Thankfully, I don’t think JD, Wanny or Steve would respond to something like this with such ignorance or a lack of genuine interest.

Very unfortunate for Iowa.

However, while reading it all I could think about was why hadn’t the victim and family gone to the police right away, and demanded actions to be taken? I understand that this young lady is a student-athlete there also, and is probably on scholarship. Therefore, there was undue pressure from the school administration to keep it “in-house” and underlying that was the threat to her own status at the school.

But, the family allowed themselves to be led around by the nose at every turn. Sooner or later, (five weeks!) stonewalling by a formal entity shouts volumes about the self-intrests of that organization.

I told my kids, over and over, that should a situation like this happen in thier young lives they were to go straight to the police, no matter what anyone esls said – and take copious notes of who they talked to and what thier names were. If my daughter couldn’t do it for some reason as a result of a crime comitted, then her friends should. I’m in law enforcement myself and know that shining a bright light on someone’s actions, AS THEY ARE HAPPENING, is the best way to get results.

I also taught them to tell everyone involved that our family’s legal counsel would be following up with each person in authority as soon as possible.

Please never forget that all these parties, the police, investigators, public university employees and staff work for us – not the other way around. It might mean losing status at that school, or being on the receiving end of attitude from the local police force, but it has to be done.

It is SO difficult to make judgements in a situation where none of us have ANY knowledge of the details.

Sexual assault remains the most mystifying crime situation we as women have to deal with. Especially on a college campus, it is always potenially right around the corner. Every decision women make in “party” situations is crucial. Same with the young men in these situations. Each and every decision is crucial. But the sad fact is that it is typically impossible to determine exactly what happened. Young girls and women are taken advantage of more often than many of us care to admit — but if anyone thinks that male athletes are not subject to having the tables turned on them, that’s naive. They are often targets as well.

While I obviously feel for the family and empathize with their frustration, I guess I just feel like I have absolutely no knowledge with which to make a judgement.

Now I want to beat them even more

I hope the NCAA and the local DA investigates.

This continues a disturbing trend at Big Ten schools, the Conference has lost its moral compass:

The Jen Harris lawsuit against Penn State and its’ long-term women’s hoops coach and noted homophobe Rene Portland. The whole world knew Portland’s views after an interview with a Chicago newspaper in the ’80s. It only took PSU 20 more years and a sexual harrassment lawsuit to relieve her of her duties. Great hire-Joe Pa. It’s just one more incident that shows how spineless Penn State’s administration is. JoePa and the athletic department incompetently run the school.

Indiana’s stupid hiring of Kelvin Sampson, a serial NCAA rule breaker

Michigan hiring Rich Rodriguez, a good coach but an obnoxious weasel who doesn’t honor contracts, interviews for other jobs every year, accepts no responsibility for his mistakes (13-9, recruiting felons like Pac Man Jones and others). Pitt created a blueprint that other teams will use to frustrate RichRod’s offenses. Michigan will eventually regret this hire.

If what happened to her was a crime, you don’t go to the football coach or an assistant AD – you call the police. If it wasn’t a crime, but behavior that is morally questionable or involving bad judgement, then this shouldn’t be referred to as a “sexual assault” story.

Either way, her friend took her to the hospital for a rape kit – if it is like any other hospital in America, I’m quite sure officials at that hospital have a policy requiring their employees to inform a suspected rape victim of victims’ advocate services and the wisdom of prompt reporting to police.

Mistakes by the victim isn’t the issue at hand. It is about the university choosing to do what it could to cover and hush the whole thing. About not following their own policies and hoping that having the alleged perpetrators suspended and transfer would be enough.

Hoping they could keep one more incident, in what had become a stream of off-the-field problems, from blowing up on them.

link to blackheartgoldpants.com

I’ll disagree about the issues at hand though. Citizens can do two things when learning about this kind of behavior – feel outrage that it happened and try to rectify it – which appears to be happening, and also to learn from the mistakes of others.

For some reason people in America have been taught to trust people in positions of power and because of that have been reluctant to rock the boat on their own behalf. We see it happen everyday – from the Tillman death in Afghanistan to this incident in Iowa. It is important to hold people with the responsibility of justice to be accountable as soon as possible, no matter how hard or uncaring you might appear to be in doing so. It isn’t enough to assume that it will happen, just because someone says it will.

Part of public discussions, and the venue to comment on them, is sharing and exchanges of ideas, and in some cases, advice. Pointing out mistakes made by the victim’s family in this case isn’t blaming them or – as you say – excusing the behavior of the University, it’s showing others that things could have been different with other actions taken.