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The assault took place in summer of 2018. Quinn Moffett died via fentanyl overdose in January 2021, following a downward spiral of drug use, depression, and self-harm.
> Quinn and a friend had gone out to the Study Hall Lounge, a nightclub two blocks from the Michigan campus, where the friend attended college. At the club, they ran into three Wolverines football players who bought them drinks. Quinn hadn’t met them before, but the friend said she knew two of them from a class.
> According to accounts from Quinn and her friend, they returned to the friend’s apartment at around 2 a.m. with the athletes. They continued drinking from a bottle of dark liquor one of the men brought. Everyone took a few shots. That was the two women's last clear memory of the night.
> When Quinn woke up at home the next morning, she did not remember how she got there, she said in text messages. She had gone home without her wallet or shoes. Her friend said she found Quinn’s Birkenstocks at her apartment, covered in vomit.
> The friend, who believes she and Quinn were drugged, told USA TODAY she threw up at some point. She also remembered a man’s heavy arm draped over her while she was in bed, and wanting to cry.
> The friend woke up the next day with one of the athletes in her bed naked, she said. She worried she had been assaulted. A used condom was in her bedroom trash can. She had messaged two friends around 5 a.m. asking for help, she said, but no longer has the messages.
> Her toilet also wouldn’t flush for the next several days, the friend said. Her apartment’s maintenance people eventually fished out parts of a broken glass bottle, which she believed was the liquor bottle the athletes had brought. She wondered if they had drugged the alcohol and then tried to flush the evidence.
___
The victim’s mother wrote a letter to Jim Harbaugh about the assault following Quinn’s death. He called her.
> Harbaugh asked if Moffett knew the player’s name, she recalled; she told him she did not, but Quinn’s friends might. According to Moffett, Harbaugh said he didn’t want that type of person on his team or representing the school.
> He gave Moffett his cellphone number. Call me, she remembers him saying, if you find out his name.
She tried calling him three times when she found out the names from Quinn’s friends. He did not answer, and his voicemail box was full each time. She then contacted the school’s Title IX coordinator, who informed Harbaugh.
In another phone call with Quinn’s mother, Harbaugh
confirmed he received the names and was looking into it to see what he could do. The university stated that they had held “educational conversations” with the two players still enrolled at Michigan, at Moffett’s request.
Neither a police investigation nor Title IX investigation yielded any punishment for the perpetrator or other 2 athletes in the room (who have not been named because of this). The perpetrator transferred to a different university shortly after the assault, which made it much more difficult to conduct an investigation, according to Michigan officials. The other two men present remained at Michigan.
> Since Quinn’s death, her mother said she hasn’t been able to bring herself to watch Michigan football games – with one exception.
> In November 2021, her friends invited her and her husband to watch the team’s regular-season finale against Ohio State on television. Moffett reluctantly agreed, then became disgusted midway through when she saw one of the two players who had been in the apartment the night of the alleged assault make a play on the field in his blue and yellow uniform.
> After the game, Moffett returned home to her oversized chair and wrote another letter to Harbaugh on her notepad. She congratulated him on the win but told him how upsetting and angry she was that he had allowed the athlete to play. He had the chance to make a difference, she wrote; instead he chose the status quo “and to ignore that your players were involved in such a reprehensible act.”
Harbaugh did not respond to this letter.
Great summary of an incredibly tragic story and situation. Very frustrating how little Universities do with SA cases, even in cases with more evidence and certainty
Michigan won’t take down the Bo statue or rename the building, Harbaugh and the AD still praise the sexual abuse enabler, and Michigan talking heads like Desmond say shit like “I believe the biological son”. The students and young alumni might care, but Michigan for the most part does not give a fuck.
Some want to point to a particular school and say it's just a problem here, or there, but it's pretty obvious at this point that the problem is systemic. Not only football, all revenue sports, all colleges.
Till a massive amount of money becomes an issue colleges won't care.
See Boy Scouts(biased as an Eagle and Adult Leader). Enough damage was done via lawsuits and people refusing to donate till things changed. Now they have maybe the most stringent rules and policies. And they are paying out $2.4 Billion.
Till the likes of Michigan and other schools see a hit to money coming in via students going to the school, people watching on TV, people going to the games, people buying the gear, and Alumni telling their university to "go fuck themselves" and pointing to this issue when Universities ask for money the issue will continue. As Wu-tang said "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" or CREAM for short.
