2A — Monday, February 17, 2020
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Senior Account Executive
ANALISE DOORHY 
Senior Account Executive
TARA MOORE 
Senior Account Exeucutive

Notice to all Students 
Regarding Suspended Fraternity

The Chi Phi Fraternity at the University of Michigan was placed 
on temporary suspension by the Fraternity’s Grand Council on 
January 12, 2020, effective immediately. Members of the Chapter 
were instructed to cease operations immediately and were placed 
on Alumni status.

The Fraternity appreciates the University community’s cooperation in 
this matter and encourages you to report any operating efforts of 
this group to the Fraternity’s Executive Director Michael Azarian at 
azarian@chiphi.org

One such comment Esquivel 
allegedly made was to call 
Parow “sucia,” which means 
“dirty” in Spanish, a slang term 
for whore. This employee asked 
to be identified by only her first 
name, Savannah, out of fear of 
professional retribution.
“I had noticed that in the 
kitchen they were calling her 
‘sucia,’” Savannah said. “They 
were harassing her so I went to 
a manager.”
Sava’s 
management 
told 
Savannah they would address 
this issue, but Savannah alleged 
she saw no response to this 
complaint.
“They’re like, ‘Oh okay we’ll 
definitely 
deal 
with 
this,’” 
Savannah said. “And nothing 
happened.”
SavCo Hospitality terminated 
Savannah’s employment April 
30, 2019. In a letter sent to 
Savannah, a photo of which was 
obtained by The Daily, a Sava’s 
manager explained that her 
termination was related to her 
telling other employees what she 
claims she had witnessed.
“Most 
recently, 
there 
were two incidents in which 
employees named you as the 
individual that told them stories 
regarding 
sexual 
harassment 
issues not being addressed in 
the workplace resulting in them 
no longer wanting to work at 
our establishment,” the Sava’s 
manager wrote. “... Both incidents 
that those individuals reported 
hearing from you specifically are 
untrue and have been thoroughly 
investigated and concluded with 
the individuals involved.”
The manager said this was 
why Savannah was being fired.
“While we can’t assume your 
intentions, the consequences of 
your behavior are beyond repair 
and this is why we must part ways 
with you effective immediately,” 
the manager wrote. 
“We can no longer condone the 
toxic and harmful way in which you 
conduct yourself.”
***
The alleged sexual misconduct 
described in Parow’s Facebook post 
took place weeks after Savannah 
reported Esquivel’s alleged “sucia” 
comments to Sava’s management. 
The 
Daily 
spoke 
with 
three 
individuals with knowledge of 
Parow’s description of these events 
from before they became public. All 
three corroborated the consistency 
of Parow’s account of the alleged 
sexual misconduct.
Parow alleged that after a private 
dining event, she walked towards 
an outside underground storage 
facility, which employees call the 
“Dungeon.” Esquivel and another 
kitchen employee allegedly grabbed 
her by the arms and tried to force 
her into the Dungeon.
No 
other 
individuals 
were 
present to witness this incident. 
The other kitchen employee did 
not respond to multiple requests for 
comment.
“We’re going to rape you,” they 
said, according to Parow. 
Ever since she first made her 
allegations this summer, Parow 
has maintained that she does not 
remember what happened after 
that statement. Though she had 
not consumed alcohol, she said 
that she “blacked out” at this point, 
according to interviews with Parow 
and two other employees.
The Daily obtained a copy of 
SavCo Hospitality’s investigation 
into Parow’s claim. 
According to the investigation, 
Esquivel and the other chef denied 
pulling Parow into a storage area 
or threatening sexual assault. They 
alleged that Parow had repeatedly 
made sexual jokes and comments 
to them in the months leading up 
to the incident, something that the 

