizations and led fundraising efforts for valuable academic and conservation causes.  As a consequence, individuals have different interactions and perceptions of Professor Mueller.  The positive contributions that Professor Mueller has made make it uncomfortable for some people to acknowledge, or even believe, that he could be capable of abusive behavior.  Those individuals who have not personally experienced Professor Mueller’s abuse may unwittingly undermine victims through their loyalty to Professor Mueller due to their personal positive interactions with him. 

We acknowledge the positive contributions Professor Mueller has made to the community; and this partially explains the apparent lack of consensus regarding Professor Mueller’s behavior, because it is due to differential treatment.  Our goal is supporting the victims of his abuse.  To support these victims, we acknowledge that the popularity and influence of the abuser is one of the reasons that victims are reluctant to come forward, and why, once they do come forward, their experiences are often dismissed or minimized, both by the institutions involved and the community.  

What are the petition’s specific demands?
We are calling on the College of Marin Board of Trustees and administration to thoroughly and impartially protect Joe Mueller’s victims.   

Further, this petition seeks to prevent the system that allowed Professor Mueller’s abuses to continue, unchecked, for many years, to continue without additional significant changes that:

• Improve the adherence to the requirements of Mandated Reporting
• Upgrade the process for tracking and addressing reports of hostile and/or abusive behavior, Mandated Reports, and Title IX Complaint
• Refine the course evaluation system.

Thank you in advance for standing with us to support students whose lives were negatively altered by Professor Mueller, and protecting future generations of students.  

RESOURCES 
The media coverage, community discourse, and other sources capturing these issues is below: 

Media Coverage

• KQED
  - How a College of Marin Professor’s Influence Reshaped Students’ Academic Paths | KQED
• The Mariner Times (College of Marin Newspaper)
  - https://themarinertimes.org/following-may-protest-college-of-marin-moves-to-dismiss-professor-joe-mueller-after-title-ix-findings/
  - https://themarinertimes.org/protesters-gather-on-com-campus-friday/ 
• The Marin IJ 
  - COM professor faces dismissal over sexual misconduct claims 
  - College of Marin investigates sexual harassment claim against professor 
  - COM professor appeals finding in sex harassment case 
  
• Community Discourse
  Reddit
  Least surprising College of Marin News...
  r/bayarea on Reddit: College of Marin professor put on leave after Title IX investigation; former students describe decades of favoritism and blurred boundaries 
  Nextdoor 
  Rate My Professor 
• Understanding Consent, Coercion, and Other Terms 
  - College of Marin’s Sexual Violence Definitions (Slide 4 and 5)
  - RAINN 
  
• Victim statement on the community harassing survivors
  - An address to Joe Mueller’s followers