Cal Poly jazz director resigned after sexual harassment allegations. It’s not the first time

Trigger warning: This story contains depictions of sexual harassment and assault.

Cal Poly’s director of jazz studies left the university this spring after a student filed a sexual harassment complaint against him — and it wasn’t the first time the professor has moved from one college to another under accusations of improper behavior.

Arthur White, who was hired in August as an associate dean at his alma mater, Emporia State University in Kansas, is being investigated by Cal Poly’s Civil Rights and Compliance Office under Title IX, according to Danna Dumandan, the student who filed the complaint against him.

Title IX is the federal civil rights law that protects against discrimination based on sex. Individuals can file complaints with a university under Title IX if they feel they’ve been the victim of gender-based harm such as sexual harassment and sexual violence.

A decade ago, White also left his teaching position at the University of Missouri after at least two students there accused him of sexual harassment and assault.

Cal Poly would not confirm whether it was investigating White, but spokesman Matt Lazier said he resigned from his position at the university on June 22 after being employed there since 2018.

White’s employment at his new university lasted only six weeks, and he resigned from Emporia State on Sept. 22, according to the university’s general counsel, Steven Lovett.

After working closely with Dumandan at Cal Poly, a now-graduated music major, White allegedly made sexual remarks to her, confessed his feelings of love for her and later stalked her on campus during the spring 2023 quarters, she said.

“This man, he cannot be in education anymore,” Dumandan told The Tribune. “He’s done this to too many students, to too many people.”

The Tribune spoke to the two other former music students who said they had been sexually harassed and assaulted by White.

Taryn Gervais and Puckmaren Glass took music classes from White while he was employed at the University of Missouri, or Mizzou for short.

Gervais said she was harassed and groped by White in 2013, while Glass, who goes by they/them pronouns, said they were harassed and assaulted by him in 2016.

After a complaint about White’s behavior was lodged by Glass, Mizzou opened a Title IX investigation, Glass said, and Gervais said she was interviewed as part of that investigation.

Glass was never informed of the results of the Mizzou Title IX investigation, they said.

White was no longer employed at Mizzou as of Oct. 6, 2016, according to university spokesman Christian Basi. He was hired at the university on Aug. 16, 2009, Basi told The Tribune.

“When I was at Mizzou and he was ultimately not there anymore ... I was like, amazing, this is never going to happen again,” Glass said. “But how is he still doing this? I thought the whole point of me going through 13 months of a Title IX process was so that it would never happen again. How are we here?”

The Tribune reached White via phone, but he hung up upon learning the caller was a reporter. He then did not respond to text messages or emailed requests for comment.

However, an attorney for White, Don Peterson at the law firm Graybill & Hazlewood in Wichita, sent a letter to The Tribune requesting the story not run while the ongoing Title IX investigation at Cal Poly is underway.

“White had no inappropriate relationship with Ms. Dumandan,” Peterson wrote.

Cal Poly may not have known about White’s past

Whether Cal Poly was aware of the Title IX investigation at Mizzou when the university hired White is unclear.

“There is not a guarantee that a background check would inform the university of a Title IX matter in a candidate’s previous employment,” Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier wrote in an email to The Tribune.

Lazier added that the university could not comment specifically on White’s case because of privacy reasons.

Dumandan, Glass and Gervais said they worried about students where White was employed after Cal Poly — Emporia State University — because after the three learned of each other’s stories, their experiences sounded all too familiar.

“It’s obviously habitual behavior,” Gervais said. “I’m certain that we’re not the only ones.”

Cal Poly student alleges sexual harassment

White was hired at Cal Poly in the fall of 2018 as the new director of jazz studies.

Dumandan, who came to Cal Poly in 2019 as a voice major and wants to pursue a career as a music teacher, said she loved spending time in the music building at the university — it was basically her second home.

White served as her adviser, and she built a close working relationship with the professor while taking classes and private lessons with him, a common practice for Cal Poly music students, she said.

