In the aftermath of the investigation, findings, and determination, faculty and administrators shed light on the case’s impact as new students step forward to break their silence.

By Gloria Hubbell Corena

Editor-in-Chief

It all began with a protest. 1 May 2026, Babette Papineau and a few dozen of her peers led a demonstration on the College of Marin campus that called for the termination of science professor Joe Mueller. The subsequent Title IX investigation, appeal, and denial of the appeal culminated in the end of Mueller’s multi-decade-long career at College of Marin. The media covered the charges, the public chose sides, yet the aftermath and those who never before spoke out were left out of the conversation. Mueller has become a divisive figure, with even his supporters labeling him “moody” while defending his character. The Mariner Times has interviewed multiple people who help to paint a clearer picture for our college community.

Breaking the Silence

For Babette Papineau, the College of Marin student who filed the formal Title IX complaint against Joe Mueller, coming forward was not initially about seeking recognition or even what she described as justice for herself. Papineau explains through tears that she had spent a long time too afraid to report what had happened and had considered simply leaving the Natural History program and quietly moving on. It was only after she began hearing from other students about their experiences with Mueller that she decided she could no longer stay silent. “I’ll go to the end of the earth to catch other people, but not myself,” she said. Explaining what prompted her to break her silence, Papineau states, “If I had somehow known I’m the only person this happened to, and it’s not going to happen to anyone else, ever, I probably just would have been like, OK whoa, and just moved on.” But once she realized she believed there was a larger pattern, her thinking changed as she feared for other students; she said, “That’s when I was like, I need to report this, and he needs to be fired.”

Initially, Papineau thought that switching professors would help her get through school. She states, however, that merely being in the same classroom “broke me.” She wrote in her diary, “Mueller’s ghost danced back and forth across the room.” She goes on to explain that merely being in the same building became triggering and began to taint the career path as a whole. She continues, “I cannot set foot in that room again, or that building, for that matter.”

While she does not regret coming forward, she does feel the weight of doing so. In another excerpt from her diary, Papineau shares that while she would not undo her actions, she feels that “carrying the fate of so many people’s sense of justice and well-being for so many months has come at a cost.” 

Papineau said her decision to make the situation public was also shaped by what she believed other students needed to see. After news broke and some criticism of her appeared online, she chose to remain visible rather than retreat from the conversation. “If one victim who’s come forward is getting completely shamed and blamed, that sends a message to everybody else,” Papineau said. She explains that she speaks up to clear up misconceptions so that it does not scare away any other potential victims from coming forward.  

Ultimately, Papineau shares that the experience has not left her feeling victorious. After the Title IX process concluded, Papineau described herself as “exhausted,” saying she felt both relieved that Mueller would no longer be teaching at College of Marin and devastated by what the experience had done to her understanding of people she once trusted. She said Mueller had initially been someone she considered a mentor and a hero. She explains that the painful disillusionment of watching her mentor become someone she feared was gutwrenching. She says, “The most devastating aspect of all this is that he was such a hero to me.” She continues, “To be betrayed by that person and learn that he’s not a hero at all is heartbreaking, really.”  Additionally, Papineau is now left with a constant fear that something bad could happen to her. She fears her loudness may be her downfall or that online threats may manifest. She shares her concerns of how the school and Mueller’s supporters may view her: “I’ve become a thorn in their side, I’ve come to feel like a fugitive at school,” she wrote. Plagued by a series of ‘what ifs, ’ Babette shares that the fear strikes her when she least expects it. “I cannot bring myself to walk into a grocery store sometimes,” she shares.

That sense of betrayal is part of why Papineau said she is uncomfortable with the way people describe her as “brave.” Though she does acknowledge, “If I had observed someone else doing what I did, I would call that brave,” She said she did not come forward because she saw herself as particularly courageous. Instead, she was unwilling to accept what she believed would happen if she remained silent. “I’ve known what it’s like to live settling for less than truth and justice, and that is so awful that I wasn’t willing to do that this time,” she said. 

Papineau also criticized the college’s policies surrounding relationships between faculty and students. She said that when she first became involved with Mueller, there was no explicit college policy prohibiting such relationships, something she said made it more difficult for her to recognize a clear way out. She believes the college’s policies should have changed much earlier. “I think they handled this situation according to their policies and procedures,” she said. She goes on by saying, however, “these policies and procedures that were in place should have been modified 10, 20, 30 years ago.”

At the same time, Papineau said she believes the college ultimately reached the right outcome in her case. She does not describe the end of the process as a simple victory. Instead, she sees it as a painful turning point that may prevent similar situations in the future. “This is a decision that should have been made at least 20 years ago,” she said, “it should have always been a policy, the protection of the students.”

For Papineau, the most important outcome may be what happens after her case. She said that even if her experience is difficult to revisit, she hopes speaking publicly makes it harder for future students to believe they have to remain silent. Her story, she said, became larger than what happened to her once she recognized that other students could be affected as well.

