University fires coach & brings in Brenda Tracy to talk to the jocks about rape

7/7/2016 update: At some point you know the Ducks are going to have to do the same. It’s inevitable. Meanwhile CNN has the story on Baylor here. Of course it’s not just the athletes – see Lindo et al.:

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6/24/2016 update: Riley’s footballers hear from Brenda Tracy, OSU rape survivor, while Helfrich’s team hears from Tom Hart about Egyptian prostitutes on Harleys

A guest blogger forwards the following:

Brenda Tracy met with Mike Riley and the Nebraska football team this week. She’s getting some nice national attention. I looked it up. Lincoln, Nebraska is a 1600 mile trip. Autzen Stadium is about 40 miles away.

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/23/i-hated-this-man-more-than-my-rapists-woman-confronts-football-coach-18-years-after-alleged-gang-rape/

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/bigten/2016/06/22/rape-survivor-brenda-tracy-meets-nebraska-coach-mike-riley-oregon-state/86270018/

Said Riley in a statement released Wednesday night: “As part of our ongoing educational efforts, I invited Brenda Tracy to Lincoln, to share her experiences with the young men in our program. Brenda has suffered immeasurable pain and has shown the strength and willingness to share her story. Her story today was powerful and I know that it left an indelible imprint on our student-athletes, staff and myself.”

Riley also expressed “sincere gratitude” for Tracy’s willingness to come to campus and meet with him.

“This has been an important day for me and for our football program and we must keep the focus on the victims, and on preventing inexcusable acts in the future,” Riley said.

Tracy is the survivor of a sexual assault by two Oregon State football players and two others, 16 years ago. She went public after newspapers broke the story of the alleged UO basketball player gang rape of Jane Doe. John Canzano published Ms Tracy’s horrible and courageous story in the Oregonian, here, Kurt Krueger, the chair of the UO Senate’s Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, invited her to speak at UO. Here is her story, which must be heard:

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Meanwhile, here’s some information on how the Ducks have been handling sexual assault prevention training

6/6/2015 update: Prostitutes from Russian motorcycle-mob strip clubs lead Duck athletes astray?

Before you page down and watch the video of UO Basketball coach Dana Altman do the duck and weave with reporters about alleged gang rape by his basketball players, and check out Tom Hart’s powerpoint presentation telling football players to watch out for Russian prostitutes hired by Egyptian motorcycle gangs, please watch some of the Brenda Tracy video.

8/22/2014 update: Sure enough, this presentation on how football players can avoid getting assaulted, and advertised as “Sexual Assault Awareness” was one of the few things the Duck AD could point to as examples of “Sexual Education” they provide their athletes. Note that the athletic department’s Katie Harbert – who was also the instructor of record for the Ducks athlete-only sham FHS 199 course – began collecting these documents a full month before the rest of the campus learned of the basketball rape allegations:

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8/21/2014: Updated below with redactions from Gottfredson’s Sexual Assault Review Panel of the doc showing the “Team Rule” to call Tom Hart’s *personal* phone if in trouble with police.

8/20/2014: At his May 9th press conference a question from a UO student (whom the Ducks had tried to keep out) revealed that Dana Altman was very confused about what sort of sexual assault prevention training his athletes had received:

Now we know a little more. The athletics department is worried that it’s their players – and their coaches, and NCAA eligibility – that might be the victims of sexual assaults from predatory prostitutes that have probably worked on websites controlled by Russian/Egyptian motorcycle gangs. Or at least that seems to be the warning in this bizarre powerpoint from Tom Hart, hired in 2011 as Director of Duck Security and Facebook Monitoring (contract here).

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Hart is still on Rob Mullens’s payroll, as “Professional Development Coordinator”:

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This and some other fascinating documents from the athletic department – more revealing than anything Mullens has ever showed the IAC without me first filing a petition with the DOJ – were posted yesterday on the Gottfredson SARP website:

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Today, less than 24 hours later, the good stuff has been taken down and replaced by a sanitized set of links:

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But don’t worry, we archived it:

Athletics

Athletics Documents Overview
President’s Panel – Part 1
President’s Panel – Part 2
President’s Panel – Part 3
President’s Panel – Part 4

I’ll try to dig through these as I have time, but I immediately see the student-athlete conduct handbook, numbers on GPA and SAT scores for special admits by team, data on majors, and a statement that seems to back off previous claims from the AD that the Senate was to blame for canceling the FHS 199 class , and thereby preventing them from educating their players about sexual assault and harassment.

Update: Even Winston Smith would be confused. Now the SARP has reposted the Hart powerpoint – “with personal phone numbers removed”:

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So Hart is using a personal phone to take calls from athletes in trouble with the cops? I hope he’s keeping Jim O’Fallon, Jody Sykes, and the NCAA in the loop on that idea.