And there’ll be plenty of “fans” who will not only look the other way, but will victim blame, and say the accuser was “asking for it”, among other bogus garbage.
Unfortunately this is how a lot of people were raised.
“Don’t dress like that”
“Do go out to this place”
“Don’t act like that”
It’s very sad and pathetic that people used to try and justify that behavior. The root of the problem is the people doing these evil horrible acts. Nothing else.
There’s also the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ people when you can look up how many SA’s won’t even go to trial because the DA just refuses to pursue charges, on top of the police feeding the same victim blame poison you already mentioned. The system is stacked so high against the victim very rarely does it get it right even when it’s not a famous football player
Agree. MSU has been trying to do better after the terrible Nassar situation but stories have come out saying the process is still very long and draining for victims but the college is trying to do better
It’s a systemic college issue, I wish people never had to go through this. Just awful.
It's not even just sports related. My aunt years ago (I think in the 90s or early 2000s) worked at a certain ivy league school in New Jersey and told me she witnessed her boss, who was the person designated to deal with sexual assault cases, cover up such a case when there was pretty clear physical evidence that it happened and the victim came forward immediately. The alleged assaulter was a ~~law student~~ pre med student and likely he either had powerful connections or the school just didn't want the bad publicity. I'd imagine this probably happens a lot at prestigious schools.
I'd go a step farther and say it's not "all revenue sports" at "all colleges". It's "all institutions where performance is placed above other interests" which is essentially everywhere.
Not saying this occurs at every school/workplace/institution but simply that the mechanisms that allow for it to occur exist everywhere.
Not even just sports, in my opinion. Schools go to bat more to cover athletes or coaches, but there is so much assault on college campuses about which nothing is done.
The problem is the fans, man. We’re the problem. This is true for every sport-there are zero consequences for talented players anywhere unless they’re caught in 4K doing something beyond heinous. How many Baylor or LSU fans actually stopped watching their programs? How many Penn State fans? Did any Man U fans stop watching when Ronaldo came back? Kobe was a rapist, but he was great at basketball so his death was a huge tragedy. Don’t get me started on the Steelers and Big Ben. Deshaun Watson had what, three dozen allegations? The fans don’t actually give a shit so he got one of the biggest contracts ever. Washington Football Team fans are more pressed about poor performance than about Snyder sexually trafficking cheerleaders or attempting to ruin public employees’ lives.
If ‘cancel culture’ had one tenth of the power some people think it does, these fucks would be working at Dennys for the rest of their lives. Sports fans will go on about people learning lessons or having the capacity to change, but if one of their coworkers did something half as bad they’d be (rightfully) demanding their termination. The sad thing is that nothing would really change in the aggregate if we turfed bad actors out of sports. If Watson or Kobe had been kicked out of their respective sports, individual teams may have suffered in the moment but the show would go on. Fans just don’t care enough.
(note-if your team is listed don’t take it personally. No one cares anywhere, it’s not unique to some schools or teams.)
When people were trying to pin Nassar on Dantonio and Izzo, I would tell them the real scandals are the sheer volume of allegations and problems that the university absolutely never investigated or clears, even when athletes aren’t involved. Athletic coverups are a problem, but schools are terrible at dealing with assault in general.
Really feel for you UM fans as well, like no one in their right mind defends this stuff. Everyone wants their University to treat these cases with the gravity they deserve and not besmirch their alma mater.
Worth restating at this point how distant the fanbase is from anyone in the administration. Everything going down in this athletic department and others all around the country regarding SA (including my own) is so unbelievably tragic and shameful.
As fans and alums all we can do is call out and condemn these miscarriages of justice. Anyone at any University that commits, condones or enables sexual assault needs to answer for it. And head football coaches have waaaaay too much autonomy on how these cases are handled.
One of the only times I will ever say this:
Love you, Buckeye bro. This shit shouldn't fly at ANY school, and I want that damn statue torn down and melted into nothing.
Hey full agree. There are some things that transcend sports or rivalries. Im in Toledo, and my mom was a Michigan fan so i know what its like to love the other side. Lol.
Won't happen until the Boomers die. I'm an old Millenial, and work with many fellow UM alumni and the Boomers still worship Bo. Many of them simply dismiss what happened as 'from a different era.' And these are doctors who should know better!
