UW opens 3rd investigation into husband of UW-Whitewater chancellor after new allegations

The University of Wisconsin System has opened an investigation into new allegations from a Whitewater Common Council member who says she was sexually harassed by the husband of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor Beverly Kopper while a student. 

And there are voices now calling for Kopper's resignation, including state Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who said he previously has brought unrelated concerns to the UW System about Kopper's management style.

Nass wonders whether female employees possibly harassed by Kopper's husband, Pete Hill, were afraid to come forward with allegations because they may have had reason to fear retribution from Kopper.  

"At this moment in time, I can see no positive future for UW-Whitewater under the leadership of Chancellor Kopper," the senator said in a prepared statement, which referred to the accusations against Kopper's husband as "stunning."

Nass — one of the UW System's most vocal critics — is vice chairman of the Legislature's Committee on Universities and Technical Colleges. 

The new probe is the third UW System investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Hill, who as Kopper's spouse held a ceremonial, unpaid but highly visible role on campus.

The Whitewater Common Council member, Stephanie Goettl Vander Pas, came forward with accusations against the chancellor's husband Friday after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported that sexual harassment complaints filed against him by two female employees earlier this year were found by an independent investigator to "have merit."

RELATED:UW-Whitewater chancellor's husband banned from campus after sexual harassment investigation

"I believe you know and understand who he is and what he’s done," Vander Pas told Kopper in a public Facebook post Sunday, informing her of her own experiences with the chancellor's husband.

Vander Pas said she was a student government leader from 2009 to 2011 when Hill made "increasingly brazen" comments about her appearance and romantic relationships.

She was a city councilwoman, two years out of college in 2015, when she said she bumped into Hill outside a coffee shop and he slid his hand down her back and reached under her skirt to touch her sexually while hugging her.

She did not report it because she was embarrassed and feared retaliation, she told the Journal Sentinel on Monday night.

Vander Pas said she interacted with Kopper as a student government leader before graduating in 2013. Now she knows Kopper through her role as a Whitewater Common Council member.

Chancellor 'taken by surprise'

The chancellor told the Journal Sentinel on Tuesday that allegations against her husband "took me completely by surprise."

At the end of a UW System investigation in June, Kopper told the newspaper, she concurred with "the need for disciplinary action and I immediately implemented it."

"My focus," the chancellor said, "remains on a commitment to excellence at UW-Whitewater."

UW System President Ray Cross stripped Hill of his ceremonial title and banned him from campus and all campus activities in June after the independent investigation of sexual harassment accusations concluded, according to records made public Friday. The Journal Sentinel requested the records in July.

Hill held the honorary appointment of associate to the chancellor by virtue of his wife's position. In that capacity, he frequently participated in fundraising, and alumni and athletic functions.

Some of the accusations against Hill involve behavior at the chancellor's private residence, which is used for university functions. Kopper receives a stipend from the UW System for the residence. As part of his ban from campus activities, Hill is restricted from being at his private home if a university event is held there.

Kopper did not reveal to the university community that her husband had been banned from campus for sexual harassment until minutes after records of the investigation were released to the Journal Sentinel on Friday.

Missing from the public records released to the Journal Sentinel is the independent investigator's interview with Kopper about what she may have known, and when.

The latest investigation

Calls for the chancellor's resignation come as a new investigation is being launched to review allegations raised by Vander Pas in an email she sent to Cross on Friday, which she later that day shared publicly on Facebook. 

She told the Journal Sentinel on Monday night that she sent the email about her own experiences with Hill after reading the Journal Sentinel's reporting on accusations by other women.

"Given the University of Wisconsin System's unwavering commitment to provide a safe educational and work environment, we are opening a new investigation into the most recent allegations related to UW-Whitewater," UW System spokeswoman Heather LaRoi said Tuesday.

The councilwoman also publicly shared an open letter to Kopper on Facebook over the weekend.

She took down her Facebook posts about Hill on Tuesday morning because she was being harassed by commenters, she told the Journal Sentinel.

Asked later Tuesday if she had any regrets, Vander Pas said: "I regret not saying anything sooner, and the toll this is taking on the people I love."

In her first Facebook post Friday, Vander Pas said she had "done a good job using my voice for many years."

"Today, though, I feel I’ve failed," she wrote. "I failed to use my voice before it was too late. I failed to alert people who could help. I failed to speak my truth."

Vander Pas said Hill sexually assaulted her in the fall of 2015 after sexually harassing her as a student between 2009 and 2011.

Three women have formally filed sexual harassment complaints against Hill over incidents they say happened since then.

The first complaint lodged against Hill in 2017 was not substantiated during an independent UW System investigation, but Hill was required to take sexual harassment training.

The woman who filed the 2017 complaint told the Journal Sentinel on Monday night that she believes Kopper should resign.

"I absolutely think Beverly should resign before things get worse for her, and they will," she said. "Women are starting to feel OK about coming forward and they will not stop coming forward."

