Report: Duke Coaches, Administrators Ignored Sexual Assault Allegations

[SubbaBub]

The only thing I can see that was definitively wrong was not following the rules of Title IX. When there is smoke sometimes it isn't a fire, but when the smoke is coming from two different sources from two different years you have to wonder why the university did not begin an investigation.

I'm not sure Duke did anything wrong here if the article is to be taken at face value. There were some third party rumors, that ran through the gossip mill, none of the alleged victims came forward or provided investigators any substantive information when asked. No complaints or charges were filed. Not sure what action the U is supposed to take? Dismiss a student on that?

Where Duke did smarm it up is right here: "On Jan. 29—six days after Wensley had his conversation with Cragg—it was announced via press release that Sulaimon had been dismissed from the Duke basketball program. The decision was released a day after the Blue Devils’ 77-73 loss at Notre Dame Jan. 28, in which Sulaimon played 12 minutes and scored three points on 1-of-6 shooting."

This implication is the Duke (Coach K) either felt the allegations were true and cut him loose before it became public through this intern, or they cut him loose because they thought it might become public through this intern. The allegations might be true or not. He might have had other issues with behavior or not. The timing is clearly stinky, I'm not sure I want people's reputations ruined based on that little information. Duke has a good reason to be cautious with sexual assault allegations against it's athletes.

If a victim won't stand up for their rights, and the U can't verify the attack through other means, what can they do?

 

[CL82]

Gotta wait for more info.
Sounds like the questions are:

Did K know about the alleged assaults in early 2014?
If so, did K bump it up the ladder, past the AD?
Or, if so, did he bump it up, but only one rung?

All leading to this:

Did K or the AD or the athletic department have the information, know or should have known it fell withing the "must report" guidelines, and then intentionally keep the information from the school?

K may be as big a fish as they come, as is Duke basketball, but that, to me, does not get them off the hook.

In fact, quite the opposite.

If it comes out that they did suppress this, and let the kid stay on the team to boot, the concerned groups are going to make this a priority, and K's basketball status is going to be no more helpful than was Paterno's football status.

Perhaps, but the NCAA is more wary now and without the media dumping all over Duke, the NCAA has no juice to try to extort a settlement, even if they had the guts to do so.

 

[Husky1964]

Hilarious--------Patino brings a lot to the table!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[John]

http://deadspin.com/report-duke-coaches-administrators-ignored-s e xual-ass-1688875007

This has the potential to get really ugly...

The ACC dumpster fire continues to rage on.

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along....

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along....

...so says Dicky V

 

[uconnfan68]

How many acc scandals will it take before the NCAA actually punishes an acc school. By my count we are now up to four with Miami UNC Syracuse and now dook.

but they all self-police so none of it counts...

 

[mauconnfan]

UNC isn't getting media attention you think this will ever be a story with Duke and K? Even if it is, it's NOT.

 

[Deadrody]

I'm all for piling on Duke, but something about this just doesn't read right to me.

I'm just skeptical about the assistant to the assistant to the assistants' story.

Just a tad. Two women, both of whom refused to make an official complaint to the University or go to the Police.

But Duke didn't do.... what ? The Athletic Dept is supposed to investigate alleged assaults based on gossip... the grapevine... hearsay ? WTF?!

 

[Rico444]

Just a tad. Two women, both of whom refused to make an official complaint to the University or go to the Police.

But Duke didn't do.... what ? The Athletic Dept is supposed to investigate alleged assaults based on gossip... the grapevine... hearsay ? WTF?!

It was enough for K to throw the kid off the team apparently. So I'm not buying that they knew nothing.

Not saying the kid should have been expelled and thrown in jail, but if there wasn't even an investigation then there's something wrong here.

 

[upstater]

Just a tad. Two women, both of whom refused to make an official complaint to the University or go to the Police.

But Duke didn't do.... what ? The Athletic Dept is supposed to investigate alleged assaults based on gossip... the grapevine... hearsay ? WTF?!

