Sam Bradley, County Commission candidate

How will voters regard county commission candidate Sam Bradley, who left a high-powered academic post after a university committee’s report accused him of consistent misconduct? 

 

Bradley seeks the Democratic nomination for District 4. Republicans here have sometimes used vicious and misleading ads against progressive candidates. Won’t they have fun with a host of news stories about alleged sex, lies, and drunkenness?

Bradley says, "I have never been accused of sexual harassment or anything like that.” The January 2013 Texas Tech University report said, “Graduate Student 2 . . . said she was in a vulnerable place which Sam Bradley knew about and took advantage of. She felt she had to respond to him because she was in his class. He told her that he wanted to have a physical, sexual relationship with her, that he was going to leave his wife, and that he wanted to marry her. . . . that he sent her sexually suggestive emails about her body and what he wanted to do with her. . . . He had kissed her in his office once. This had been going on for several months. GS-2 said it made her sick, and she wanted it to stop.” 

 

Bradley denies misconduct, and says GS-2 initiated the sex-related communications.

The report concluded Bradley “engaged in inappropriate relationships” that violated policy, and “engaged in generally unprofessional behavior on numerous occasions that was embarrassing to Texas Tech.” Investigators interviewed at least 20 witnesses and reviewed many documents. 

 

Bradley says the witnesses weren’t under oath, and that some hated him. That seems likely. His then-wife shared with GS-2’s husband some of the inappropriate communications, and he went ballistic. Witnesses also said Bradley was inappropriately close with a male student (“B”), and that when B broke up with his girlfriend, Bradley started seeing her. One source told me B was on “a vendetta” against Bradley. (Bradley denies going out with B’s ex.)

Bradley says that he forced Texas Tech to pay him good money to leave – and that he didn’t yet know about the written report, which he calls “a very good hit job.” He says if he’d known, he’d have refused TTU’s offer and fought. But that won’t stop opposition leaflets from quoting freely from it.

“[A]lmost every individual interviewed had concerns about other unprofessional behavior [by] Bradley. . . . [T]here were numerous references to his getting drunk with students, getting drunk at conferences and requiring students to drive him . . . and look after him when he was drunk.” “Every faculty member interviewed [said] said “Bradley’s relationships with students, even if not necessarily a conflict of interest, were much too familiar and unprofessional.”

It’s too bad. Bradley is a sharp and able progressive who speaks well. (There’s a notable dissonance between his advocacy of “me-too” accusers generally and the allegations regarding his conduct.) 

 

I’m less concerned about the report about than about how it’s used, how the voters view it and how Bradley handles it. If he files on March 10^th, then wins the Democratic primary, maybe he can survive the General Election. 

 

When I asked him about this stuff on radio, I got bluster and legal arguments, with no visible contrition or concern for how his conduct affected students he mentored. That was disappointing. On the telephone, Friday, he was more thoughtful. He denies misconduct, but says he should have immediately rejected GS-2’s personal communications.

The election could be interesting.

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[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 23 February 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's site.  A spoken version will air during the week on KRWG and on KTAL, 101.5 FM, Las Cruces Community Radio, and is also available on KRWG's website.]

[My initial, abortive effort at writing this column I'd have titled "A Tale of Two Sinners," because getting plunged into the sordid details of the TTU Report, and talking to Mr. Bradly about it, kept reminding me of recent conversations with a friend who was involved in sort of a sex scandal, and kind of dropped from sight.  That friend has picked up the pieces of his life.  His wife, particularly deserves great credit. But he has learned from what happened, knows himself a little better because of it, and can express remorse.  Mr. Bradley is mostly at pains to attack the reliability of the report, or argue details here and there, or establish that he's in general a good guy with a strong character.  I hope he is.  
Bradley attacks the veracity of the report.  I wasn't there.  He certainly had some admirers and supporters.  But it's hard to read that report and not feel that he did things he ought to regret. (As have all of us, to varying degrees!)  For example, although the administrators at TTU (who'd apparently regarded him as a star, with one saying he'd initially accepted Bradley's explanations) seem to have concluded that with GS-2 (whom everyone agreed was a troubled, "fragile" young woman), Bradley denies he initiated anything and says he regrets responding to her instead of telling her "I don't think you meant to send this to me."  Reading her statements on it, it's clear that she participated, from some mix of feeling flattered and knowing he was a big professor in the department, and that she regrets the harm that she and Bradley did to her fiance, then husband.  And feels ashamed.  Bradley sounds as if he's in denial.  Bottom line, even accepting his version of events, it's hard to imagine that most folks wouldn't feel some contrition for the way his conduct affected GS-2 and her fiance/husband; and, yeah, he was a man in authority.  My instinct, certainly, is that he hasn't come to terms with that inside.]