Settlement at Tennessee

News broke this morning that there will be no trial (originally scheduled for spring 2018) in the Title IX lawsuit against the University of Tennessee. UT will pay just under $2.5 million to the eight women who brought the lawsuit.

As is the case in most settlements, the university admits no wrongdoing. Money for the settlement will be drawn from both central administration and athletics. Stories suggest that no taxpayer money will be used, but at a state university I wonder how easy it is to keep it all separated.

From the plantiffs' lawyer:
We are satisfied that, while universities everywhere struggle with these issues, the University of Tennessee has made significant progress in the way they educate and respond to sexual assault cases. My clients and I are also convinced that the University's leadership is truly committed to continue its exemplary efforts to create a model as it relates to sexual misconduct.

From UT Chancellor Jimmy Cheek:
Like many institutions, we are not perfect, but our goal is to continue to be the best we can be at creating awareness, educating and preventing discrimination and abuse in any form and to continue to be equally prepared when it does happen and to deal with it promptly, sensitively, fairly and effectively. We've come a long way in recent years, and we are working every day to be even better.

No one listed the measures UT has taken to ensure that Title IX is being correctly and effectively implemented.

ESPN has a list of the specific incidents here. But as a reminder, these date back to the mid-90s and involved UT athletes who were either not investigated or not punished for sexual assault.

As a wrap-up, I want to note the trends or similarities that these charges have with other cases we have covered.
1. Athletes have special protections. These manifested in the following ways in this case: not being investigated; found guilty but not punished or lightly punished; other entities intimidating victims discouraging them from filing complaints or charges (in this case it was teammates of perpetrators).

2. Passing the buck: In at least one case at UT, an offending athlete was found guilty, allowed to finish out his season and then transfer. Remember, the SEC passed a rule that prevents member schools from accepting transfer athletes who have histories of sexual assault. Apparently, they have no issue sending those students to non-SEC schools.

3. Female athletes as victims. Because tracking the intricacies of sexual assault is difficult--at best, we don't know how many perpetrators are athletes nor do we know are many victims are athletes and at what level they play. But UT is not the first time we have heard about male athletes at DI institutions assaulting female athletes with few repercussions (Missouri, Iowa, New Mexico). Keeping things in the "family" (i.e., athletics department) clearly has serious negative consequences. Female athletes are pressured not to report assaults; they are told things will be handled internally. In this case, that pressure was also exerted on a male athlete who attempted to come to the defense of one of the victims and was assaulted and called a traitor by Coach Butch Jones (Jones denies this.).

Competition over ethics implies Saban

I wrote last week about the new SEC policy preventing the transfer of student athletes with serious misconduct issues to SEC schools. Though it passed with ease among SEC administrators, it is not without controversy.

One person raising some objections is Alabama football coach, Nick Saban. Saban is worried about the competitive advantage other conferences will receive because they do not have such policies. So athletes, again athletes who have been found responsible for sexual assault and domestic violence by their former schools, will get turned down because of their record of, again sexual assault and domestic violence, and then attend non-SEC schools. Remember, Saban is the recipient of such a player--Jonathan Taylor. Taylor was under investigation at Georgia for domestic violence when he transferred to Saban's squad. He has now been kicked off that team because of being arrested again for domestic violence.

Let's be clear--these are arrests. Public record arrests. We are not even talking about sketchy (Title IX violating) internal investigations within athletic departments. We are not even dealing with, in this situation, student conduct hearings and the privacy issues attached to those. The lack of compliance with Title IX regarding policies and procedures, as I said the other day, is part of the reason the SEC policy is only one step in addressing the problem of student athletes who commit sexual and domestic violence. But it's a step Saban does not want to make because he believes it might harm the SEC and its ability to compete with the other power five conferences.

In short, he is saying f&^* ethics and the safety of (mostly) women on campus--we need to win. He is upset that the SEC is hindering the way he operates his program, but framing it as just looking out for the best interest of the conference.

He is not the only concerned SEC coach. Also notable is that the coach who lost Taylor to Alabama, Georgia's Mark Richt, was also a little concerned about the new rule. He was slightly more tactful and used a paradigm of second chances rather than the "but what if we aren't as good without the rapist on our team" argument.