investigation notes Esquivel had 
once reported to another manager. 
Parow’s claim of the alleged 
sexual misconduct was found to be 
unsubstantiated.
The investigation also notes that 
“a final warning” had been issued to 
Esquivel.
Following 
a 
meeting 
with 
Human Resources representatives, 
management 
removed 
Parow 
from future private dining events. 
According to Parow, they agreed 
she should take time off for her 
mental health.
At a later meeting, Parow was 
given a contract releasing SavCo 
Hospitality from any liability if 
Parow sought to sue them at a later 
date.
“I was in no place to be signing 
absolutely anything,” Parow said. 
“I was a fucking mess. I was so 
scared. I was always looking over 
my shoulder at the time. I thought 
it was for my paid time off, and I 
needed rent. Rent was due almost 
… I signed it, I walked out of there.” 
Parow had also signed a non-
disparagement agreement as part of 
her initial employment paperwork. 
The 
agreement 
specifically 
prohibits Parow from speaking 
negatively 
of 
any 
“employee, 
business or process” of SavCo 
Hospitality.
Non-disparagement agreements, 
or NDAs, have come under scrutiny 
in the wake of the #MeToo 
movement. In December, The Daily 
reported on confidential NDAs 
reached between the University of 
Michigan and former employees, 
agreements totalling approximately 
$1.265 million over a six-month 
period. Ex-University employees 
complained that the agreements 
silenced them by stifling criticism of 
their former employer.
The Daily found evidence of two 
non-disparagement 
agreements, 
including Parow’s, that SavCo 
Hospitality reached with former 
employees. Both had been included 
in documents the employees signed 
when starting their employment. 
Though Parow worked at Sava’s 
and the other employee worked 
at Aventura, the terms of these 
agreements were nearly identical. 
It is unclear if these agreements 
are still included in incoming 
employment paperwork.
In an interview with The Daily, 
Ally Coll, the president of the 
#MeToo 
advocacy 
organization 
The Purple Campaign said these 
agreements 
have 
debilitating 
effects on public discourse around 
allegations of harassment and 
misconduct.
“(NDAs) 
have 
allowed 
organizations and leadership at 
organizations to avoid actually 
addressing the underlying issue,” 
Coll said.
Companies that reach these 
agreements are also emboldened, 
Coll explained, to not resolve claims 
of harassment and misconduct 
equitably. 
“They no longer are as worried 
about making sure that both parties 
feel that their claims were fairly 
resolved,” Coll said.
***
On Aug. 12, 2019, Parow posted 
an account of the incident with 
Esquivel and Sava’s management’s 
response on Facebook. Though 
they had offered her a position at 
another SavCo Hospitality-owned 
restaurant, she had quit working for 
the company months earlier.
Parow alleged that management 
brushed off her complaint.
“They did not want to hear it. 
They put it away, they covered it 
up,” Parow said in an interview with 
The Daily. “They knew, just because 
this stuff has happened before and 
my Facebook post has brought out a 
lot of women to come forward and 
share. So I’m not afraid of being 
called a liar or anything, because it’s 
the fucking truth.”
In 
response 
to 
Parrow’s 
post, SavCo Hospitality shared 
a statement on Facebook. The 