The two sexual harassment cases that a second independent investigation found "had merit" were filed earlier this year.

One of the women said she was afraid that if she filed a complaint the first time Hill harassed her, in 2015, he would make up a lie about her work performance and the chancellor would believe him.

Two women contacted by the independent investigator because they were reputed to have been sexually harassed by Hill refused to cooperate, citing fear of retaliation.

Kopper has been at UW-Whitewater since 2010. Before being named chancellor in July 2015, she was provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.

In her email to Cross on Friday, Vander Pas asked the UW System president to "seriously consider what the long-term consequences of Pete Hill's presence on UW-Whitewater's campus have been and will be."

She asked Cross to also consider the possibility there could be others "who have similarly remained quiet given Chancellor Kopper's position of authority and our desire to maintain order in this community."

Above all, she told the UW System president, "I am asking that you believe those of us who have felt objectified, reduced and violated. Our voices, even if quiet for some time, deserve to be heard."

In a statement released Friday, Cross said he was confident Kopper "will continue to make the well-being of the UW-Whitewater campus community a top priority," and that she "shares our commitment to ensure that University of Wisconsin System campuses are welcoming and secure places to live, learn and work."

Asked Monday about the Whitewater councilwoman's call over the weekend for Kopper to resign, LaRoi, the UW System spokeswoman, said: "If these allegations are correct, it confirms we made the right decision to ban Mr. Hill."

Football game encounter

Sunday's Facebook post — the one that called on Kopper to resign — came after Vander Pas sat in a luxury box near Kopper at a UW-Whitewater home football game on Saturday.

The chancellor saw Vander Pas while greeting donors sitting with Vander Pas but did not make eye contact with her, according to Vander Pas.

Vander Pas said she assumes the chancellor heard about the email she sent to Cross on Friday accusing Hill of both sexually harassing and sexually assaulting her. 

Vander Pas, now 27, said she decided to write to Cross and make her accusations public because she believes the university won't be safe from Hill while his wife is still there and the two are married.

In her open letter to the chancellor on Facebook, Vander Pas said:

"I believe he violated your trust, but I refuse to hold you harmless for my pain and the pain of others — because you put us in his path — and you either knew or were irresponsible enough not to know. For that, we deserve better."

Vander Pas told Kopper that as a young woman new to campus in 2009, she was excited that Kopper was setting an example as a female leader of the university.

At that time, Kopper was provost — the chief academic officer.

The councilwoman said she grew through her college years by knowing Kopper and having contact with administrators most students don’t get the chance to know.

She attended university dinners and parties, shook hands with important people and tried to remember all the new faces, "hoping not to embarrass myself in that undergraduate phase of life."

It was in that context that Vander Pass met Kopper's husband.

Vander Pas said she struggled with whether to go public with her accusations because she knew a sexual harassment scandal could harm her alma mater's reputation.

But she said she hopes other women who fear retaliation from the chancellor will come forward if the same thing happened to them.

"I don't want to make other women feel obligated to do it," Vander Pas said. "But I hope they will feel better, and know they can come forward."

Vander Pas said she doesn't know what the chancellor did or did not know about HIll's behavior. But she said she believes it's the chancellor's responsibility to know what was happening on campus.

It also is the chancellor's responsibility to keep students and staff safe, Vander Pas said.

"I hope you understand that you put him in those rooms with me, your position gave him access, and my alma mater made me a target," Vander Pas wrote in her Facebook letter to Kopper on Sunday.

Vander Pas told Kopper in her Facebook letter that Hill's inappropriate behavior started with comments that made her feel uncomfortable.

She said she panicked at the thought of being alone with the chancellor's husband after others warned her as a freshman to be careful around him.

Vander Pas joined the Student Senate as a freshman and rose to the role of Senate speaker before she was appointed to the Whitewater Common Council in November 2011.

The UW-Whitewater campus falls in two Common Council districts, and Vander Pas has represented both districts at different times since 2011. When she graduated from UW-Whitewater in 2013, Vander Pas was honored as the top female student in her class.

In her Facebook letter to Kopper, Vander Pas described in detail the incident outside a coffee shop that she said occurred in fall 2015 and that she considers to be a sexual assault. 

"I felt guilty for wearing a skirt, like city council members should know better," she told Kopper.

"But therein lies the problem," she continued. "I’m not the one who didn’t know better. That was your husband. That was the man who violated one of the students you’ve claimed to champion, one of the students who believed in you, one of the students who thought UWW was full of safe, mentoring adults who would support her dream of someday being governor."

Vander Pas concluded her letter to Kopper by asking her to resign.

"I’m asking you to give back our campus. We deserve to associate it with something other than a man who hurt us and the woman who made that possible.

"I’m asking you to understand that I can both feel bad that he hurt you, too, and expect you to put this campus and its students before yourself. I’m asking you to let me have the last word this time.

"I hope you heal. I hope we heal."