Ed Ray and “institutional courage”, Mike Gottfredson and “institutional betrayal”

Tyler Kinkgade of the Huffington has a new report that compares what Gottfredson did when faced with Jane Doe’s allegation that she’d been gang-raped by three of Dana Altman’s basketball players, with the inspiring response from OSU President Ed Ray to Brenda Tracy after he learned 2014 about her gang rape by OSU football players in 1998:

The two OSU players in the 1998 case, Tracy learned, had been given probation and 25 hours of community service, and were suspended for one football game. The university imposed such light sanctions because it saw the alleged incident as something that wasn’t its responsibility, since it had happened off campus.

… Ray, for his part, hopes the changes his university is putting in place will make a difference if one of his students is assaulted. “Hopefully we never forget that individuals are much more important than saving face,” he told HuffPost.

As for Mike Gottfredson? UO has paid out millions to him, Jane Doe, lawyers, and is now being sued by Altman’s basketball players. Here are a few examples from previous posts about Gottfredson’s long, expensive, and failed efforts to save his face:

8/22/2014: Prostitutes from Russian motorcycle-mob strip clubs lead Duck athletes astray?

At his May 9th press conference a question from a UO student (whom the Ducks had tried to keep out) revealed that Dana Altman was very confused about what sort of sexual assault prevention training his athletes had received.

Now we know a little more. The athletics department is worried that it’s their players – and their coaches, and NCAA eligibility – that might be the victims of sexual assaults from predatory prostitutes, controlled by Russian/Egyptian motorcycle gangs.

Or at least that seems to be the warning in this bizarre powerpoint from Tom Hart, hired in 2011 as Director of Duck Security and Facebook Monitoring (contract here).

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As of February 2016, Tom Hart was still working for the Ducks. In fact AD Rob Mullens gave him a special overload appointment to go to the Alamo Bowl, just in case:

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Hart’s presentation on how football players can avoid getting assaulted, and advertised as “Sexual Assault Awareness” was one of the few things the Duck AD could point to as examples of “Sexual Education” they provide their athletes. Note that the athletic department’s Katie Harbert – who was also the instructor of record for the Ducks athlete-only sham FHS 199 course – began collecting these documents a full month before the rest of the campus learned of the basketball rape allegations:

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8/25/2014: Gottfredson’s Sexual Assault Review Panel Chair denies panel is a response to basketball rape allegations

The panelists come to town Tuesday for their second secret meeting in an undisclosed location, and will then accept brief public comments on Wednesday, 10-11 at the Ford Alumni Center. KMTR TV had this report a few days ago, interviewing Chair Mary Deits (a former judge and expert on business/construction law, now working as a mediator for hire). KMTR says Deits is claiming that the panel is not a direct response to the basketball rape allegations. Seriously? She expects people to believe that? Here’s the guy who appointed her to his panel telling the UO Senate why he set up the panel:

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New Lane County DA Patty Perlow to work with SAAC, not UO Senate

9/17/2015: This is the UO administration’s “advisory council”, that was appointed without consulting with the UO Senate. Or maybe it’s the Title IX Management Team that was appointed without consulting the Senate. Because sexual assault is not an academic matter? I’m no law professor, but I believe the whole reason Title IX applies is because the courts have decided sexual assault prevents women from having an equal chance at education.

From Camilla Mortensen’s story on Perlow in today’s Eugene Weekly:

EW asked Perlow, in light of recent high-profile rape cases, what she as the DA might do differently when it comes to handling sexual assault on and off campus. For a story on campus rape, EW collected rape statistics for Eugene, Springfield, the UO and Lane County from 2009 through roughly (depending on the jurisdiction) 2014. The numbers showed that out of more than 700 reported rapes only 19 were prosecuted by the Lane County DA’s office with 11 convictions.

Perlow said the DA’s office added $25,000 to its continuing Violence Against Women Act federal grant to help address sexual assault on the UO campus. The DA’s office has received VAWA money in the past, funding a domestic violence investigator, and as of Oct. 1, the added grant money will help fund a prosecutor to work with a newly formed campus sexual assault team.

The team is a partnership between the DA’s office, campus and Eugene police, PeaceHealth, Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS), the UO’s Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity and more.

The grant means that a student reporting a sexual assault has a dedicated prosecutor and, as Perlow says, the survivor controls the investigation and knows “that’s my prosecutor right there.” It’s based on Ashland’s “You have options” model, she says. The model operates on the principle that “when a victim is given the ability to control certain aspects of a sexual assault investigation — such as who is contacted and if an arrest is made — law enforcement and the person who was assaulted both benefit.”

