Who cares? It's a BS position in the first place. Discrimination of all types happen because we're human, it will always happen, nobody can stop it or even slow it down for that matter. Bleeding heart liberal fluff positions like this have no place in this tough economy, they just get in the way of real progress. Get over it!

The position/office was victim of budget cuts and the explanation was that it was a duplicative services of main U. UMD HR will now do the director position duties with the main U. Deb still teaches at UMD. It wasn't a conspiracy but news wasn't necessarily distributed in a mass UMD email. There are people speaking out about the likely consequences of this cut and if you are so moved, you should as well.

Here is a theory.  Deborah Petersen-Perlman may have been partly blamed for the media relations and legal nightmare that came from the Rod Raymond scandal.  Petersen-Perlman gave a detailed assessment of that case, and her assessment was published by the DNT.  It included accusations from a number of female students.  Without Petersen-Perlman's assessment, the university could have kept much of the case under wraps.  If the Twin Cities office handles it in conjunction with the main university lawyers, they can avoid similar leaks in the future.  I hear that the university recently told the OEO office that they no longer could offer assessments like that.  This appears to be an attempt to plug leaks that could cause legal and media relations problems.  To paraphrase Rick F, sexual harrassment and discrimination is a common problem.  The university does not want any such common crime to stain its reputation and drag it into any legal messes.

One question is: Will there be strong policies and protections for students and staff in the future without a strong advocate on campus?  

Other questions are: What is the university policy on instructors making sexual advances on students?  Is it written down somewhere?  Is it okay for instructors to make sexual advances on students, per university policy?  Who is the student advocate now?

When a student wrote an inappropriate, threatening, sexual email to me, Deborah handled it with great compassion, smarts, and professionalism. I was impressed and grateful.

Dr. Peterson-Pearlman is/was required to be neutral in her interviews which can appear very cold.  Another important restriction (which may have become even more limited in the past year):  the equal opportunity office can only make a recommendation for University action.  Generally, not following the recommendation of equal opportunity is unheard of. . . but that also seems to have changed. . .