Everyone Lawyers Up, investigation gets stonewalled, case is brushed under the table and the tarnish to the reputation of our great University is stuck forever. I am so disgusted that I can not comment anymore. My head might explode. Time for a cocktail. Great Headline.

Once you have completed your work on this case, I intend to engage independent outside expertise to examine our overall handling of all sexual assault cases. The results will be informed by best practices in higher education, and the expert and his or her findings will be shared with the board. We must, and we will, demonstrate that we continue to be an institution with integrity and with an abhorrence to violence. While we can hope that we will never again have to deal with such tragic and horrific cases, hard experience teaches us that we must be prepared.

Sally Mason does know that not ONE, but TWO different “independent outside” groups were brought in after Pierce, and that the current system is the result of the apparent failure of those panels, right?

You guys are doing just what you’re accusing the athletic department of doing: handling this informally, so you can spin it for the best outcome. Here are some facts, Jacks:
1. leave your emotions at the door when you are trifling with peoples’ lives and careers. You guys are bleeding through every syllable. Everybody you want to be guilty is guilty. The letter from the mother of the victim is GOSPEL (NOT LIKELY)
2. You are not police or prosecutors. You’re playing Gothcha journalism without all the cards or facts.
3. You judges and jurors all all have taken an emotional leap of faith and are an embarrassment to justice.
4. Yeah, something smells in all this, no doubt. But you are so far from having the goods-all the goods-you’re just like the athletic department and the administration you have convicted and sent to hell.
5. Misguided and confused alleged rape victims never, ever do logical stuff. I’m not holding this young woman to any standard. She did a classic illogical thing by not going straight to the police. That’s a terrible shame. Where I come from, abuse victims are VICTIMS and must be respected like children who can not think clearly for themselves. The VERY FIRST people who knew of her alleged assault should have RUN to the police ASAP. If the letter is accurate, every single person who became aware of this incident should have RUN to the authorities. The charge here is NOT rudeness or BAD FORM. It’s a flippin crime!
6. There is so much WE DON’T know it is unconscionable to be so summary when just a fraction of the truth has been unpacked.
7. You big boys who were "sick" about bringing this to light should have listened to your stomachs and stuck with THE FACTS. There is no shame or twitching in reporting facts . You were nauseated by the height of your moral stand. There is one helluva chasm to jump when leaping from facts to conclusions.

Grow up and leave the law to the law.

Now, come and string me up!!!

The letter, once received, is a taxonomy of alleged abuse (informal, formal, and just, frankly, inhuman) and the outline of a likely civil complaint. If you’re Sally “I honestly and sincerely abhor violence, so leave me alone”) Mason, that is a major, Oh Shit event. Based on that letter an executive is going to go on emergency fix-it-now status and do whatever it takes to resolve the mother’s concerns. Because the next letter typically is from a civil litigation firm, followed up by service, with copies of the complaint cc’d to the local paper. Everybody (that is, everybody who doesn’t ask for extra credit because she “honestly and sincerely abhors violence”) knows this.

Downer has already commented on this publicly, to wit: “Hey, I was told we were ensuring this girl’s safety and responding to her needs. This letter says that whenever her mom called someone she heard the passive-aggressive’s refrain: “I’m sorry, I’m away from my desk right now … Please leave a message and I’ll listen to it and call you back if I feel like it.” This is not what I was told. I have 175 new questions to ask.” So that letter, which cannot be a fake given how the Board and administration have acknowledged it, for all of its lack of sophistication, and as painful as it is to read, is the key.

And Sally “I honestly and sincerely abhor violence, and yes, I really said that yesterday” Mason knew it. That’s why she buried it.

Man, this will get very bad if there are other letters like it, in earlier years, that now make an appearance. Have their been other “informal processes” lately? I imagine there have been, but I surely don’t know. You all realize how this entire situation is being exposed just because the P-C had a hard-ass reporter and editor bucking HawkeyeNation sentiment? Now they will be an information magnet for anyone who has been hurt or frustrated or offended by other ‘informal processes’.

I agree that an informal process should be available. Many rapes go unreported for fear that the victim will be scarlet lettered. Even if the University reported to the police immediately, however, wouldn’t the victim still have the option to press charges? If she chose not to press charges couldn’t the University then go forward with an informal process? These are real questions, not rhetorical.

Another problem is this informal process was all within the Athletic Department. There is an inherent conflict of interest there. The AD has a vested interest in the well-being of both the alleged victim and the accused.