In light of events, in November 2025, College of Marin took steps to protect students by updating its harassment policy. The policy now strictly prohibits relationships between college employees and students.

The View From Inside the Classroom

A former embedded tutor, who asked not to be identified by name, spent seven semesters, about three and a half years, inside Joe Mueller’s classes. She first took his course as a student before working alongside him during laboratory periods, where she said she had the opportunity to observe his interactions with students up close. Over time, she said, she began noticing what she described as a pattern of “favoritism”, harsh treatment, and students becoming hesitant to speak up. She recalled Mueller praising some students heavily while making what she described as “sly” comments toward others after they participated in class. Although she said she never personally felt uncomfortable around him, she said the repeated experiences of other students changed the way she viewed him as both a teacher and mentor. Additionally, she says his blatant favoritism towards her made her feel singled out.

“But I think that there were multiple aspects that he really struggled with being a teacher,” she shares.

She said one area where she repeatedly saw students struggle was accommodations. According to the former tutor, some students needed technology to translate material or record lectures, but she said Mueller sometimes made comments in class criticizing students for using devices. She said students would sometimes come to her instead of approaching him directly, leaving her to help facilitate conversations about their accommodations. “He made it a point to say things in class that called out students,” she said. 

The former tutor also described witnessing Mueller lose his temper with students and employees. One incident she recalled occurred during her first semester as a student, in fall 2022, when a student whom she believed had COVID arrived on campus wearing two masks for a final exam. She said the student told Mueller she had emailed him repeatedly asking how she could take the exam remotely, but that he had not responded. According to the former tutor, the exchange between the two became heated and lasted roughly 20 minutes. She said she interpreted some of Mueller’s comments toward the student, who she believed was from China, as racially charged. The former tutor said she did not know what ultimately happened with the student’s final.

Looking back, she said the experience also changed how she understood Mueller’s role as a teacher. As a woman studying STEM, she said she initially viewed his demanding personality as simply part of being a respected professor. “I think it’s really easy to see a male teacher like this and just think, okay, this is how they demand respect in their classroom,” she said. But after hearing similar complaints from multiple students, she said she began questioning that assumption.

Her concerns eventually extended beyond individual classroom interactions to the larger issue of power between professors and students. “It shouldn’t have to take a brave student for teachers to be held accountable,” she said, “or it shouldn’t have to take a brave student for teachers to just simply not sexually harass students.”

The former tutor said she believes the responsibility for preventing harassment cannot rest solely on students speaking up. “I think it’s College of Marin’s job to prevent sexual harassment,” she said, adding that maintaining a fair and supportive environment is an ongoing responsibility. She said that while she hopes criticism of the college does not overshadow its positive work, the situation should serve as a reminder that “upholding these spaces to be fair and accepting and supporting, that never ends.”

On the question of student-teacher relationships, she rejected the idea that such relationships can simply be viewed as involving two people with equal power. “That power dynamic makes it so that there were no two consenting adults,” she said, “there was one adult being overpowered due to a power imbalance.” She said the college has a responsibility to recognize and address that imbalance.

The former tutor said she did not speak publicly about Mueller’s behavior while she was still working as his tutor. She said she contacted the decision-maker in the Title IX case and offered to provide information about her experiences but never heard back. After graduating and no longer serving as an embedded tutor, she said she felt more comfortable discussing what she had witnessed.

A male perspective: ‘I thought this was just what college was like’

A male student, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he initially struggled to recognize Mueller’s behavior as something that should be reported. The student took six of Joe Mueller’s classes during the 2022–23 and 2023–24. The student explains that at times Mueller was welcoming and knowledgeable, and classes could be genuinely enjoyable.

“I learned a lot,” the student said, “on a good day, some of his lectures and classes were really great.”

But he also described a classroom environment in which students could be publicly criticized or humiliated, sometimes over relatively minor issues. He said students became aware that staying on Mueller’s good side could mean avoiding becoming the next target.

“There were a lot of students who were afraid to raise their hands and ask questions because they were scared,” he said.

The student said gender played a role in how he experienced the behavior. He shares how he was not accustomed to expressing hurt or vulnerability, particularly as a male student.

“You don’t really learn to say, ‘Hey, that hurts my feelings,’ unless you’re joking,” he said. “I’m sure that’s a thought many guys have had over the years in those classes but responded by hiding it, fighting back or whatever,” he shared.

He recalled seeing other students singled out, including a male student who he claims was repeatedly criticized by Mueller from the beginning of the first class. He says he witnessed an interaction between Mueller and a student on the first day of school. He explains that he watched Mueller question why the student did not have his textbook or pencil ready, despite the fact that most of the students were not yet prepared. The student said the criticism continued until the man eventually dropped the class.

He also recalled seeing female students treated differently. In one class, he said, Mueller spoke to a female student in a much more lenient and encouraging tone than he had used with him or other male students. In another instance, he witnessed a female student being publicly criticized after asking about an opportunity that had previously been presented as a reason to participate in a trip.