9/2/2015: President Schill meets with Sexual Assault Advisory Council

From what I can tell this “advisory council” was appointed without consultation with the UO Senate:

Caitlin Corona, recent UO grad
Col. Lance Englet, Professor of Military Sciences
Sheryl Eyster, Assoc Dean of Students
Susie “Dee Dee” Kintz, Classified staff, Human Physiology
Andrea Herrera, GTF in Sociology and WGS
Jocelyn Hollander, Department Head, Sociology
Katie Green, Lane County DA’s office
Ibrahim Gassama, Professor, Law School
Sandra Martinez-Modesto, Undergraduate student
Robert McCullum, Asst Director Basketball Operations
Victoria Ryan, UO Law student
Jane Ward, Community member, Forensic Psychologist, and expert on the treatment of high-risk sex offenders
Juwaan Williams, UO student-athlete
Mike Schill, UO President
Jamie Moffitt, VPFA
Robin Holmes, VP for Student Life
AVP for Sexual Assault Prevention and Title IX Coordinator (hire in process)
Darci Heroy, consultant (until AVP is hired)

Their charge apparently comes from Mike Gottfredson’s $10K a head Independent Review Panel and VPSL Robin Holmes:

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Gottfredson / Berdahl rape review panel releases nicely formatted report

12/9/2014 update:

In case you’re confused, there are two reports out now. The first is from the UO Senate Task Force, led by Carol Stabile and Randy Sullivan, and including Jennifer Freyd, Cheyney Ryan, and the US Attorney for Oregon Amanda Marshall. Their recommendations were presented to the Senate in October, here. The Senate is doing its best to implement them.

Today the UO administration posted the report of the  “Presidential Review Panel” that former UO President Mike Gottfredson, his athletic director Rob Mullens, and his VP for Student Life Robin Holmes personally selected to review their handling of the March basketball rape allegations, and give advice on reforms. They refused to do the former, but their report on the later is  now posted here.

I’ll be honest, I bailed at the point where Berdahl and the other panelists couldn’t even bring themselves to say Jennifer Freyd’s name, when talking about their euphemistic “campus climate” surveys. OK, I’m being unfair to the people who put in hard work on this panel, including Michigan’s Ted Spencer, who probably didn’t even get to collect his $10K honorarium, after the UM ethics office found out he’d tried to hide it.

Seriously though, it looks like there’s some good stuff in here about UO’s athletic and fraternity problems, and some sanitized but troubling history on the UO administration’s previous desultory efforts to address sexual assaults. I’ll give a redacted University of Nike coffee cup to anyone who can make it all the way through and provide a succinct annotated analysis, with a comparison to the Senate report’s recommendations.

Josephine Woolington is giving it a first crack in the RG, here:

Some professors questioned whether three current UO administrators could select members who would truly be independent of the university. Some also criticized the UO for paying each member $10,000, plus covering travel and lodging costs. UO spokeswoman Jennifer Winters said Wilcox and Shuman did not accept the money. The UO could not immediately say how much the panel has cost the university.

And she’s got a classic weasel word quote from the Gottfredson panel’s chair:

“I think what we found is that there’s a lot of pieces of good work being done throughout the university on both prevention and response, but (employees) are not always talking to each other, and there’s not a coordinated effort that makes the best use of resources,” said the group’s chairwoman, Mary Deits, a former Oregon Court of Appeals judge.

9/16/2014: KATU interview with the Honorable David Schuman confirms that the Gottfredson/Berdahl rape review panel won’t look into how Gottfredson handled the rape allegations.

Continue reading

Senate meets today to deal with Sex Violence report, student conduct

Agenda below, I’ll try to live-blog a little. And don’t miss the Faculty Union’s General Membership Meeting, 5-7PM tonight at the Alumni Center.

The hand picked “President’s Review Panel” that Coltrane inherited from Gottfredson has scheduled its final meeting for a luxury hotel in Portland, to get away from the pesky students and faculty. Rumor has it that Jane Gordon (Law) is hoping to have her report written for their rubber-stamp sometime in January. Costs are estimated at about $150K so far, including the $10K “honoraria” Gottfredson offered the panelists that he, Rob Mullens, and Robin Holmes hand-picked to not investigate how they had handled the basketball rape allegations. The panel has met 4 or 5 times, and three of the original eight panelists have resigned, so far.

Meanwhile the Senate’s all-volunteer Task Force on Sexual Violence worked through the summer and completed its “20 Students Per Week” report (here). It will be discussed in the Senate today, and legislation on the recommendations will come soon. Interim President Coltrane will then have to decide what to do about the recommendations – act, or wait for Gottfredson’s intentionally crippled “Review Panel” to say something.

The Senate will also vote on a long list of changes to the student conduct code put forward by John Bonine (Law) and Caroline Forell (Law), after years of inaction from VP for Student Life Robin Holmes. Holmes skipped the last Senate meeting on student conduct. Rumor has it Holmes is on the job market again, we’ll see if  she shows up this time.

Senate Meeting Agenda – November 5, 2014, 115 Lawrence, 3:00-5:00 p.m.

2014-2015Agendas

3:00 pm     1.   Call to Order

3:00 pm     2.   Approval of Minutes

2.1       October 8, 2014

3:05 pm     3.   State of the University

3.1       Remarks by Interim President Scott Coltrane with questions

Coltrane makes it very clear he’s not going to get pushed into doing anything until he gets the report from Gottfredson’s “Review Panel” which he now expects in early December, then have further discussions with the students in Winter. He is also hostile to the idea of a new office on sexual violence – makes clear this is the job of Student Life. If I understand his comments on “targeting specific groups” he also seems opposed to efforts to limit greek life expansion or focus on athletics.

