The outgoing president of Cal State San Bernardino, one of two university administrators named in a multimillion-dollar gender discrimination lawsuit, may soon shift into a new role at the same institution — one that would keep him on the university payroll with continued salary and benefits.
The California State University Board of Trustees is set to review a transition plan for President Tomas Morales on Wednesday and decide whether to grant him the title of president emeritus.
According to Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith, details of Morales’ proposed new position and compensation will be released during Wednesday’s meeting. Morales earned $655,626 in pay and benefits in 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available through TransparentCalifornia.
The trustees’ decision comes just months after Cal State paid $12 million to settle a lawsuit brought by two former university administrators, Clare Weber and Anissa Rogers, who accused Morales and former Palm Desert campus dean Jake Zhu of gender-based harassment and discrimination. The university system has denied any wrongdoing. Zhu has since retired with emeritus status, and Morales remains in good standing with the university.
Morales announced in the spring that he would step down at the end of this academic year. Because of his tenure and standing, he qualifies for a coveted executive transition program that would allow him to return to a faculty position with full retirement benefits.
On Wednesday, a board committee will review the details of Morales’ transition arrangement, and later that day, the full board will consider a recommendation from Chancellor Mildred Garcia to name him president emeritus.
A Pattern of Harassment, Lawsuit Alleged
Weber and Rogers, both former high-ranking officials at Cal State San Bernardino, filed suit in 2023, describing the university as a breeding ground for gender-based harassment and discrimination.
Weber served as associate vice president and vice provost of academic affairs starting in 2017, while Rogers worked as associate dean of the Palm Desert satellite campus beginning in 2019. During the 2021-22 academic year, both women raised concerns to university leadership about what they described as clear evidence of a gender pay gap and sexual harassment within their departments. According to their complaint, both were pushed out almost immediately after speaking up.
Rogers, who worked under Zhu at the time, said she feared that being fired outright would damage her career, so she agreed to resign. Weber refused to step down and was ultimately terminated.
“The lawsuit really shows a pattern of sexist, systemic harassment,” Weber said in an interview. “It largely came from President Morales.”
Bentley-Smith said the university thoroughly reviewed all allegations in the lawsuit and resolved the matter through the settlement.
Weber and Rogers have since submitted a public comment urging trustees to closely examine Morales’ record before approving his transition benefits.
Allegations of Verbal Abuse
According to the lawsuit, Morales had a long-documented pattern of aggressive behavior toward female employees, including yelling, excessive criticism, and holding women to harsher standards than their male colleagues.
Concerns about his leadership style predate the lawsuit by years. A 2016 survey found that more than 60% of Cal State San Bernardino employees believed campus morale had worsened under his leadership. The following year, the faculty senate passed a formal vote of no confidence, citing what it called a toxic environment marked by fear, favoritism and retaliation.
Even before arriving in San Bernardino, Morales faced similar criticism. In 2012, while serving as president of the College of Staten Island, more than half of that school’s faculty senate voted to censure his leadership just months before his departure.
“It was very much his way or no way, especially for women,” Weber said. “I was scolded, humiliated, yelled at. Other colleagues went through the same thing.”
Weber said the constant tension made it difficult to do her job effectively.
“I felt isolated sometimes, like I was the only one — but I think other women felt that too,” she said.
In May 2022, a study conducted by the California State University Employees Union found that white male employees across the Cal State system earned roughly 3% more than men of color, 5% more than white women, and 7% more than women of color.
Weber decided to look into her own pay. After consulting with a compensation specialist in the campus human resources office, she determined she was the lowest-paid vice provost across the entire Cal State system. She also found that, apart from two outliers earning slightly less, every female vice president in the system earned less than every male vice president in a comparable role.
In June 2022, Weber met with her supervisor at the time, interim provost Rafik Mohamed, to raise concerns about the pay disparity.
“I was scared,” she said. “I had my data ready. I wrote myself little notes of encouragement before the meeting.”
She had reason to feel confident going in. She had recently helped the university secure regional accreditation, launched a new strategic plan, and received the highest possible rating — “exceptional leadership” — in a mid-year performance review just weeks earlier.
According to the lawsuit, Mohamed instead tried to pile on additional responsibilities during the meeting. Weber asked for a 12% equity-based raise and voiced concern about a gender pay gap. Mohamed said he would pass along her concerns. Weber also emailed Morales directly with the same request.
Four weeks later, Mohamed told Weber she would need to resign, saying he could no longer work with her, according to the complaint.
Weber responded in a written protest to Morales.
“I explicitly raised concerns that these vice provosts were being paid less because of their gender,” she wrote. “I am shocked and saddened that the CSU’s response to my concerns has been to subject me to unprecedented and unwarranted criticism, and, within a month, to ask me to ‘resign’ my position. This is highly offensive, completely discriminatory, and retaliatory.”
She asked Morales to withdraw the resignation request and open a formal investigation into the pay equity concerns. According to Weber, she was terminated the very next day and returned to a faculty teaching position, as outlined in her original appointment letter.
Mohamed did not respond to requests for comment. Morales’ office referred inquiries to the university’s marketing and communications office, which also did not respond.
Allegations From the Palm Desert Campus
Rogers joined Cal State San Bernardino’s Palm Desert campus in 2019, describing it at the time as her dream job.
“The interview process was perfect,” she said. “Then I quickly realized I had walked into a nightmare.”
Rogers said the culture at the satellite campus, under then-dean Jake Zhu, was marked by open sexism. She said Zhu was known for yelling at employees, particularly women, and that male staffers began mimicking his tone in meetings — even those who were otherwise respectful colleagues.
