Report: Duke Coaches, Administrators Ignored Sexual Assault Allegations | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Report: Duke Coaches, Administrators Ignored Sexual Assault Allegations

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specialisthusky said:
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.
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but they all self-police so none of it counts...
 
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.
 
Fishy said:
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.
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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?!
 
Deadrody said:
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?!
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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.
 
Deadrody said:
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?!
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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.
 
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upstater said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
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.
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College athletics has always been corrupt and the college rape culture is nothing new, unfortunately.
 
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.
 
Cheeky said:
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.
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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.
 
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selles said:
If Jeff Capel had seen Sulaimon committing rape and reported it to K, the situation would begin - begin - to be analogous to Penn State.
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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.
 
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.
 
selles said:
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.
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Aaaaand there goes the point, sailing clean over selles's head.
 
Cheeky said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
Put Duke, North Carolina and Syracuse on probation and ban them.
 
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Deadrody said:
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?!
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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.
 
CL82 said:
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.
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Not sure what you mean here. If the victims deny it and the accused denies it. How is any investigation supposed to proceed?

If the appropriate representative from Duke, asked all the parties and asked the third party witnesses and no one goes on the record having witnessed anything, what outcome other than closing the case is possible?

I don't know what Duke did, but the Dead spin article implies they did investigate.

At some point, the victim is responsible for cooperating in any prosecution if they wish to seek justice against the accused.

Telling a support group and then backing down to the authorities, may help psych recovery, but it does zero toward holding the accused responsible.

I understand not wanting the added trauma of reporting, but if the community is to be involved it's a necessary evil. It's up to the accuser to decide.

For all we know, past history at Duke notwithstanding, these are two sour grapes immature women with an ax to grind and may have cost a student athlete his college career and reputation. Those are also real damages that the player can't fight for fear of illiciting a prosection, a la the lacrosse case.

So who the victim and who's the assailant? We the public can't possibly know for sure.

If you are going to make an accusation of that magnitude, you need to follow through with it to its conclusion.

The guidance for assault victims should be to report it immediately. The U should provide whatever support/protection needed until the investigation/legal case is settled.
 
SubbaBub said:
The guidance for assault victims should be to report it immediately. The U should provide whatever support/protection needed until the investigation/legal case is settled.
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A nice theory but the second component rarely plays out in practice. So now what?

People seem to have this bizarre idea that false accusations of sexual assault are rampant. Statistically, it's more likely for Sulaimon to get raped himself than to be falsely accused.
 
Sexual assault victims are often very reluctant to come forward or engage in any kind of legal battle because they don't want to see the assailant again and it brings terrifying, traumatic memories right back to the surface and gets them playing in a non-stop loop. Knowing some people who have been victims to such assaults is where I've garnered this information from over the years. I'm not saying the kid did or didn't do what he's accused of since I have no real way of knowing, but the women not taking the steps to open up further investigation is not beyond comprehension.
 
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The proper place to investigate this is the Police not some student conduct committee. They did not report to them. Why do people miss this? If there was a murder would it go to student affairs? This is major crime.

I never saw where the 2 women denied it. I saw they did not report it. World of difference. Again, if the police followed up and found no evidence--OK. But that didn't happen.

Not only is it hard to press charges for all the emotional reasons and because of our tendency to blame the victim, you would have the liability of being the woman who ruined Coach K, the basketball program etc., etc..
Can you imagine how horribly a woman would be treated in CT if she brought down a player and Coach Calhoun or Ollie? It would not be pretty.
If their policy says they must contact the police, they are in trouble. It it doesn't, it's a crappy policy.
 
David 76 said:
The proper place to investigate this is the Police not some student conduct committee. They did not report to them. Why do people miss this? If there was a murder would it go to student affairs? This is major crime.
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THIS. Furthermore, putting the onus onto the university incorrectly shifts the burden to them and off the police, where it should be. And then, if the university handles it and the accused is "found responsible", the worst thing they can do is expel the person. So they can then roam the countryside looking for more prospective rape victims.

Which is to say nothing of the preposterously low bar for what constitutes "sexual assault" under the Title IX rules. Regret having sex last night ? Bingo, sexual assault.
 
Speaking as one of the few people here who is actually a college student (and one who interacts with college-aged males on a daily basis), rape culture does exist. As I see it, rape culture is the pervasive idea amongst male college students that consent from a female s e xual partner is as best optional and at worst not a consideration. In dorm rooms, hallways, and around campus, males discussing females as s e xual objects with a sense of entitlement ("of course we're going to hook up", "she better blow me") happens all the time. I know males on my campus (and others) who have exhibited predatory behavior towards intoxicated females with the belief that because she's drunk, it's okay to do whatever even if she doesn't say "yes".

It's easy to be a dude in your 40s on a basketball message board and say that "rape culture" is a myth perpetrated by those nasty liberals/feminists. All I can say is, if I were a chick on campus, I wouldn't feel nearly as safe as I do otherwise.
 
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