Roberto Coronado pleaded no contest last month to charges of sexually assaulting three young girls between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. One girl was assaulted more than 20 times, and another at least 15 times. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and 10 years of supervision last month and effectively ruined the lives of three young girls who will all endure an eternity of irreversible horror.
Lewis Keith Cohen is a 60-year-old sex offender who tried to seduce a 14-year-old boy on the Internet. He met the boy in an Internet chat room and sent naked photos of himself, as well as child pornography, to the minor. Police arrested Cohen in Greendale, Wis., by coercing him into thinking he was meeting the boy at an establishment which instead was a police setup. Cohen told police that he had no intentions of having sex with the boy, but did want to be his “sexual counselor” by engaging in “mutual masturbation” and “touching.” Mr. Cohen is currently serving just 30 days in jail.
Steven Clark is another middle-aged man convicted of stalking an ex-girlfriend in March. Court records indicate he was repeatedly seen “looking through her window” and spray painting “it ain’t over” on objects at her home and workplace. Mr. Clark used his work computer to send other threatening e-mails to her and was sentenced to one year in jail with a work release.
These three stellar individuals have one thing in common. They are all University of Wisconsin professors who are still on the public payroll.
Roberto Coronado, a physiology professor at the UW since 1989, has been convicted and sentenced, but the UW is still “investigating” whether or not they have grounds to fire him.
Professor Lewis Keith Cohen, head of the comparative literature department, used his UW computer to send child porn and nude photos of himself. He was convicted and sentenced, but thus far, neither John Wiley nor UW administrators have taken action. Mr. Cohen will be out of prison in a matter of days and could still be teaching classes in the fall, though the men at UW are probably far too old for his tastes.
Finally, Steven Clark is a medical school professor still on the university’s payroll while sitting in jail. Though a conviction and sentence have been handed down in a court of law, he has yet to be fired.
If all of this weren’t true, the sheer absurdity of the whole situation might be laughable. However, the accounts are unfortunately all too real. Chancellor John Wiley and the UW Board of Regents must immediately fire all three of these monsters at this great university. There is nothing to investigate here. They were convicted and sentenced in a court of law, and it is an immediate danger to the UW faculty and student body not to fire these dangerous criminals.
It is unconscionable that the chancellor would spend so much time and energy worrying about something so insignificant as how to stop college students from drinking alcohol on a Friday night when such travesties plague our school. It shouldn’t be hard to understand that immediately firing a UW professor convicted of engaging in sexual congress with a 5-year-old girl is more important than sending letters home to parents of UW freshmen on the dangers of drinking or banning empty liquor bottles from the dorms.
It is offensive not to fire people who have destroyed lives and violated public trust in the process. I can understand not doing so before the court ruling comes down, but to not do so after the convictions is a dereliction of duty by John Wiley.
Chancellor Wiley should either do his job to protect the good name and reputation of this university and the student body’s safety or be fired. We can’t have a man in charge of this institution who does anything less.
Casey Hoff ([email protected]) is a UW student and host of “New Ground with Casey Hoff,” live Monday through Friday, 9-11 a.m., on Madison 1670 The Pulse.
