Heads Starting To Roll: UI President Sally Mason Fires Two VPs

by Adam Jacobi on Sep 24, 2008 6:45 AM CDT in Iowa Hawkeyes News

(It should probably be said straightaway, since this point was lost on several readers when this bombshell first dropped--we're not blaming the UI for the alleged sexual assault or issuing guilty verdicts to Everson and Satterfield. That's what the courts are for. This is about what happened after the allegation.)

(Also, just like before, we don't have to like Sally Mason to love the Hawkeyes.)

In the UI's first real response to the sexual assault report coming out (rich people in a room talking to each other is not a real response), University President Sally Mason fired two key figures in the bungled Everson/Satterfield sexual assault case. Mason announced that she asked for resignations from VP for Student Affairs Philip Jones and VP for Legal Affairs/General Counsel Marc Mills. When both declined (hmm), Mason fired them. And, as Bellanca smartly notes, two days before her review in front of the Regents (hmm hmm hmm).

Jones and Mills were both heavily criticized in the Stolar Report for their roles in Iowa's handling of the now-infamous sexual assault accusations. Most of the flak Jones took was for telling the alleged victim's mother in no uncertain terms that he had never heard of the alleged victim or the case... about a month after his office was notified of both. Also, once apprised, Jones addressed the rampant harrassment the alleged victim was encountering with... emails. 11 of 'em. No follow-ups. No face-to-face meetings. Just emails.

Meanwhile, Mills comes across as every bit the secretive sleaze we feared, readily admitting he told the UI to withhold documents in the initial internal review of the UI's handling. Curiously, the lead investigator of the Stolar Report declined to regard such behavior as evidence of a coverup, leading to Mike Garnter's incredulous reaction:

"The general counsel failed to turn over documents for no justifiable reason," Gartner said, seeking clarification from Stolar. "What is a cover-up if there was a regents investigation by Tom Evans and there were relevant documents not turned over for no justifiable reason?"

Bryant replied, "I don't call it a cover-up, but it was certainly inappropriate."

Bryant, of course, is arguing on semantics without answering the question. Scarcely the behavior you'd want from the lead investigator of a case like this (especially when his reasoning is "Mills didn't try to hide it"), but there's no sense in chasing shadows here. Mills is gone.

Again, though, the timing seems curious, since all the behavior in question happened months and months ago. At this point, Mason's decision to axe Mills and Jones sends more of a "how dare you get caught!" message than anything else; when the mother directly contacted Mason, it necessitated that a head-in-the-sand reaction from Mason was the only way for her to not become acutely aware of the case. In other words, Mason would have had to actively tried not to know Mills was both the liaison for the family and in charge of overseeing the investigation in progress, neither of which was (according to the Stolar Report) remotely appropriate. While claiming a lack of awareness may technically absolve her from blame for Mills' ridiculous role in the investigation, it certainly doesn't say much for her administrative competence.

Does Mason stay employed sitting in front of the Regents later this week? Probably. Her future depends on two things:

1) That the Regents' bloodlust was sated with Mills' and Jones' firings;

2) That she can convince the Regents that she had little to no role in Mills' decision not to turn over documents related to the case in March during the first investigation.

Being that the Regents are hardly purveyors of Robespierrean justice, we're confident in her ability to accomplish both of the above tasks. After all, if she's using consultants to frame a statement to the UI community that they're aware of a sexual assault that happened a month prior, you know she's a goddamn valedictorian in their "how to keep from getting fired in a scandal" class by now.

But at the end of the day, when the last guillotine has dropped and all investigations are closed, we're worried that everybody's going to take stock of the situation, realize the extent of the institutional incompetence, see Mason still on the UI throne, and ask themselves...

"How in the hell does she still have a job?"

Tweet Comment 12 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

timing and definitions

You correctly point out that the forcing event for these terminations was not her becoming aware of the “misconduct”, because that happened months ago. It was her date with the Board. Therefore they are being fired because she is nervous about appearing without bringing a few heads on pikes. This is contemptible. If the Board wants to participate in this scapegoating farce she is making plain her invitation to them to do so.

She’ll be fine if the Board defines University leadership as a kind of custodial, committee chairwoman’s role: here she is slightly more equal among equals, the buck stops not with her but with amorphous processes, “realities”, and “complexities”. And she was clearly just too trusting of her staff, who took advantage of her trust and kindness, and she will make sure that new processes, procedures and committees are set up to prevent a recurrence. May she have her bonus now?

