Employee files lawsuit against UCI officials alleging they did nothing when she complained of sexual harassment

An employee at the UCI School of Medicine has filed a lawsuit against a man and University of California Regents alleging school officials didn’t do enough when the man sexually harassed her.

Carlin Rae Motley, 34, works as a fundraiser for UCI’s School of Medicine. She alleges that for about a year ending in January a man in his 50s who was a fundraising volunteer for the UCI Medical Center in Orange repeatedly called her on the telephone at work, tried to hug and touch her and would follower her in the parking lot.

“When I brought this to my supervisor’s attention, she let me know that because he was a fundraiser it was a sensitive issue and we needed to make sure we kept a friendly relationship with him,” Motley said at a news conference on Monday, Dec. 3, at an Irvine office.

In October 2017 he forcibly kissed her cheek and neck during a public event on campus, says the lawsuit, filed Nov. 27 in Orange County Superior Court. The suit adds that a Motley supervisor witnessed the incident but did nothing.

In January, she filed a complaint with the school’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. In May, the suit says, the office finished the investigation and Motley has never heard whether the volunteer was disciplined. When she inquired to the investigator about it, she was told the process was over.

Since then, she said she has not seen the man.

“I gave UC Irvine every opportunity to make this situation right,” Motley said. “At the end of the day, that’s really all I wanted. I wanted to know that I was safe.”

Motley continues to work for the university but says her supervisor has been “hostile” and retaliating against her by doing things like excluding her from the type of meetings she previously attended.

When asked about the lawsuit, a UCI spokesman said the school would comment “at the appropriate time” after reviewing the legal documents.

The suit seeks financial compensation.