An independent review examining Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system’s response to sexual harassment allegations against former interim Chancellor O. John Maduko is under way. But some question the objectivity of consultants that both investigate and are paid by the same organization.

A system report released this spring outlining the complaint against Maduko from a subordinate at CSCU repeatedly states that the woman was afraid she would face professional repercussions for coming forward and reporting the alleged graphic and persistent harassment she said progressed over years.

Grand River Solutions, a California-based consulting firm specializing in Title IX for higher education institutions, said in its first initial update that the review is ahead of schedule and that it expects to submit its final report, including findings and recommendations within three months.

Sam Norton, spokesperson for CSCU, has said “the review will examine the system’s response to the matter involving Maduko and evaluate whether evaluated procedures and best practices were followed.”

The investigation process has drawn scrutiny from two professors who have examined national consulting firms, raising questions about objectivity and neutrality; the firm is paid $69,260 by the CSCU system to conduct the review and that they are viewed as managing the risk of litigation for the institution.

Jennifer Freyd, professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon and founder of the Center for Institutional Courage, whom a 2025 American Psychological Association article describes as “internationally acclaimed for her research on sexual harassment and trauma with a particular focus on betrayal trauma and institutional trauma,” said she interacted with consulting firms over the years in her academic work. The neutrality of such firms, she said, is questionable.

“I have certainly seen more often than not consulting firms hired by universities produce documents that make the university look better than I think the evidence would support,” Freyd said. “I am always very skeptical about any consultant report when it is paid for by one of the parties being investigated. I mean just the fact that you have one party paying you is almost surely creating a conflict of interest for several reasons. We just know that people are biased.”

From 2019-23, Freyd was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora and Sen. Henri Martin, a Bristol Republican, also both raised questions about the consultant, preferring that the attorney general’s office conduct an investigation.

“I think that we should have the ability of an independent voice to inspect ourselves, not paying these outside consultants who don’t understand the state of Connecticut,” Candelora said. “It seems as if every time we have evidence of wrongdoing in the administration the administration is very quick to punt it to outside sources for an investigation. I think that structure deflects all of the attention off of the state and puts it onto a consulting group.”

Consulting firms like Grand River Solutions are becoming commonplace in higher institutions in addressing sexual harassment allegations, education experts said.

The consultant firm has been listed as a defendant in two lawsuits against higher education institutions at the University of Northern Iowa and the University of Michigan.

Both CSCU and Grand River Solutions defend the role of a consultant in investigating Title IX cases such as Maduko’s.

CSCU spokesperson Sam Norton, said that CSCU is “committed to a fully independent third party review process.

“Grand River Solutions (GRS) is conducting one-on-one interviews with current and former CSCU employees, current and former Board members, and other individuals with relevant knowledge to ensure a comprehensive and balanced review,” Norton said. “All interviews are conducted using a trauma-informed approach. Participants are informed of the purpose of their interview and the anticipated use of the information shared.”

Norton said “Grand River Solutions (GRS) has a national reputation for conducting objective reviews in higher education, with a particular focus on civil rights response.

“Their team brings a combination of legal and higher education expertise, along with extensive experience conducting compliance and civil rights reviews for organizations governed by state and federal regulations, including Title IX, which addresses sexual harassment and sexual misconduct,” she said.

At the end of May, the Courant filed a Freedom of Information request related to Maduko and still has yet to receive records related to the Courant’s request.

The Courant asked Grand River Solutions how often its consulting services side with universities on Title IX cases.

In response, Andrea Stagg, director of consulting services for Grand River Solutions, said “that when serving as a decisionmaker GRS professionals do not side with any particular party; rather, the decisionmaker assesses the available evidence to determine whether that evidence sufficiently supports the allegation that the policy violation occurred.

“We have an obligation to follow the evidence and cannot shape it to suit any party’s preferred outcome,” she said. “We recognize that, in doing this work, some parties do not like the outcome; nonetheless, we must present the evidence gathered and cannot alter it to suit one party or the other.”

The consulting firm did not answer questions on whether it had any oversight.

Grand River Solutions’ review also follows the the resignation of former CSCU Board Chair Marty Guay following the system report concerning allegations against Maduko, which included comments that Guay allegedly made that he had fired a woman who reported sexual harassment.