He gets questions on who will be in charge of his “coordinated effort” given past failures. His answer, “student life”, is not reassuring. Also a question on accusations of bias from UO administrators about Prof. Freyd. (I think he evaded this one.) Also a question from me about why so much of the new Tykeson building was going to new offices for the CAS administration and how this became a UO priority. He totally evaded this one.

3.2       Strategic Planning Update, Frances Bronet, Acting Provost (Cancelled. Bronet is at some sort of campus climate conference, with Holmes and Alex-Assensoh.)

3:25 pm     4.   New Busines

4.1       Presentation of the Final Report of the Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support; Senate Task Force (Carol Stabile and Randy Sullivan, Co-Chairs)

Sorry, I’m listening, not blogging. Stabile goes through the report, documenting changes made in response to input over the past 2 weeks. Very thorough.

4.2       Motion (Legislation): Proposed Revisions to Student Conduct Code Dealing with Sexual Misconduct, Part 3; John Bonine, Professor (Law) and Caroline Forell, Professor (Law)

4.3       Motion (Legislation): Proposed Revisions to Student Conduct Code Dealing with Sexual Misconduct, Part 5; John Bonine, Professor (Law) and Caroline Forell, Professor (Law)

4.4       Motion (Legislation): Proposed Revisions to Student Conduct Code Dealing with Sexual Misconduct, Part 6; John Bonine, Professor (Law) and Caroline Forell, Professor (Law)

4.5       Motion (Legislation): Proposed Revisions to Student Conduct Code Dealing with Sexual Misconduct, Part 7; John Bonine, Professor (Law) and Caroline Forell, Professor (Law)

4.6       Motion (Legislation): Proposed Revisions to Student Conduct Code Dealing with Sexual Misconduct, Part 8; John Bonine, Professor (Law) and Caroline Forell, Professor (Law)

4.7       Motion (Legislation): Proposed Revisions to Student Conduct Code Dealing with Sexual Misconduct, Part 9; John Bonine, Professor (Law) and Caroline Forell, Professor (Law)

4.8       Motion (Legislation): Change of Membership for the Graduate Council; Joe Lowndes, Professor (Political Science) & Graduate Council Chair

4:45 pm     5.   Open Discussion

4:45 pm     6.   Reports

4:45 pm     7.   Notice(s) of Motion

4:45 pm      8.  Other Business

8.1       Distinguished Service Award: Executive Session

5:00 pm     9.   Adjournment

UO Senate Task Force on Sex Assault seeks input before vote

To: University of Oregon Campus Community

From: Robert Kyr; President, University Senate

RE: Report of the Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support—Seeking Your Feedback (Deadline: Monday, November 3, 2014)

I am writing to strongly encourage you to read the Report of the Senate Task Force to address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support, and to offer your feedback through the survey vehicle that can be accessed through the link under #2 below.

Please participate by offering your feedback to the report in whatever ways you prefer, as follows:

1) TO READ THE REPORTThe Report of the Senate Task Force (“Twenty Students Per Week: The Final Report of the University Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Support Survivors”) may be accessed through the following link, which may also be found at the top of the Senate website homepage (senate.uoregon.edu):

http://senate.uoregon.edu/sites/senate.uoregon.edu/files/2014_10_22%20Senate%20Task%20Force%20Report%20Rev18.pdf

2) TO OFFER WRITTEN FEEDBACK (Deadline: Monday, Nov. 3rd by 6:00 pm)—If you wish to offer feedback, please do so through the following link (also provided at the top of the Senate website homepage at senate.uoregon.edu:

https://jfe.qualtrics.com/preview/SV_3O5IpkvAdfP7tHf?Preview=Survey&BrandID=oregon

Please note that there is a space for you to offer feedback for each recommendation, so please focus your efforts on specific items, rather than writing all of your comments in a single space. The deadline for submitting your feedback is 6:00 pm on Monday, November 3rd. The Senate Task Force will meet on the next day to discuss your comments and to consider revisions for its report.

3) TO OFFER FEEDBACK IN PERSON (Campus Forum, November 3rd)—

If you would like to offer feedback in person, please participate in the Campus Forum that is scheduled at 4:00-6:00 pm on Monday, November 3, 2014, in the Ford Alumni Center Ballroom (first floor). In particular, students are encouraged to attend and participate, since the Task Force would like to receive their feedback, both through the online vehicle (#2 above) and/or through the Campus Forum.

4) SENATE DISCUSSION & VOTE (Senate Meeting, November 5th)—

The November 5th Senate meeting (3:00-5:00 pm in Lawrence Hall 115) will feature an open public discussion on the Senate Task Force Report followed by a Senate vote to affirm the recommendations.

