“None of the men ever get in trouble.”
“Women are targeted way more than men”
Those two comments were made by different people: the first was made by a male employee of CVM who was explaining the security he felt in his position; the second was made by a female employee explaining why she felt so insecure in hers.
Formulations of these statements were made by more than two dozen people who completed our survey or spoke to us directly. Many expressed that they are fearful in their work because their supervisors are the ones allegedly perpetrating the targeting or harassment of women.
Several dozen people have shared compiled lists outlining who has left employment at CVM for any reason in the prior two years. That list is predominantly female. Further, to our knowledge, the internal grievances filed against CVM over the past year are all female. While none of this is conclusive, it should rise to the level of receiving attention and investigation from the University.
One person who worked at the Teaching Hospital claimed she was harassed by a male superior, but was told by Human Resources that she "brought it on herself" due to the fit of her work scrubs. Rather than investigate further, or discipline or counsel the harasser, this employee claimed Human Resources placed the burden of correcting the situation on her.
While CVM Independent could not independently verify these allegations because we do not have access to University personnel records, it is notable that multiple current and former staff members from different departments and different levels of staff hierarchy each shared experiences that they believe amount to bullying, targeting or inappropriate conduct which they feel has occurred because they are women - and which would not occur to men.
A review of current College leadership shows that no women occupy any of the four top leadership positions at the CVM: Dean, Associate Dean, Assistant Dean and Hospital Director. Below these positions, women occupy various administrative roles such as Hospital Administrator, Human Resources lead, and lower level supervisor positions overseeing nurses.
"The sick irony is that certain women are the biggest bullies of other women here," said an employee who has experienced bullying at work. "Way worse than the men, it's just that the men in charge know about it and allow it to keep happening. We have told the Dean a hundred times that the woman he stuck in charge is the cause of most of the toxicity around here. He knows it, he just likes that if we are all bullied around by her all the time, he's free to do whatever he wants to do and he can act like 'oh I just didn't know' and 'it wasn't me!'"
Several employees blame Human Resources for allowing the bullying against women to continue, even though they know it is occurring. “I mean they did ask us, sort of,” said one female respondent, “They had us take a survey about one of the people who is the worst with coming after women and we all filled that out, and it’s been crickets ever since. Same person we sent EthicsPoints about. Nothing ever happens except we get targeted even worse. They straight up do not care about us.”