Based on new protocols, it must all be reported.

There doesn't need to be an official complaint post Penn State.

And the reason these schools have multiple assistants relaying information can be found right in the Duke Chronicle story. The person who resigned his position was warned from taking it directly to the big boys. Chain of command. CYA. Because everyone has to act on information, it has to go through multiple levels.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

More in depth article.

http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2015/03/02/rasheed-sulaimon-center-sexual-assault-allegations-prior-dismissal#.VPSLznzF_Tp

This looks real, and pretty disturbing. The dismissal of Suleiman shows that Kzyzewski thinks it is real too. Duke will most likely ride this out, but it does go to show just how corrupt college athletics has become.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Based on new protocols, it must all be reported.

There doesn't need to be an official complaint post Penn State.

And the reason these schools have multiple assistants relaying information can be found right in the Duke Chronicle story. The person who resigned his position was warned from taking it directly to the big boys. Chain of command. CYA. Because everyone has to act on information, it has to go through multiple levels.

Seems from the story that it was likely investigated by Student Affairs but whatever happened is private. Definitely seems that the "anonymous affiliate" (couldn't be a more ambiguous less consequential title) could have a separate agenda as others have speculated. I think the crime here is the though story and not the cover-up, at least not yet.

Big picture this is not about schadenfreude and desire for some ridiculous basketball penalties, this crap at universities needs to be cleaned up. Our culture has created an epidemic of campus sexual assault. It is not a basketball problem.

 

[ctchamps]

Two possibilities:
Duke investigated the sexual assault reports properly, found no or not enough evidence to support action and therefore no penalties were administered after the investigation. And then Sulaimon committed some new act unrelated to the sexual assaults which resulted in the dismissal. The timing of Wensley getting involved was coincidental to this new event.

Or Duke did not investigate the assaults properly, Wensley threatened to uncover a cover up, and Duke out of desperation to appease him took the steps they should have taken earlier.

Either way the privacy act impacts us from knowing which of these two scenarios is accurate. Duke could be innocent and the privacy law is working against them. Or they can be guilty and hiding behind the privacy law.

 

[superjohn]

This looks real, and pretty disturbing. The dismissal of Suleiman shows that Kzyzewski thinks it is real too. Duke will most likely ride this out, but it does go to show just how corrupt college athletics has become.

College athletics has always been corrupt and the college rape culture is nothing new, unfortunately.

 

[Northbound]

I heard Suliamon is now interested in trying out for the Duke lacrosse team.

So you're saying he's falsely accused.

 

[Cheeky]

There's an unfortunate overtone to the whole Duke story coming from many people.

It is this: the victims didn't file a complaint, or tell the police, so what was Duke basketball supposed to do? There needed to be "concrete" evidence before they had an obligation to act.

If Penn State taught us anything, it taught us that our standards have to be better than that. We, as a country and as sports fans, cannot obligate the victims to be brave whilst we tarry in our La-Z-Boys, intentionally oblivious.

Essentially, the failure of a victim to come forward cannot be the basis for taking no action. Call it the Paterno Principle, or the Penn State Principle.

 

[selles]

There's an unfortunate overtone to the whole Duke story coming from many people.

It is this: the victims didn't file a complaint, or tell the police, so what was Duke basketball supposed to do? There needed to be "concrete" evidence before they had an obligation to act.

If Penn State taught us anything, it taught us that our standards have to be better than that. We, as a country and as sports fans, cannot obligate the victims to be brave whilst we tarry in our La-Z-Boys, intentionally oblivious.

Essentially, the failure of a victim to come forward cannot be the basis for taking no action. Call it the Paterno Principle, or the Penn State Principle.

That's some NCAA-level intellectual laziness, Cheeky. If Jeff Capel had seen Sulaimon committing rape and reported it to K, the situation would begin - begin - to be analogous to Penn State. There is of course no allegation or suggestion of anything of the sort.

