Shipley has passed Souhan in my book. Ridiculous. I'm posting the entire article here, not a link, because this buffoon doesn't deserve the clicks
Two months after a sexual assault scandal divided campus and nearly ripped its football program in half, the University of Minnesota is promising myriad improvements in the way it recruits, educates, trains and supports its student-athletes.
This is admirable behavior, yet one can’t help feel that the school seems more interested in keeping its most-visible students out of trouble than protecting victims of sexual assault; that protecting women on campus will be the happy result of more and better support for student-athletes.
“Intercollegiate athletics: Developing the whole person” was the title of a report athletics director Mark Coyle presented to the Board of Regents on Friday morning.
In the wake of a Sept. 2 incident that resulted in the expulsion of four football players and the suspensions of two others, the school’s dedication to working proactively to curb sexual misconduct is admirable and necessary. Still, the stomach sinks.
Somehow — after suspensions, restraining orders, police and school investigations, and a short-lived boycott by the entire football team — the implication is that the school failed the perpetrators. “If only we had explained to them what rape is …”
On Thursday and Friday, the regents heard presentations from the school’s office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action — which investigated the alleged sexual assault involving several football players — and the athletics department about changes in practice aimed at eliminating this behavior on campus.
The EOAA is rewriting its sexual misconduct policy, for instance, making all university staff mandatory reporters of sexual misconduct. Coyle said his department is revamping its recruiting practices — a visiting prospect was involved in the September incident — and making all freshmen live in dorms.
Why are these reasonable and admirable steps so infuriating? Because they mitigate the responsibility of the four student-athletes found by the EOAA to have sexually assaulted a classmate and perpetuate a narrative built on misunderstanding and misdirection.
Blowback on the school’s handling of the investigation, carried out using federal guidelines on current Title IX case law, has only increased as the U and victim have remained silent — the school by law, the victim by understandable choice.
In the vacuum, the narrative has been shaped by lawyers for the disciplined players, and has become:
That the 10 players suspended Dec. 13 were victims of a vindictive EOAA office dominated by women, who by nature of their gender are unable to do their jobs without bias;
That their reputations were irrevocably maligned by the school, even though it was their attorney and a couple of parents who connected them to the Sept. 2 incident;
That the school is responsible for the leak of the EOAA’s disturbing report on the Sept. 2 incident, despite the fact that it is prohibited by law to share the report with anyone but participants in the incident;
That the EOAA investigation was bound by and violated rules of criminal law;
That the fact that the U dropped four of the 10 player suspensions — as part of the EOAA investigative process — indicates that the entire investigation was a mistake, despite the fact that the four other players actually found by the EOAA to have assaulted the victim were, in fact, expelled.
What we’re left with is a school scrambling to address an issue that plagues every campus at all levels. The Board of Regents, for instance, is contemplating how it might improve oversight of the EOAA, and the EOAA is scheduled to present its redrafted sexual misconduct policy to the President’s Policy Committee on March. 2.
On Dec. 17, a group of about 200 gathered outside TCF Bank Stadium in support of sexual assault victims. It remains the loudest — only? — support for the victim in this incident. What we’re left with is hand-wringing over how to train students how not to assault anyone.
Coyle told the Regents on Friday that the U will update its training, and that athletes are especially interested in understanding the disciplinary process that the football players just went through and how it differs from criminal prosecution.
Yes, more and better training is clearly warranted, but that shouldn’t make anyone feel better.