Why is this policy being passed now when campus sexual assault has always been a problem? Well because the general public is starting to realize that it's an epidemic. And while sports fans might  allow some questionable practices that result in perks to student-athletes and wins for our favorite teams, the ability to get away with rape and violence is not one of those, and it is increasingly difficult to ignore the issue.

If Nick Saban took a little more time to think about this he could have both gotten his concerns addressed (without looking like a privileged, ignorant jerk) and been a hero (well for reasons other than football). Because what he could have said was this: This rule exemplifies the ways in which the SEC is a leader both on and off the field and is addressing a serious issue facing college and university communities. But we should not be the only ones. I urge the other conferences and the NCAA to implement similar policies regarding transfer athletes so that we can guarantee the safety of our student body and maintain the integrity of our athletic programs.

But that's not what he said.

Considering the new SEC policy

The SEC announced a new policy this week that would prevent student-athletes with records of domestic violence and sexual assault from transferring to SEC schools (as athletes). It was a proposal made by Georgia and adopted fairly readily according to reports. Whether one particular incident (like Alabama's acceptance of a football player who was under investigation at Georgia for domestic violence at time of transfer and has allegedly re-offended) or just greater awareness of the issue of sexual assault and domestic violence inspired the new policy has not been made clear.

The exact wording of the policy is as follows: "a transfer student-athlete who has been subject to official university of athletics department disciplinary action at any time during enrollment at any previous collegiate institution (excluding limited discipline applied by a sports team or temporary disciplinary action during an investigation) due to serious misconduct (as defined herein) shall not be eligible for athletically-related financial aid, practice or competition at an SEC member institution."

In my recent research/writing/thinking, I have been looking at why athletics departments have not been affected by the increasing visibility of activism aimed at addressing campus sexual assault. In other words why have they, arguably, been relatively unscathed for not following correct policies and procedures when they learn that student athletes have been accused of sexual violence. Most colleges and universities accused of mishandling sexual assault reports do not truly fear the ultimate--and only--penalty the Office of Civil Rights can levy--loss of federal funds--because it has never happened. There are potential large financial penalties if students file lawsuits rather than or in addition to a complaint with OCR, as happened at University of Connecticut.

The biggest hit at the moment, however, is the one schools take to their reputation. As campus sexual assault becomes more visible because of activism, media coverage, survivor narratives, and investigations schools are receiving considerable negative attention. And schools do not want this.

The desire for reversing negative publicity does not seem to apply at the moment to athletics departments. They seem to be weathering the storm fairly well. Look at Florida State. Look at Colorado, who paid out a multi-million dollar settlement in the mid-00s. Look at Oregon currently under investigation and facing a lawsuit. Have their athletics departments suffered? Have people called for boycotts of games or stopped buying merchandise? No. Have schools reprimanded their athletics departments by imposing internal sanctions or firing administrators who fail to policy and procedure in these matters? Not that I have seen.

Actually, let's go back to Oregon. It provides an example of how the SEC policy, while a good one, would not work in this case because of a culture of secrecy and protection of student athletes. Oregon took as a transfer a player from Providence College who was kicked off that basketball team for alleged participation in a gang rape. But he was not formally punished or investigated by the college. There was nothing on his transcript. Oregon officials maintain that they did not know of his past. He was then kicked off the basketball team, along with two other players, after a student accused them of rape. Said player, Brandon Austin, has transferred to a junior college in Florida. They are aware of the accusations against him.

So the SEC policy, if it existed at this junior college or the conference to which it belongs, would have prevented Austin from transferring there for the purpose of playing basketball. But it would not have prevented the original transfer from Providence to Oregon.

In other words, this policy does not get at the whole problem. It is based on the premise that schools and their athletics departments are doing their jobs in reporting and investigating sexual assault and violence in the correct way. This is not universally true. We cannot know statistics, unfortunately, on this matter. Most of the evidence is anecdotal and we have to assume that the lawsuits that have emerged are a small percentage of actual mishandling based on what we know about underreporting and the harassment and dismissal of those who do initially report.

The SEC's policy does not mean there will be no more offenders accepted as student athletes at SEC schools. Look again at the exception in parentheses: "excluding limited discipline applied by a sports team." This is the type of discipline being doled out to accused student-athletes in an attempt to appease victims. It is a violation of Title IX if the act in question is sexual assault or harassment. It cannot be handled internally. This policy is a start at addressing this issue, but we need more done at the front end of this problem, including stronger punishments against offending athletics departments.