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Blake Baxter - Eureka College

Controversy Over Fed’s New Sexual Harassment Rules Rages On

by Blake Baxter - Eureka College on June 7, 2013

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has responded to widespread criticism that its nationwide blueprint for sexual harassment reform has received. The blueprint – which was detailed by the OCR and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a letter to the University of Montana last month – has been condemned by many who believe its redefinition of the term “sexual harassment” is overly broad and therefore threatens First Amendment rights. The OCR has ardently denied this claim, but its new assertions have caused nearly as much confusion as the original letter did criticism.

As was reported on The College Fix, the original letter came on the heels of Title IV and Title IX investigations by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice following a series of sexual assault and harassment allegations made over the course of a three-year period at the University of Montana. The investigations uncovered twenty-three sexual assault complaints and ten sexual harassment complaints in that time span. Upon the investigations’ conclusions, the government actively sought ways to protect students from sexual assault and harassment. It also aspired to create new protocol intended to effectively eliminate the sexually hostile environment that it determined existed on the campus.

The 30-page document that the OCR and the DOJ sent to the university described and detailed various remedial measures required by the government, but also defined “sexual harassment” in a way that has generated much controversy. According to the letter: “Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature and can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, physical conduct of a sexual nature, such as sexual assault or acts of sexual violence.”

Foundation of Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) President, Greg Lukianoff was among those unsettled by the development. He had this to say about the matter back in May: “I am appalled by this attack on free speech on campus from our own government. In 2011, the Department of Education took a hatchet to due process protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. Now the Department of Education has enlisted the help of the Department of Justice to mandate campus speech codes so broad that virtually every student will regularly violate them.”

The sentiment has been echoed by others. One of the issues that various free speech advocates, professors, and students have had with the letter is its assertion that both a subjective and objective perspective are taken into account to determine if certain conduct is considered sexual harassment. The letter states: “Whether conduct is objectively offensive is a factor used to determine if a hostile environment has been created, but it is not the standard to determine whether conduct was “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” and therefore constitutes “sexual harassment.”

The OCR recently responded to the uproar from organizations like F.I.R.E., in at attempt to clarify its policy and quash the turmoil. According to an excerpt from the OCR’s new statement:

“Sexual harassment” is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature but that sexual harassment is not prohibited by Title IX unless it creates a “hostile environment” — that is, unless the harassment is sufficiently severe, pervasive, or persistent such that it denies or limits the student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program. To create a hostile environment, something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive must exist. Rather, the conduct or speech must also deny or limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the educational program.”

While the latest statement doesn’t contradict the OCR’s original letter to the University of Montana, it has prompted more confusion and thus create a new problem. Previously, the government was vilified for broadening the definition of “sexual harassment” to a purportedly dangerous degree. Now, the government has failed to satisfy critics who fear that the new sexual harassment guidelines are so broad that the enforcement of the rules will turn out to be almost entirely arbitrary from one campus to the next.

Unfortunately, this muddled rhetoric will likely overshadow the government’s worthy goal of preventing sexual assault and sexual harassment and eliminating sexually hostile environments on college campuses across the country.

Fix contributor Blake Baxter is a student at Eureka College.

Click here to Like The College Fix on Facebook. / Twitter: @CollegeFix

(Image courtesy of  Onondaga County Public Library / Wikimedia Commons)

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The Epic Mismanagement of Rutgers University

by Blake Baxter - Eureka College on June 4, 2013

Rutgers University is back in the headline–and not in a good way. Less than two months after the release of a video showing a coach abusing athletes sparked nationwide outrage and resulted in the dismissal of numerous staff and administration members, the university is under fire yet again.

The latest controversy involves Julie Hermann, who was hired as Athletic Director to replace Tim Pernetti. Pernetti was forced to resign in the fallout of the embarrassing scandal. Recently, allegations were made that Hermann, herself, has a shadowy past that has included actions not unlike the very behavior her predecessor was fired for enabling. Now, there is an outcry for not only her ouster, but also for that of the only person still standing in the original scandal’s aftermath – Rutgers University President Robert Barchi.