I hope that you will participate in our open public process for the consideration of the Senate Task Force Report. The issues that it addresses are of the utmost importance to all of us and to the future of our university. Nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of each and every member of our community, especially our students.

In closing, I would like to thank the Senate Task Force (and especially its Co-Chairs, Carol Stabile and Randy Sullivan) for its superb work on behalf of us all. We are grateful for their expertise, commitment and dedication in addressing these crucial issues.

We look forward to working with Interim President Coltrane and his administration to implement the recommendations in a sustainable way that will be for the highest good of all concerned.

All the best,

Robert Kyr

Philip H. Knight Professor of Music

President, University Senate

10/22/2014: 3PM Today: UO Senate Task Force on sexual violence prevention recommendations

No, I’m not talking about Mike Gottfredson’s self-appointed “Presidential Sex Assault Review Panel”. That group will apparently have its final meeting Nov 21st in Portland, of all places. Presumably so they can stay in a nice boutique hotel, while avoiding any awkward questions about how much of their ~$150K report was actually written by Jane Gordon (Law).

This is the report from the all volunteer UO Senate Task Force, which has been working all summer, holding public meetings, running a survey, and trying to get info from the athletics department and greek life. Their initial recommendations will be made to the UO Senate this Wednesday, there will be a town hall later, and the discussion and voting will begin at the November 5th Senate meeting.

Subject: [UO Senate 2014/15] [Senate:] Wednesday (Oct. 22)‹Important Senate Meeting!

To: University Senate &
University Campus Community Continue reading

Gottfredson’s sex panelists sponsor $10K prize for best UO ID stop-rape label

10/7/14 update: That’s the word from the latest meeting of the “President’s Review Panel” tonight. After 30 minutes of plaintive appeals from the moderator for someone, anyone, to tell the panelists (who have an average age of 83, and were sitting above the students on a raised dais, behind protective tables, partially hidden by white tablecloths) an interesting sexual assault story, several students finally took pity and threw them a bone by suggesting UO use the blank space below the mag stripe on the back of student ID’s for some info on how to avoid rape, and what to do afterwards:

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Berdahl and the other desperate panelists seized on this uncontroversial feel-good measure with shameless enthusiasm. Wow, that’s going to be so much cheaper than making the jocks skip practice for some dumb feminism class!

Michigan’s Ted Spencer was so excited he offered to donate his entire $10K honorarium as the prize for the best student entry on how to fill the 1.5″x3.5″ space. OK, I’m kidding about Spencer’s $10K promise. I totally made that up. He’s keeping his $10K – although maybe not, now that his Michigan bosses know about it.

But the rest is pretty accurate, and I’m happy to accept your suggestions in the comments for the best stop rape label, or you can find email addresses for Berdahl, Spencer, and the other panelists here.

More seriously, Alexandra Wallachy has a brief Q&A in the ODE with Sexual Assault Review Panel Chair Mary Deits here. Hailey Geller has it on twitter, here. There was supposed to be a video of the session here, but it’s not working. And, in contrast to the distorted pablum we’ve got from UO PR flacks Julie Brown and Tobin Klinger on this issue, former reporter Greg Bolt plays it remarkably straight in “Around the 0”, here. Well worth reading it all, and that’s a first:

Law professor John Bonine also spoke and asked the panel to be cautious about recommending that the university take part in a campus climate survey organized through the Association of American Universities. He said the organization, of with the UO is the only Oregon member, might have a conflict of interest because it is made up of university administrators.

10/7/14: Berdahl, other Gottfredson panelists visit dorms tonight to hear student rape reports

He’s like 85 years old. It all sounds a little creepy to me, even ignoring the $10K payment panelist Ted Spencer tried to hide from Michigan. Back in May, this was a sick joke in The Onion: Continue reading

University suspends star athlete hours after learning of sexual assault

That would be the University of Florida, suspending a quarterback accused of a sexual assault Sunday night, the day after he won a football game. Here at UO, it took 2 months for President Gottfredson and Rob Mullens to admit that three of their basketball players had been accused of a gang rape – and it seems clear they were hoping to paper the incident over entirely, claiming that FERPA prevented disclosure.

Can anyone explain why UO’s interpretation of FERPA is so vastly different than Florida’s? Is this why Randy Geller lost his job? Many mysteries, and it seems unlikely that Gottfredson’s tame $10K a head “Review Panel” is going to provide many answers.

Coltrane listens to UO Prof Jennifer Freyd speak at City Club about campus rapes and institutional betrayal

Update: Jennifer Freyd and Carly Smith gave an impressive hour long talk to the City Club. It certainly resonated with the audience, who asked questions about the role of alcohol and sports and perpetrators. Interim President Scott Coltrane was there. I think it would be hard for any reasonable person – and Coltrane seems eminently reasonable – to listen to their calm, rational, thorough presentation of their research and not believe that they should have a a central place at the table as UO tries to figure out strategies to reduce sexual assaults and deal with their consequences. The Senate Task Force that Freyd and Smith sit on will be presenting its initial proposals to the Senate on October 22.