This situation is about the much more ambiguous subject of what Title IX means, or should mean. It's a subject that many schools, including UConn, have struggled with. And justifiably so, given that it presents a clash of important principles - the imperative of eliminating sexual violence vs. the fundamental presumption of innocence. There are no easy, bright line answers.

 

[Cheeky]

If Jeff Capel had seen Sulaimon committing rape and reported it to K, the situation would begin - begin - to be analogous to Penn State.

I never wrote nor suggested that the situations were "analogous."
I brought up Penn State not to form an analogy, but rather to cite the origin of greater awareness.

 

[Dogdeacon]

That's right about the precedent of greater awareness and the need for a pre-set system for protecting, reporting and preventing various forms of abuse. To not have something in place is not only lacking "institutional control" in the ridiculous NCAA version of governance, but more importantly it is simply fostering the culture of violence that is part of sports via constant news stories.
Another big aspect of the problem is the treatment of victims and whistle blowers. It is much more likely that you are vilified and your life is decimated and likely defined by the incident. Or you live with it and make due ala Bill Cosby victims. Extreme instances for sure, but equally anyone involved at Duke faces far more personal repercussions than benefits. This is why its so important to have a good leader, a good system of checks/balances and not an enterprise that is inherently corrupt. The entire hypocritical money making nature of college sports encourages everyone to look the other way and keep the money train rolling.

 

[Rocktheworld]

That's some NCAA-level intellectual laziness, Cheeky. If Jeff Capel had seen Sulaimon committing rape and reported it to K, the situation would begin - begin - to be analogous to Penn State. There is of course no allegation or suggestion of anything of the sort.

This situation is about the much more ambiguous subject of what Title IX means, or should mean. It's a subject that many schools, including UConn, have struggled with. And justifiably so, given that it presents a clash of important principles - the imperative of eliminating sexual violence vs. the fundamental presumption of innocence. There are no easy, bright line answers.

Aaaaand there goes the point, sailing clean over selles's head.

 

[UChusky916]

If Penn State taught us anything, it taught us that our standards have to be better than that. We, as a country and as sports fans, cannot obligate the victims to be brave whilst we tarry in our La-Z-Boys, intentionally oblivious.
Essentially, the failure of a victim to come forward cannot be the basis for taking no action. Call it the Paterno Principle, or the Penn State Principle.

In my mind, this is certainly relatable to Penn State on some scale in the sense that the fear of the power/reputation of a school's athletic team allowed for sexual abuse to go unreported (or covered up). I'm not saying that Duke's athletic department covered this up... maybe they did or maybe a second incident provoked the action of dismissal. However, this line in particular is especially troubling:

She expressed an interest in taking action herself, but obviously [was] scared because of the power the men’s basketball team possesses on this campus.”​

This type of thing should never happen.

 

[jibsey]

A major program like Duke has many employees tied to the activities of their players as the article shows. They found out about this and let their player play plain and simple. Even with the victim afraid to press charges, K was unaware? He should have held him out until it was completely resolved. He had no choice with it blowing up know. Will it come up during a Duke game? We need a pool.

 

[pnow15]

Put Duke, North Carolina and Syracuse on probation and ban them.

 

[UConnSwag11]

One day after a report suggested that Duke’s athletic department knew of two sexual assault allegations against the junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon for as long as 10 months before his dismissal from the team, the program’s athletic director attempted to tamp down speculation that Coach Mike Krzyzewski, or any other athletic official, had mishandled the case.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/s...n-handling-of-sexual-assault-allegations.html

 

[CL82]

Just a tad. Two women, both of whom refused to make an official complaint to the University or go to the Police.

But Duke didn't do.... what ? The Athletic Dept is supposed to investigate alleged assaults based on gossip... the grapevine... hearsay ? WTF?!

Actually, they are supposed to investigate the allegation, even if the alleged victims won't cooperate. I suspect that investigation rarely (read as never) results in any findings, but they need to go through the theater of it.