To refresh you memory: The month of April was a complete nightmare for Rutgers University. Then-head basketball coach Mike Rice was fired after being caught on tape physically and verbally assaulting his players over the course of three years. One of his assistant coaches, Jimmy Martelli, was also fired for being abusive. Others on the staff resigned in an attempt to separate themselves from the ugly ordeal. The media, the NCAA, educators and the general public all wanted answers. Who was responsible for enabling this behavior beyond Mike Rice? Many pointed the finger at Rutgers University President Robert Barchi. Barchi, however, assigned the majority of the blame to then-Athletic Director Tim Pernetti.

By May, with many involved in the matter terminated, Barchi and the university were ready for Rutgers athletics to turn the page on the events that tarnished the whole university’s reputation. It hired Parker Executive Search to manage a nationwide hunt for new athletic director candidates at a cost of $70,000. The Georgia-based firm was contractually obligated to conduct thorough background checks, “including criminal, credit and motor vehicle checks; confirmation of candidates’ degrees; and reference checks”. The university then created a 26-person selection committee to take part in selecting Pernetti’s successor.

On May 15, Julie Hermann was announced as the new Athletic Director. According to the university’s selection committee, Hermann was the most qualified of the 63 candidates who were interviewed for the position.

“Over the course of the search, Julie’s record established her as a proven leader in athletics administration with a strong commitment to academic success as well as athletic excellence, and a strong commitment to the well-being of student athletes,” Barchi recently stated.

Hermann was coming off a successful stint as executive senior associate director at the University of Louisville. Prior to her tenure at Louisville, Hermann was the head volleyball coach for the University of Tennessee in the 1990s. She had a noted reputation for being “tough” and “intense” – the same words that were once used to describe Mike Rice prior to his hiring. When she was hired, Hermann was celebrated for becoming only the third woman to carry the title of athletic director at one of 124 NCAA schools that have a Division I football team. However, the honeymoon didn’t last long.

On May 26th, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger reported that Hermann’s 1996 Tennessee volleyball team had made allegations that Hermann’s behavior wasn’t much different than Mike Rice’s. All 15 members of the team signed a two-page letter that explained Hermann’s “mental cruelty,” including, but not limited to: calling her players “whores, alcoholics and learning disabled.” She has since vehemently denied these claims.

“Am I an intense coach? I’m absolutely an intense coach as many coaches are,” Hermann said. “But there is a big canyon between being super-intense and abuse. And this was not an abusive environment for these women.’’

But these are not the only charges against Hermann; the Ledger-Star also reported that Hermann has been involved in lawsuits that took place during her time at both Tennessee and Louisville. As head volleyball coach at Tennessee, Hermann was accused of threatening to fire assistant coach Ginger Hineline if she became pregnant. The lawsuit resulted in a $150,000 jury verdict.

At Louisville, assistant track and field coach Mary Banker sued the university for allegedly wrongfully terminating her after she voiced complaints to Hermann and the university’s human resource department of sex discrimination by the head track and field coach, Ron Mann. Although, Banker has assigned much of the blame to Hermann, she did not name her in the lawsuit that awarded her $300,000 before being overturned by an appeals court. The case is currently pending before the Kentucky Supreme Court. While the suit may not legally implicate Hermann, it certainly doesn’t help her embattled public image.

Hermann, Barchi and even New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have all labeled the various allegations as “character assassination”. Christie, who was among the most outspoken during the Mike Rice scandal, has pledged to stay out of this new matter. But others, such as state senators, Ray J. Lesniak and Richard Codey, have been more vocal, actively calling for both Hermann’s and Robert Barchi’s dismissal. Lawmakers are not the only ones advocating for her removal, though. The Star-Ledger has reported that 87% of 3,800 people polled by the newspaper believe Hermann should be fired. And, even some members of the selection committee have been critical of the university’s hiring process.

