For almost a year University student Chris Swires worked hard at a campus job he loved: employed as an administrative assistant at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.
He was well-liked by his co-workers and received promotions.
Until the museum administration uncovered his past.
Now in his early thirties, Swires still sports the same slicked-back hairstyle and large-lensed eyeglasses as he does in his mug shot taken eight years ago, in May of 1998, when he was convicted on four counts of felony sexual abuse – two for each young boy he molested. They were brothers and his neighbors.
“I was a fucked-up person,” he said. “I created a lot of heartache and a lot of pain in two young men’s lives that they’re probably still dealing with.”
But from September 2005 until early August, no one at the museum had any knowledge of Swires’ past or his status as a convicted felon. During the hiring process his background was not checked and there was not even an attempt to ask him outright.
Swires’ past has been available to anyone with Internet access on the Oregon Sex Offender Inquiry System (http://sexoffenders.oregon.gov) since July when the site began posting location-based profiles of convicted sexual predators. The profile looks like a baseball card, but instead of his batting average, Internet users see Swires’ mug shot, address, identifying information, charges, and restrictions, and have the number of his parole officer to call if they suspect him of committing a crime.
Swires was told by museum administrators Karen Shaw and David Turner that following publication of an Emerald article documenting the site’s existence, (ODE: “Local sex offenders listed on Web site,” July 27, 2006), an unknown person accessed the site, found Swires’ picture and contacted the museum administration via an anonymous e-mail.
Once museum officials confirmed Swires as a sexual predator they went to the University administration who contacted Lane County Parole and Probation, the government unit that oversees offenders released on parole, Swires said he was told. Museum officials have refused to comment about the transactions
surrounding his removal.
Swires’ Parole and Probation Officer, Shawn Hoban, would not mention specifics about Swires or the case, but Swires said Hoban had initially approved his employment at the museum.
After his felony conviction became known, Swires was told that Parole and Probation had changed its position and told the University if they could not guarantee he would not be around minors he would have to be fired. Even though Swires maintains he never came in contact with minors because he worked in the back offices, the Museum, he said, could not give a guarantee because minors frequently visit exhibits and special “family day” events.
“I don’t blame the Museum,” he said. “I don’t blame the University as much as I blame Parole and Probation.”
Regardless of the degree of danger Swires poses, he was hired without a background check.
“In general,” University spokesman Phillip Weiler said, “most companies don’t do background checks. It’s not an easy thing, it’s not an inexpensive thing.”
Swires’ openness about the events and his past have not been matched by the University or museum administrators who have attempted to keep a lid on the circumstances of his firing by instructing the staff through e-mails to not to discuss the events with anyone. Museum spokeswoman Debbie Williamson-Smith said the institution would not comment.
Except for Museum director David Turner, no employees were willing to discuss Swires because, they said, they feared losing their jobs. Turner would not comment on Swires’ employment but said the museum had updated their hiring process to include more in-depth background checks, though he would not give specifics.
Turner said he was “not at liberty to talk,” about the details of Swires employment. Turner, like all other co-workers the Emerald contacted off-the-record, had nothing but praise for Swires.
“Chris was an excellent employee,” Turner said. “I wish the circumstances would have been different.”
After a single interview, Turner did not return phone calls from the Emerald.
The University declined to reveal any information about Swires’ employment, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which limits the public from accessing students records.
No members of the University administration were willing to confirm or deny these series of events, or mention specifics about Swires’ hiring and firing, but other sources, granted anonymity for protection of their jobs, confirmed that Swires was fired after the museum discovered his past.
Anonymous sources also said that following the discovery, the museum went into a whirlwind of damage control, informing employees that Swires was not to be allowed on Museum grounds and that no one was to mention details of his employment to anyone.
Swires maintains that the Museum’s heavy reliance on public donations made it necessary for them to fire him and to try and keep Swires’ employment from boiling over into a public scandal.
“I felt my firing was unjustified,” Swires said. “But they had an image to maintain.”
University and museum officials chose not to respond to Swires’ claims.
Raised in a fundamentalist Christian household, Swires’ lifelong knowledge that he was gay created a schism in his mind that, in his youth, he was unable to manage.
“Under fundamentalist teaching, gay people do certain things,” Swires said. “I knew I was gay, gay people were evil, so I knew I should do evil things.”
“It made sense at the time,” he said.
That was Swires before seven years of prison, where he had “24 hours-a-day to sit and be alone with [his] thoughts.”
Because budget cuts had taken away college courses and vocational training away from prisoners, he spent his time in solitude and deep introspection. He read books on spirituality, Zen and Buddhism and decided to rebuild himself “from the ground up.”
Upon his release, Swires, who now wears a bejeweled ring on his left hand that he said symbolizes redemption and peace, enrolled at Lane Community College and then at the University. He is working toward a degree in art history with a focus on art from Japan. During that time he also found a partner with whom he now lives, and is hours away from completing his required treatment. In terms of education, his goal, he said, is to receive a masters and then a doctoral degree from the University of California, San Diego.
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