Of course, the lie of this sort of mealy-mouthed, amoral form of leadership is self-evident: she just unilaterally canned two people. I guess she wants it both ways. She wants to be captain of the ship, and dispense swift martial justice; she wants to be absolved of responsibility for the actions of her staff, about which she will need to plead ignorance and victimhood.

What kind of Board of Regents is it, I wonder? Are they really going to buy this story?

Mr. Boh Knows ...

by Bellanca on Sep 24, 2008 10:30 AM CDT reply actions

Universities are not setup to handle cases like this. The legal authorities should have handled this from day one.

We still don’t if the allegations are true. The alleged victim didn’t want to go to the police.
To this day she doesn’t want Abe and Cedric to go to jail. Why was she exchanging text messages with Abe Satterfield the next day?

It was the woman’s choice not the school’s to use the informal process. Plus, the avenue became impossible once Mims and others found out that there had been two guys involved. There is a clear statement in the report to that effect. As a result, the suggestion of using an informal procedure was no longer valid once more evidence came in. What most people don’t understand is that this was a very fast developing situation with lots of contradictory information being provided. You think the athletic department should have accepted as fact that the girl was telling the truth? Well, that might be convenient, but that’s not the real world. No one knew – and I submit still doesn’t know who is telling the truth here.

Alfredo Parrish is going to argue that the university was acting for the state as they had power over Abe Satterfield(team suspension, scholarship, removed from school) when he was interviewed. He was not read his rights and therefore all that information will be thrown out. This will establish case law and no university will intervene in a criminal matter again.

The mothers letters were filled with inaccuracies yet were printed as gospel without the ICPC even interviewing her. Her letters have damaged the prosecutions case.

Therefore, the odds of this seeing a courtroom are about the same as winning Powerball. Want my numbers?

by 0044 on Sep 24, 2008 11:21 AM CDT reply actions

Oh for fuck's sake

More of this strawman shit, Barry? Did you not read that first paragraph?

Anyway, as to your hamfisted attempt at tying this “she’s probably lying” mindset of yours back into the topic at hand, you had better hope you’re 100% wrong here:

What most people don’t understand is that this was a very fast developing situation with lots of contradictory information being provided. You think the athletic department should have accepted as fact that the girl was telling the truth? Well, that might be convenient, but that’s not the real world. No one knew – and I submit still doesn’t know who is telling the truth here.

Holy smoking hell, if Iowa actually approached their response to an accusation of rape with a “we don’t know if she’s telling the truth” mindset, then the entire system needs to be blown up and every single word we’ve spoken about this case is correct. When students’ safety is at stake, the absolute last thing that belongs in a University’s response to an accusation of on-campus rape is skepticism.

We get it. You have a vested interest in the UI looking as good as possible. Duh, obvious. But you are so amazingly full of shit, sir, that you give Iowans a bad name. Give it a rest or take it back to the retard boards.

AKA Shadow

by Adam Jacobi on Sep 24, 2008 12:16 PM CDT up reply actions

No, this site is giving Iowans a bad name. All you dummies here wanted to hang Kirk Ferentz, Gary Barta and everyone else in the athletic department. The Stolar report vindicated them.

My sources are not in the athletic department.

The letters mother from the mother were treated as holy gospel by the ICPC rag when in fact they were full of errors. A real newpaper would have grilled the mother to verify her credibility.

Courts should handle criminal matters and your juvenile actions of calling for everyone’s head was never justified.

by 0044 on Sep 24, 2008 2:16 PM CDT up reply actions

Mea Culpa When You-a Culpa

You really want to say “the Stolar report vindicated” Barta and Ferentz? Really? Let’s go to the tape.

Stolar officials said confusion, misunderstanding, miscommunication between UI officials and the victim and her family and a lack of understanding by UI officials of its own policies contributed to the faults of the investigation.

“What this case reminds me of is a perfect storm. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong,” Bryant said.

So the athletics department and administration engage in action that is negligent – if not reckless – in overseeing the investigation of a rape, where they didn’t even attempt to follow protocol (the fact that Ferentz was in the room, at the behest of the dad or not, proves that), then blatantly attempted to cover up their multitude of failures, and that’s the side you want to take? Have you been helping O.J. hunt for the real killers, too?

When this first broke, I told OPS I couldn’t believe I had to defend the actions of Phillip Jones, a man who has retained a very important position with the University for 11 years despite repeatedly exhibiting a staggering level of incompetence. Turns out that maybe we shouldn’t have done that, as Jones was clearly part of the problem (his contention that the process should not be followed because his own Code of Student Life trumped the harassment policy and not because, you know, if’s fucking stupid for a University to investigate a rape, should be grounds for termination, incarceration, and execution just for its stupidity). That’s nowhere near the level of incorrectness exhibited by you, sir, or the rest of your Rivals-reading, Kool-aid-drinking, blame-the-messenger crowd. Your level of ignorance – your absolute refusal to take off the blinders and examine that is actually going on right in front of your fucking eyes – would be laughable if we didn’t know you were completely serious and probably have the right to vote.