The new controversy has led to turmoil among members of the selection committee. Leaders of the selection process, distinguished Rutgers alumnus Kate Sweeney and Rutgers Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Dick Edwards, addressed the criticism in an email to the committee: “You all had the opportunity to examine Julie’s credentials, to spend some time with her when she was on campus, and to provide us with your thoughts regarding her candidacy as Rutgers’ next Director of Intercollegiate Athletics”. This claim, however, has been challenged by others on the committee. Rutgers University Board of Trustee member, Ken Schmidt replied, “At this time, please do not try to re-write the facts. I suspect you will find others that share my opinion.” Fellow Rutgers Trustee, Ron Garutti seconded the sentiment, “Please, let’s not present this as any kind of exemplary process. Subsequent events have proven otherwise,” he said.

President Barchi defended Hermann and gave her a vote of confidence on May 24. It seemed as though Hermann would keep her job, despite the widespread calls for her removal. But by the end of the week, the university decided to postpone a series of on-campus meetings that Hermann, along with other athletic administrators and coaches, was scheduled to participate in, a move that suggests that, perhaps, her status actually is in jeopardy.

When he was appointed Rutgers University President in the spring of 2012, Robert Barchi, a former physician and neuroscientist, was hired to oversee Rutgers’ major integration of the schools and programs that made up the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. In November, he, with Pernetti, was also charged with orchestrating Rutgers’ highly publicized athletics conference transition from the tattered and fractured Big East Conference to the lucrative Big Ten Conference. Those important tasks were overshadowed by the initial coaching scandal. Now Barchi’s failure to double-down on the vetting process of a new athletic director has given the school yet another black eye. As a result, both his and Hermann’s fate are hanging in the balance.

Fix contributor Blake Baxter is a student at Eureka College.

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(image by CellarDoorFilms / Flickr)

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Free Speech Advocates Alarmed by New Federal Sexual Harassment Rules

by Blake Baxter - Eureka College on May 17, 2013

New guidelines from the Department of Education lower the standards of what constitutes sexual harassment to any “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” Free speech activists say this definition is too broad and could endanger First Amendment rights.

An agreement between the U.S. Department of Education and the University of Montana is purported to be the blueprint for sweeping changes to sexual harassment protocol for colleges and universities nationwide. However, it has drawn the ire of some free speech advocates who fear that certain parts of “the Agreement” are in violation of their First Amendment rights.

The new rules are intended to help eliminate the sexually hostile environment that has plagued the Montana campus and to protect students from sexual harassment and assault. This expansive reform comes in the wake of a string of sexual assault and harassment allegations that have been made at the university over a three-year period.

The first incident of the series of events that led to “the Agreement” occurred in the fall of 2011 when the University of Montana received reports that two female students had been raped by male students, two of which were alleged to be football players. The university responded by hiring former Montana Supreme Court Justice Diane Barz to conduct an independent investigation of the claims in order to stay in compliance with their Title IX obligations. In the investigation, Justice Barz uncovered seven more reports of sexual assault that occurred on the campus between September 2010 and December 2011.

On January 31, 2012, Justice Barz submitted her final report to the university. The report asserted that the university “has a problem with sexual assault on and off campus and needs to take steps to address it to insure the safety of all students as well as faculty, staff and guests.” It also included a long list of recommendations to the university – many of which the Department of Justice and the Department of Education eventually incorporated into “the Agreement”.

While Justice Barz was conducting her independent investigation, the Department of Justice was conducting a preliminary investigation into the university’s, as well as local law enforcement’s response to sexual assault. In May 2013, both the Department of Justice and the Department of Education launched formal investigations in relation to compliance with Title IV and Title IX. The end result was a 30-page letter to the University of Montana detailing the background, processes, findings and ultimately, the resolution of the United States’ investigation.

According to the United States’ analysis, there were twenty-three sexual assault complaints and ten sexual harassment complaints in the past three years, alone. The university, to their credit, did make an effort to raise sexual harassment awareness in a number of different ways, but essentially failed to eliminate the hostile environment. Moreover, the federal government deemed the university’s sexual assault and harassment policies and grievance procedures to be insufficient and inadequate.

