Quick Take
Former UC Santa Cruz police officer Glenn Harper was awarded $7.2 million after a jury ruled in his favor in a racial discrimination lawsuit against the University of California. His attorney says Harper has another action pending to get his job back at UCSC.
A former UC Santa Cruz police lieutenant who said he was fired because he was African American was awarded $7.2 million this week in a racial discrimination lawsuit against the University of California.
An Alameda County Superior Court jury awarded Glenn Harper the judgment Tuesday in a unanimous verdict.
“[I hope the verdict] catches their attention, makes them stop and pause, and think more carefully about situations like this,” Harper’s lawyer, Harry Stern of San Francisco-based law firm RLS Lawyers, told Lookout on Thursday.
Harper filed his lawsuit against the University of California in 2019, two years after he was fired from his position with the UCSC police department in May 2017. According to his lawsuit, Harper filed an internal affairs complaint against a lower-ranking sergeant who had allegedly mishandled a serious gun incident involving a student on campus. The sergeant then retaliated by filing a series of complaints against Harper.
Jean Marie Scott, a UCSC associate vice chancellor at the time, fired Harper despite recommendations from then-UCSC police chief Nader Oweis and another investigator that Harper not be fired, according to the lawsuit. Marie Scott retired from the university in 2021.
UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason said university officials are disappointed by the jury’s verdict.
“As the university maintained throughout the litigation, Glenn Harper’s employment was terminated in 2017 after multiple instances of unprofessional conduct,” he said in a statement provided to Lookout.
UCSC alleged in court filings that Harper was fired after its investigation substantiated allegations against him, including that he had used “inappropriate and abusive language” during a training exercise.
Hernandez-Jason added that the university is considering appealing.
Harper joined UCSC’s police department in 2014 after retiring from a 27-year law enforcement career, with the majority of his years working at the San Jose Police Department and with no disciplinary record, according to the complaint.
When hired, Harper was just one of five Black officers who had worked at the campus police department since it was established in 1965, according to the lawsuit.
According to court documents, one of the two officers interviewed by the outside investigator was found to have lied about Harper and was given only verbal counseling. The associate vice chancellor’s decision to fire Harper was “racially based in part because it was excessively punitive compared with how she treated other officers involved in the same investigation.”
Additionally, four of the Black officers, including Harper, were terminated from the police department.
“What the jury found unanimously, after about a month trial, was that the university had adopted and ratified the disgruntled sergeant’s racism, including some explicitly race-based comments, in making the decision to fire Glenn,” said Stern. “That’s what the case was all about.”
Stern said Harper has another action pending to get his job back at UCSC, and now with this case’s verdict, he’ll be reevaluating what he’ll do next, including whether he would take the job if he’s successful with that case.
“I’m not sure whether he’s going to want to do that or not,” said Stern.
Stern said Harper loved being a police officer, and his first exposure to law enforcement was when he was a student aide while studying at San Jose State University. He felt that returning to a college campus, when he was hired at UCSC, was rewarding after getting his start while he was a student.
Hernandez-Jason said the $7.2 million payout is covered by the UC’s employment practices liability insurance coverage – a program managed at the Office of the President.
Stern said, according to a verdict document, the amount was calculated based on $5 million for lost wages – past and future – and $2 million was for emotional damages.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.