There was a video camera there but I’m not sure where the link will be posted. Meanwhile there is an OPB radio interview, here. But note that the interviewers seem a bit confused about the differences between the Senate Task Force and Gottfredson’s review panel.

10/3/2014: Information here:

Friday, October 3, 2014 from 12:05 to 1:20 p.m.
Downtown Athletic Club, 3rd Floor Ballroom

Addressing Sexual Assault – From Institutional Betrayal to Institutional Courage

Guest Speakers: Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Carly Smith
Program Coordinator: Marshall Wilde

9/30/2014: Freyd releases the rape survey the UO administration tried to stop

Back in May, Jennifer Freyd, Carol Stabile, and the others in the rag-tag UO Coalition to End Sexual Violence were reduced to yelling at the Johnson Hall administration with a megaphone:

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Now president Mike Gottfredson is gone. General Counsel Randy Geller is gone. Rumor has it that VPFA Robin Holmes will soon be spending more time with her family too – and I don’t mean on bowl game junkets.

Scott Coltrane is now in charge, and apparently he doesn’t care much for what Gottfredson and his predecessor Bob Berdahl have been telling him about how to just paper this all over. In 2 months UO has gone from having a president who tried to hide rape allegations from our students, to having results from a well designed, credible survey documenting the extent of the campus problem and showing where to focus efforts to fix it.

So now Freyd and Stabile, and the UO Senate Task Force, are UO’s most credible voices on how UO will move forward to address sexual violence. They made this happen through their own sustained hard work, and some very effective networking. What an impressive demonstration of political effectiveness for an important cause.

News reports:

Josephine Woolington in the RG: “What we learned today is simply unacceptable and unconscionable,” said professor Robert Kyr, a task force member and University Senate president.

Steve Duin in the Oregonian: One in 10 female students at University of Oregon tell researchers they have been raped at college.

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9/30/2014: Live Blog: Usual disclaimer, my opinions of what people said or meant, nothing is a quote unless in quotes. The website for the UO Senate Task Force that Freyd sits on is here. For contrast, the various misadventures of the UO administration’s own secretive “review panel” are chronicled here, and the basketball rape allegation and coverup posts are here.

Preliminary results from Freyd survey. This is the survey that Mike Gottfredson and Robin Holmes tried to stop. Full slides can be downloaded here. Here are the main results:

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Do the math: With 10,600 female UO undergraduates, this means 1000 of them have been raped while they were UO students. More if you count oral sex. About 300 incoming freshman will be raped at UO this year. 75% of the time by an acquaintance. 10% of the time at a fraternity.

Meeting: Full room and agenda. Carol Stabile chairs. Jennifer Freyd’s presentation will be at 1:50(?) or so.

David Espinosa (Testing Center) starts off talking about underreporting, effects of mandatory reporting. Lots of talk about the many disincentives for reporting. Bruce McAllister (Ombud) talks about the benefits of confidential reporting as an alternative. Give victim a menu of options on how they want to report.

Stabile reports on her and Kyr’s meeting with Sam Hill and Doug Park from the GC’s office. “We were told that the mandatory reporting comes from an OAR from the 1970s.” Kyr: OAR’s are now in temporary status because of the new BOT, they can be changed. Notes that the BOT has reserved control of student conduct for themselves. (Under the delegation of authority that Susan Gary hid from us).

McCallister: OCR says mandatory reporters must have authority. At UO, they don’t. So we’re out of compliance. (Mandatory reporting for all UO employees was Gottfredson’s first action as UO President. Whoops.)

Espinosa to Kyr: How did Hill and Park explain the requirement to you? Kyr: They didn’t show us documentation. Stabile: OAR’s are selectively enforced.

McCallister: UO is not following best practices on this.

Stabile: Concerned that confidential reporting is “where reports go to be hidden”. (As Gottfredson did.)

McCallister: Important that de-identified and aggregate data be reported (I assume he means to Clery).

Stabile: Timeline for action on changing this? Kyr: Chuck Triplett is in charge.

Bonine: President has authority to change these, should go through Senate first, can be quick.

1:54PM Jennifer Freyd: Preliminary results from her Campus Climate Survey
Can be downloaded here.

Freyd talks about the twisted politics of these surveys. Researchers, consultants, White House, administrators all want a piece of this. AAU is worried: https://president.uoregon.edu/sites/president2.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/field/image/aau_presidents_report.pdf

On to the presentation: (Sorry, I didn’t live blog this. See the slides above.)

9/29/2014: No, I don’t mean the well paid, secretive, lying, and remarkably incurious “Presidents Review Panel”, which now apparently can’t even bear to use variants of the word “sex” in their official name. See below.

I mean the all-volunteer UO Senate’s Task Force on Sexual Violence, which meets this Tuesday September 30, 1-3PM, 403 Ford Alumni Center, in public. Should be an interesting one.