“The Agreement” was officially executed on May 9. In its resolution, it states the measures required by the government to remedy the university’s Title IV and Title IX compliance issues and to effectively eliminate the sexually hostile campus climate. The requirements contained, but were not limited to:  the revision and implementation of the university’s policies and procedures; the creation of a resource guide to clarify to students what constitutes sexual harassment and sexual assault; the distribution of campus climate assessment surveys; the promotion of additional resource; and the provision of mandatory training on sex discrimination, incident grievance procedures, the rights entitled by Title IV and Title IX.

The federal government is celebrating “the Agreement” as a landmark reform that has potential to prevent sexual harassment and assault at colleges and universities across the country. However, the implication that all colleges and universities will be using it as a blueprint to deal with sexual harassment issues, in and of itself, has outraged some who believe the government painted with too broad of strokes in addressing the situation.

The specific passages that are under scrutiny by free speech advocates are in the sections highlighting the University of Montana’s sexual harassment and assault prohibition policies and the legal standards. The university’s policies define sexual harassment as conduct that “is sufficiently severe or pervasive as to disrupt or undermine a person’s ability to participate in or receive benefits, services or opportunities of the University, including unreasonably interfering with a person’s work or educational performance.” However, in the letter, the federal government asserts that this definition describes a hostile environment but does not, in fact, correctly define sexual harassment.

According to the new guidelines from the Department of Education: “Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature and can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, physical conduct of a sexual nature, such as sexual assault or acts of sexual violence.”

The university’s policies state: “whether conduct is sufficiently offensive to constitute sexual harassment is determined from the perspective of an objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation”. The letter, however, deems this insufficient: “Whether conduct is objectively offensive is a factor used to determine if a hostile environment has been created, but it is not the standard to determine whether conduct was “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” and therefore constitutes “sexual harassment.” It goes on to state: “the United States considers a variety of factors, from both a subjective and objective perspective to determine if a hostile environment has been created.”

Therein lies the central issue a faction of free speech advocates have had with the rhetoric of the reform. They believe that these definitions infringe upon the free speech of virtually anyone on a college campus.

Preventing sexual assault and sexual harassment and eliminating the sexually hostile environments is a worthy goal. Whether or not the government’s new blueprint for sexual harassment reform will truly put free speech in jeopardy remains to be seen.

Fix contributor Blake Baxter is a student at Eureka College.

Click here to Like The College Fix on Facebook. / Twitter: @CollegeFix

(Image by Rob Gallop / Flickr)

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The Story Behind the Video that Shook the College Basketball World

by Blake Baxter - Eureka College on April 12, 2013

It all started with that infamous video. Originally aired by ESPN, the video shows Rutgers University basketball coach Mike Rice abusing his players physically and verbally, over and over again. It sparked anger across the country and quickly got Rice fired. In addition to Rice’s ouster, the scandal has already resulted in the departure of Rutgers’ athletic director, an assistant basketball coach, and the university’s interim general counsel. Some have suggested that the president of the university should be assigned blame in the matter as well. But suspicion has also arisen over the motivations of the whistle-blower who brought the incident to light in the first place.

In 2010, Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti was looking for a head coach that could rescue the university’s floundering basketball program. Mike Rice had a reputation for being “tough” and “fiery.” He was even known for getting into fights with his own players as coach at Robert Morris. Pernetti hired him under the stipulation that he would be held accountable for any questionable behavior in his new job. Nonetheless, Pernetti had high hopes that Rice would be the one to turn around the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

Over the next two seasons, the Scarlet Knights continued to struggle, finishing with a 29-35 record. While the results were disappointing, Pernetti still stood firmly behind Rice as the right man for the job. All the while though, Rice was engaging in appalling misconduct behind the scenes. For what ended up being three seasons, Rice was reportedly a vulgar, offensive, physically abusive tyrant to his team and sometimes even his own coaching staff. According to former Rutgers assistant coach Erik Murdock, no one spoke up until he and Rice had a simple disagreement in the summer of 2012.

