Fix Features

lawsuit

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.

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

{ 0 comments }

Reverse Discrimination Alert: Male Chancellor Ousted For Female One

by College Fix Staff on April 4, 2013

Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne’s former chancellor this week filed a federal lawsuit against the trustees of Purdue University, alleging he was forced into retirement because of his gender, The Journal and Courier newspaper reports.

Michael Wartell, who led the Fort Wayne campus for 19 years before his 2012 ouster, filed the suit Monday. …The complaint alleges Wartell was forced out due to an effort by former Purdue President France Córdova to hire more female top administrators prior to the end of her tenure, which concluded in 2012. Wartell was succeeded by chancellor Vicky Carwein, appointed in June 2012. …

According to the complaint, Córdova outlined that intent during a meeting in late 2010 or early 2011, during which she “specifically pointed to a picture of Wartell on a board and said, ‘I am going to replace this one with a woman.’ ”

Yale Acknowledges ‘Historic’ Levels of Sexual Misconduct

by Nathan Harden - Fix Editor on March 29, 2013

Yale University has made headlines in recent years for hosting numerous controversial sex-themed events in the classroom, most notably showing hard-core pornography to students that depicted fantasy rape and sadism as part of the infamous “Sex Week” at Yale.

Worse yet, the university became the target of a federal investigation for its harmful sexual climate. At the conclusion of the investigation last year, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education’s office for Civil Rights said that Yale had under-reported incidents of sexual harassment and assault “for a very long time,” and failed to keep adequate records of incidents of sexual misconduct.

This week the Daily Telegraph reports that sexual misconduct is worse than ever at Yale:

Yale is fighting to stamp out sexual assaults on campus after a rise to ‘historic’ levels, university officials said.

The Ivy League school in Connecticut, where tuition costs around $50,000-a-year, came under federal investigation in 2011 after 15 students filed a complaint alleging that the university is a ‘hostile sexual environment’ and failed to deal with incidents of sexual harassment.

Their evidence included a video of alleged Yale fraternity pledges holding a sign that reads ‘We love Yale sluts’ and chanting ‘No Means Yes’ on campus.

According to a Yale committee, in the second half of 2011, 14 sexual assaults were reported which includes rape and unwanted touching. Some 13 attacks were reported last year.

A separate federal report showed that in 2011 there were 37 sexual assaults at Yale - a rise from 21 attacks the year before.

However these statistics may not reflect reality as rapes and sexual assault are typically crimes that are under-reported.

Yale officials, while publicly expressing concern about cases of real-world sexual violence on campus, nevertheless insist that porn films that include glamorized portrayals of sexual violence and rape are allowable in the classroom under their definition of “academic freedom.”

Fantasy rape is “academic freedom?” you might ask. In fact, those are the very words the Yale Dean’s office used to explain to me why it allowed hard-core sexual violence to be screened in the classroom, as I first reported in my book Sex & God at Yale (p.209), published last summer.

In this way, Yale officials seem to confuse “academic freedom” with having no academic standards whatsoever. What, after all, could be more indicative of the lack of academic standards than showing violent porn in the classroom in the context of ‘how-to’ style sex education, meant to education students on how they might conduct their own sex lives?

Until Yale officials begin to take responsibility for the heinous values they are sponsoring by hosting such events in the classroom– events which resulted in many Yale students, including myself, witnessing the abuse and flagrant humiliation of women in the context of sex education–their purported effort to combat sexual misconduct on campus will remain, in my eyes, as unimpressive as it has been thus far ineffective.

Bottom line: The toxic sexual culture at Yale is exacerbated by the negligent attitude of the university officials charged with its leadership. It is the responsibility of students, parents, and alumni–as well as the U.S. taxpayers who subsidize Yale’s programs through a myriad of grants and subsidized student loans–to hold those officials accountable.

Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix.

Click here to Like The College Fix on Facebook.