And for contrast, here’s the administration’s newly renamed “President’s Review Panel” webpage:

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The older, more honest, pre-Orwell page calling it the “Review Panel on Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response”:

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Ducks paid sex offender $4,000 for football sex assault prevention talk

9/30/2014: Now with a report from KATU News. UO’s well-paid PR flacks Craig Pintens and Tobin Klinger were apparently not willing to talk about this one on camera:

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928/2014: It is, of course, common for repentant criminals to give “scared straight” talks about how their bad choices ruined their lives. But is a $4K payment for a keynote talk on sexual assault prevention really an appropriate consequence for trying to rape your daughters’ babysitter, in your house, while your kids are asleep? (Apparently he pled it down to sexual battery). And is Adam Ritz really the best poster-child for the athletic department to trot out? The AD’s accounting of their Sexual Violence Prevention programs is here. It’s pretty thin, as Coach Altman has admitted. Here’s one example – motivational speaker Adam Ritz:

“Keynote speaker for Football. Contractor to provide Alcohol Awareness/Sexual Assualt (sic) Decision Making. May 8, 2013”

Mr Ritz’s mug-shot:

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Adam Ritz’s contract with the Ducks (the pdf includes contracts for other “sexual assault prevention speakers” Elaine Pasqua, Tony Dungy and Lee Gordon):

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More links on Mr. Ritz, who appears to be making quite a good living from this:

http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/IN649373/Robert-Adam-Ritz.html
http://adamritz.com/Adam_Ritz/Media.html
http://www.wthr.com/story/1843004/disc-jockey-gets-prison-time
http://www.mndaily.com/2011/10/13/letter-greeks-apologizes-brash-speaker
http://www.usishield.com/apb-hires-lifetime-sex-offender/
http://timesupblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/listening-to-perps.html
http://archive.today/b5xmW
https://angelzfury.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/listening-to-the-perps-not-the-domestic-violence-victims-societies-accepted-norm/

From one article:

A good, or perhaps I should say bad example of this common mistake occurred at Minnesota State University, Mankato last month. The school paid Adam Ritz $2500 to speak to the students about the dangers of drinking. The event was sponsored by the Residence Hall Association, a fraternity and Men Against Violence. The Women’s Center expressed its opposition to the presentation but was ignored by these organizations including Men Against Violence which claims to be an ally of the Women’s Center.

Adam Ritz is a former local media personality. He is also a convicted sex offender. He reveals this as part of his presentation, but only towards the end. Mr. Ritz came home and attempted to rape the young woman who was baby-sitting his children. He was convicted, but served only six months and is on the sex offender list for his crime. His presentation sparked a controversy on campus that has spread throughout the country. A Facebook page was created to protest the decision to invite him to the school. Rather than treating the student body with a modicum of respect and addressing these concerns Mr. Ritz and the organizers of the program made many mistakes and I would like to look at them in hopes they can be avoided in the future.

Accordingly when the Women’s Center objected to the program with Adam Ritz, the male organizations should have recognized the Women’s Center as the experts on campus and stopped the program. Even better they should have consulted with the Women’s Center before scheduling Adam Ritz. It is unsurprising that they didn’t because they were exercising their privilege. Maya Angelou, the poet, says when people show you who they really are, believe them.

The many egregious, inappropriate and downright hurtful statements made by Adam Ritz illustrates why it is a bad idea to have perpetrators of sexist or other crimes based upon oppression speak to these issues.

A very bad idea. But worse than Tom Hart’s Russian motorcycle prostitutes powerpoint? Hard to say.

Admin yields to Senate on sexual assault, still hiding basketball docs

The RG has the story on Coltrane’s agreement to some but not all of the initial Senate Task Force proposals, here. From what I’ve read most campus sexual assaults are linked to athletics, fraternities, and alcohol. None of these initial recommendations target these problems.

Notably, Dana Altman and Rob Mullens have admitted that the athletic department does not provide any serious sexual assault prevention training for their athletes (unless you call Tom Hart’s presentation on Russian motorcycle gang prostitutes serious) and nothing in these initial recommendations will address that gap. But the RG quotes Coltrane:

“We feel like we’re doing enough to keep students safe this year.”

Ouch. Obviously the people on the Senate Task Force don’t believe this, and they will be proposing more action. Meanwhile not a peep from Coltrane’s secret $10Ka-head SARP, except that they’re not getting paid enough to investigate the JH coverup of the basketball allegations.

Dean of Students Paul Shang submits sexual assault reduction action plan

Shang warns of liability issues with current situation, proposes special programs for athletes, frats, mandatory training for students, etc.

Oh wait, this document is from 2010, and VPSA Robin Holmes and AD Rob Mullens seem to have ignored most of its recommendations. Never mind. Congrats to Coltrane’s SARP for finding it in the JH recycling bin and posting it on their website though.

