A lawsuit filed Friday accuses the institution of firing its female police chief as part of a “coordinated purge of female employees from the department.”
AUSTIN, Texas — Former University of Texas at Austin (UTPD) Police Chief Eve Stephens is suing the university, alleging civil rights violations.
A lawsuit filed Friday accuses the institution of firing its female police chief as part of a “coordinated purge of female employees from the department.” The lawsuit accuses UT and the UT System of firing Stephens “without cause” despite receiving a positive performance review and merit raise.
Stephens was hired as the chief on June 13, 2023, at UT Austin. The university’s president said at her swearing-in ceremony that he was “confident Chief Stephens is the right person” to lead the department.” She took over at the helm of the department after former UTPD Chief David Carter died after a long battle with cancer.
Stephens officially started her role on July 5, 2023, as the first Asian American woman to lead a police department in the UT System. When she abruptly left last September, the university did not publicly comment on or explain her departure.
In her lawsuit, Stephens accuses UT Austin and the UT System of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when she said she was “fired without cause” just “weeks after receiving a positive performance review and merit raise.”
“The circumstances of her being let go, the lack of an explanation, and the public speculation about why she had been forced to resign have essentially caused her to lose the career that she loved and that she had devoted herself to,” Stephens’ attorney Melissa Holman said. “The rumors, and innuendo, and the uncertainty about the circumstances of why she left have made it very difficult, if not impossible, for her to get a comparable position.”
In an email on Friday, a UT spokesperson told KVUE that the institution intends to respond to the lawsuit in court filings. KVUE has also reached out to the UT System for comment on the lawsuit, but has not heard back at the time of publication.
Stephens was replaced by Shane Streepy, who had served as the department’s assistant police chief since April 2024. The lawsuit alleges he was an “unqualified, handpicked white male successor who never applied for the job.” The lawsuit alleges that her successor did not have the required minimum “at least five years of service in an administrative, supervisory or management position at the rank of Police Captain/Commander or above” to be a UT System institution police chief.
“The circumstances of Chief Stephens’ departure and her replacement, I think, are unique. They’re unparalleled,” Holman said. “They’re completely contrary to established UT system policy for how these things need to be conducted.”
Prior to joining UTPD, Stephens spent 24 years with the Austin Police Department (APD). In her time at APD, she worked her way up from patrol officer in East Austin to serve as a detective in the department’s Child Abuse, Internal Affairs and Financial Crimes units. She then served as a sergeant over a team in South Central Patrol before leading a unit in APD’s Organized Crime Division.
In 2016, Stephens was handpicked by the then-chief of police to serve as staffing lieutenant. In 2019, she became APD’s training academy lieutenant. In 2021, she was promoted to commander, leading sworn officers in the North Central Patrol Bureau. She was one of two commanders who provided strategic and tactical leadership for APD SWAT team deployments.
In January 2024, Stephens claims she was informed “there would be an organizational change to the department,” according to the lawsuit. Stephens reported to UT Vice President for Legal Affairs, Amanda Cochran-McCall.
“Almost immediately, Ms. Cochran-McCall was so openly and outwardly critical of Chief Stephens that other employees of UTPD believed Ms. Cochran-McCall did not like or respect Chief Stephens,” the lawsuit said.
The suit alleges Cochran-McCall did not want women in leadership positions, claiming her demeanor around female officers “was cold, condescending, and unfriendly.” Female employees under Cochran-McCall said her “demeanor toward male officers was markedly different. With male officers, [she] was outgoing, warm, and even flirtatious.”
In September 2024, Stephens was allegedly informed by Cochran-McCall that she was being fired and had the option to resign immediately or resign as a special advisor while still being paid for two months, which Stephens ultimately did.
Chief Stephens chose to accept the advisor role. In it, she was fully remote and could not “lead, oversee, or interact with the University of Texas Police Department or its personnel.”
“Not only was Chief Stevens forced to resign and ultimately terminated, but she was put under essentially a gag order where she was told that she could not speak to other employees of UT, and if other employees of UT contacted her, she had to get permission from the legal affairs office to be able to respond,” Holman said. “She’s been muzzled. She’s been silenced.”
She was not allowed to “contact or interact with other university employees, including those in UTPD.” She could not respond to messages from UT Austin employees without Ms. Cochran-McCall’s “written approval.”
Before Chief Stephens was told she would be terminated, the lawsuit said that Cochran-McCall told Streepy he would be the new police chief.
“He didn’t have to apply. He didn’t have to compete. Those are all things that are designed and implemented by UT system policy to make sure that the process is fair, to prevent the exact thing that happened in this lawsuit,” Holman said. “Not only was he put into place and chosen without ever having to compete, but the fact that the position was never open meant that qualified women within the department were never even given the chance to apply. They were just told that he was the new chief.
The lawsuit said that shortly after her termination, the only other female Asian American in leadership at UTPD, the department’s Director of Executive Communications and Strategic Marketing, was also terminated.
Once he became chief, the lawsuit said Streepy began excluding Assistant Chief Ashley Griffin from leadership meetings, communicated “frequently and casually with male officers,” but would tell female officers, “They needed a set meeting because communication with them was not ‘organic,” and demanded female employees adhere to a dress code that was not applied to male employees.
“Chief Streepy often made comments about the firing of Chief Stephens to the female officers, implying that if they could fire the Chief, they could fire anyone,” the lawsuit said. “He hounded Captain Laura Davis by repeatedly asking if she was old enough to retire. Female officers lived in a culture of fear that they could be fired at any moment.”
The lawsuit alleges that Chief Griffin and Captain Davis have since been forced out, while Lt. Layne Smith opted to retire, and there are currently no women in leadership roles at UTPD above the rank of lieutenant.
“Essentially, there was an environment of impunity, where he [Chief Streepy] was given free rein to target, belittle, condescend, harass some of the remaining female officers and leadership, as well as civilian employees of TPD,” Holman said.
Since Stephens was fired, the lawsuit said at least five other female UTPD employees have been fired or pushed out, including two of the last remaining Asian American females at UTPD.
In the lawsuit, Stephens is seeking damages, including back pay, compensatory damages, and lost job benefits, as well as reinstatement or front pay.
They also want Title VII training for all UT-Austin and UT System employees, supervisory discipline up to and including termination for any supervisor who engages in unlawful Title VII discrimination or retaliation and monitoring by the court or a federal agency to ensure this happens.
“Chief Stevens feels strongly that whatever systemic failures allowed her to be treated the way that she was, those are remedied so that nobody else at UT has to face what she faced,” Holman said.