It wasn’t until her final year that things escalated, Dumandan said.

At a jazz concert in the fall of 2022, Dumandan said White told her she looked “hot” in the dress she was wearing for the performance.

He then later asked if she was going to wear the same dress again for future concerts, she said.

The comments about her appearance and body continued throughout the year, she said, but Dumandan dismissed or ignored them because they made her uncomfortable and she wasn’t sure how to respond.

On May 26, Dumandan had her last jazz concert for Cal Poly.

White had given her a solo during a love song, and Dumandan said he told her he couldn’t look her in the eye while she sang, which made her uncomfortable.

Then, later that same week, Dumandan was in White’s office for a private lesson when he confessed his love for her, she said.

“I thought it was a joke because he’s like a very raunchy type of guy,” Dumandan said.

The next week, she went to White’s office to say goodbye because her last choir concert for Cal Poly was the next weekend.

During that visit, White again professed his love for Dumandan, she said, and added that he hoped she wouldn’t say anything because she “had enough information to fire him.”

On June 4, Dumandan performed in a final choir concert for Cal Poly.

After the concert, Dumandan said White went backstage to look for her, demanding her friends tell him where she was. Then, her friends later spotted him standing outside of the Performing Arts Center and later at the parking garage, apparently waiting for Dumandan to leave, she told The Tribune.

The next day, Dumandan met with Alicia Doyle, Cal Poly’s music department chair, and told her everything. Doyle informed Dumandan that she had to report the information to Title IX, Dumandan said.

Dumandan then spoke with the Cal Poly Civil Rights & Compliance Office, which opened a Title IX investigation, she said.

Over the remaining days until her graduation, Dumandan said she felt unsafe on campus while White was there. She said she would hide when she saw him approaching or heard his voice.

After Dumandan spoke with Doyle about her safety concerns, the music department apparently prohibited White from being on campus the final two weeks of the quarter, Dumandan said.

Meanwhile, White apparently told people in the San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly community that Dumandan had “flipped the script,” saying that she was the one who had confessed her feelings of love for him, Dumandan told The Tribune.

“It was like he was trying to ruin her reputation,” said a music department faculty member who requested to remain anonymous because of the ongoing Title IX investigation.

Attorney says professor denies student’s allegations

Although White did not respond to Tribune requests for comment, an attorney representing him sent a letter to The Tribune on Sept. 19 saying White “vehemently denies” Dumandan’s allegations.

“He insists he never had romantic feelings for Ms. Dumandan and never said that he did,” the letter said.

“Her version of events does not include any touching,” it continued. “She does not claim he asked her to do anything. Her version does not state he stated any intent to do anything.

“Her version is that he expressed feelings and that this alone caused her emotional trauma and fear,” the letter added. “I suppose this is possible, but it is hardly plausible, especially considering the quarter was essentially over.”

The letter notes that there was no evidence of any romantic feelings expressed by White to Dumandan through electronic communications.

“If Dr. White really did have the kind of romantic feelings Ms. Dumandan claims, and lacked the ability to keep them to himself, one would expect there to be some hint of it in their electronic communications,” the letter said. “He communicated with her and other students by email and text message. There are no such communications even hinting at any such romantic feelings by Dr. White.”

Former Mizzou student says she was groped, harassed by music professor

The experiences reported by Dumandan followed a similar pattern to the accounts shared by the former University of Missouri students.

Gervais, now a high school choir director in Kansas, said White was quick to become “casual” with students and would often share personal information unprompted.

While she was at Mizzou in 2013, Gervais said White’s remarks to her and other women in the jazz band quickly escalated to verbal sexual harassment.

She recounted an incident where he commented on her legs while she was wearing a skirt, noting that “if I had legs that great, I’d wear that skirt, too,” Gervais told The Tribune.

“It just progressed,” she added. “The things that he would say ... he was just kind of like a loose cannon.”

Gervais said White asked her about her sex life with her boyfriend at the time, referred to her as his “girlfriend” and said he wanted to leave his wife but couldn’t because he has a child.