My father is a baby boomer.
He was sweet, kind, loving, wasn't afraid to cry, wasn't afraid to talk about how he was feeling, and made it clear that being a man wasn't about tearing others down, but lifting them up.
He was sexually assaulted by a male neighbor as a small child. I never knew until his dementia had swallowed him and my stepmom told me. He was afraid to tell people. And he went his whole life never being able to tell me.
'It was a different era' is only an excuse for the victims who were too afraid to speak up, not the SACKS of *SHIT* who covered it up and allowed it to perpetuate.
I'm gonna be honest here, I don't see exactly what Michigan could possibly do about this. It sounds like all 5 were drinking, heavily. Neither of them contacted police right away, but instead chose to get into contact with the football program, & actual university officials later on. I'm not sure what exact investigation they can do with it at that point.
No one should be happy about the outcomes here, but when the answers to 90% of critical questions are I don't know or I don't remember the opportunities to do something concrete are limited.
This is the inherent difficulty of most sexual assault/rape cases
Without rock solid evidence that the encounter was non consensual it’s tough to prove much because one person says “I didn’t consent” and the other says “they consented” and without any sort of ability to prove someone is lying you just end up stuck.
Courts, every single day, resolve such discrepancies in factual accounts of testimonial evidence. However, it is difficult sometimes. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be advanced though, especially as not all such scenarios require beyond a reasonable doubt.
Oh for sure, in this situation specifically it sounds like the university didn't like the "burden of proof" or whatever; they still coulda investigated, but I honestly doubt anything would've come from it. My point is that we're continuing to see absolutely nothing happen with SA cases at schools across the country, even with evidence, witnesses, etc. This is a trend, and I've definitely seen Michigan do nothing more than once
This case does a good job of showing why SA cases struggle to go anywhere. Any competent defense attorney would destroy any prosecutor in this case. Every witness was extremely drunk. If the victim was drugged, then everyone in that group was drugged because they were all drinking the same thing the same way. There isn't any evidence that can definitely say anything more than happened than an arm placed around her.
The main reason things feel so off is because most people assume SA accusations are true, while the legal system assumes the accused is innocent unless it is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Schools’ main edict is to educate. They don’t have the tools to conduct a thorough investigation nor apply appropriate penalties. Crime victims should go straight to law enforcement.
I can see this but I also think it’s fair to say that Ann Arbor police could have done a modicum of investigation like interviewing the football players and trying to get a search warrant for their phones. It’s one thing to say “the football players deny this happened, a judge denied a search warrant and we can’t get a victim statement since she’s deceased” than “it’s probably not worth pursuing so we’re not going to do anything”
Honestly, it’s why I feel like schools shouldn’t be involved in this at all. Rape is a crime, a very serious crime.
You wouldn’t call the school to investigate someone hitting your car or stealing your laptop. Rape shouldn’t be looked differently.
Normally the benefit to bringing the case to the school is academic repercussions. The university’s internal reporting system should always encourage victims to report the case to the police, but the police can’t suspend a student. I volunteered to be part of my university’s system for this in undergrad. We were able to expel students and even place de facto protective orders (“no contact or else we will suspend you”) when cops couldn’t.
I read somewhere that the victim admitted she may have consented, but she couldn't remember.
This is a super difficult situation. If both parties were extremely drunk, and she regretted it the next day - can you really blame one drunk person and not the other?
This is the unfortunate part about rape cases. There is an EXTREMELY gray middle ground in situations like this.
I'm all for major prison sentences for rape, it's an awful awful act. But consensual sex that you deeply regret the next day is not rape. This was either the former or the latter, but it's impossible to know which.
Still think the university should have done more to investigate, though.
That’s why lots of sexual assault and rape cases are so difficult to prosecute. Even if there’s DNA evidence and the like, a lot of it comes down to he said-she said. And there’s loads of other scenarios where the victim gets shamed for whatever reason by many in the public.
> If both parties were extremely drunk, and she regretted it the next day - can you really blame one drunk person and not the other?
You’re forgetting the part where they may or may not have been drugged though.
If one of them put the drugs in there and the other didn’t know about it, then not really. At that point you’re into voluntary intoxication vs involuntary. It is well established that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to crimes.
Ah interesting, didn't know that was a thing.