The student said the incident turned into several minutes of public criticism, leaving the student to appear feeling singled out and prompting others to intervene.

“I didn’t realize how not normal some of the behavior was until I took enough other classes where this stuff never happened, and I talked to other people,” he said.

For a time, he said, he interpreted his ability to remain in Mueller’s classes as evidence that he was simply “tough enough” to handle the environment while other students were dropping out.

“I thought, ‘Oh, I’m tough enough to go through this and keep going when other people are dropping from the class,’” he said, “for a while I thought it was just me, or, hey, this is what college is like.”

Looking back, however, he said he wishes he had spoken up sooner. Since concerns about Mueller became public, he said he has heard from other people who experienced uncomfortable situations but assumed they were the only ones.

“I want students to know if they feel even a little off about something, that they talk with other people—students, staff, parents, whoever,” he said, “sometimes we internalize stuff and think, ‘That’s weird or uncomfortable, and it’s just me.’”

The student said his experience also left him questioning how long problematic behavior can continue when students do not feel comfortable reporting it.

“If certain behaviors are known about and not stopped, people can take that as approval,” he continues, “now we need to understand how this was allowed to happen for so long and make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.”

The Union’s Role

Patrick Kelly, who served as president of the United Professors of Marin (UPM) from 2019-2026, described the union’s role in the Mueller case as limited to protecting the faculty member’s rights under the collective bargaining agreement, Education Code and applicable college policies. Kelly said the union does not determine whether allegations are true or weigh the merits of a Title IX complaint. “Our mandate is strictly to fulfill our duty of fair representation,” he said, explaining that the union’s responsibility is to ensure that both the complainant and respondent receive due process throughout the investigation.

Kelly said the Mueller case was the first formal complaint involving the instructor to officially reach the union. He cautioned, however, that this does not mean there were no complaints or concerns before the Title IX investigation. “Any previous complaints or reports would have been handled exclusively by the district,” he said, directing questions about Mueller’s history at the college to district administration. In the decision-maker’s findings reviewed by The Mariner Times, two prior disciplinary matters involving Mueller are documented, dating to 2016 and 2022. The findings state that the earlier matters were considered when determining the appropriate outcome in the current case.

Kelly also disputed the characterization of Mueller’s departure as a termination. “This instructor was not terminated; he resigned,” he said. In papers obtained by The Mariner Times, the decision-maker’s findings in the Title IX case identified termination as an outcome, but the findings do not by themselves establish how Mueller’s employment ultimately ended.

On whether the outcome was appropriate, Kelly declined to judge the case itself. He said any Title IX complaint should be taken seriously because maintaining a safe learning and working environment is the responsibility of the entire college community. At the same time, he emphasized that the union’s role is not to decide whether a respondent committed the alleged conduct. “The union does not weigh in on or judge the actual merits of cases or allegations that come before us,” he said.

Kelly also addressed questions about whether union dues were used to defend Mueller. He said the instructor retained a private attorney and that UPM did not pay for his legal defense. The union did consult its own attorney, he said, but only to determine how it should fulfill its obligation to represent the faculty member. “UPM did not spend any union funds on the legal defense of this faculty member,” Kelly said. According to Kelly, the union’s involvement was “strictly limited to ensuring agreed-upon procedures were followed.”

Kelly declined to speculate about what message the case sends to students, teaching assistants or faculty. Instead, he returned to what he described as the college community’s shared responsibility to maintain a safe and productive learning environment. “Everyone in this college community—especially our students—have the right to, and the expectation of, a safe, positive, and productive learning environment,” he said.

Department Adjusts After Mueller’s Departure

The departure of Mueller also required the Life and Earth Sciences department to adjust its staffing and course schedules quickly. Erin Jacobs, chair of the department, said the priority was maintaining continuity for students while making the necessary changes. When the summer vacancy occurred, the department arranged coverage for active classes, and courses previously assigned to Mueller were reassigned to qualified instructors for the fall semester. Jacobs said the department plans to continue those reassignments through the spring and summer terms.

Despite the changes, Jacobs said the department was able to maintain its normal workload structure. Existing full-time and adjunct faculty stepped in to take over the sections, she said, with assignments balanced so that no faculty member exceeded standard workload limits. “Our current instructors stepped forward to absorb these sections entirely,” Jacobs said. She described the transition as smooth and said the department is prepared to begin the semester without disruptions to students.

The Mariner Times reached out to students for perspectives on Mueller’s departure, including whether anyone had positive experiences with him or disagreed with the decision. No students who were contacted responded with accounts opposing his departure.

Editor’s Note: This article includes personal accounts from students and faculty interviewed by The Mariner Times about their experiences and perspectives surrounding the Mueller case. The Mariner Times has presented those accounts as told to us and has attributed statements and allegations to the people who made them. We have also included responses from the college and other parties where available.