Murdock, who had a long career playing in the NBA prior to taking the coaching job at Rutgers, was scheduled to work at Rice’s summer basketball camp, but had a conflict with a camp that his high school aged-son was attending at the same time. According to Murdock, when he broached the subject of missing the session with Rice, the head coach screamed at him, angrily denied his request and fired him. Murdock, who was at the end of his contract, turned to Pernetti for assistance in the matter. He also informed Pernetti of Rice’s pattern of verbal outbursts and violent, irrational behavior. Pernetti arranged a meeting between the two parties, but before Murdock had a chance to talk to Rice, he received a letter informing him that his contract was not being renewed.

To Murdock, it appeared Pernetti had chosen to side with Rice, despite Rice’s known history of troubling behavior. Following his departure from the team, Murdock began building a case against Rice that he was wrongfully terminated. With the assistance of a team of lawyers, Murdock obtained DVD’s consisting of hundreds of hours of Rutgers’ practices. Murdock spent the fall reviewing the footage and compiling the most severe incidents into a 30-minute video.

On November 26, Murdock met with Pernetti and showed him the video for the first time. Upon viewing the unsettling footage, Pernetti felt compelled to immediately fire Rice, but first he thought he should consult with others such as university president Robert Barchi, interim general counsel John B. Wolf and others. At this point, Barchi had the opportunity to watch the videos, but inexplicably did not. Instead, the group – led by Barchi – decided to hire a lawyer named John P. Lacey to conduct an independent investigation. Following a 17-day investigation, Lacey turned over his findings in a 52-page report, but did not make a recommendation as to how the university should handle the situation. For whatever reason, Pernetti chose to give Rice a 3-game suspension instead of firing him. This proved to be a mistake last week when the story became public.

On April 2, ESPN’s Outside the Lines aired a special report that showed portions of the 30-minute video that Pernetti first saw in November. The video features Rice being both physically and verbally abusive with his players. Physically, Rice is shown repeatedly grabbing, pushing and kicking his players, as well as intentionally launching basketballs at them during drills. He also screams, berates and belittles his players, calling them homophobic slurs and misogynist names. The video also featured Rice’s assistant coach Jimmy Martelli behaving in a similar manner.

Almost as soon as the video aired, it went viral, sparking outrage from fans, the media, talk radio hosts, pundits and educators alike–all calling for Mike Rice’s dismissal. The following day Rice was fired. That interim counsel John B. Wolf quietly resigned. Seeing that he was next, Martelli followed suit on April 4. But, the coaches weren’t the only ones under fire. How could Tim Pernetti watch that video and issue Rice a mere three game suspension? Rutgers president Robert Barchi made it clear to Pernetti that he had to go too.

By April 6, when he publicly addressed the situation and labeled the scandal “a failure of process,” Barchi appeared to be the last man standing. He also released the 52-page document that Lacey had produced during his investigation in December. Interestingly though, Lacey’s report didn’t fully fit with Murdock’s account of the events. According to Lacey, Pernetti was actually first notified of Rice’s misconduct by other assistant coaches months before Murdock spoke up.  Lacey also said that Murdock’s lawyers demanded $950,000 to settle with Rutgers, but they declined.

Much has been made over Murdock’s role in the matter. It is clear from the footage that he made the right decision to expose Rice. However, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to determine if he was speaking out on behalf of the safety of the student athletes, or out of purely personal and financial interests.

As for president Barchi, he claims to have rectified the situation by eliminating everyone responsible. But it may be only be a matter of time before it’s determined that he too played a role in the so-called “failure of process.”

Fix contributor Blake Baxter is a student at Eureka College.

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R.I.P. Big East: Realignments Leave Athletic Conference Fractured

by Blake Baxter - Eureka College on March 19, 2013

For years, the storied Big East Conference has been a big player in the game of NCAA conference expansion and realignment. It has played the roles of both victim and poacher in the past, somehow always maintaining its status as a power conference. But after the most recent conference shake up, the Big East is finding itself crumbling into pieces.