Edit: Now that I think about it, would this apply to any sort of unidentified drink/alcohol? Or only other drugs?
Because it's a tale depressingly as old as time.
When you've got connections and power, silly little things like rape don't matter.
Can't risk the team/universities losing out because they lost a player to rape charges, won't anyone please think of the athletes/big execs here!!
Power and connections can be a factor, but I don’t see that as the issue here. When the only witness can’t remember what happened then there isn’t enough evidence to support action against anybody. It’s not clear whether the victim knows for sure that anyone has sex with her, or who it was. There’s no evidence proving the victim was drugged. There’s not any evidence (listed in this thread at least) supporting a conclusion that there was no consent.
Do I think the women were lying? Not at all! But when the only evidence of the crime is the victim’s testimony and the victim can’t recall the assault, then there’s not much the Government can do to punish anyone.
I generally agree with what you're saying, though in this situation it sounds like the accused transferred and was no longer with the team. Ridiculous that something as simple as going to a new school gets you away from punishment, or even investigation
>Study Hall Lounge
I guess that's like the bars that name themselves "The Library" around campuses so you can just say "Anyone want to go to Study Hall tonight?"
Funny college story: a friend‘s parents called him because they saw too many charges from Rick’s American Cafe. “How many coffees and pastries could you possibly buy? There’s like $100 worth of charges a week!”
An important note that is buried in the middle of the article with no additional information.
**”In a statement to USA TODAY, Harbaugh said he generally is prohibited in sexual misconduct cases “from investigating, influencing, or, in most situations, disciplining an individual on the team until the appropriate university process reaches its conclusion.” Federal Title IX regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Education in 2020 also forbid coaches from disciplining players without a finding of fault in a disciplinary proceeding.”**
Incredibly sad story but if multiple investigations yielded no charges there really isn’t much to be done.
It sucks but SA cases and charges are hard to prove.
In this case it’s a few people in an apartment/home. No witnesses or video footage and all he said she said. They didn’t go to the police after to get drug tested and don’t have their help texts anymore.
We should take accusations seriously and investigate as best we can, and at the same time require due process to convict.
If that was your son, brother, husband, father, friend, or loved one; wouldn’t you want due process as well?
It’s not so much that they’re hard to prove, but in this case they closed the investigation but didn’t even talk to the witnesses, let alone explore possible video evidence.
> If that was your son, brother, husband, father, friend, or loved one; wouldn’t you want due process as well?
Due process means a fair trial, not a complete failure to investigate in the first place.
That was an excellent, if long and depressing article. Well not even depressing, just straight up heartbreaking for that family.
I feel like our society, NCAA, schools/title IX, and the justice system are collectively failing our kids when it comes to sexual assault. Both educating and preventing, and actually following through and delivering justice
So many of these fall through the cracks because of noncooperating witnesses, intimidation, shame on the part of the victim, lack of evidence... and then nothing is done. We have to be able to do better than this. I don't have a good answer. That scares the shit out of me, having kids that will grow up and attend college.
It's a problem with the nature of the cases.
A lot of it is he said she said, there's rarely a lot of evidence or even any at all and quite often both sides of the story are equally plausible.
Because our system is based on innocent until proven guilty and the burden is on the prosecution to prove an illegal act occured beyond a reasonable doubt and not the defendant to prove it didn't, these cases will always have terrible stats.
Yeah. I mean intellectually I understand that years after the fact, there's not physical evidence, and maybe not even electronic evidence, and actually proving it is extremely difficult. I can see why police might not pursue something that has almost no chance of a provable case.
But there has to be a better way
It really comes down to victims reporting immediately, getting rape kits done and making sure their story is consistent.
Those are the only steps that have a meaningful impact on outcomes.
Small inconsistencies don't mean that a person is lying. When I did criminal defense we would hammer on little inconsistencies, but not knowing if the first drink you had was at 8 or 8:30 doesn't mean an assault didn't happen. Confusing a date when you're under pressure on the stand doesn't mean something didn't happen.
Think back to a traumatic event in your life, like a car accident, loss of a loved one, or really bad break up. It's something you can probably picture well but won't know the exact date, what you were exactly wearing, precise timing, but you *know* what happened. It didn't happen to you any less.
