Time to get tough on sexual assault
Move along, folks, there’s nothing to see at the University of Tennessee.
Certainly not a culture that fosters indifference toward sexual assault allegations, if not outright hostility to the women making the claims. Why, the athletics department has a 3.0 GPA and football coach Butch Jones graciously shares his facilities with women’s softball and women’s golf! Athletics director Dave Hart has two “beautiful” daughters and three “adorable” granddaughters.
There’s no way they would tolerate the kind of chilling atmosphere in which athletes see themselves as untouchable and women feel powerless and marginalized.
“We do look inward. That’s the point I hope you’re hearing, because, yes, we have to,” Hart said Thursday. “But the culture in our building is good.”
Clearly it’s not, or Tennessee wouldn’t be facing a federal lawsuit by eight women who accused the university of deliberate indifference to sexual assault involving student-athletes. That’s in addition to two Title IX investigations by the federal government.
Rather than convincing anyone that protecting women and holding athletes accountable for crimes — let’s call rape, sexual assault and witness intimidation what they are — the vehement and, frankly, vomit-inducing defenses of Tennessee’s culture by Hart, Jones and 15 other Volunteers coaches only drives home
the point of the lawsuits. Tennessee officials and coaches would rather spin than make substantive changes.
Unfortunately, they aren’t alone.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating 204 cases of sexual violence at 164 colleges and universities. This means that, at 164 schools, administrators have been accused of mishandling their response to sexual violence, be it ignoring complaints or fostering an environment where “rape culture” is tolerated, if not encouraged.
It’s a delicate issue for schools, no question. No college or university wants parents to fear sending their daughters — and sons — to its campus, yet addressing the problem means first acknowledging there is one.
There’s an added challenge at colleges where athletics are big business or play a significant role in the school’s identity. The influence they wield is wildly disproportionate, and any threat to the athletics department — particularly a marquee sport — is seen as a threat to the entire institution.
When coaches from all 14 of Tennessee’s varsity sports gathered to sing Kumbaya on Tuesday, raving about what an idyllic place Tennessee is and insisting no one treats its women better, the motive was sadly transparent.
“Our competitors are using (the allegations) against us,” Jones said.
It wasn’t until 25 minutes into the hour-long pep rally — long after women’s basketball coach Holly Warlick had told of cautioning her athletes not to walk alone at night, as if that’s to blame for a sexual assault — that anyone mentioned the alleged victims.
“It’s not who we are,” Jones said. “We have great players in our football program. We have great individuals in this entire athletic department. We have a very good culture in place. “It’s not who we are.” So why is this still an issue, almost three years after Tim Rogers, then a vice chancellor whose office was responsible for handling student misconduct, resigned in protest of the university’s refusal to eradicate the permissive culture pervasive in athletics?
Rogers’ complaints were echoed by another administrator, while Tennessee’s former associate general counsel told Sports
Illustrated the school “has been more concerned with bad P.R. than about taking action to protect its students.”
When the attitude toward women is as toxic, hostile and threatening as it is at Tennessee — or Notre Dame or Baylor or Florida State or almost any other school, really — the antidote needs to be just as formidable: create an autonomous office to handle misconduct.
Hire someone such as the NFL’s Lisa Friel, a former prosecutor with a background in sexual assault, and let him or her investigate and adjudicate complaints without interference or influence. From anyone.
And to ensure that no one’s tempted to skirt the system, fine any university employee who knows about a complaint and either doesn’t report it or tries to quash it a third of their salary. Eliminate any bonuses for five years, too.
If there’s a second offense, suspend them for a year. Fire them if there’s a third.
Harsh? Too bad. Rape and sexual assaults are far more serious than recruiting violations, and it’s time they were treated as such.