How could Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California system, lead by example?

The NYT reports on the incident at the University of California, Berkeley, in which the dean of the law school, Sujit Choudhry, received a confidential and mild punishment after his executive assistant, Tyann Sorrell, complained that he had sexually harassed her. Sorrell was told to look for another job, while Choudhry kept his. The dispute became public when Sorrell filed a lawsuit. 400+ alumni signed a letter calling the punishment "feeble" and "threaten[ing] to withhold future donations until he was fired."

Janet Napolitano — who was President Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013 — is the president of the University of California system. She "said she was upset that she had learned of his case from the news media barred Choudhry from campus for the rest of the term and ordered disciplinary proceedings that could ultimately result in stripping him of tenure."

Choudhry's lawyer sent a letter to Napolitano charging that he'd been deprived of due process and that the school had "lumped" his case in with other sexual harassment problems at Berkeley, making him "a scapegoat for any shortcomings, real or perceived, in the university’s handling of sexual harassment claims and related policies and procedures."

Napolitano gave an interview to the NYT, which gives us scant information about what was said. We're told "she stood by her order to keep Mr. Choudhry off campus." And we get this distanced quote: "I think our society at large has undervalued sexual harassment in the workplace...It’s gone on in many professions for decades. We are a public university, and we ought to be leading by example, not by mistake."

You want to set examples? You are the president of the system. Why hadn't you already figured out how to handle accusations of sexual harassment adequately? Why did you only hear of the case through the news reports? If you're upset about how little you yourself knew, and if the system over which you preside has been inadequate to handle complaints, what "example" should be set against yourself?

Napolitano is both too general and too specific. She says: "our society at large has undervalued sexual harassment in the workplace" when it should be "The University of California has undervalued sexual harassment." And she takes a severe action against Choudhry, but only after his case became an embarrassment to her. She says she's "leading by example," but what's the example? Undervaluing due process to deflect attention away from systemic failure?

The dean of Berkeley's law school has taken an indefinite leave of absence after an investigation into accusations of sexual harassment.

"The complaint states that when [Sujit] Choudhry took over as dean of the law school in July 2014, he gave [executive assistant Tyann] Sorrell unwanted bear hugs and kisses, among other sexual contact from July 2014 to March 2015," The Daily Californian reports.

In July, UC Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination found that Choudhry had violated the university’s sexual harassment policies, according to the complaint. During the investigation, Choudhry allegedly admitted to hugging, kissing, messaging or caressing Sorrell at least multiple times per week, as well as hugging and kissing other female employees.

Messaging? I'm going to assume that was supposed to read "massaging."

Anyway, I don't know what actually happened, but I'm a little puzzled by what might have been an openly displayed "huggy" style. I don't quite understand why, if there were rules against it, he didn't quickly learn that it wasn't considered acceptable. Is the accusation that he was actually seeking sexual intimacy or just that he was going for a warm, family-style feeling that he thought was good?