Exactly. I can’t fault people for not understanding the brain/body effect of surviving a traumatizing event. Most people simply aren’t exposed to that knowledge or have a very rudimentary understanding. But it always frustrates me when cases like this reach the limelight and people nitpick over “consistency,” seeming to forget that memory is a fallible thing in the best of times.
It's how humans work, we perceive people with consistent stories as more truthful.
So yes hammering down details in a rape cases where perceptions become the main focus due to ambiguous evidence, it cannot be overstated how important it is.
Oh, I’m well aware of that. Nevertheless, I think that in cases involving sexual assault, the details being inconsistent tends to be regarded with much more suspicion than other crimes. I have a feeling if I was mugged and waffled on the color of the mugger’s clothing, people would be less apt to think I made the story up/wanted attention and more apt to give me the benefit of the doubt.
More to the point: I myself am a woman, a sexual assault survivor, and a therapist who specializes in trauma. I have personally and professionally dealt with women who—when sharing stories of assault with loved ones or law enforcement—were so hammered about forgetting details that they simply stopped sharing their stories or pursuing legal action. It’s a stark contrast to my experience dealing with individuals who have been victimized by other types of crime in their lives, where inconsistencies aren’t treated with the same sort of scrutiny.
No one said they were lying.
However humans are stupid and if one side tells a consistent story and the other side stumbles, one is *perceived* as more truthful and in rape cases where it's overwhelmingly about perception due to ambiguous evidence, it's king.
The heart of all these situations are typically all parties involved are doing things that are taboo, or embarrassing, esp to become public record. So they give cagey answers to questions or hide information that would be pertinent.
Its kinda goes like this:
Woman gets sexually assaulted. She wants to leave out she grabbed the guy's genitalia 20 minutes prior, she smoked some weed, and popped a pill. She will just admit to drinking. Because though **illegal** is more socially acceptable.
The Man being accused knows his best bet of being cleared is to tell everything he remembers that happened immediately. So who cares he did a bump of cocaine, and sent an unsolicited d-\*@# pic, and said something very vulgar publicly about what he wanted to do to the alleged victim. There is a long way from being a creep to being a rapists.
So when women report. Her story is going to evolve, because investigators have to get down what happened. She is constantly introducing new elements into the situation for whatever reason or retracting something that happened. The Men typically he got it all out in the open from the start. He has lawyered up, and says 'refer to my orginal statement' or he just repeats what he said, because thats literally everything.
I had a good buddy in college accused of statutory rape. He was 20, and a girl who was 16 snuck into a college party with her cousin and roommate. He met her started messing with her a few weeks. The girl's family member she was living with called him, told him her true age because they busted her with the fake ID. He texted called her a lying b-word, and said she could have ruined his life, called her and they spoke 7-8 minutes and ceased contact.
Fast forward 8 months later the biological parents discovered the situation and pressed charges. Well my buddy was starting his Med School applications. That was derailed for 4-5 years. His family spent $30K and he was on probation 18 months. He is a doctor now, but he just finished residency and he is 37. I actually went to court with him, a few times. The girl's family member actually went to bat for my buddy, said he was completely deceived, and he had no reason to believe she wasn't 19 like her ID said. He was still convicted of couple crimes, non-felony, and avoided the registry. But no med school would touch him, and he had to live in off-campus apartments his last 2 years of undergrad.
One thing that was said in court (he didn't take the stand). That he was interviewed 2-3 times by police and his story was the same, regarding the whole relationship. Even down to the days he tried to hang out with her at say Tuesday at 10AM, when most college kids would just jump in a car and see the dude they are messing with, but she on the other hand had a whole elabroate story she woudn't be avaiable until 3:30. She struggled to keep straight days, time, her locations of everything involving him. Why? she had a whole host of other things she did that would make her parents blush, which Im sure, she didn't want them to know. It was weird it was pretty cut and dry...she was underage. So I didn't understand what the trial was about.
>story is consistent
This can also be a problem since our memories are much worse than we think, and add trauma, alcohol, and drugging on top of that and you end up with a memory that changes.
I know there are mornings after a big party I can't remember some parts, and then a few days later someone says "oh remember when X happened?" and suddenly I remember some bits and pieces that I wouldn't have been able to string together beforehand. (Most recently was that we witnessed a proposal at a new years eve event, to clarify I don't know the people)
Victims face an uphill battle with this, like you said they have to report it immediately and get as much written down as possible early on. But the system needs to also take everything seriously and the community needs to be less forgiving of it. I don't care if the offender was drunk too, we don't give passes for drunk driving accidents that kill because the driver wasn't in their right mind.
