California State University, Bakersfield’s Division of Equity, Inclusion and Compliance sent a campus email
on April 2 stating CSUB’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ campus community.

The email addressed actions agreed upon during a meeting on Dec. 8 between members of CSUB’s
LGBTQ+ Pride Faculty and Staff Affinity Group and representatives from CSUB’s administration to create
a more inclusive campus and support members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The purpose of the meeting was to address the viral video published on Instagram, Nov. 2023, of a
physical altercation between Mike Duncan, a former volunteer at CSUB, with a gay couple and the way it
was handled.

“We wanted explanations as to like, how did [Duncan] become a volunteer? What was he doing? How
often did he interact with students?” said Dr. Aubrey Kemp, Co-Chair of the LGBTQ+ Pride Faculty and
Staff Affinity Group.

Kemp explained that they received no explanation as to how Duncan was hired as a volunteer or in what
capacity he interacted with students. There is also no paperwork associated with Duncan as a volunteer.

Vanessa Zepeda, Faculty Advisor for the LGBTQ+ Student Network said that as a volunteer coach for the
Bakersfield High School District she has to do mandatory trainings like bullying, homelessness, and
LGBTQ+ trainings, so she was curious as to what trainings CSUB has for their volunteers.

Zepeda said that when she asked about volunteer trainings, “[administration] didn’t necessarily say like
yes or no, it was kind of unanswered.”

Since then, a procedure for volunteers has started to be developed and CSUB has committed to
“improve and strengthen the Policy for Appointment of Voluntary Employees.”

“I think the campus just kind of went on as if nothing really happened because the letter really didn’t
address a lot of the core issues that we were hoping it would,” said Dr. Jeremiah Sataraka, Co-Chair of
the LGBTQ+ Pride Faculty and Staff Affinity Group, referring to the email sent by CSUB.

The email sent out to the campus showed no relation to the altercation with Duncan and it came after
more than three months since the meeting with administration.

On March 18, the Co-Chairs of the LGBTQ+ Pride Faculty and Staff Affinity Group and the Executive Board
of the California Faculty Association at CSUB released a statement “to hold administration accountable
for actionable items that they agreed to on December 8, 2023, but on which, have yet to follow
through.”

The statement mentioned that administration had agreed to send an email in support of the LGBTQ+
community and on the actions they had agreed upon. However, the only update they had received at
that time was that beginning Fall 2024, the budget for employee affinity groups will increase from $1,000
to $2,500 annually.

“There were several instances where we had reached out to administration to ask about progress and
we were basically told they were working on it and they’ll get back to us, but this happened multiple
times,” said Kemp.

When the affinity group members sent their second statement, they received a draft of the email that
the rest of the campus didn’t receive until April 2. They got the draft within an hour of sending their
statement but the email wasn’t sent to campus until several weeks later.

“Their silence spoke a lot of volume when we went all these months without […] hearing anything,” said
Zepeda.