OAN Staff James Meyers
1:33 PM – Monday, August 19, 2024
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has come under intense scrutiny and is facing accusations of nepotism for promoting a personal friend of hers to take on the position of chief of staff, making her the first individual to hold the position without obtaining any law degree.
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“Nepotism is the unfair use of power in order to get jobs or other benefits for your family or friends,” according to the Collins Dictionary.
Jenkins (D-Calif.) previously hired Monifa Willis, a nursing professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2022 to run the District Attorney’s Office’s Victim Services Division. Jenkins also later promoted her in March of this year.
According to the San Francisco Standard, Willis earns $100,000 annually from her professor job and now makes an additional $300,000 a year as Jenkins’ chief of staff, which local politicians and former employees argue is blatant nepotism.
Fox News reported that this marks the first time in the agency’s history that the role has been occupied by someone who is not a lawyer.
“She was given this position because she knew the DA,” said a former Victim Services employee who worked under Willis.
“Stuff fell through the cracks all the time because she was too busy doing two jobs,” said the former employee. “I’ve seen her [teaching online] classes during work hours.”
Meanwhile, Ryan Khojasteh, a man who is running against Jenkins for the DA role, also criticized the hire, calling it a case of special treatment.
“Nepotism erodes public trust,” he told the Standard. “As San Franciscans, we deserve better from our District Attorney’s Office. My administration will not tolerate such abuses of office — assignments will be based on merit, experience and competence.”
However, the DA’s office claimed in a statement that the promotion of Willis to chief of staff was not a conflict of interest for Jenkins and that Willis was given the role for her experience outside the office.
“I am proud to have Monifa Willis serve as my chief of staff,” Jenkins told the outlet. “I have had the honor and privilege of knowing Monifa for years and am excited to work with her in this capacity.”
The two have known each other since high school, where they were track-and-field athletes, Mission Local reported in 2022.
Meanwhile, since becoming Jenkins’ chief of staff, Willis has continued to work as a professor at UCSF, despite the fact that DA policy forbids employees to engage in any outside activity that would take time away from their duties at work.
The DA’s office said it “verbally approved her request” for the secondary job when she was initially hired.
“She teaches one class on Wednesday evenings during UCSF’s fall, winter and spring quarters. She does not teach in the summer. Her teaching responsibilities do not impact her ability to perform any of her job duties at the District Attorney’s Office,” the agency said in a statement.
Furthermore, the agency continued to defend her lack of experience, claiming that the role only requires four years of managerial experience in a legal, legislative or clinical social environment, according to Mission Local.
David Campos, former DA Chesa Boudin’s chief of staff from 2020 to 2022, said it would be extremely difficult to have two jobs at that time.
“I think it’s pretty hard to do that job while being employed by someone else. It’s a job that requires all of your time and energy,” Campos explained.
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