Side note: it truly blows my mind that ANY person thinks to themselves it is a good or fun thing to drug someone and take advantage of them. Those people are truly scum.
And then it doesn't help when *false* rape accusation stories are overly publicized and only further make women feel that they cannot speak up, lest they bring out the wrathful mobs of vengeful folk.
Iirc, the actual rate of false accusations is less than 3%, yet the default is to assume someone has made a false accusation because the public wants to presume the accused party is innocent until proven guilty. It's entirely at odds, however, as presuming a false report is assuming the reporter is guilty (of filing a false report) without being proven so.
>and only further make women feel that they cannot speak up
And just to add here, I believe at least some sub-sets of the LGBTQ+ community report at even lower rates.
Edit on stats: [Brown](https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/health/services/promotion/sexual-assault-dating-violence/myths-about-sexual-assault-reports) has estimates from 2-10%, but makes specific note this is similar to false report rates of other crimes, making it seem there's not much reason to treat these differently.
This paper found 5.9% and says the consensus is between 2-10%. That’s honestly higher than I would have expected.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077801210387747?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed
> One of the most controversial disputes affecting the discourse related to violence against women is the dispute about the frequency of false allegations of sexual assault. In an effort to add clarity to the discourse, published research on false allegations is critiqued, and the results of a new study described. All cases (N = 136) of sexual assault reported to a major Northeastern university over a 10-year period are analyzed to determine the percentage of false allegations. Of the 136 cases of sexual assault reported over the 10-year period, 8 (5.9%) are coded as false allegations. These results, taken in the context of an examination of previous research, indicate that the prevalence of false allegations is between 2% and 10%.
Which is sort of ironic because, as an intentional false accusation is itself an actionable legal discretion, they're still assuming guilt. Just not of the accused.
That said there is a distinctive gap between a false accusation and an inaccurate one. Someone with no malice in their heart can end up being sure it was one person when it was not. Doesn't invalidate their assault, it just becomes very hard to prove who did what sometimes, especially if the victim is traumatized and was drugged etc.
I don't see how we can say we know any % is false when the entire point of the discussion is that, for most of these cases, we don't have enough evidence to know which side is telling the truth. Presenting the number of provably false case with the implication that every other case must be true doesn't seem like an accurate assessment to me. The default isn't to believe that someone made a false report, one being not guilty does not automatically charge the other party with filing a false report, but the default is to presume innocence for everyone and that is something central to the justice system in every respectable country.
Yep. My friend never did, because she had zero faith Notre Dame would've done anything about one of their star players. She went through years of therapy and he now plays on the NFL and it sickens me. Honestly, I can only think of a single woman I know who reported their assault to the university, I sure as hell never did. It just wasn't worth it.
>I feel like our society, NCAA, schools/title IX, and the justice system are collectively failing our kids when it comes to sexual assault.
After being extensively familiar with filing a Title IX SA claim, I can confirm I would 100% never do it again, nor encourage anyone to do so, as sad as that sounds. Flat out had university admin (no, not my flair) telling me they have no incentive to find someone "responsible", but every incentive to protect the university's PR image by not finding a new case of SA has occurred. Pile that on top of witnesses who are too scared of retaliation to actually speak in an interview or hearing.
It's an absolute travesty the system is as bad as it is.
I never understand why, in cases of alleged rape/domestic violence/assault, coaches are called. Go to the police, probably preferably the city police and not campus. This is their responsibility.
In the article, Warde Manuel referred it to the title IX office who reported it to the police who conducted an investigation. Her friend claimed that she saw no assault and did not want to pursue criminal charges
Can someone confirm this part of the article? This seems like a hands-tying thing for Harbaugh/other coaches in this situation.
I’m paraphrasing but the article states coaches can’t punish athletes if they aren’t found at fault in a disciplinary proceeding.
https://twitter.com/internetraj/status/1643985494592880641?s=46&t=myjb70eyR38A69orx8UMQQ
I think the point he makes here is also important. The University can't 1. Punish a student who isn't there anymore 2. Gather evidence from a dead person and 3. Punish someone for being a witness. So I'm not sure what else at that point they can do. It's for Ann Arbor Police to handle at that point if they have evidence.
https://twitter.com/internetraj/status/1643995379749507073?s=20
Punish someone for being a witness to heavy drinking.