As to the statements above that BHGP and others are jumping to conclusions by calling for resignations. . . its not true. There is not enough evidence at this point to convict anyone of obstruction or any other nefarious act. There is some evidence that University policy was not followed, but nonetheless, whether the policy was followed warrants further investigation, which the Regents have undertaken. I don’t think many disagree with this. The distinction is, those involved are in a position of public trust at a public university. They are trusted with well-being and education of young adults. They all get paid gobs of money, and they all understand that there job is tenuous (ask any coach or AD). They were all at least on notice of what happened generally. Even if policies were followed, no one stepped up to the plate. I doubt Ferentz was involved in some grand cover-up, he probably just didn’t want to deal with it. Seems Sally Mason likely just chose to ignore this since she usually doesn’t handle such situations. That’s enough though. Ignorance is no defense here. They are at least guilty by association for the acts/omissions of those below them. They lacked the courage to make a stand and breached the public trust. We should demand that the leaders at the state’s best institution display the highest leadership qualities. Following a policy book is not enough. Anyone can do that. Going beyond that is what gets you to be President of a University or the highest paid state employee in the state and one of the top in the country. Falling short of that is what gets you fired or should cause you to resign. That is why I am calling for resignations. I don’t have to wait for someone to be convicted of a crime. I don’t trust them anymore and lost a huge amount of respect for them. Unless the letter is a complete fabrication (which given Sally Mason’s response is unlikely) I have a good reason for my loss of trust and respect. This is true even if the letter is not 100% accurate. Loss of trust and respect is more than enough to call for a resignation of someone in their position. Especially when that loss of trust and respect could soon spill over to the University at large, if it hasn’t already.

The idea that all of you are discussing administrative process and the mental capacity of a rape victim is ridiculous to me. Have any of you read our original letter ? We never demanded anyone be fired. We never convicted anyone of a crime. We’re not conducting an investigation. We’re not the Board. We’re not the police. We’re talking on the internet.

I refuse to give voice to someone who thinks that following a misapplied administrative procedure trumps human rights. You people are arguing that protocol was followed because you can’t talk about the real problem here, which we addressed in our letter: None of them did the right thing. Until someone can argue that they did, all of this bullshit needs to stop.

You’re talking just to talk, but I don’t want to hear it, and this isn’t the place for it. What were you doing last week? Where were you? Were you talking to your girlfriend? Your mom? Your cat? Whatever. Go do that, and take the comments you C&Pd from a fucking message board with you.

Leaving comments attacking the victim are not acceptable. I just deleted one. The next one, and everything after, gets banned.

Bottom line for me is the University officials involved have lost my trust and respect. Really, no matter what happens with the Regents investigation, that will not change. There will still be questions when the investigation is over. A lot could boil down to he said / she said. Some posters seem to think that the University is going to tell its side of the story and everything is going to suddenly make sense and be uncontroverted. There are always going to be unknowns here, at least to the public. My default is to construe those unknowns against the party with the most power, money, and the most to lose. Especially when the other side has nothing to gain in lying.

They have lost my trust and respect and no matter what comes out the University and AD image is tarnished. People get fired/resign for alleged recruiting violations, drinking natty light with college students, going 6-6, etc. This is worse.

I cannot imagine what the Thursday Big Ten kickoff media event is going to be like for KF and the three athletes that usually attend with him. I would keep the guys home, or give each one a handler who is taught to say robotically, “I”m sorry, football questions only for the guys. Those questions about sexual violence and institutional policies that fail people? They go to the coach.”

MGOBLOG’s summary is, like all of the national comments (Patrick, Cowherd) semi-correct but really very wrong. He weaves a plausible obstruction of justice tale, but there appears to have been none, just moral cowardice. This is Lord Jim, not Silence of the Lambs.

What’s happening is this story is being sucked into the vortex of the national scandal-du-jour press, and I actually don’t think it’s a simple story with an easy story line. But it’s going to turn into one.

a UI law professor (maybe you took a class from him HS?), Nicholas Johnson, brings up a good point in his blog, fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com. Everyone involved in this (administration, regents, AD, etc.) has shifted the focus from the contents of the letter, to the reasoning behind keeping it from the regents. Isn’t the bigger question why they didn’t take action on the contents, rather than why they didn’t show it to the regents?

He brings up some good points.

do I feel like this is going to turn into all of us shouting, “WHO ORDERED THE CODE RED?!” at each other?