The facts are these, and they are uncontroverted: The University fucked this up in ways we cannot possibly imagine, as the report states and the administration apparently acknowledges. When told that the Regents wanted an investigation of the University’s handling of the incident, Mason pawned it off on her lawyer, who was one of the most culpable in this comedy of errors. In this position, Mills crafts a report stating (of course) that everything is just peachy. If it weren’t for the courage of the parents in publishing their letters, that’s the end of the story, and everyone walks away without punishment for their gross incompetence and the game of three-card Monty they played with the Regents.

Once the letter is published, we get a report which states that, not only did the University bungle this from the get-go and do literally nothing correctly, but Jones repeatedly lied to everyone involved in an attempt to settle scores for no longer having the authority to conduct an investigation, Mills created fanciful legal grounds for withholding important documents from the Regents “because they didn’t ask for them” and – more importantly – because he controlled the investigation which would have uncovered them, and Mason knew all along what was going on and condoned it. Oh, and Barta and the rest of the athletic department, who “didn’t want to be involved, but had no choice” did NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.

Now, on the eve of a meeting that could end with her termination, Mason has this epiphany and fires the bad actors in an attempt to close this book and save her own ass, even though the report she relies upon definitively states she was involved with the investigation from day one.

Tell me one thing, oh font of knowledge: How is that not a cover-up?

The issues involving Satterfield’s case are another issue for another time. This response is long enough.

"Bob Zook has to be the laziest man alive"

by Patrick Vint on Sep 24, 2008 7:19 PM CDT up reply actions

Out of SHEER curiosity

“Alfredo Parrish is going to argue that the university was acting for the state as they had power over Abe Satterfield(team suspension, scholarship, removed from school) when he was interviewed. He was not read his rights and therefore all that information will be thrown out. This will establish case law and no university will intervene in a criminal matter again.”

Are you an attorney, sir? If not, I’d highly suggest you not throw out handy little tidbits like that. Because that statement is so outrageously incorrect, I’m having trouble understanding where you came up with it. I won’t dive into why it’s so outrageous, or why it’s so wrong — HS is a much better writer than I am — but you’re wrong on your point. And you’re an idiot for pawning it off as truth. Good day.

by imadirtyoldman on Sep 24, 2008 1:34 PM CDT up reply actions

Alfredo Parrish is going to argue that the university was acting for the state as they had power over Abe Satterfield(team suspension, scholarship, removed from school) when he was interviewed. He was not read his rights and therefore all that information will be thrown out. This will establish case law and no university will intervene in a criminal matter again.

I’m no lawyer, but I know enough about the law to know that ain’t gonna fly.

Aside from that, this isn’t about whether the alleged rape took place. This is about how the university completely botched handling the case.

You think the athletic department should have accepted as fact that the girl was telling the truth?

Well, they sure as hell shouldn’t assume she’s not!

The mothers letters were filled with inaccuracies yet were printed as gospel without the ICPC even interviewing her.

If the police were contacted before she said so, that would be a matter of record. The letter is so detailed that it’s simply not possible for it to be total fabrication; if it were someone would have provided evidence to that end two months ago. No one has; that silence speaks volumes.

by SpartanDan on Sep 25, 2008 9:01 AM CDT up reply actions

Isn't there a STUPID RULE at this site?

As in, If people write things that are so STUPID that it isn’t worth the EFFORT to point out that they’re … STUPID?, that STUPID goes away?

Could there be notice of such STUPID RULE erasing the STUPID TEXT of STUPID and leaving a little box that says, STUPID REDACTED?

Mr. Boh Knows ...

by Bellanca on Sep 24, 2008 3:27 PM CDT reply actions

Singing

BTW, Mills is singing, now of course, and it’s not from the same songsheet the Fearless Post-Modernist Leader. When you set out to save your skin by scapegoating the staff who acted on your behalf, 48 hours before you are called on the carpet by your Board, you need to buy silence first from the scapegoatees. I assume Mills and Jones have some sort of employment agreement in place. She is really out of her league.

Is Iowa an “employment at will” state? (Mr. Boh, actually, doesn’t know.)

Mr. Boh Knows ...

by Bellanca on Sep 24, 2008 3:34 PM CDT reply actions