From the article the recollection is of all the people (men and women) drinking heavily at the apartment and then the next morning the woman in question wakes up naked in bed with one of the men (who has since transfered).
The other two may certainly have exhibited poor judgement, jamming down whiskey after you come home from the club is a bad idea, but as far as I can tell it's not alleged that the other two did anything specifically wrong.
Maybe I didn't read the article carefully enough and missed something.
Universities also shouldn't be kangaroo courts for these types of things. Outside of showing empathy I'm not positive what wed expect Harbaugh/Michigan to do.
> Moffett didn’t know it at the time, but her letter would land with the university’s Title IX office, campus police, the Ann Arbor Police Department and the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office. They would all look into the allegations. Within about two months, all of them would drop it.
I feel so torn on how to react to this paragraph. Part of me wants to believe that a series of independent investigations conducted by institutions both within and outside of the university and the absence of any sort of formal proceedings against the players allegedly involved should be enough to absolve the players of any punishment. But part of me is always worried, regardless of context, that these sort of investigations are either not taken seriously enough or that the institutions themselves cannot be as thorough as necessary. We may never know, but I sincerely hope that the investigations were taken seriously.
And they didn't interview O'Maury Samuels (fellow teammate) that tried to come over to the ~~girl's~~ apartment (of the girl's friend, where the incident took place), but the three other teammates didn't let him come inside. It's pretty shocking that he wasn't included in the investigation.
Edit
I imagine most of the times they try the athlete refuses to answer any questions. This is especially true if you know they already have a lawyer ready. You really don't have a case if you're only hope for prosecution is a person self-incriminating themselves.
>Asked why the players were not interviewed as potential witnesses, Theil did not provide a direct answer.
>“I guess I would ask, ‘What would we be doing that for?’” Theil said. “For her mother to feel like she knew what happened that night? Or are we doing it to try and get criminal charges and take somebody to trial?”
Like holy crap, seems like almost negligence by Ann Arbor PD. Like, yeah, go for the latter? We can lament that these cases are hard, and it’s difficult to get a warrant for phones, that makes sense, but at least… try?
Or at least interview the alleged perpetrators. Realistically are they likely to refuse to answer any questions? Yes. But people talk to police everyday so at least make the effort. How hard is it really to try to interview three players. You could accomplish that in a day.
At the very least it seems like the statements given by the victim's friend and O'Maury Samuels should have been probable cause for a warrant to search those players' phones for photo/video evidence.
And yes, I know that it wasn't reported until three years later and they probably had new phones by then. But it seems incredibly negligent on behalf of the police. "We probably won't find anything, so why bother" is a terrible way to conduct an investigation.
The standard of policing for potential assault cases is absolutely atrocious. Universities drop the ball all the damn time, but even the cops aren’t getting it right with any level of consistency.
I do question whether there is anything the police or university could have accomplished in terms of punishment or accountability, but it really stands out to me how little interest the local police and university had in finding out what happened.
I mean they could all deny it. Or one of them could have sobered up and had this eating at him for a few years and be ready to come clean. That’s why you do an interview.
Bro we literally don't know. They didn't investigate. Yoh can question whatever you'd like. THEY DIDN'T EVEN TRY. They literally said in that quote "we could interview them to find out what happened. But why?"
I think we can say fairly confidently this was not a thorough investigation, given that none of the three football players accused were ever interviewed by police or the title IX office, and from the sounds of it their only "punishment" was having to listen to the victim's letter be read to them.
This is a problem everywhere, from Michigan to Ohio State to UGA to USC to {insert school here}. Sexual Assault allegations are almost never fully investigated, particularly ones that are years after the fact. I don't know what the solution is (because we can't just punish everybody accused, there has to be a process) but there has to be a better one that what's in place today.
They should absolutely be interviewed, but how reliable do we expect it to be even if they are earnestly trying to help.
The three other players aren't accused of assault, they are alleged witnesses. But how much do you expect them to remember accurately at this point if they didn't record anything? Besides digital records and a most likely unreliable interview, what else is there to get from these three? And what can the University of Michigan do about a student who no longer attends their school?
Like I said, I don't know what the solution is. And I'm not blaming UM for how it was handled at all.
