Genaro Meza-Roa was removed from the AS board in a recall vote this quarter. Shortly after he was elected last spring a student sought a no-contact directive after he refused to stop contacting them. Jacob Carver//AS Review
By Soleil de Zwart
Another student has come forward concerning harassment she experienced from Genaro Meza-Roa, former Associated Students VP for business and operations, that led her to seek a no-contact directive.
The student described her interactions with Meza-Roa as uncomfortable and frightening. After repeatedly telling him she did not want to be contacted by him, he continued to contact her by email and visit her dorm, she said.
“I remember that she felt unsafe in her own apartment and didn’t feel safe going to sleep,” the student’s friend said in an email. “She was nervous because he knew where she lived and he lived so close to her.”
The student body voted to remove Meza-Roa from his elected AS Board position, on Feb. 4, after the AS board initiated a recall based on testimony that he was not fulfilling his job duties.
These events occurred little over a week after Meza-Roa had been elected AS VP for business and operations in spring 2018.
The student said she hadn’t even been aware that Meza-Roa had been running for the position in the spring until the fall of 2018.
In a previous AS Review article, a former student came forward with allegations of a pattern of harassment after unwanted sexual advances and repeated contact by Meza-Roa.
After reading the article, this student decided to come forward concerning her encounter with Meza-Roa.
“I wanted to stand in solidarity with others who have experienced harassment from him,” the student said in an email.
In a previous interview with the AS Review, Meza-Roa denied knowledge of any no-contact directives. However, this appears to be the second time he has received an interim no-contact directive.
When the AS Review texted Meza-Roa seeking comment on a story about a no-contact order, Meza-Roa said he denied all accusations, even though they had not been specified, and expressed his disdain for the AS Review’s reporting. He said he had no further comment.
Around half an hour later, he sent another text to say that any student can request an interim no-contact directive with little to no accountability.
“The AS Review has no business reporting about me, especially my personal life, now that I am no longer part of the AS,” Meza-Roa said. “All charges of misconduct are baseless and untrue, and I reiterate my disappointment and disgust with the slanderous and tabloid-like modus operandi of the AS Review.”
While both no-contact directives were interim, meaning that there was no finding of responsibility, both students say they sought them in response to a pattern of harassment from Meza-Roa.
This pattern was recorded in a copy of an incident report obtained from residence life by the student, and an internal report and sanctions notification obtained through a public records request. They were also described to the AS Review by two people, a friend and roommate of the source, who the source told the events to when they occurred. Both sources corroborated the student’s description of harassment by Meza-Roa.
What happened
The student met Meza-Roa at the communal laundry room of their on-campus residence in spring 2018. Later that day, Meza-Roa heard the student singing and came up to her window, according to the student.
The student said it seemed that they had a lot in common and Meza-Roa invited her over for wine later that night. When the student saw him again that day in the courtyard she accepted, according to the student.
The student said she tried to be cordial, but it felt off and wrong, Meza-Roa didn’t really seem interested in anything she had to say. After Meza-Roa took out a large knife to cut the chocolate they were eating, she felt uncomfortable and left.
“Even his speech and inter-personal contact made little logical sense. It was always about how he was the victim of some larger group or person in charge,” the student wrote in an email.
The student told her roommates that if he came looking for her to tell him she wasn’t home, according to her roommate.
The following afternoon, Meza-Roa came to her apartment when she wasn’t home. One of the student’s roommates told him she wasn’t there and didn’t want him to contact her anymore. After she closed the door, he stood outside the student’s bedroom window, calling for her, according to her roommate.
The student met with an adviser to ask them to request Meza-Roa cease all contact with her, according to the incident report.
She and the adviser went to his dorm, and spoke to his roommate since he wasn’t there, the student said.
When Meza-Roa knocked on her door later that evening, she didn’t answer, she said.
That evening, Meza-Roa contacted her via email, according to the email provided to the AS Review and included in the report.
The student expressed her discomfort and said she didn’t want him to contact her anymore, according to the email.
Meza-Roa responded with his disappointment in her reaction and said he hadn’t spent as much time seeking her as she assumed.
When the student responded to say she did not owe him friendship, had just met him and wanted her privacy to be respected, Meza-Roa replied with an email disparaging her.
“Whaaat? OMG i (sic) feel sorry for you, clearly you are ridden with fear and who knows what other mental trips,” Meza-Roa said.
He said he was not interested in continuing the conversation with her through email and that he would no longer seek her.
The student felt uncomfortable and frightened, she said in an email.
“What was really unpleasant was that he didn’t just take no for an answer. He really exploded and tried to blame me and guilt me for it,” the student said.
Despite saying that he wouldn’t contact her, Meza-Roa sent the student another email around a month later, according to an email in the report.
The student wrote back saying she did not want to be contacted by him again and she was seeking a no-contact order, according to her email.
Soon after, the student contacted the residence halls and requested a no-contact order, according to an email included in the incident report.
A letter from university residences shows they contacted Meza-Roa to impose a two-month no-contact directive beginning June 15, 2018.
This behavior seems to fit with the pattern described by the other student who sought a no-contact directive. That student shared text messages with the AS Review that showed Meza-Roa repeatedly continued to message her after she told him she did not want to be contacted by him and confronted her at a local coffee shop.
Moving forward
The student remained scared of Meza-Roa after the incident occurred. Whenever someone knocked of their door, she was afraid it was him, according to her roommate.
Meza-Roa didn’t do anything explicitly wrong or illegal, but he didn’t respond to her request to stop contacting her, the student said.
The student felt the temporary no-contact directive was necessary after Meza-Roa did not understand that she was not interested and didn’t respect her boundaries, she said.
“Any boundary violation is a violation. If it makes you uncomfortable, it is a violation and you should stand up for yourself,” the student said in an email.
The student said, she didn’t take any further action beyond a temporary no-contact directive because Meza-Roa did not break any laws or physically touch her. At the time she was unsure about trusting her gut with the situation.
“Any reasonable person would have taken my ‘I am not interested’ and left me alone. I realize now that he is not very reasonable from his history of dealing with people but at the time I was giving him the benefit of the doubt,” the student said in an email.
After having more distance from the events, she began to notice the red flags. The student wants to encourage others to trust their gut in these kinds of situations, the student said.
“Hopefully he learns to be kinder and more understanding with others,” the student said.