At a jazz conference in Chicago in December 2013, Gervais said she and a few other students went out to eat one night, and White invited himself along.

After a few drinks, White apparently insisted he buy Gervais a drink, she said.

While ordering at the bar, White allegedly told Gervais he couldn’t “help looking at your hot ass,” she said.

White then proceeded to grab Gervais’s waist and brush up close to her, she told The Tribune.

After telling a friend and adviser about the incident with White, Gervais reported it to the university’s then-ethics department, which has since evolved into the Office of Institutional Equity.

Gervais also stopped taking private lessons with White, although she had to take other classes with him to finish her degree, she said.

Second Mizzou student alleged sexual misconduct by White

Less than two years after Gervais filed with the ethics department at Mizzou, Glass said they were also a victim of sexual harassment and assault by White.

Glass said there were several small things White did during class to make them uncomfortable, such as making heart signs with his hands at them across the room, but they didn’t think much of it at the time.

On a night in February 2016, Glass and the rest of their jazz improvisation class went to a local bar to play gigs, they said.

“At that event, he put his hands on the inside of my thigh and he whispered in my ear that he wanted to take me home and things of that nature,” Glass told The Tribune.

The next morning, Glass filed a Title IX complaint with Mizzou.

“My first words to Title IX were, ‘I don’t want him to be fired, I just don’t want this to happen again,’” Glass said.

After the Title IX complaint was filed, Glass said White proceeded to stalk them on campus. Glass said there were several times when they hid from White, afraid of what would happen should they encounter him face to face.

Then, Glass said, White proceeded to tell people on campus that the claims Glass was alleging against him were lies and that Glass was the person that came onto him. He then allegedly opened a Title IX investigation into Glass, they told The Tribune.

In the final several months before White resigned from Mizzou in October 2016, White reportedly had to be escorted by the dean and campus police while he was on campus, Glass told The Tribune.

“I would get a notification so that I could not be on campus because we couldn’t be in the same space,” Glass said. “It makes for a very stressful learning environment, not only because I was put in a position that I should not have been put in as a student, but also because when something like Title IX is happening, it’s an awful experience for everybody.”

Glass, who is currently in rabbinical school in New York City, was not notified of the results of either Title IX investigation, they said.

After Cal Poly, White was hired at Emporia State University in Kansas

White separated from Cal Poly on June 22, six days after final exams ended, according to Lazier, the university’s spokesman.

He was then hired as Emporia State University’s assistant dean of the School of Visual and Performing Arts on Aug. 6 before resigning less than two months later.

Dumandan said she was informed that the Title IX preliminary investigation report at Cal Poly is scheduled to be completed by the end of September.

In the meantime, she and several Cal Poly music students sent a letter to the Emporia State University music department.

“This man manipulated the trust students should have in their professors,” the Aug. 17 letter reads. “Many people saw him as a mentor, but were betrayed when he decided to express his romantic feelings for a student in a private lesson, behind closed doors, two weeks before her college graduation.

“No student should have to endure this throughout their education, especially from the professor,” the letter continued. “She is lucky that this betrayal was only verbal, because who knows if he would have tried to go further.”

In her own, separate letter to the Emporia State University music department, Dumandan detailed her accusations of sexual harassment and stalking against White, noting that the allegations were also filed with Cal Poly in the Title IX investigation.

“This has been so extremely painful to deal with,” she wrote. “I truly just ask — please do not let another student go through the same thing.”

Emporia State University’s director of media relations Gwendolynne Larson responded to The Tribune’s questions about whether the university knew about previous Title IX investigations involving White saying only that the university “does not comment on personnel matters.”

If you or someone you know are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-4673. The hotline offers a range of free services including confidential support from a trained staff member, help finding a local health facility, legal and medical advice and referrals for long-term support.

Support and resources are also available through Lumina Alliance at luminaalliance.org or Cal Poly Safer at safer.calpoly.edu.