Athletes play on after sex offenses
NCAA looks the other way as students transfer to further careers at other schools
Two women separately accused University of South Florida football player LaDarrius Jackson of sexual assault in 2017, saying the 6-foot-4, 250-pound defensive end forced himself on them in their own homes.
Police arrested Jackson twice in two weeks on charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment. He pleaded not guilty and posted bond while awaiting trial. Both criminal cases are ongoing.
The university also opened a student conduct case against the then-22-yearold junior. It determined he violated its policy against “non-consensual sexual intercourse” and expelled him.
Yet one year later, Jackson played before a crowd of nearly 30,000 fans as Tennessee State University took on Vanderbilt in Nashville. Jackson played six games for TSU in 2018, transferring there while facing the possibility of decades behind bars in Florida.
That his expulsion and ongoing criminal case posed no obstacle to his collegiate football career isn’t unusual.
College athletes can lose their NCAA eligibility in numerous ways, but sexual assault is not one of them. Even when facing or convicted of criminal charges, even when suspended or expelled from school, NCAA rules allow them to transfer elsewhere and keep playing.
An investigation by the USA TODAY Network identified at least 28 current and former athletes since 2014 who transferred to NCAA schools despite being administratively disciplined for a sexual offense at another college. It found an additional five who continued
playing after being convicted or disciplined for such offenses through the courts.
In addition to Jackson, who through his attorney declined to comment, these players include a pair of receivers from University of Oregon and Ohio State, a kicker from University of Kentucky, a defensive end from Purdue, and an All-American sprinter now at Texas Tech who helped the track team win its firstever national championship in June.
The NCAA metes out punishments to student athletes for bad grades, smoking marijuana or accepting money and free meals. But nowhere in its 440-page Division I rulebook does it cite penalties for sexual, violent or criminal misconduct. And unlike the pro leagues, it has no personal conduct policy and no specific penalties for those who commit sexual assault.
The NCAA’s highest governance body – a group of university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors known as the Board of Governors – is well aware of the issue. But it has resisted calls by eight U.S. senators and its own study commission to fix it.
The NCAA declined to comment for this story. The list of 33 players identified by this news organization is by no means an exhaustive count.
The USA TODAY Network filed records requests for campus disciplinary records at 226 public universities in the NCAA’s highest echelon, Division I, but 5 of every 6 universities refused to provide the records, even though federal law gives explicit permission to do so. The investigation also involved combing through hundreds of pages of police reports, court filings and other documents, and speaking with dozens of school officials, victims, lawyers, researchers and advocates. Among the investigation’s other findings:
❚ No matter if schools suspend, dismiss or expel athletes for sexual misconduct, NCAA rules provide avenues for them to return to the field on a new team within a year and sometimes immediately.
❚ Approached by the USA TODAY Network about athletes on their rosters previously disciplined for sexual misconduct, many athletic departments claimed no knowledge of the past offenses. Most schools lack formal background check policies, instead relying on former coaches’ words and a questionnaire called a “transfer tracer” that often fails to capture past disciplinary problems.
❚ Players regularly exploit the NCAA’s own loopholes to circumvent its one meaningful penalty for those who transfer while suspended or expelled – a year of bench time. Athletes can go to a junior college for a minimum of one semester before returning to a Division I school. Or they can transfer to another NCAA school before the discipline takes effect.
❚ A handful of the NCAA’s nearly three dozen Division I conferences have adopted their own policies banning athletes with past behavioral problems. But their definitions of culpability vary, and some problematic athletes have slipped through the cracks.
❚ The records provided by 35 public Division I universities show they disciplined NCAA athletes for sexual misconduct at three times the rate of the general student population since 2014, and football players were disciplined the most. No news organization, university or athletic institution, including the NCAA, has ever done such a comprehensive study of athletes found responsible in campus conduct investigations.
Recent research has shown that a small fraction of students commit a majority of campus sexual assaults. That makes the practice of bringing athletes previously disciplined for sexual assault onto new campuses “an extreme liability,” said John Foubert, a rape prevention expert for the U.S. Army and dean of the Union University education college in Tennessee. “I think it’s a fundamentally stupid idea,” he said. Campus disciplinary proceedings often are criticized as unfair toward the accused. Some students have complained that schools violated their due process rights and have won favorable rulings in court. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is working to allow schools to increase the recommended evidentiary threshold in those cases.
Some say athletes disciplined by their schools are innocent until proven guilty in court and should not be disqualified from competing. However, athletes convicted of sex crimes and registered as sex offenders are among those who’ve received second chances.
Others criticize colleges for creating the sense of entitlement that can translate into sexually violent behavior. Athletes routinely receive exclusive access to multimillion-dollar facilities, free food, clothing, tutoring, training, medical treatment and equipment, priority registration in classes, full-ride scholarships and monetary stipends.
If colleges and coaches do not instill in players a sense of responsibility that comes with these privileges, it can set them up to fail, said Laura Finley, a professor of sociology and criminology at Barry University in Florida.
