The University of South Florida has admitted it didn’t know a highly paid administrator it hired last year had violated a previous employer’s sexual-harassment policy, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Herb Maschner, executive director of the university’s new Center for Virtualization and Applied Spatial Technologies, sexually harassed a former co-worker over the course of several months in 2013, while both were employed at Idaho State University, court documents say.
Mr. Maschner has worked at South Florida since August 2015 and earns $195,000 a year. In an email last month, he told a dean at the university about the harassment finding, apologized that “this has come up,” and said that a newspaper in Idaho was going to publish an article about it.
“USF recently became aware of allegations made against Dr. Herbert Maschner during his time at Idaho State University,” said a university spokeswoman, Lara Wade, in a written statement. According to the Times, Ms. Wade said that South Florida does not prohibit hiring someone found guilty of sexual harassment at another institution, but that “each case would be carefully considered.”
Earlier this year South Florida increased its screening of prospective hires after it fired another administrator who the university said had been “deceptive” in the application process. As part of the new procedures, at least three references, including a current supervisor, must be contacted before a candidate is hired. Mr. Maschner’s hiring did not include reference checks “now required by USF policy in all searches,” Ms. Wade told the Times.
In January 2014, Idaho State found that Mr. Maschner had violated the university’s sexual-harassment policy and ordered him to attend training to prevent sexual harassment. Mr. Maschner left Idaho State to begin work at South Florida before completing the required training.
A lawsuit filed by Mr. Maschner’s former colleague is slated to go to trial in December.