After learning that a faculty member at San Jose State was found by the university to have inappropriately touched a student, 600 students have signed a petition to protest that he’s still teaching.

This is despite the fact that no charge was filed against the instructor after police concluded their investigation.

Lauren Ingeno of Inside Higher Ed files this report:

Students at San Jose State University want to know why a faculty member who — according to a university report — admitted to kissing and touching a student is still teaching.

More than 600 supporters have signed a petition on change.org demanding the “immediate removal” of a part-time faculty member at San Jose State University.

The petition was in response to an NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit news segment that aired in May. A female student, who wished to remain anonymous, told NBC that Jeffry Mathis — a part-time lecturer in the kinesiology department — sexually assaulted her.

After a police investigation, no charges were filed. NBC Bay Area obtained a copy of a confidential investigation report written by the university. The report said that although evidence of assault couldn’t be found, Mathis admitted to “kissing and touching the [student] sexually although stating it was consensual.”

Mathis did not comment to NBC on whether or not he was disciplined by university officials.

….According to NBC Bay Area, despite Mathis’s admittance to “consensual” kissing and touching, the San Jose State report stated “there is insufficient evidence against [Mathis] to substantiate the claim of sexual harassment and sexual assault.” The report continues, “Whether or not their actions were consensual in this instance, his position is one of power over the students in his classroom” and he has a “duty not to allow situations to develop where a student could feel compelled to ‘consent’ to activities they would not otherwise agree to in order to be successful in his class.”

It concludes that Mathis “did violate his professional responsibility not to exploit the situation he found himself in and become intimate” with the student.

Bassett said the fact that Mathis admitted to having sexual contact with the student and that the report was not made known to the students outraged her. “This is one extremely actionable case that they could have resolved really easily when the professor admitted that he had done something wrong, and there were no repercussions whatsoever,” Bassett said.