The Big East has had a rich basketball tradition, not just because it has had great success over the years, but because when it was founded in 1979 it was made up of all basketball schools. Eventually, though, the conference decided to become a major football conference too. In 1991, it had its first season as a major football conference. By 2000, the conference featured the football playing schools Rutgers, Miami, Temple, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

The odd structure of the conference, however, caused tensions between the football and the basketball schools and in 2003, prompted Virginia Tech, Miami and conference founder Boston College to bolt for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The Big East more than replenished their crop of teams by persuading DePaul, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, and Marquette to leave Conference USA which expanded the entire Big East’s total roster to 16 teams.

It was assumed that the Big East would remain, unquestionably the largest of the major conferences until the landscape of the conferences started shifting much more dramatically than ever before. The next wave of realignment began in 2010 when the commissioners of the then Pacific 10 and the 11 team Big Ten announced that the conferences were planning to expand.

The Big Ten set a goal for at least 14 teams while the PAC 10 aimed for 16. These sudden expansions set in motion a cascade of teams switching conferences that hasn’t stopped since.  The move caused other conferences to enter crisis mode and ultimately almost led to the folding of the once prestigious Big 12 conference.

The PAC 10 sent six invitations out to teams of the Big 12 including Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech. Colorado accepted the invite shortly afterwards becoming the first team to abandon the Big 12 on June 10, 2010. The following day it was announced that another Big 12 school was leaving too, but not for the PAC 10. Instead, Nebraska applied and was uniformly accepted into the Big 10. The move, ironically, gave the Big 10 twelve teams and left the Big 12 with just ten. After the move, the Big Ten announced that it was content with twelve teams and had no further plans to expand. This didn’t prove to be the case a couple of years later when they made deals with Maryland and Rutgers to join the conference in 2014.

It appeared that the depleted Big 12 was about to be completely swallowed by the growing Pac 10 until Texas chose to turn down the invitation because it wouldn’t consent to an equal revenue sharing plan. This prompted Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech to pledge to stay in the Big 12 and gave the conference some stability. At this point, it seemed that the core six conferences of the NCAA would stay intact and remain situated in a way that mostly made geographical sense. And then the Big East got involved again.

The Big East planned, again, to expand its football school roster beginning with Texas Christian University and possibly the University of Central Florida and others. Geographically, the move made no sense. Louisville is the closest school to TCU which is 750 miles away. The farthest schools would be nearly 1,300 miles away. The addition would create added financial strains to the Big East schools that already had to travel considerable distances. Big East commissioner John Marinatto argued that the move would only affect team sports and not individual sports. Therefore, individual sport athletes could compete regionally without having to fly halfway across the country. The explanation didn’t clarify why he felt the need to subject the student athletes from team sports to such travel obligations. The answer, presumably, was money.

Ultimately, it wasn’t common sense that prompted the Big East/TCU deal to fall apart. The catalyst was the disastrous mismanagement of negotiations for a television deal. In 2011, while attempting to make a deal with ESPN that would net the conference $130 million per year, the presidents of colleges were put off by the PAC 12 attaining a deal with ESPN and FOX that netted $250 million annually. After they voted the deal down, Syracuse and Pittsburgh became the first two dominos to fall when each announced that they were leaving for the ACC – a discouraging blow for the increasingly unstable conference.

Fast forward to March 2013 – with its conference tournament concluded, the Big East is facing its last days as a mega conference. An exodus of the conference’s proudest basketball and football programs has occurred over the last two years. TCU reneged on their plans to join the conference and joined the Big 12. West Virginia followed suit. Louisville and Notre Dame are joining the ACC. And, as previously mentioned, Rutgers is joining the Big Ten.

The most alarming news came in December when seven of the non-football Catholic schools announced that they were leaving to start a new conference, but the “Catholic 7” is taking the “The Big East” name with it. The stunning departure forced the remaining Big East members – UConn, Cincinnati, and South Florida – to cobble together with a collection of teams poached from Conference USA to form a new conference of their own.