“They may be getting preferential treatment by university officials or other people already,” Finley said. “They are oftentimes used to doing what they want and being the big man on campus.”
The USA TODAY Network reached out to nearly 100 coaches, athletics directors and athletes for comment for this story. All but two coaches and one athletic director declined interviews. Others provided statements instead, or referred questions to university spokespeople and attorneys. Those sources said their schools scrutinized the players thoroughly, believed they were safe for campus and so far haven’t received subsequent sexual misconduct reports involving them.
But that approach may expose universities to what California civil rights attorney John Manly called a “ticking time bomb.” They could be liable for legal damages if the transfers hurt someone there and, in most states, so could administrators and coaches, he said.
“If that time bomb goes off while that person’s at school, that university has full liability,” said Manly, who represented victims of Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor sentenced to prison for sexually abusing young athletes in his care.
For survivors of campus rape, the issue is not one of legal liability or policy consistency. It’s about the moral and ethical implications of re-elevating the perpetrators of their traumatic assaults to positions of prominence while leaving the aggrieved to pick up the pieces.
“It blows my mind how transactional it is, and how they don’t think about the consequences for the student body or for the school,” said Daisy Tackett, a former University of Kansas rower who in 2015 reported being raped by a KU football player.
In that case, KU found long snapper Jordan Goldenberg responsible for engaging in “non-consensual sex” with Tackett and sexually harassing another rower in a separate incident, documents show. He was banned from campus, only to resurface on the Indiana State University team a few months later.
Goldenberg did not respond to multiple phone and social media messages seeking comment.
Indiana State told the USA TODAY Network that only assistant coach Gary Hyman “was aware of Jordan Goldenberg’s student conduct background” at the time. Hyman had previously coached Goldenberg at KU. Once the news of his transfer broke, Indiana State dismissed Goldenberg from the team and suspended Hyman for two days with pay.
Hyman knew Goldenberg got in trouble at KU but didn’t know why or that he had been expelled, he said.
“I deeply regret that I was not more communicative with the limited information I had about Goldenberg,” said Hyman, who is now the University of Texas at San Antonio football team’s special teams coordinator. “At no time, though, was there any deception or ill intent on my part.”
“There are probably millions of other people that they could recruit,” Tackett said. “I don’t get why it’s so hard for the NCAA to say, ‘Rape is bad.’ ”
Schools are required by federal law to investigate sexual assault allegations involving students. For those found responsible, the highest form of punishment a school can impose – even in the most egregious cases – is expulsion.
But expelled college athletes can simply transfer and keep playing.
The NCAA, meanwhile, employs a nearly 60-member enforcement staff to investigate potential violations of amateurism and academic eligibility rules, weighing in on issues like whether a recruit’s father wrongly accepted a razor and shaving cream while on the road.
It has suspended playing privileges for minor infractions and can impose permanent bans for major violations, not only ending players’ college sports careers but jeopardizing their chances of going pro.
Many experts criticize the NCAA for placing too much emphasis on minor infractions and not enough on serious misconduct. But one former NCAA investigator noted that schools could solve the problem on their own by refusing to recruit such athletes.
“It’s another example of schools compromising their values to win games and make money,” said Tim Nevius, who led dozens of NCAA rule-enforcement cases from 2007 to 2012 and now runs a law practice representing college athletes in eligibility issues.
When coaches recruit players punished for sexual misconduct at other schools, they send the message that sexual violence is tolerated, said Brenda Tracy, a national advocate who speaks out about her rape by four men, including two Oregon State football players.
“I know what it looks like to have tens of thousands of people cheer for your rapist,” Tracy said. “All it does is normalize what the perpetrator has done and completely minimize the experience of victims.”
The players in Tracy’s case received a one-game suspension for what their coach called “a bad choice.” They were arrested but not prosecuted after Tracy declined to move forward with the case.
Since then, she has formed a nonprofit called Set the Expectation to curb sexual violence in sports. She has spoken to dozens of teams across the U.S.
She also served on the NCAA’s own study group, the Commission to Combat Sexual Violence, which last year advocated for the organization to tie athlete eligibility to behavior.
In its final recommendation, the commission “encouraged the board to direct the divisional governance bodies to consider legislation that reflects an Association-wide approach to individual accountability,” minutes from the board’s August 2018 meeting show.
But the NCAA Board of Governors did no such thing and disbanded the group instead. It promised, however, to “continue to monitor and track on sexual violence issues,” meeting minutes show.
Over a year later, no action has been taken.
“It blows my mind how transactional it is, and how they don’t think about the consequences for the student body or for the school.”
Daisy Tackett Former University of Kansas rower who in 2015 reported being raped by a KU football player
“If that time bomb goes off while that person’s at school, that university has full liability.”
John Manly Civil rights attorney who represented victims of Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor sentenced to prison for sexually abusing young athletes in his care.