Weeks before Gilbert J. Contreras starts his job as the new president of San Bernardino Valley College on Monday, July 1, he has been accused of sexual misconduct.
At the Thursday, June 13, meeting of the San Bernardino Community College District Board of Trustees — five days after the board approved Contreras’ appointment as the college’s 15th president — Rita Lopez alleged that, while she and Contreras were students at UC Berkeley, he “sex trafficked me to his friends during our freshman and sophomore year. Some of his friends I knew and some I did not.”
Lopez alleged that, during winter 1993, she had sex with a friend of Contreras’ at his insistence. The sex grew violent and she had to use her feet to throw the friend off of her, Lopez said. At that point, she discovered there were multiple other men in the room — including Contreras, she alleged.
“I had no idea that they were there or how they got there,” Lopez told the board. “Instead of (letting me get) medical attention, Gilbert insisted I needed to complete the encounter with (his friend). I told him no, I didn’t want to — and was forced to complete the encounter.”
She did not report Contreras to UC Berkeley officials or the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, Lopez said, because she did not trust them to take the allegations seriously.
“Gilbert did not see me as a fellow student but as a sex object to pass around,” she said. “Because he values his friends’ opinions of him more than he values a woman as a human being — because he is a sex trafficker — Gilbert is not fit for any position at any institution of higher learning.”
Contreras could not be reached for comment by email or phone. However, in a 2022 meeting in Orange County, where he served as interim president of Fullerton College, he responded to other allegations by Lopez, “unequivocally” denying that he “failed to protect the speaker or anybody else from third parties.”
The San Bernardino Community College District defended its hiring process in a written statement.
“While the district does not comment on personnel matters, we want to reassure our students, faculty, staff, and the wider community that our search for the next president of San Bernardino Valley College was conducted with the utmost rigor,” Associate Vice Chancellor for Communications Angel Rodriguez wrote Thursday, June 20. “As is standard for any senior position within our institution, Dr. Contreras underwent a thorough vetting and comprehensive background check.”
The college administration looks “forward to his leadership at SBVC as we continue our mission to expand access to higher education, workforce training, and opportunities for our local students,” the statement concludes.
Members of the San Bernardino Community College District board did not respond to requests for comment.
Contreras will be paid $293,169 in his first year on the job, according to documentation at the board’s May 9 meeting.
Lopez previously made similar — but less specific — allegations against Contreras to the North Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees at its June 14, 2022, meeting. Contreras currently serves as the vice president of student services at Fullerton College.
“The trustees made the right call in not promoting Gilbert” to the position of Fullerton College president, Lopez said at the 2022 meeting. Contreras had been serving as the college’s interim president while the North Orange County Community College District board searched for a permanent replacement.
“He failed the background check because I told the background check company my ‘Me Too’ story … The only reason I’m telling it now is because society has changed and women are listened to when they are manipulated. They are listened to when they are assaulted. They are listened to when they are preyed upon.”
According to Lopez, she only came to the June 2022 meeting to speak after her name and contact information was leaked to a community member who urged her to make her allegations public.
“No college should want a leader who couldn’t keep a female college student safe,” Lopez said, at the end of her remarks at the June 14, 2022, meeting.
Two weeks later, at the June 28, 2022, meeting of the North Orange County Community College District board, Katie King, then a professor of English at Fullerton College, alleged that Contreras, in his role as vice president of student services, had failed to take a reported rape seriously and called on him to resign.
“Gil himself left a sexual predator who attempted to rape a female student of color in my classroom to harass both me and the rest of the women in that space for the entirety of that course, because according to Gil, that predator was just ‘immature,’ quote unquote,’” King is quoted as saying in an article published in the Hornet, the Fullerton College student newspaper.
Lopez and King could not be reached for comment.
The North Orange County Community College District declined to comment on the allegations in 2022 and this week.
But in 2022, Contreras responded to the allegations with an email to the Orange County college board trustees.
“Although I was an undergraduate student 30 years ago, hearing someone say they felt unsafe that long ago is still troubling to me,” the June 22, 2022, email reads. “I cannot and would not speak for the individual who made the public comment, as her feelings and recollections are her own.
“What I can say and what I want to make extremely clear is that I have never, nor would I ever intentionally harm anyone. I do not have any recollection of being in any situation where the speaker needed any protection that I did not provide. I unequivocally deny that I failed to protect the speaker or anybody else from third parties while I was a college student or any time thereafter.”
Contreras is scheduled to begin his new job as the president of San Bernardino Valley College on Monday, July 1. He will replace Diana Z. Rodriguez, who stepped down to become chancellor of the San Bernardino Community College District in August 2021.
“Together, we will advance student success and student equity, expand career and transfer opportunities, and strengthen partnerships with alumni and community members across the Inland Empire,” Contreras said in a statement issued by the San Bernardino Community College District announcing his appointment. “I am inspired by San Bernardino Valley College’s academic excellence, tradition, innovation, diversity, and the space that it holds in the hearts of the community. San Bernardino Valley College is truly a beacon of opportunity in the Inland Empire.”
San Bernardino Valley College teaches about 7,500 students.
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