SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — A University of California San Diego professor alleges former County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher retaliated against her after she reported a sexual harassment claim to university administrators in April 2023.
According to a legal tort claim, obtained by CBS 8, UC San Diego lecturer of Urban Studies, Juli Beth Hinds, says Fletcher and county staff abruptly ended contracts that her consulting firm had with the county days after she reported that Fletcher sexually harassed one of her students.
The government tort claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, lays out the days and weeks following separate allegations from Metropolitan Transit System employee Grecia Figueroa, that Fletcher sexually harassed and assaulted her on numerous occasions while he served as chair of the transit system's board of directors. Figueroa filed a lawsuit against Fletcher and Metropolitan Transit officials alleging that she was fired in hopes of keeping her silent about the then-supervisor's actions.
Fletcher, who was running for state senator at the time of the first allegation, resigned from the county supervisors and ended his campaign.
And as Fletcher battles his accuser in civil court, the county may soon have to defend itself on new allegations from Hinds.
In her claim, Hinds says that on April 7, 2023, just over a week after Figueroa filed her lawsuit against Fletcher, she went to UC San Diego's Office of Student Disability Services to inform them that one of her students went to Hinds during her office hours to report what is described in the claim as, Fletcher's "harassing conduct."
In recent years, Fletcher worked as a "Professor of Practice" at UC San Diego's Political Science Department.
According to Hinds, the administrator told her to submit an official Title IX complaint and that, according to Hinds, any reports "concerning Fletcher [would] go directly to [the UCSD] Director."
Less than two hours later on the same day, April 7, Hinds said a different UC San Diego administrator sent her an email requesting the name of the student who reported the harassment as well as confirmation that it was Fletcher who allegedly harassed her.
In the days after Hinds reported the allegations, she says that Fletcher and the county began to silently end two contracts that her outside consulting business had with the county.
According to Hinds's tort claim that first happened on April 13, less than a week after reporting the alleged harassment. It was then that Hinds says she was told that the county did not want her to give an in-person presentation on water equity to staff. Instead, according to Hinds, someone else was asked to give the presentation.
"The county requested a change in the presentation that I need to discuss with you," read an April 13 email from a colleague to Hinds.
Two weeks later, Hinds says the county told her that it was "discontinuing" her contract, according to the tort claim.
Reads Hinds' claim, "[T]he county instructed UCSD...to eliminate [Hinds's contracts] in retaliation for [Hinds's] obligatory filing of a Title IX complaint against Fletcher, the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for the county, on behalf of her student who reported his harassing conduct."
Hinds is seeking nearly $280,000 in lost wages.
A spokesperson for the County of San Diego declined to comment on the filing.
