Arnold Schwarzenegger is swarmed by the media during the opening ceremonies of the Inner-City games on Friday, August 8, 2003, a day after he took out papers to run for California governor in the recall election.
John Decker
Sacramento Bee file
The alacrity with which the California Museum Board of Trustees decision to remove disgraced labor leader Cesar Chavez from the California Hall of Fame is matched only by their hypocrisy.
Because tonight, they’ll induct another admitted sexual predator: Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“From humble beginnings, he built himself into a world champion bodybuilder, Hollywood icon, successful businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, bestselling author and the 38th Governor of California,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month, at a preview reception of this year’s class of inductees.
But Schwarzenegger also has a long — and admitted — history of groping and sexually harassing women.
In a series of stories published by the Los Angeles Times in 2003, shortly before the recall election that installed him as the last Republican to be governor of California, more than a dozen women accused the action movie star-turned-politician of groping, sexually harassing and humiliating them, in multiple incidents that spanned more than three decades.
Schwarzenegger’s response to the allegations? He dismissed the report as “trash politics,” and only apologized for having “behaved badly.” Then, the Los Angeles Police Department declined to investigate, citing the one-year statute of limitations for misdemeanor battery.
It would take more than 20 years, and the end of Schwarzenegger’s term in office, before he publicly admitted his behavior in a 2023 Netflix documentary.
“Forget all the excuses,” he said to the camera. “It was wrong.”
Mr. Schwarzenegger: It was wrong on Muscle Beach in the 1970s; it was wrong in 2003 when you denied it; it was wrong in 2023 when you finally admitted it; and it’s still wrong today, even as you stand to be honored by your peers.
No degree of molestation, abuse, battery, or harassment should be considered menial enough to ignore to hold up a sexual abuser as a pillar of the community. So how can the California Hall of Fame get it so right, so quickly with Chavez, and so very wrong with Schwarzenegger?
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Guests attend a preview of the California Hall of Fame’s inaugural class Dec. 6, 2006, at the California Museum in Sacramento. The Hall of Fame’s inaugural inductees were Ronald Reagan, Cesar Chavez, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart, Clint Eastwood, Frank Gehry, David D. Ho, Billie Jean King, John Muir, Sally Ride and the Hearst and Packard families. Justin Sullivan Getty Images
When the news broke on Wednesday that Chavez had been credibly accused of raping and molesting women and girls as young as 12, and of raping and twice impregnating his fellow United Farm Workers co-founder, Dolores Huerta, the horror among every woman I know was palpable.
The thought that Huerta lived with that knowledge for more than 60 years while forced to prop up the legacy of her abuser for the sake of the cause is devastating.
Chavez, despite his accomplishments, does not deserve to have his name spoken with honor. But neither does Schwarzenegger, Donald Trump, nor any man who molests women for their own amusement and pleasure.
Half of the world’s population lives every day with the knowledge that our bodies are not our own. That we can be mocked, grabbed, groped, abused and raped at any given moment, and likely without any consequence to our abuser. Moreover, when those abusers are powerful men, they will not only go uninvestigated and be forgiven — they will be celebrated.
So, tonight, as the California Hall of Fame shows Chavez the back door, the museum’s Board of Trustees will line up to welcome yet another sexual predator, Schwarzenegger, in through the front.
The hypocrisy is unforgivable, yet unsurprising.
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 11:43 AM.
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Robin Epley is an opinion writer for The Sacramento Bee, with a focus on Sacramento County politics. She was born and raised in Sacramento, was a member of the Chico Enterprise-Record’s Pulitzer Prize-finalist team for coverage of the Camp Fire, and is a graduate of Chico State.