Joseph I. Castro, the first person of color to lead the California State University system, died Sunday after a battle with colon cancer. He was 58.
Castro oversaw the nation’s largest four-year public university system from 2021 to 2022 after serving as president of Fresno State, where he won praise for increasing graduation rates and shrinking achievement gaps.
He served as the university system’s eighth chancellor, resigning in his second year amid controversy over how he handled sexual harassment and other allegations against a top executive at Fresno State.
In a statement, the CSU shared its gratitude for Castro’s “many years of service and leadership to the CSU and to higher education in California.”
Castro was a first-generation college graduate who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley. Raised in Hanford, Calif., by a single mother and grandparents who immigrated from Michoacán, Mexico, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UC Berkeley and a PhD in higher education leadership and policy from Stanford University.
“As his family, we take comfort in knowing that Joe’s life was guided by a desire to open doors of opportunity for others,” his family said in a statement. “He held fast to the belief that education could strengthen families and transform communities. His influence continues in the many people he encouraged, supported, and inspired along the way.”
His short time as chancellor was challenging. During his first year, he faced hurdles prompted by the pandemic around online learning and safety protocols for campus reopenings and closures as COVID-19 cases spiked.
At the start of his second year in February 2022, he resigned after reports that as president of Fresno State in 2020, he wrote a letter of recommendation and authorized a $260,000 payout and retirement package to a campus vice president who was accused of sexual harassment, bullying and workplace retaliation from 2014 to 2019. Castro became CSU chancellor weeks later.
Castro said he made decisions based on the advice of the previous chancellor and CSU’s general counsel, among others.
“I have been a steadfast champion for gender equity throughout my career and will redouble my efforts in this important area going forward,” he said in 2022. He said his “decision to resign is the most difficult of my professional life” but “necessary so that the CSU can maintain its focus squarely on its educational mission and the impactful work yet to be done.”
The revelations roiled the university system, sparking internal and independent investigations into campus policy over how complaints are handled. Times investigations found widespread breakdowns over multiple years in how leaders of the 23-campus university system handled claims of sexual misconduct, harassment and retaliation. In several instances, officials failed to protect employees and students from ongoing problems across campuses.
After resigning from his chancellorship, Castro went on to teach at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Patti Waid, a former CSU colleague of Castro’s and the family’s designated spokesperson, said he often invited speakers into the classroom with backgrounds in the arts, agriculture, education and finance and shared his own insights on leadership with his students.
Later, he worked with University of California President Michael V. Drake on a Native American remains repatriation program. The two had often collaborated while leading California’s public university systems.
Drake, who worked with Castro in various capacities for more than 25 years, said that Castro continued to work on the program up until about two weeks before he died. He admired his friend’s commitment to higher education and called him a “trailblazer.” Drake had a decades-long connection to the UC, serving as chancellor of UC Irvine for 14 years and as president of the university system for five.
“He really did create a pathway that hadn’t been there before,” said Drake, who recently retired from the UC. “For someone like him to rise to being the leader of the largest public education system in the country was unimaginable when he was growing up, and it was really a special thing for him to achieve.”
Castro was “a critical partner in the founding of UC Merced” and was “a friend and colleague to many at the University of California” and a “longtime champion of higher education and student access,” a UC statement said.
Castro is survived by his wife, Mary, and his two sons and daughter.
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