The Chicago Public Schools watchdog has concluded an investigation into school board president candidate Hilario Dominguez by determining “there is no actionable finding of sexual misconduct” by him, according to letters sent Wednesday to Dominguez and the woman who has accused him of wrongdoing.
CPS’ Office of Student Protection and Title IX sent the notices to Dominguez and the woman at the center of the case, which was recently reopened by CPS Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht.
The OIG “determined that there is no actionable finding of sexual misconduct … with respect to possible Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policy or guidelines violations relating to this incident,” per the district’s correspondence, which Dominguez shared in a news release.
The inspector general has not released a full summary of the findings yet. Wagenknecht declined comment Wednesday.
“From the beginning, I have made it clear that any allegation should be taken with the utmost sincerity, care, due process and accountability,” Dominguez said in a statement after the letters went out. “And with this process completed, I will continue this campaign for the schools our students deserve.”
The woman responded to the end of the CPS probe by calling for an independent investigation.
“I was really disappointed,” she told the Tribune in a phone interview. “I just felt really disempowered. … Nothing was acknowledged, no matter what the documentation was, no matter my own experience.”
The allegations around Dominguez, most recently the deputy political director of the Chicago Teachers Union, stem from his time at The Resurrection Project, a nonprofit focused on immigrant rights.More Top Picks Best Respirators For Spray Painting
In 2018, a Resurrection Project staffer said in an internal statement that in the prior year, the then 17-year-old told her Dominguez made the teen uncomfortable when she was a volunteer at the Pilsen nonprofit, where he worked.
The woman said she was not originally interviewed by the OIG ahead of the watchdog closing the case for the first time in June, after it had been open since 2021.
The woman last month requested her statement be taken and recently spoke out against the inspector general’s process.
The OIG subsequently reopening the case triggered a firestorm in the race to lead the CPS board.
The nonprofit has declined to comment on what steps it took to investigate the woman’s complaint. The woman participated in a summer program there in 2017 and said she shared the allegations with employee Paloma Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, a housing counselor with the nonprofit, filed an internal statement in 2018 after Dominguez and the teen had both left the organization.
In addition to Rodriguez, the Tribune also spoke with two former Resurrection Project staffers who, according to Rodriguez’s report, learned of the woman’s allegation in summer 2017. On Wednesday, all three of those former employees, plus the woman’s parent, said they did not sit down with the OIG for the reopened investigation.
“Now we can continue with the debates on the issues in our schools that voters care about,” Dominguez said in his Wednesday statement. “I am running because the stakes are too high.”