Sacramento State Interim Vice President of Inclusive Excellence and Director of Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) William ‘Skip’ Bishop is leaving Sac State at the end of October, according to a SacSend email from university President Robert Nelsen. 

Bishop will now become Title IX and gender equity officer at San Jose State, where he said he hopes to build the Title IX program from scratch, according to a statement included in Nelsen’s SacSend.

Bishop was known for creating Sac State’s annual affirmative action plan as director of the office of equal opportunity and the Title IX program at Sac State, according to Nelsen’s email.

His departure comes during the university’s attempt to construct an anti-racism plan and follows the departures of other top Black administrators Robin Carter, Diana Tate Vermiere and John Johnson last spring.

In a Mother Jones article about an incident that occurred at a meeting of Sac State’s Student Investment Fund in 2018, where professor David Moore had the police called on him by fellow professor Sanjay Varshney, Bishop was quoted discussing Sac State’s anti-racism efforts unrelated to Moore’s experience in a May 2019 email to the Black Staff and Faculty Association.

“I apologize in advance, but I am no longer interested in doing anything for this University other than what I’m paid to do,” Bishop said in the email, according to Mother Jones. “The Administration has made it clear to me that diversity and inclusion means nothing unless it is for their benefit. Going forward, I hope this group really takes a hard look at how African-Americans are treated on this campus.”

Nelsen said the university will announce an interim replacement for Bishop’s role in the OEO “in the coming days” while also searching for a permanent replacement as soon as possible.

Bishop did not immediately respond to comment when The State Hornet reached out via email.