Women, she said, struggled to speak up in meetings without being interrupted, dismissed as “too emotional,” or talked over, while men were treated with deference. Eventually, Rogers said she stopped presenting her own ideas directly and instead relayed them through a male colleague, who often received a warmer reception.
Multiple employees testified under oath in the lawsuit that Zhu publicly treated Rogers — the second-highest-ranking official on the satellite campus — as though she were a secretary or assistant.
“It was awful,” Rogers said. “I hated going to work every day. My anxiety spiked. I was constantly on edge.”
Tensions boiled over during an October 2021 staff gathering that Rogers did not attend. According to colleagues who later described the meeting to her, several men aggressively questioned an interim associate dean for roughly 25 minutes about preparations for an upcoming visit from a Cal State trustee. Zhu witnessed the exchange and did not intervene, prompting several employees to walk out in protest.
That same day, Rogers approached Zhu and told him the university needed to do more to address sexism on campus. According to the lawsuit, Zhu responded that he could train the men to behave differently — despite the fact that they reported directly to him. He reportedly told another faculty member who complained about the meeting that the men were likely just trying to impress him.
According to sworn testimony, Jolene Koester, who served as interim chancellor from 2022 to 2023, was brought in to counsel Zhu on his conduct in late October 2021. Around the same time, Rogers also reported Zhu’s behavior to Koester directly.
In November 2021, Mohamed told Rogers she needed to announce her resignation to colleagues, citing a vague “leadership issue” that he did not elaborate on, according to the lawsuit. He reportedly told her it was her only path toward career advancement. She resigned effective Jan. 1, 2022, and returned to a teaching role.
“I call it a firing,” Rogers said. “I was told, ‘Either you leave or you get fired.'”
The joint lawsuit filed by Weber and Rogers was eventually split into separate trials. In October 2025, a jury awarded Rogers $6 million in damages, while Weber reached a separate settlement of the same amount to avoid trial. During his testimony, Zhu defended his leadership style, saying he treated all employees equally.
“I raised my voice to make my point clear, to change the tone — not out of ill intent or in a discriminatory way,” he testified, according to court transcripts.
During his own testimony, Mohamed acknowledged that he failed to report several complaints related to Zhu’s alleged treatment of women, saying he viewed the allegations as involving only “low-level bias” — despite being legally obligated under Cal State policy to report sexual harassment complaints.
“We all have biases. We all carry biases shaped by our upbringing and the environments we come from,” Mohamed said. “In my view, simply alleging bias doesn’t automatically trigger a Title IX reporting obligation. It’s the action stemming from that bias that triggers the duty to report.”
Mohamed did not respond to requests for comment regarding his role in Weber and Rogers’ departures. He announced his retirement on July 16 in an internal email to faculty that was reviewed by CalMatters. Zhu also did not respond to requests for comment.
Transition Package Still Awaiting Approval
Following his retirement in June 2023, Zhu returned to teaching and now holds emeritus faculty status.
Morales, meanwhile, is positioned to receive an executive transition package that would allow him to move into a faculty role while remaining on the university payroll until he begins another position within the Cal State system. Under board policy adopted in 2022, executives completing this transition program must remain in good standing throughout the process — and can be disqualified if found to have violated university policy or engaged in serious misconduct.
In a statement issued in May, the San Bernardino chapter of the California Faculty Association urged trustees not to approve executive transition benefits for Morales.
“The lawsuit raises serious questions about whether President Morales should be considered eligible for those benefits,” said Thomas Corrigan, a communication and media studies professor and the chapter’s communications coordinator. “The case involving Dr. Rogers and Dr. Weber really stands out as a moral failure with exceptional financial, reputational and human costs.”
After Weber and Rogers filed their joint lawsuit in March 2023, Weber said Cal State finally opened a formal investigation into her original 2022 pay equity complaint. Two months later, the university system sent her a salary analysis claiming that seven vice provosts — including four men — earned less than she did.
Weber called the analysis a “sham.”
“They had a male vice provost listed who wasn’t drawing any salary at all. They included people who ranked below me, people who reported directly to me,” she said.
Weber said the analysis was conducted by Jeanne Durr, former interim associate vice president of human resources at Cal State San Bernardino. Durr did not respond to requests for comment.
In July 2023, the California State Auditor released a report examining how the Cal State system handles sexual harassment complaints. Investigators found that several campuses closed out harassment cases without adequate justification and failed to consistently discipline offenders. The audit issued 16 recommendations for reform, including standardized investigation guidelines, regular compliance reviews and a unified case management system across all campuses.
In 2024, a new state law — Assembly Bill 1790 — made it a legal requirement for Cal State to implement those recommendations by July 1, 2026. As of that deadline, one recommendation remained outstanding: creating a systemwide method for tracking and analyzing sexual harassment data. The Chancellor’s Office says it expects to complete that work by June 2027.
Weber continued teaching sociology at Cal State San Bernardino for four more years before resigning as part of her settlement agreement.
“My faculty colleagues were wonderful,” Weber said. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared to go to campus. I had a lot of panic attacks. I planned my route across campus specifically to avoid running into any of the administrators who hurt me.”
Rogers left her teaching position at the university about two years after her departure from administration.
“In the end, it killed any desire I had to advance in my career. I have zero interest now, which is a shame. I had hoped to become a dean one day, but I won’t even try,” Rogers said. “I’ve lost faith in the system.”
Original source: CalMatters