When the dust settles from these conference realignments, there will be little correlation between the locations of the institutions and the conferences that have forever been associated with their regions. All of the teams that have been best known for being a part of the Big East–one of the NCAA’s most storied conferences–will be scattered across the ACC, Big Ten, the new “Big East” and whatever becomes of the conference formerly known as The Big East. The seven Catholic schools may carry on the brand, but the real Big East will be gone.

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Miami Vice: Corruption Entangles University, and the NCAA

by Blake Baxter - Eureka College on February 5, 2013

The year 2013 has not gotten off to a particularly strong start for the NCAA or the University of Miami. The NCAA finds itself in the midst of an embarrassing scandal over abuse of power in an investigation involving the University of Miami’s football and basketball programs getting impermissible benefits. And the University of Miami is not only dealing with the backlash of the original scandal, but also that of a new scandal that is just emerging.

The orchestrator of the events that led to the initial scandal for the Miami Hurricanes football and basketball teams is Nevin Shaprio. Shapiro is infamous for running a $930 million Ponzi scheme through his grocery business, Capitol Investments USA. Shapiro’s deceitful and lucrative business unraveled in 2009 after one of his investors sued him for not making payments. The suit forced him into involuntary bankruptcy.

In 2010, Shapiro was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, Shapiro was not just criminal; he was also an enthusiastic Miami Hurricanes booster. Following his downfall, Shapiro made claims that he had provided thousands of impermissible benefits to over 72 Miami athletes from 2002 to 2010. The list of benefits given to players was both lengthy and alarming. It included money, prostitutes, bounties for injuring opposing teams’ players, restaurant and nightclub visits, and allegedly, once, an abortion.

The benefits accepted by players from both Miami’ football and basketball programs obviously breached several bylaws of the NCAA. And, for the past two years the NCAA has been gathering evidence to determine just how many rules the university broke and how harshly they should be punished.

For the past two seasons, the university has elected to exclude its football program from post-season competition while they waited for the hammer to drop. But, in January, the NCAA put its case against the university in jeopardy after admitting to improperly gathering evidence in the case, thus making the evidence unusable.

During the investigation someone from the NCAA paid an attorney to conduct two depositions of witnesses involved in Shapiro’s bankruptcy case, even though Shapiro’s case was not directly connected to the University of Miami.

Essentially, the NCAA – the judge, jury and executioner in college sports – broke its own rules.

The admission was a striking blow to the credibility of an organization that is often criticized and accused of abusing its power. It also makes proceeding in the probe on the university a messy affair. NCAA president Mark Emmert has claimed to be outraged by the misconduct, but has also asserted that it was a rogue action; an isolated incident that shouldn’t discredit the whole investigation. Nonetheless, despite the setback, the NCAA has planned an internal investigation into the misconduct to sort out what can still be salvaged.

This is an interesting development for the University of Miami. It’s possible that this misstep could prevent the NCAA from giving it the severe penalties that were expected, although a penalty-free outcome is still unlikely.

In addition, a new South Beach scandal has marred the university. The Miami New Times broke the story after a three-month investigation: They concluded that the Miami anti-aging clinic Biogensis likely is responsible for providing a host of illegal performance enhancing drugs to a long list of major league baseball and college baseball players.

On the client list is University of Miami baseball and track and field strength and conditioning coach Jimmy Goins. Goins, who has known connections to former Miami standouts and major leaguers, allegedly supplied PED’s to players. He has denied any wrongdoing and the university has remained mum on the issue, despite removing him from the team’s roster.

The PED story couldn’t come at a worse time for the University of Miami. Even if Goins turns out to be innocent in the matter, the perception of widespread corruption among student athletes is damaging to the university. The Miami Hurricanes may soon have to face an unpleasant reality — that their university which already has a history of ethical breaches that tainted the integrity of two different sports’ programs has connections to even more rule breaking,

The jury is still out on exactly how guilty the University of Miami is. Regardless, we already know that the university wasn’t the only entity breaking the rules. The mess in Miami has left all parties, including the NCAA, scandal marred.

Ironically, the jury in this case may be as guilty as the institution on trial.

Fix Contributor Blake Baxter is a senior at Eureka College.

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