A former auditor for the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, who blew the whistle on school employees watching Internet porn on the job two years ago, has sued the institution in federal court.
Cynthia Davis' lawsuit names the UT system and UT system regents, UT-Houston, and UT-Houston administrators Michael McKinney and Charles Chaffin, asking for damages and restoration to her former job. She claims she was forced to resign after a 2003 investigation, when the school didn't take stronger measures than letters of reprimand and counseling for repeat offenses.
"Ms. Davis wants to bring to light not just the pain caused her by pornography abuse at UT-Houston but the school's response to it, the way it swept it under the rug," her attorney, Martin Shellist, told the Houston Chronicle.
Neither Davis nor UT-Houston officials commented to the paper after the suit was filed, but the paper noted her probe and a child porn incident at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, provoked a system task force on computer use whose report Shellist denounced as a whitewash.
Davis reported school workers accessing teen porn sites, but the FBI found no evidence the material qualified as child porn. By that time, Davis had left, and her lawsuit calls it an "involuntary resignation," saying the school's failure to react more strongly amounted to creating a hostile work environment, the Chronicle said.
