On the heels of the Larry Nassar case, Michigan State University was already under the microscope, and in short order, the president of the university announced her resignation last week. Following that revelation, Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis resigned on Friday morning, and hours later, ESPN’s Outside The Lines published a report concerning an alleged culture of sexual assault in East Lansing.
Since then, the report has prompted a Los Angeles Clippers employee (and former Michigan State player/coach) to be placed on administrate leave, and on Friday evening, a bombshell emerged from Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic.
Within her report comes word that National Coalition Against Violent Athletes founder Kathy Redmond personally informed NCAA president Mark Emmert about accusations at Michigan State in 2010.
Redmond reportedly sent Emmert a letter “urging him to better protect women with new, stronger gender violence policy measures” and specific notes about Michigan State were included.
For example, despite recent reports of sexual violence involving two Michigan State University (MSU) basketball players, one of which admitted to raping the victim, neither man was charged criminally or even disciplined by the school. An earlier report of similar violence involving two other MSU basketball players also went un-redressed. In the past two years alone, 37 reports of sexual assault by MSU athletes have been reported, but not one disciplinary sanction was imposed by school officials against any of the men involved.
The reports in question were also referenced in the ESPN report, and the apparent knowledge of the NCAA president more than seven years ago is certainly noteworthy on a number of levels. Redmond told The Athletic that she believes “Mark Emmert came in with the right tone but quickly realized, ‘There’s not a lot I can do here.’” That came on the heels of an in-person meeting, also in 2010, and the report further presents knowledge that now-former Michigan State president Anna Lou Simon was then a member of the Division I Board of Governors.
UPDATE: In response to the report from The Athletic referenced above, NCAA president Mark Emmert sent the following to the NCAA Board of Governors, Division I Board of Directors, Division II Presidents Council and Division III Presidents Council on Jan. 27.
Colleagues,
You may have seen a report in The Athletic and subsequently repeated in other news outlets yesterday evening that infers in the headline I was informed of widespread sexual assault at Michigan State University in 2010. The implication of the headline, which has also been widely repeated, is that I was informed of sexual assaults at MSU by a whistleblower and did nothing in response. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To be clear, Katherine Redmond, a sexual assault awareness advocate, sent a letter in November 2010 to a number of people including the Board of Governors (then called the Executive Committee). It is important to note that the letter was not addressed to me or any individual. Indeed, it refers to me in the third person. In it she expresses great concern over sexual assaults on campuses, particularly those involving athletes (see letter attached – NCAVA Original Letter). She referenced cases of alleged sexual assault at MSU as examples of the broader problem on many campuses. The MSU cases were widely reported in the press and already being investigated by law enforcement and university officials. Kathy did not imply that these were unreported cases or that she was acting as a whistleblower to report unknown information to the letter’s recipients. Quite the contrary, she accurately pointed to the public outcry surrounding these cases. Moreover, never in writing or in discussions did she or anyone else mention the heinous actions of Larry Nassar. As I often have said, even one act of sexual violence is too many. Yet, it is extremely important to know that in no way was I ever notified of Larry Nassar’s abhorrent acts. I only learned of his crimes when they were reported by the media in August 2016.
Far from ignoring Kathy’s letter, within one month of first hearing her concerns, I held a meeting with her and a legal expert she wanted to include, Wendy Murphy. I asked our General Counsel, Scott Bearby, to join me in what was a constructive conversation at the national office for an hour and a half. I took her concerns very seriously, found her thoughts and advice constructive, and subsequently asked her to join an upcoming event we were planning, the NCAA’s first Violence Prevention Summit in April 2011. I communicated in writing to Kathy in early December (see letter attached – NCAA Letter). National office staff responsible for the NCAA’s educational programming also continued interacting with Kathy and invited her to participate in the Career in Sports Forum and student-athlete leadership development workshops.
Following the Violence Prevention Summit, I encouraged and financially supported the research and development of best practices that the Summit called for. This work led to our first Think Tank in 2012 and the 2014 publication of the Handbook on Addressing Sexual Assault and Interpersonal Violence. Additionally, with my encouragement, in 2014 the Board of Governors issued a Statement on Sexual Violence Prevention and Complaint Resolution based on a unanimous vote. This is the first time the NCAA member schools have stated unambiguously their expectations around the handling of sexual violence on campuses. In 2016, we released the Sexual Violence Prevention Tool Kit which has now been widely praised in the higher education and assault prevention community. During this time, we also engaged with our national SAACs to begin work with the Obama Administration on the It’s On Us campaign, providing guidance and financial support for the creation of student-based efforts at assault prevention. This included recognizing the student projects by running their videos at our national championship events, a program we continue today. The NCAA was praised by the White House for this work.
Most recently, the Board of Governors created the Commission to Combat Campus Sexual Violence that now routinely reports to and brings recommendations to the Board for action. The Commission has developed the recently passed policy requiring annual sexual violence education for athletes, coaches and administrators with annual written verification from the president, athletic director and Title IX coordinator on every campus. Further, the Commission led the first ever Higher Education Think Tank on Sexual Violence involving 20 higher education organizations just last week. In short, a great deal has been done since 2010. I have attached a graphic that more fully addresses the comprehensive efforts by the NCAA in the area of sexual assault prevention.
Our work to prevent sexual assault on campuses has much further to go. There can be no room for this scourge anywhere in higher education. The assertion that I and the NCAA are not reporting crimes, however, is blatantly false. We cannot let stories of this kind deter us from our important work.
Mark
