University President’s Resignation Sparks Campus-Wide Confusion

The Bronco community reacts to the untimely departure of a newly inaugurated leader

An outpouring of theories has ensued as the Santa Clara community comes to grips with the departure of former university president Kevin O’Brien S.J. A lack of transparency surrounding the investigation and the events leading up to his resignation has fomented confusion among students, faculty and staff at the university.

O’Brien’s resignation letter, sent to the larger Santa Clara community on May 12, followed the conclusion of a two-month independent investigation undertaken by the USA West Coast Province into alleged improprieties on part of O’Brien.

According to a campus-wide email from John M. Sobrato '83, Santa Clara’s Chair of the Board of Trustees, the investigation found that O’Brien “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

At the time of publication, no information about the content of O’Brien’s conversations has been communicated to the public.

The Province also advised the Board that no inappropriate behavior was found outside of the dinner settings.

In his resignation letter, O’Brien wrote that he had been advised by fellow Jesuit Scott Santarosa S.J. “to enter a therapeutic program to address related personal issues, including [his] use of alcohol and stress management.” The outpatient program, which he entered in April, is expected to take four to six months to complete.

According to Faculty Senate President Leslie Gray, growing confusion about the situation has prompted the organizing of a special session of the faculty senate council.

“This veil of secrecy is not helpful for our community,” Gray says. “This leads to a lot of innuendo—a lot of speculation about what happened.”

Interim President Lisa Kloppenberg has agreed to attend the council meeting. The Senate has reached out to Sobrato, but, at the time of publication, has not heard back as to whether he will be attending. Open to all faculty members, Gray hopes that the meeting will provide the community with much-needed clarity.

Gray herself has unanswered questions such as, why did the allegations need to be made public before an investigation was complete? And further, what necessitated O’Brien’s initial leave of absence?

“I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been an investigation,” she continues. “I just don’t know, and because we don’t know anything, it puts us in a very difficult position of not knowing what to believe.”

Gray, like many other members of the Santa Clara community, is left with numerous questions and few answers. Across the university, Broncos are filling in gaps to an incomplete story.

Senior Lecturer of Philosophy Brian Buckley, who serves as a member of the Committee on Lecturers and Adjuncts (COLA), said that some faculty believe that O’Brien’s investigation and subsequent resignation were a result of his potential noncompliance with Santa Clara’s corporate model.

“There are faculty I know who believe that it’s very possible that this is just an excuse for the trustees to get rid of [O’Brien] because he wasn’t toeing the line strongly enough on the union, which they hate,” Buckley says.

The university’s non-tenure-track faculty have spent the past four years working to organize a union. Recently, the Adjunct Faculty and Lecturers Organizing Committee (AFLOC) requested the chance to vote on unionization in April of 2021 after a court decision barred them from organizing through the National Labor Relations Board.

Following the university’s hiring of Littler Mendelson P.C.—a law firm that specializes in labor and employment litigation—to help draft a proposal outlining conduct for the election, tensions between the AFLOC and the administration escalated.

“I’ve been here 15 years now, and the morale among the professors has never been lower—not even close,” Buckley continues. “[The university doesn’t] care that hiring an extremely notorious anti-union law firm runs against every single principle of Catholic Social Teaching for the last hundred years on unions and worker rights.”

Indeed, Gray says that the second goal of the special faculty senate council meeting is to discuss the ongoing struggle for unionization, as well as recent budget cuts. Faculty and staff have experienced a 50% reduction in retirement benefits, according to Gray. Finally, the Senate hopes to convince the Board of Trustees to change the bylaws to allow non-Jesuit applicants to be considered for the position.

Regardless of the circumstances, Buckley remains convinced that the university is owed an explanation.

“I think that if he was pushed out improperly, then we owe it to a good man to find out why,” he says. “Maybe he was pushed out because he was caring too much about racial issues on campus; he was caring too much about the union; he was caring too much about fiscal problems on campus.”

Other faculty members have expressed understanding for the confidentiality of the investigation. Laura L. Ellingson, Patrick A. Donohoe, S.J. Professor of Communication, understands that details of the conversation may be better left undisclosed if only to prevent conflict over O’Brien’s views.

“A lot of what the Jesuits believe I don’t agree with, even though I like the way they do education,” Ellingson says. “So for all I know, what Kevin was talking about could have to do with all kinds of social and political issues where I might agree with him, even though it was not in keeping with what the Jesuits said. We didn’t get that level of detail, and I think that’s probably appropriate. We don’t want to hurt anybody with those details—Kevin or anybody else.”

O’Brien’s departure has also had a notable impact on the university’s student body. Santa Clara’s Student Body President, Ciara Moezidis believes that, despite his short tenure, the legacy O’Brien leaves behind is one which the university should work hard to expand and uphold.

“I think Fr. O’Brien moved this university in a better direction, by encouraging conversations about transparency, representation and mental health,” Moezidis notes. “He was always very willing to work with ASG on difficult topics where there was no clear solution. It is incredibly important that the next Presidential Committee advances Fr. O’Brien’s priorities because I think SCU will be better for it in the long run.”

Moezidis went on to echo the faculty senate’s 2018 resolution to change the university’s bylaws regarding the religious requirements for Santa Clara’s highest office.

“I hope to see the Board of Trustees change their charter to open the selection process to a lay-person,” Moezidis says. “It is also imperative that students are included on the committee because there were not any for Fr. O’Brien’s selection.”

Students and alumni from Santa Clara, as well as Georgetown University, where O’Brien served as Vice President of Mission and Ministry, were caught off guard by his departure and regard it as a loss for the university community.

Celeste Muñoz, a Junior at the university, recalls O’Brien’s advocacy for all students and his interest in their activities on campus.

“As a first-gen student, it was really nice knowing that we had a president who kind of related to my community, especially the LEAD scholars,” Muñoz says. “He was always very present at our events and really cared and showed compassion toward us, so it was great. I was really hopeful for the future and for making actual change for the school—helping not only first-gen students but other minority students. It’s unfortunate.”

Elizabeth Meerson, an alumnus of Georgetown University, fondly remembers O’Brien’s involvement in one of the school’s retreat programs called Escape.

“O’Brien joined us on multiple of the retreats with us. He would help us write and prep for our talks,” Meerson recalls. “I remember a talk of his about working in big law and how he decided to step back from that, wanting to feel that connection to God and to find his purpose.”

In her first years at Georgetown, Meerson felt like an outsider in many respects. The culture of the university often chafed with her and propagated a belief that vulnerability was a weakness. O’Brien’s down-to-earth demeanor and his own personal career arc resonated well for a student in her position.

“So rarely do we see people in the ‘professional world’ talk about relinquishing some sort of power in pursuit of spiritual and personal fulfillment—especially at Georgetown,” Meerson says. “Nobody at Georgetown wants to make a mistake; they were all just so hyper-competitive.”

Meerson’s views were shared by many of her peers. Upon hearing of his initial leave of absence, the conversations she had with fellow alumni shared a common theme of disbelief.

“All my friends and I, when we saw this, we thought, ‘Who cares?’” Meerson recalls. “He probably joked and made some stupid comment after a number of drinks. Literally, who cares? We didn’t think anything of it. It was surprising because, why would this be the thing that happens with Kevin O’Brien?”