The Chicago Public Schools’ inspector general could soon issue findings in its recently reopened investigation into whether Hilario Dominguez, a candidate for Chicago School Board president, acted inappropriately with a 17-year-old in 2017.
Investigators interviewed the woman, who is now 26, in late September and reinterviewed Dominguez on Tuesday.
The woman told the Chicago Tribune and other media outlets that Dominguez asked about her dating life while they were alone in a car, and he once lifted her up in a hug and spun her around. At the time, Dominguez was 24 and an organizer at The Resurrection Project, a Pilsen-based nonprofit, while she was a CPS student working there through the city’s summer jobs program.
The woman told Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago that the hug with her body pressed against his made her feel “very uncomfortable” and that the car interaction was “really alarming” because Dominguez “was a figure of authority that I trusted.” She also said the concerning behavior stopped after she complained to an adult staffer.
The young woman has personal ties to Dominguez’s former political rival, Aida Flores, according to several sources. Dominguez denies the allegations and says they are politically motivated.
“For me, this is beyond a political campaign,” he told WBEZ. “This is about how I hold my head up high in the neighborhoods and in the city that raised me.”
The school district’s watchdog first opened an investigation into the alleged incidents in 2021 when Dominguez was teaching in CPS. He left that position in 2022 to work as deputy political director for the Chicago Teachers Union, which endorsed Dominguez in the school board race.
Earlier this year, the inspector general’s office determined the allegations were unsubstantiated, according to an email sent by an investigator to Dominguez reviewed by WBEZ. But the office recently reopened the case.
Inspector General Philip Wagenknecht would not comment on why, but the woman told the Tribune that she reached out to his office because she was not interviewed for the original investigation.
These accusations have been thrust into Chicago’s heated school board president contest.
Jessica Biggs, one of Dominguez’s opponents in the race, said the alleged conduct was “deeply concerning” and that women and girls in CPS are paying attention.
“They deserve to know that the next leader of the CPS Board of Education will take their experiences seriously,” she said.
One of Biggs’ staffers, Alaina Hampton, said in a statement that she has known the woman for years and was long aware of the allegations. Hampton said the woman reached out to her in early September when the inspector general informed her the case was closed. Hampton recommended the woman hire a lawyer. Hampton said she would “continue to stand in solidarity with victims and survivors.”
Hampton was part of a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit filed in 2018 against the Democratic Party of Illinois and others. She settled that case.
Through her lawyer, the woman declined to respond to questions from WBEZ. But she has said she is speaking out now because she wanted to tell her own story. She told NBC Chicago that Dominguez’s interactions with her should disqualify him from serving as school board president.
Dominguez left the Resurrection Project in 2018 to run for alderperson of the 25th Ward. Flores, an assistant principal at CPS, was one of four opponents.
Dominguez says these allegations first surfaced during that race. They both lost.
When Flores ran a second time in 2023, she was backed by a political action committee that opposes the CTU. Flores’ campaign website says she’s collecting petitions to run again in February.
Flores said in an email to WBEZ that she would not discuss the matter while the inspector general’s investigation was ongoing. Earlier this week, Flores told Chalkbeat and Block Club that she was not involved in surfacing the allegations.
Dominguez insists “that he did not have those types of interactions” with the woman.
He also said that he believes sexual misconduct should be taken seriously.
Paloma Rodriguez, a former housing coordinator for The Resurrection Project, told WBEZ that she sent emails in 2017 telling senior management that the young woman felt uncomfortable around Dominguez.
When Dominguez announced he was running for office in 2018, she said she decided to become “louder” about the alleged behavior. She submitted an official report to senior management in December 2018, according to a redacted copy reviewed by WBEZ. Rodriguez told WBEZ she also wrote it to “cover her butt” and preserve the information.
Rodriguez wrote, in 2018, that the teen told her “there was inappropriate language and behavior” by Dominguez in 2017, including “questions and comments about her dating life and physical appearance.”
Salvador Cerna, who supervised Dominguez at The Resurrection Project and is now his father-in-law, told WBEZ he never “had to discipline Hilario” or discuss “his interactions with youth.”
A Resurrection Project spokeswoman said the organization would not comment.
Rodriguez, who said she was close friends with Flores but recently had a falling out, said she did not release the internal Resurrection Project report. She stands by her decision to report what the young woman told her.
“We really need to hold men specifically accountable,” Rodriguez said.
State Rep. Theresa Mah, who endorsed Dominguez in the 2019 City Council race, heard the allegations swirling around her Pilsen-area district. She told WBEZ that she talked to the executive director of The Resurrection Project, Raul Raymundo, in 2019 and was “satisfied that no misconduct occurred.”