Follow Nathan on Twitter @NathanHarden

{ 4 comments }

ACLU Accuses California H.S. of Anti-Gay Discrimination

by College Fix Staff on March 21, 2013

High school officials in San Bernadino county, CA are being charged with discrimination–not because of what they say, but rather because of what they allegedly don’t say.

The Los Angeles Times reports the details:

In a letter Monday from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the Hesperia Unified School District was notified that it faces legal action…

“Indeed, the club’s very name has typically been truncated from ‘Gay-Straight Alliance’ to ‘GSA’ when morning announcements are read over the intercom, with the words ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ ‘transgender’ and ‘queer’ omitted entirely,” the attorneys’ letter reads.

One announcement was submitted as: “Do you identify as straight, lesbian, bisexual, gay, or are you questioning everything? Come join Sultana’s Gay-Straight Alliance on Wednesdays at lunch in Room W-11. Join a group of students here on campus that support each other and want to make a difference for others.” The announcement was allegedly broadcast instead as: “GSA meeting in W-11.”

Read the full story here.

Click here to Like The College Fix on Facebook.

{ 2 comments }

Students Denied Funding For Pro-Life Display; Request Called Too Controversial

by College Fix Staff on March 21, 2013

In an age when anything goes on most campuses today – billboard-sized pictures of vaginas, covering a Jesus statue with vacuum dirt, hosting a masturbation tutorial – it’s hard to believe that students asking their college officials for funding for a prolife display would be denied as being too controversial.

But that’s just what happened at a college in Michigan – and students are fighting back.

The conservative lawfirm Alliance Defending Freedom on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University on behalf of the pro-life students.

“University officials denied the group funding from mandatory student activity fees based on its ‘political or ideological’ views even though the university funds other groups involved in political and ideological speech,” alliance officials stated in explaining the suit.

They went on to note that:

“Universities should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” said Senior Legal Counsel David Hacker. “The university funded the advocacy of other student organizations but singled out Students for Life for exclusion based purely upon its viewpoint.”

In February, Students for Life at Eastern Michigan University applied for student fee funding to host a pro-life display on campus called the Genocide Awareness Project, a traveling photo-mural exhibit which compares the contemporary genocide of abortion to historically recognized forms of genocide. EMU denied the request because they deemed the photos of the aborted babies and the event as too controversial, biased, and one-sided.

The lawsuit, Students for Life at Eastern Michigan University v. Parker, notes that EMU officials have been inconsistent with their funding guidelines and have allocated the same funds to political and ideological speech discussing “welfare rights, women’s and abortion rights, student activist training, and race-conscious issues, just to name a few.”

The lawsuit also explains that the First Amendment’s Freedom of Speech Clause “prohibits content and viewpoint discrimination in a public university’s allocation of mandatory student fee funding.”

Moreover, “the government may not regulate speech based on policies that permit arbitrary, discriminatory, and overzealous enforcement.” As the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed, “viewpoint neutrality” must be the operating principle of student fees and funding.

“The constitutional freedoms of pro-life student organizations should be recognized by university officials just as they recognize those freedoms for other student groups,” added Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “We hope EMU revises its student funding policy to include all groups, regardless of their political or ideological viewpoint.”

Steven M. Jentzen, one of nearly 2,200 allied attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, is co-counsel in the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Alliance Defending Freedom has prevailed in similar lawsuits against University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A&M University.

CLICK HERE to Like The College Fix on Facebook.

{ 0 comments }

Scholar Says She Was Denied Promotion Because She’s a Conservative

by College Fix Staff on March 18, 2013

A conservative scholar seeking to push back after she claims she was discriminated against due to here political beliefs will not get a new trial.

Fox Nation reports:

DES MOINES, Iowa – A conservative scholar who sued a University of Iowa law school dean, saying she was denied promotions because of her political orientation, will not get a new trial.

Teresa Wagner, 48, had sought another trial after a federal jury found in October that the university did not discriminate against her. A mistrial was declared on a second count alleging the school had violated Wagner’s equal protection rights. A third count charging that Wagner’s due process rights had been violated was dismissed before the trial.