A Cal State LA biology professor who said the university punished him for testifying in a colleague’s retaliation case has won $1 million from a Los Angeles Superior Court jury, turning a yearslong campus dispute into a major judgment against the CSU trustees. The verdict came last Tuesday.
Patrick Krug sued the California State University trustees in February 2021, alleging administrators retaliated after he testified for former athletics administrator Sheila Hudson and supplied corroborating information in her case. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that jurors reached a verdict in Krug’s favor, with Judge Steven A. Ellis presiding.
Krug is a longtime professor in Cal State LA’s Department of Biological Sciences, where the university says his research focuses on the ecology and evolution of marine invertebrates, including sea slugs. Cal State LA also recognized him as an Outstanding Professor in 2017, citing his marine biology research and work documenting new biodiversity.
The dispute traces back to Hudson’s allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation in Cal State LA’s athletics division. A Courthouse News Service report described Hudson as a former Olympian and senior athletics official who accused the university and former athletic director Mike Garrett of misconduct and retaliation.
Trial papers described by the Daily News say CSU pressured Krug to call Hudson’s claims meritless in exchange for more money in his faculty athletics representative role, but he rejected the offer. His attorneys argued that administrators then froze him out of effectively doing the job, even though students, coaches and others in athletics needed the position to function. CSU lawyers countered that Krug suffered no pay cut, retained his tenured job and had no damages, while also arguing that alleged policy violations would have disqualified him from the athletics role if they had been known earlier.
What The $1 Million Verdict Decides
A publicly posted Los Angeles Superior Court tentative order described Krug’s complaint as including retaliation, whistleblower retaliation, discrimination and harassment claims, among others, according to the court filing. The new verdict is a civil employment judgment focused on whether CSU retaliated against Krug for protected testimony; it does not, by itself, resolve every allegation raised in Hudson’s underlying case.
Krug eventually resigned from the faculty athletics representative position, but Cal State LA’s current faculty materials still list him as a professor in Biological Sciences. The verdict now places a fresh spotlight on how the public university handles internal complaints, faculty testimony and oversight of its athletics department.
