He was wearing a collared shirt. He looked like a man who had dressed deliberately for this conversation. Behind him, Marlon could see a bookshelf lined with thick medical textbooks and one cardboard banker's box sitting on the top shelf. Its lid secured with a rubber band. Dr.
Sanford, Diego said. He nodded. Then he looked at Marlon and Janelle. I'm glad you called. Tell us what happened, Dr.
Sanford said. From the beginning. Diego told them. It had started his sophomore year. SJC had targeted him the same way they always targeted people.
Casually at first. Like it was a joke. The kind of thing you were supposed to laugh off. Social media posts, comments. Then it escalated.
An entire semester of targeted harassment. Posts that named him specifically. Physical intimidation on the quad. Notes left on his dorm room door. He reported it to Willows in October of that year with a written complaint signed with dates and incident descriptions.
Willows' office acknowledged receipt. Scheduled a mediation for late November. Then rescheduled it for December. Then rescheduled it again for January. By the time the mediation actually happened, Diego said, "It was February, 4 months after I filed." His voice was steady, practiced, like he had told this story before, to himself, in the dark, enough times that the anger had compressed into something harder and quieter.
Bryce came in with an attorney. I had the student equity advocate, a sophomore who had never done a mediation before in her life. The whole session lasted 40 minutes. Willix dismissed the complaint 2 weeks later. "What was the reason given?" Marlon asked.
"Insufficient evidence." Diego said the words like he was reading from a document he had memorized. "Despite the fact that I had submitted screenshots, witness statements, and a written incident log going back 3 months." Janelle leaned forward. "When exactly was the dismissal issued?" "February 23rd." Janelle pulled up a document on her laptop, the Helton Foundation donation records from Dr. Sanford's folder. She cross-referenced, ran her finger down the column of dates.
Her jaw tightened. "A $400,000 pledge from the Helton Family Foundation was recorded on February 12th," she said quietly. "11 Days before your dismissal." The room went still. Diego nodded slowly. "I know," he said.
"I found that record 6 months after I transferred, when I was sitting in Ohio trying to understand how it happened." He looked directly into the camera. "That's when I understood it wasn't incompetence. It was a transaction." "You said you kept everything," Dr. Sanford said. Diego turned in his chair and reached up to the bookshelf behind him.