KATU disembowels UO’s new efforts to defend rape allegation coverup

President Coltrane is never going to be able to leave this behind until he releases the documents. The $10K a head President’s Review Panel meets again next week with a brief public session, and no evidence whatsoever that they are willing to ask hard questions.

Latest story here.

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KATU accuses UO of hiding rape allegations to protect Duck basketball’s APR

Update: Troy Brynelson and Alex Cremer make it criminally plain, in the ODE:

The University of Oregon purposely delayed the expulsion of three basketball players in order to preserve its academic standing with the NCAA and financial incentives for members of the athletic department, according to an exhaustive investigative piece from KATU News.

Update: A long, substantive report tonight by reporters Dusty Lane and Joe Douglass, with many explosive allegations, including a well documented claim that UO delayed reporting the rape allegations to UO students in order to game the NCAA’s APR rules, and prevent penalties against Altman’s basketball program. Sick stuff.

So far, Interim President Coltrane is sticking with Gottfredson’s decisions to

  • not release the documents showing how UO responded,
  • shut down the Senate’s watchdog Intercollegiate Athletics Committee
  • appoint the remarkably complacent Tim Gleason as the replacement for FAR Jim O’Fallon – the man responsible for keeping track of UO’s NCAA “Academic Progress Rating”.

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9/8/2014: KATU reports on UO’s legal liability for alleged rapes – more tonight

Here’s last night’s story, including interviews with Cheyney Ryan (Law) and Interim President Coltrane. The report closes with the note that KATU will have more hitherto undisclosed info tonight about UO’s pattern of failing to appropriately respond to sexual assault reports.

Any bets on how Coltrane will split the cost of dealing with all this between the academic and athletic sides of the budget? Presumably the academic budget has been stuck with bill for the $10K honoraria and expenses of Gottfredson’s review panel, but that’s likely to be the least part of it.

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Live-blog of Gottfredson’s sexual assault panel open meeting

10-11 AM, 8/27/2014, Ford Alumni Center. As usual, nothing is a quote unless in quotes. About 35 in the audience, 7 panelists.

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Short version: Very strange session, basically a bunch of UO staff pitching the effectiveness of their various programs, no comments or questions from panel.

Chair Diets starts with intros. Asks for comments on prevention efforts.

Coltrane: Starts by calling panel extremely well qualified. Says it’s important to have public sessions, but much of the work must be confidential. Report will be public. Talks about “respectful college environment.”

Bonnie Mann (Philosophy chair): Hope you’ll have an event like this when students are here. Experience on crisis hotline, personal experience, importance of prevention and “culture work” for prevention. Can’t be done in a three hour workshop, given cultural problems. Wants required course in sexual ethics, to reflect on how you want to treat other people. Many qualified UO faculty to do this.

Rita Radowitz (sp? Admin working for Robin Holmes on sexual assault prevention): Wants to improve efforts to communicate what UO is already doing. Coordinate different programs.

Keith ? (UO Health Center): “Don’t rape” on a poster is not enough. If the only time students hear us talk about rape is after a publicized incident, they don’t take it seriously. Talks about cell phone app, now licensed by other universities. Need to incorporate our expectations to students on a daily basis.

Sam (HS teacher and grad student, director of women’s self defense project Warrior Sister Society, student of Jocelyn Hollander): Self defense works to prevent sexual assault, helps them set boundaries and it works because women *can* defend themselves. But there is only on UO self-defense course, in PE.

Rachel (Honors student): UO has an effect beyond campus. Also supports self-defense, gives evidence of effectiveness from a police led program in Orlando.

Carol Stabile (co-chair of Senate Task Force): Wants a “good samaritan policy” implemented on campus as short term goal. Long term goal may be a mandatory course. Also urges rethink of UO’s unusual mandatory reporting requirement and how to implement it.

?, Director of Residence Life: Shows poster they put on back of every dorm room. Runs sessions in residence halls, has increased number of RA’s in dorms to provide more 1-1 interactions with students.

?,: Talks about teaching students simple strategies to avoid date rape situations. UO does not have a staff person to deal with perpetrators who often stay on campus after disciplinary actions.

Susanne Hamlin, director of outdoor programs: Talks about need for telling students about rape reports as they occur, so they are aware. [Gottfredson apparently intended to keep the basketball allegations secret forever – but apparently the panel is not going to look into that.]

?: Also supports women’s self-defense programs. Research has shown more lights, call boxes, more cops have no effect on sexual assaults, while programs to train women on how to avoid attacks and defend themselves have been shown to be effective. Also important to tell women to tell men “what you are doing is rape”.

Schumacher, OSA: Wants to know what UO is doing about revenge porn. AG is looking into legal prohibitions, easier to implement on campus.

10:43 AM: Deits: No more speakers? Thanks, we’ll have more sessions when students are on campus. Adjourned.

Reporters doing their post-session interviews, panelists mingling, Tobin Klinger wandering around keeping an eye on things.