By admin 
A former volunteer involved in the farmworker movement is alleging union leader Cesar Chavez raped her in the 1970s while she lived with her family on the Unifed Farms Workers compound, according to a new lawsuit.
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The lawsuit filed Sept 1 in Kern County Superior Court against the Cesar Chavez Foundation and the UFW Foundation, alleges leadership at the foundations “allowed the labor union and civil rights icon to freely target women for sexual abuse,” according to a press release.
The unnamed plaintiff, Jane Doe, now 86, has lived with “decades from depression, anger, emotional distress, suicidal thoughts, alcohol dependency and ongoing therapy,” according to the press release announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges the flagship farmworker union and the Cesar Chavez Foundation “made concerted efforts to hide evidence relating to sexual harassment and sexual assaults of girls and women by UFW members and leaders, including Cesar Chavez, in an effort to incentivize survivors to remain silent or prevent information relating to such wrongdoing from becoming public.”
The UFW foundation did not respond to a request for comment and the UFW, which is not a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment. The UFW Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 that advocates for farmworkers’ rights and is a separate entity from the United Farm Workers union.
Through a spokesperson, the Cesar Chavez Foundation said it “recently became aware of the legal complaint. We are reviewing with our legal counsel and will respond in a way that stays true to our mission and values.”
This appears to be the first lawsuit to be filed after a March New York Times investigation alleged Chavez had sexually abused girls involved with the farmworker movement for years.
The unnamed former volunteer also appears to be a new woman coming forward that wasn’t named in Times investigation. In that investigation, UFW cofounder and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta accused Chavez of rape and two other women who grew up in the farmworker movement, Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, said Chavez molested and assaulted them in the 1970s, starting at the ages of 12 and 13.
The story sent shockwaves across the country, with dozens of parks, schools, streets and events in his honor.
Doe is represented by Los Angeles area attorneys that have been involved in high-profile lawsuits in recent years: Arias, Sahar Malek and Nia Gamble of Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team LLP and Ryann Hall of V. James DeSimone Law, of Marina del Rey.
Arias was a co-liaison counsel for the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against USC and gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall who sexually abused over 700 women; that lawsuit resulted in a historic $852 million sexual abuse settlement.
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De Simone Law most recently represented the 18-year-old University of Southern California student who lost an eye when he was hit by a non-lethal projectile shot by a Department of Homeland Security agent while attending a “No Kings” protest in March.
Lawsuit alleges rape at La Paz union compound
Doe was born in 1940 in San Bernardino County, according to the lawsuit. During a summer break in college in the late 1950s to early 1960s, she worked at a Northern California fruit shed, where she was exposed to the treatment of farmworkers. She then got involved with student groups supporting the organizing efforts in the Central Valley.
After college, she moved to the Central Valley to support the grape strike and through this work met Chavez. She worked in various support roles for the UFW through 1983, according to the lawsuit.
Beginning in the spring of 1970, Doe moved with her family to the union’s compound in La Paz in the Tehachapi mountains of eastern Kern County. In addition to UFW administrative offices, the compound at La Paz, a former tuberculosis sanitarium, served as Chavez’s official residence and housed approximately 200 UFW organizers and their families, according to the lawsuit.
In spring 1973, the volunteer attended a celebration at La Paz. At the party, Chavez pushed alcohol on her and danced with her.
“Plaintiff felt uncomfortable and went into a bathroom to hide for a while,” the lawsuit says.
Upon returning and entering her house, Chavez summoned Doe into a room within her house, threw her onto the bed and raped her, the lawsuit says.
A few years later, in 1976 or 1977, another incident took place. Chavez called Doe over to his house at La Paz, “forcibly pulled Plaintiff’s head down to his crotch, where he had an erect penis.”
The lawsuit alleges the Cesar Chavez Foundation and UFW Foundation, serving as Doe’s landlords while she resided at the compound, “did nothing to investigate, supervise or monitor Chavez to ensure Plaintiff’s safety.”
Chavez died in 1993 at the age of 66.
This story was originally published September 9, 2026 at 11:51 AM with the headline “Another woman alleges Cesar Chavez raped her at UFW compound in new lawsuit.”
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