🔒Report: CSCU chancellor quit after sexual harassment complaint

Documents released Friday showed that Interim Chancellor John Maduko’s resignation from the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system was in response to allegations that Maduko had violated the university’s harassment policy by sending text messages and making comments, often of a sexual nature, to a female employee of the CSCU system. Maduko was placed on administrative leave from the CSCU system on April 23, three days after learning that he was being investigated in response to a complaint that he “violated policy.” On April 24, he resigned. The report released by CSCU contains a statement from the victim, various screenshots and redacted material. It also contains a message from Alphonso Atkins, Jr., the CSCU Title IX coordinator, dated April 29, in which he outlines the allegations that Maduko “engaged in inappropriate, persistent and often sexualized communication” from May 8, 2024 through April 19, 2026. Among those allegations are that Maduko sent the employee text messages that included comments that she understood to be sexual and that he asked her to take a personal, non-work-related trip with him to Atlanta and asked about her sexual orientation. In her statement, dated April 25, the employee said that in early 2024, she began receiving text messages from Maduko that included “complimentary comments about my appearance, such as what I was wearing and observations about my walk, sometimes accompanied by “googly eye” emojis.” She said she didn’t report those initial comments, since she was new and was afraid of being “labeled as a problem.” “I can’t look at you sometimes, because of how incredible you are,” Maduko allegedly said in a text message in early 2025. Maduko could not be reached for comment. Nina Pirrotti, an attorney for the woman, said, “The allegations in this matter are deeply disturbing and of the utmost seriousness. We welcome and will fully participate in any investigation CSCU plans to conduct.” The complainant, who is not named in the documents, said Maduko repeatedly asked her while at a conference in March 2025 to have dinner with him and meet outside of work. He at one point made a comment she understood to be as a reference to her buttocks, which she said he “did a lot.” He also sent her a meme of a stripper. She said she didn’t engage in the comments and replied with LOL “to make it stop,” according to the documents. In mid-April of that year, the employee said she had a conversation with Board Chair Martin Guay, in which Guay mentioned that he’d had a woman fired after she made a sexual harassment complaint against him. The employee said it felt like the comment was “a threat or a test” for her. While she claimed she spoke to General Counsel Karen Buffkin about the conversation, she said she wasn’t aware of any action being taken to address it, the documents state. She alleged that, over that summer, Maduko “made repeated comments by text about [her] appearance and sexuality and often referred to her jokingly as a ‘nun’ and sent photos of the desert to support his comments.” At one point, he wrote that her “Amish way of life is painful to witness” and that she was “enjoying this vow of celibacy.” “I did my best to respond in ways that would keep the situation calm and avoid escalating his behavior, as I was concerned about my job and did not want to create conflict that could negatively impact my position,” she said in her April 25, 2026 statement. According to the allegations, the sexual text messages went on into that fall, with Maduko making “repeated remarks about my outfits, appearance and personal life.” At one point, she alleged, Maduko texted her a picture of “a large, dark, phallic statue from Atlanta” and saying that it was “to scale.” She alleged that he “made a sexualized comment … about her rear end and wanting a painting of [her] body in the office.” He also allegedly sent her a photo of himself wearing only underwear, and made repeated comments to the employee, “stating the Complainant should ‘stop leaning into doorways’ referencing her rear end and telling Complainant it was ‘very distracting,’” according to the documents. She said Maduko also subjected her to “extended and repeated questioning about my personal life,” which she said felt “invasive.” On April 14, 2026, she received a message from Maduko saying that she “came close to breaking her halo” by accidentally video calling him the day before. He made reference to “AirPods and a closed door,” that she said she understood as “a direct solicitation for me to participate in or observe him engaging in a sexual act.” “I experienced this as highly distressing and inappropriate, and I felt unsafe and unable to continue managing the situation on my own. This incident represented a clear escalation in his conduct and was the point at which I could no longer manage or deflect the behavior,” she said in her statement. At that point, she said, she informed two other people about the messages, both of whom encouraged her to report them. In an April 29 communication, Atkins said he was dismissing the complaint. “Chancellor O. John Maduko has resigned from the institution, effective April 24, 2026, and presents no imminent or continuing threat of harm to others in the CSCU community. Further, CSCU no longer has any mechanism by which to encourage [Maduko’s] participation in the process,” Atkins wrote. He added that Maduko’s resignation represented the highest punishment that the university would have been able to impose. Earlier this month, The Board of Regents voted to hire an outside consulting firm to conduct an independent review of Maduko’s behavior. According to the resolution the board approved, the consultants will be asked to examine Maduko’s conduct and “determine whether there is any ongoing harm that can be remediated and addressed by the institution.” The firm will also look at whether the CSCU system responded appropriately when claims of Maduko’s misconduct were brought forward and whether more should have been done to respond. Sam Norton, spokesperson for the Board of Regents, said that the safety of students, faculty and staff is the Board’s “highest priority.” “The Board of Regents and CSCU take all complaints of sexual harassment seriously. We are committed to ensuring that every complaint is addressed through a fair, thorough, and impartial process. This type of alleged behavior is unacceptable and inconsistent with our values, and it will not be tolerated within our system,” Norton said. In a joint statement on Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz called the allegations “deeply disturbing” and said they had pushed for a “thorough and impartial” independent review of Maduko’s behavior and leadership’s response. “When a person reports harassment, they deserve to be believed, heard, and protected — not dismissed or made to feel the institution values its reputation more than their safety. We expect every leader entrusted with oversight of our public higher education system to hold that conviction and act on it without being asked. When the investigation’s findings are made public, every person in a position of responsibility at CSCU will be held to the standard Connecticut’s students and staff deserve,” Lamont and Bysiewicz said.