statement has since been taken 
down.
“We want everyone to know 
that any and all alleged incidents 
that have been brought to the 
company’s attention have been 
fully investigated and handled 
with care. We do not tolerate 
any type of harassment in our 
company,” 
SavCo 
Hospitality 
wrote, according to an article from 
MLive. “The situation in question 
was thoroughly investigated over 
several weeks, including interviews 
with all parties involved … We took 
the situation very seriously, and we 
are certain we handled this matter 
appropriately, 
given 
a 
diligent 
investigation and several objective 
individuals all reaching the same 
conclusion.”
Farah discussed the investigation 
in an interview with MLive in 
August.
“We apologize for the experience 
she’s having, but we investigated, 
and 
it 
came 
out 
completely 
unsubstantiated,” Farah said. 
The Daily spoke with another 
Sava’s employee familiar with 
the 
circumstances 
of 
Parow’s 
allegations of sexual misconduct. 
The employee declined to be named 
for fear of professional retribution. 
They claimed Farah described 
Esquivel and the chef’s actions as 
a joke in a private conversation. 
This was after SavCo Hospitality 
concluded its investigation of the 
incident, and the employee believed 
this was the final finding. 
“(Farah told me) the incident was 
a joke,” the employee said. “But it 
was okay … because Gustavo knew 
that it was inappropriate now.”
The Daily spoke to another Sava’s 
employee working at the restaurant 
at the time that the investigation 
into Parow’s claim concluded. This 
employee asked to be referred to 
only by their first name, Sam, citing 
fears of professional retribution.
Sam claimed company-wide staff 
meetings were held to discuss the 
findings of the investigation into 
Parow’s allegations, but employees 
had a difficult time asking questions 
because management dominated 
the conversation. 
Sam said they believed these 
meetings were organized to scare 
employees from speaking publicly 
about the allegations.
“I genuinely believe they did that, 
purposefully, so that they could 
hear less voices, get less feedback 
and create this culture of silence,” 
Sam said. 
In 
text 
messages 
between 
Parow and Farah shortly after 
Parow’s Facebook post, Farah 
threatened Parow with a lawsuit. 
Parow provided copies of these text 
messages to The Daily.
“This is a gross misrepresentation 
of what occurred and if I have to 
defend myself I will have to have 
my legal team hit you with a slander 
lawsuit tomorrow morning,” Farah 
wrote.
Parow said she felt betrayed by 
SavCo management. She had once 
thought highly enough of Farah to 
get a tattoo of the Albanian word 
“besa” — referring to the Albanian 
code of honor — after it featured 
prominently in a TEDx Talk Farah 
gave in March 2018.
“I was in awe of (Farah),” Parow 
said. “I looked up to her … I was 
proud to work for her — a powerful 
woman-owned business. I was 
really about that.”
Parow took down her Facebook 
post. Farah never sued. 
***
The Daily spoke with three other 
former Sava’s employees. Two of the 
employees requested anonymity, 
citing 
fears 
of 
professional 
retribution. In this article, one will 
be referred to as Anne and the other 
as Jane.
Jane alleged that male workers 
repeatedly 
harassed 
her 
with 
sexual innuendos and sexist verbal 
statements. In one instance, she 
recalled a male worker allegedly 
asking her for details about her 