Further, General Counsel Karen Buffkin was aware of the alleged sexual harassment before the woman’s official complaint was made and did not encourage her to report it, according to the complaint report released by the system. Buffkin was placed on administrative leave.

Lawsuits

One lawsuit listing Grand River Solutions as a defendant was settled concerning University of Northern Iowa professor Mary Catherine Desoto who sued the university in 2025, “alleging administrators waged a coordinated campaign to falsely ‘frame her’ for disability discrimination while subjecting her to gender-based discrimination,” according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch. The Dispatch reported that the university hired Grand River Solutions after Desoto complained about “what she perceived as the ‘biased’ nature of the investigation.”

The Dispatch reported that the firm was hired to “act as the decision-maker on the discrimination complaint.”

In her lawsuit, Desoto listed Kara Hughes, a senior solutions specialist at Grand River Solutions as a defendant in the case.

The case was settled in March of this year, according to court documents from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa Eastern Division.

In another lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Michigan in 2024, which is still ongoing, students and alumni at Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Michigan, filed suit against the Board of Regents, the president of the university, vice president of student life and listed Omar Torres of Grand River Solutions as a defendant, for “violating pro-Palestinian student protestors’ constitutional rights to free speech, expression, due process and equal protection,” according to a press release from Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice representing the clients.

“The University of Michigan has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire these consultants to initiate retaliatory disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestine student protesters and the only undergraduate organization dedicated to fighting for Palestinian liberation for over 20 years,” the press release said.

The complaints against the students were allegedly submitted by Torres when he was an outside consultant, not an employee of the university, according to the lawsuit.

At the time of the filing of the complaint, University of Michigan policy required that an individual filing a complaint must be a student or staff member. The lawsuit says that at “some point during his work with Grand River, Torres became a temporary employee of the University of Michigan.”

The Michigan Advance reported in an article in 2024 when the lawsuit was filed that University of Michigan spokesperson Colleen Mastony confirmed that the university had engaged Grand River Solutions to “assist in the student accountability process and that a staffer of that firm is now an employee of the university.”

John Philo, executive and legal director of the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice in Detroit, said the “university hiring an outside consultant to bring complaints against the student body” is unprecedented.

Grand River Solutions did not return emails for comment concerning the lawsuit regarding Torres.

The Williamette Week reported in April 2024 that an “independent investigator today handed Oregon Health & Science University’s board of directors an 87-page report faulting the school’s handling of allegations that a top doctor had secretly taken photos of female students.”

Further, the article said that Grand River Solutions first reviewed the case dismissing the earlier complaint against the doctor, Dr. Daniel Marks, “finding ‘no substantial violations’ despite being given a photo showing Marks with his phone under a table aimed at two female students wearing skirts.”

Stagg said that the investigation at OHSU “did not include comprehensive questions nor an opportunity for our staff to review the report before it was finalized.

“Accordingly, the report unfortunately included inaccuracies about GRS employees’ access to emails and contractual obligations,” she said. “Attempts to cure these inaccuracies were not accepted by the investigator.”

The conclusion of the review

Norton said when the review is concluded, Grand River Solutions will deliver its report to CSCU’s chief compliance officer and the chairs of the Board of Regents’ Audit and Human Resources Committees. Then, she said, the firm would present its findings to the full Board of Regents upon completion.

Afshan Jafar, a professor of sociology at Connecticut College and chair of AAUP’s National Committee on College and University Governance, who has looked into the role of education consultants, said the process is not transparent.

“I would imagine that these people, when hiring this investigating firm, have some access to information that the rest of the public will never see,” she said. “What’s interesting to me is since this investigation is not about one person since he resigned and is more about whether the institution handled itself properly, it seems really odd that the very bodies that would be implicated in whether the institution handled this properly is your Title IX officer and the board. That makes absolutely no sense to me that the very people who could be implicated now get to see the report and basically quash it and not let us know what’s in it.”

Further, Jafar said, “Let’s assume that Grand River is absolutely spot on in their analysis and honest and transparent in their analysis of what went wrong and who is to blame.

“But again the report is going to the very people who are likely implicated in what went wrong,” she said. “How are they being held accountable?”

Louise Williams, president of CSU-AAUP and professor at CCSU, said faculty often does “not find out what our management is planning until after it’s almost completely done.”