Vehling v. Regents of the U. of Cal. CA2/5, B331965

Plaintiff Mollie Vehling was terminated from her role as director of the UCLA Spirit Squad after being found to have violated various internal rules and allegedly UCLA’s Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence Policy.
The core incident involved allowing Spirit Squad members to attend a burlesque show in Las Vegas, which led to a finding by UCLA investigators that Vehling was responsible for sexual harassment, even though she was not present at the event.
Other grounds for Vehling’s termination included violating squad participation rules, making unauthorized payments to a student, and disregarding a supervisor’s directive to avoid contact between the squad and a specific donor.
Vehling challenged only the sexual harassment finding in her court petition, arguing for a “name-clearing hearing” due to reputational harm, and did not dispute her termination on other grounds.
The trial court found no substantial evidence for the sexual harassment/Policy violation but upheld the termination based on her other misconduct.
Vehling appealed, seeking a judicial determination to clear her name regarding the sexual harassment finding, not reinstatement.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Right to name-clearing hearing	Entitled due to reputational harm from the Policy finding	No need due to sufficient basis for termination on other grounds	Plaintiff is not aggrieved; name-clearing already obtained
Substantial evidence for Policy violation	No evidence supports a finding of Policy violation	Policy violation is supported and sufficient for termination	No substantial evidence supports Policy violation
Termination based on other misconduct	Insufficient evidence for other grounds	Other grounds independently justify termination	Termination upheld; evidence supports other misconduct
Justiciability of appeal	Seeks only name-clearing as relief	Not aggrieved, as trial court granted name-clearing relief	Appeal dismissed as not justiciable

Katzberg v. Regents of the University of California, 29 Cal.4th 300 (Cal. 2002) (recognizing public employees' right to a name-clearing hearing when termination involves stigmatizing charges).
Kreutzer v. City and County of San Francisco, 166 Cal.App.4th 306 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008) (clarifying the remedy for a name-clearing hearing is not reinstatement).