romantic relationship.
Jane also alleged that male 
workers 
repeatedly 
touched 
her, often inappropriately, while 
walking past her in the kitchen. 
She said this occurred so often she 
became desensitized to it. 
“It was every single day,” Jane 
said. “You would just kind of let it 
happen after a while because it’s 
just — they’re not going to stop.”
Anne alleged that when Esquivel 
began touching her inappropriately 
another male employee mimicked 
him.
“(A male employee) saw what 
Gustavo was doing to me and started 
imitating his actions,” Anne said. 
“Like grabbing my butt and like 
getting really close to me.”
She alleged that this continued 
throughout her time in the 
restaurant’s kitchen.
“The groping would happen a 
lot,” Anne said. “The trying to go 
down my pants happened a few 
times.”
Anne spoke of an incident in 
which a male employee — the 
same 
employee 
who 
Parow 
alleges cornered her in the 
Dungeon with Esquivel — and 
Esquivel 
allegedly 
followed 
her into a storage area and 
propositioned her for sex, asking 
if she would have a “threesome” 
with them.
“I said, ‘I won’t even have sex 
with one of you. What makes 
you think I’m going to have a 
threesome?’” Anne said. “It was 
just that they all had this mindset 
that that’s just what I do.”
Jane also spoke of an incident 
in 
which 
Esquivel 
allegedly 
kissed an employee in view of one 
of the restaurant’s security cameras. 
It is unclear whether this incident 
was recorded or if a recording still 
exists.
When 
Anne 
later 
brought 
forward 
an 
allegation 
of 
misconduct, she, like Castro-Santos, 
thought Esquivel’s status affected 
the company’s response.
“They went into saying how great 
Gustavo is for this company and 
they just wouldn’t stop talking 
about it,” Anne said. 
The implication, she thought, 
was that if she didn’t withdraw 
her complaint, “they’ll be losing 
their most prized chef.”
Mimi 
Verdiyan, 
another 
former Sava’s employee, wrote 
of her skepticism regarding the 
investigation process. 
“I never witnessed any sexual 
misconduct myself,” Verdiyan 
wrote in a message to The Daily. 
“The way (other allegations 
were) handled was messed up.” 
Verdiyan 
described 
the 
process by which information 
about 
allegations 
was 
disseminated to employees. She 
said she heard other employees 
discuss these investigations.
“The 
people 
who 
went 
through 
the 
‘investigation 
process’ did mention that it 
wasn’t really an investigation 
and more a strategy to dissolve 
the issue itself,” Verdiyan wrote. 
“Just weird insidious ways to 
keep everyone from asking too 
many questions.”
Verdiyan said she experienced 
something similar when she 
made a complaint about racial 
discrimination. 
“They had similar strategies 
when (a) situation with racial 
discrimination 
at 
the 
host 
stand was starting to surface,” 
Verdiyan wrote. “Which again is 
what I was closer to.”
***
Dan 
Rodaire, 
a 
former 
employee of Aventura alleged he 
witnessed repeated harassment 
against other employees. It was 
Parow’s post that led Rodaire 
to come forward with his own 
allegations. 
He 
shared 
his 
experiences in a Facebook post 
responding to Parow’s post.
“Dear Ghia, I’ve never met 
you but I am absolutely sure 
that everything you’re saying is 
true because I had an extremely 
similar 
experience 
working 
at 
Sava’s 
sister 
restaurant, 
Aventura,” Rodaire wrote. “I 
was fired in direct response to 
a meeting with management in 
which I had reported continual 
sexual 
harassment 
from 
a 
prominent 
kitchen 
employee 
towards almost, if not all, of the 
women who worked as server 
assistants, among others.”
In an interview with The 
Daily, Rodaire said that he made 
several reports to management 
about this harassment. In his 
Facebook post, he alleged that 
upper management was aware 
of it.
“As someone who spent a lot 
of time in the manager’s office 
fighting for what I believed in — 
I knew for a fact that all of upper 

SAVCO
from Page 1A

management was aware of these 
problems,” Rodaire wrote. 
Rodaire also spoke of the 
disparity between the front of 
house and back of house cultures 
at Aventura.
“There 
are 
two 
totally 
different worlds at Aventura,” 
Rodaire said in an interview with 
The Daily. “There’s the front of 
house and then the back of house. 
The front of house is mainly 
University of Michigan students, 
and I’d say that ethical standards 
for the most part were upheld in 
front of the guests. The upstairs 
world was mainly regulated, but 
the downstairs world was not.”
Many former employees said 
they believe SavCo Hospitality 
will not change its responses to 
allegations of sexual harassment 
and misconduct until it begins to 
affect the company’s bottom line. 
“They can’t possibly publicly 
believe (Parow) or acknowledge 
the truth of her story in any way 
because they would lose money,” 
Sam said. “They work in the 
interest of creating a profit and if 
their profit is going to be harmed 

by allegations of sexual assault 
then they would do anything that 
they can to tamp those down.”
Rodaire 
noted 
SavCo 
Hospitality’s emphasis on their 
public image.
“If 
they 
were 
to 
fire 
(an 
employee) 
for 
sexual 
harassment, the story would 
become about them,” Rodaire 
said. “It would put their name in 
the press, and that’s what they 
don’t want.”
Castro-Santos said she refuses 
to support restaurants owned 
by SavCo Hospitality after her 
experience working for them. 
“I have very strong feelings 
about 
not 
giving 
them 
my 
money,” Castro-Santos said. “I 
think that we individually have 
a responsibility to ourselves 
and other people to not endorse 
a company that doesn’t need 
our money and doesn’t help its 
employees — doesn’t care about 
its employees.”
Reporters Zayna Syed and 
Sammy Sussman can be reached 
at 
zasyed@michigandaily.com 
and sbsu@michigandaily.com.

