Justice Department Secures $4.14 Million Settlement for Student-Athletes to Remedy Title IX Violations at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Settlement Requires Financial Relief and Systemic Action to Address Sexual Abuse and Discrimination of Student-Athletes by Former Coach.
By Levi Gwaltney, Editor
Las Cruces Digest
2018 was a Cinderella year for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. SB Nation proclaimed “the Retrievers were the perfect tournament sweethearts for this moment.” In the first round of the NCAA National Basketball Tournament, the 16-seed UMBC Retrievers soundly defeated top-seeded Virginia. The upset victory sent shock waves through the sporting community and led to write ups like this:
“There are two ways to think about a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament. The first is to assume one will never win, because, in isolation, none ever should. Every one of them is so badly outmatched, and every tournament game is so pivotal, that it should never happen. When UMBC took the court on Friday night against Virginia, the 16s’ all-time record against the 1s was 0-135. The average margin was 24.7 points. In 1989, two 16s lost by just one point, but they were exceptional. Just 15 of 135 had kept it within single digits.
SBNation.com
UMBC wasn’t the first to prove Goliaths could fall in the round of 64. The Harvard women’s team showed that when it trucked No. 1 Stanford in 1998. I don’t think most people thought it was impossible, but lots of us didn’t think we’d see it in our lifetimes, either again or for the first time. A No. 1 falling in the first round of the men’s tournament was the last unconquered frontier of major American sports upsets until UMBC beat down the door.
The score was 74-54. The margin of victory added to the shock, but so did the manner of it all. Tony Bennett’s Virginia is the best defensive program in this era of college basketball. Bennett’s pack-line scheme, where five players form a sort of elastic netting around the rim and one of them always chases the ball, has flummoxed elite opponent after elite opponent. The Retrievers had by far the best shooting game any team had against it all season, and they also scored the most points — six more than the next-closest team.”
With all of the hoopla surrounding the amazing feat performed by an almost unknown basketball program, few were paying attention to what was going on with the UMBC Athletic program in general.
Today, the United States Department of Justice announced $4.14 Million Settlement against UMBC Athletics. The entire statement reads:
Settlement Requires Financial Relief and Systemic Action to Address Sexual Abuse and Discrimination of Student-Athletes by Former Coach
The Justice Department announced today a settlement agreement with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to resolve the department’s findings that UMBC allowed a former head coach of the swimming and diving team to sexually harass male student-athletes and discriminate against female student-athletes for years. The department conducted its investigation under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX).
“A school’s responsibility is to protect its students, not abusers who seek to exploit their positions of power,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The young student-athletes at UMBC experienced a double betrayal: their coach’s prolonged abuse compounded by their university’s utter failure to acknowledge, respond to or remedy this egregious conduct. UMBC has now taken full responsibility for its failures and has expressed its commitment to addressing them and rebuilding the trust of its community. The Justice Department recognizes the brave and resilient student-athletes who came forward and continue to come forward to share their stories with us. This settlement should send a resounding message to our nation’s colleges and universities: sexual assaults and harassment of students will not be tolerated.”
The department found that in 2015, students reported that the head coach may have used a camera to film them while they showered in a UMBC locker room. Rather than investigate this report or take action to protect students, UMBC administrators warned the coach that campus police planned to search his locker, thwarting the criminal investigation. In 2019, a student reported unwanted sexual touching and harassment by the coach of male swimmers and again, UMBC failed to investigate or otherwise respond. The department also found that during this time, UMBC did not respond to female students’ reports of sex discrimination, including dating violence, while on the team. As a result of these glaring failures by the university, student-athletes were subjected to ongoing sexual abuse, harassment and other sex discrimination by their coach for years.
UMBC has agreed to pay up to $4.14 million in financial relief to student-athletes who were subjected to sex discrimination by the former head coach. Under this settlement agreement, UMBC will also:
- Significantly improve UMBC’s process for responding to complaints of sex discrimination;
- Provide additional resources and staffing for its Title IX compliance program, including a permanent Title IX Coordinator;
- Provide a full-time support person for those who have experienced sexual assault;
- Deliver training to student-athletes and athletics department employees on healthy relationships, intimate partner violence, power dynamics within the coach-athlete relationship and retaliation;
- Create and enforce a policy outlining expectations for coaching staff behavior and
- Administer surveys to student-athletes about their experiences with sex discrimination and take all necessary and appropriate corrective action.
The department will monitor UMBC’s implementation of the agreement, which will remain in place through the 2028-2029 academic year. View a summary of the agreement here.
Attorneys from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section and an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland conducted the investigation, with UMBC’s full cooperation.
Individuals with information related to the department’s findings are encouraged to contact the Justice Department at Community.UMBC@usdoj.gov.
The month of April is observed as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The enforcement of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination, including sexual harassment and assault, in education programs and activities operated by recipients of federal financial assistance, is a top priority of the Civil Rights Division. This settlement is part of the division’s work to combat sexual harassment and follows the division’s resolution of investigations involving allegations of sexual assault of students at San José State University and at Case Western Reserve University. Additional information about the Civil Rights Division is available on its website at www.justice.gov/crt and additional information about the work of the Educational Opportunities Section is available at www.justice.gov/crt/educational-opportunities-section. Members of the public may report possible civil rights violations at www.civilrights.justice.gov/report/.
Our New Mexico State Aggies have certainly had more than their share of incidents over the past few years. The latest reported by the Las Cruces Digest on February 3, 2024. NMSU Athletics released the following statement:
“Following careful consideration of the events that transpired last night, New Mexico State Athletics has made the decision to indefinitely suspend Robert Carpenter from all team activities effective immediately.
NMSU Athletics
Per the NCAA’s rules of conduct, any player involved in an altercation during competition is required to serve a one-game suspension, however, we feel it is important to emphasize that the Aggie men’s basketball program places the utmost priority on the values of sportsmanship and respect and feel that an indefinite suspension is necessary.
His actions do not align with the standards we uphold at New Mexico State, and we believe it is important to ensure that any actions contrary to our principles will not be tolerated.
We will continue to work closely with our coaching staff, players, and support personnel to reinforce the importance of responsible conduct both on and off the court. We remain committed to creating an environment where our student-athletes can thrive academically and personally.
We appreciate the continued support of the men’s basketball program and the athletics department. We remain focused on the future and the positive contributions our student-athletes bring to our institution.”
While it may be easy to criticize New Mexico State Athletics and specific programs for the many mistakes they make, it should be noted that New Mexico State University Athletics has not thumbed their nose at accountability. Our Aggies have made amends, removed banners, removed coaches and made remunerative compensation available for those who have been wronged. They have rendered down to nothing and rebuilt problematic programs out of whole cloth.
Personally, it has been difficult to overcome the fatal errors in past years’ NMSU Basketball scandals. It has been hard to show pride in the Aggies when some involved have made some really bad decisions. But owning up to the problems they have faced, and making amends is something I can, and Aggies fans should, take pride in.
Everyone in our broader community is trying to do better, and as all athletic programs should, NMSU Athletics is standing as a role model on how to be accountable while never losing site of the pursuit of excellence. While the Aggies basketball program struggled for a win on the court this past season, I consider the Athletic Department’s commitment to accountability a win that I can wobble over.