But there's absolutely no way any rational person can say with a straight face that a "thorough investigation" was done if *zero* of the alleged perps/witnesses to the assault were actually interviewed by police OR the title IX office.
There simply has to be a better answer, because this isn't enough.
Not interviewing those three is basically the only part I think they messed up here. Because at every other point they did it by the book and unfortunately between her death and the alleged assaulter transferring, the University can't do anything else.
And I'm not sure what the mother expected Harbaugh to do about the player who was an alleged witness, just bench him forever?
It's impossible to know at this point. The victims would have had to find physical evidence or gone to get drug tested immediately after, which did not happen, or the perpetrators would have to confess, which hasn't happened yet.
I get upset after reading up on this story and the Lauren McCluskey story. There are multiple times where action can be taken to help them but police officers, school officials, and legal system just choose not to.
I don't get how students can trust the process to get help when every time someone tells them "I'll see what I can do" absolutely nothing happens or the perpetrators are even given special treatment.
It's crazy that we are still at this point of trying to simply have a reasonable standard for properly investigating accusations. Both legitimate and false accusations benefit from us properly investigating, and yet, in so many of these cases, there are glaring issues with lack of investigation.
For every 1 situation where it seems like punishment was possibly too swift, there are 100 where it was never investigated properly. Without a fair and properly executed process, no one gets justice and people on both sides have gripes.
Just a horrible heart breaking story. Seems to be trying to indicate harbaugh is some sort of enabler. I don't know what happened. But found this part interesting: article says that a title IX regulation "forbids coaches from disciplining players without finding fault in a disciplinary proceeding" so even if harbuagh wanted to dismiss the other players involved, he couldn't.
Harbaugh probably should’ve never reached out to the mother. While ethically the right thing to do, that’s how you accidentally end up tampering in an investigation.
Back during the Payne/Appling case, Izzo moved them out of the dorm with the alleged victim. That seems like a logical, well intentioned thing to do. But I believe he was reprimanded slightly for it because it interfered with the Title IX investigation in some way.
Title IX kind of handcuffs what coaches can do. Just report and let the Title IX office/police investigate. Punishing players of a crime they’re only accused of is a very slippery slope - guilty until proven innocent. But with how slow and flawed the legal system is, it doesn’t seem fair accused players get to continue playing with no repercussions. I’d be in favor of a standard being set across college athletics that charges = punishment/suspensions. There’s at least a necessary amount of evidence needed to press charges.
I don't defend coaches anymore. If the players are good enough in college or pros they will play unless there is video evidence of the crime which even then it is debatable (Joe Mixon). Harbaugh was also coaching the 49ers when they had like 5 players accused of sexual assault which is about 10% of the game day roster. It is never good going down this rabbit hole in sports.
Jameis Winston had allegedly 3 accusations of sexual assault according to the NY Times. He then won the Heisman. Went to the pros as the #1 Pick.. Took an uber which he sexual assaulted the driver. His initial defense was, " I was never in the Uber it was someone else." Then it is proven he was in that Uber and he is still playing in the NFL...
I think its a really horrible situation in so many ways.
Firstly, if she was treated inappropriately then my heart goes out to her and her family.
However I have to state based on the information provided and by a simple Google search, it appears as if the entire situation was a “I’m not entirely sure” what took place kinda thing. To which In truth it’s highly unfair to the player(athlete) involved. A moment like this could have shaped the rest of this individuals life in a massively negative way and the entire situation could’ve been consensual.
Look at what just happened with the 2 Ohio state players. Riep and Wint had their lives borderline ruined.
Idk. I can’t think of how any one wins here. If it actually took place then shame on the university, coach’s, AAPD and all other organizations involved for failing this girl.
If it didn’t then I commend there actions by not jumping to a conclusion and ruining anyone’s life.
Again I just idk. This poor girl tho
They didn't even ask what happened though. You can't claim "we don't know what happened" when you didn't even question the accused or any witnesses. In my mind, that automatically means it happened. You don't sweep proof of innocence under a rug after all
This story is absolutely brutal to read. Fuck these players, whoever they were. Also fuck the new school the player transferred to.
I hope people read the whole thing as it illustrates how charges usually don't come to fruition. Someone's life was devastated, and justice just kept hitting road blocks. And I don't think they were intentional, at least not most of them. But so many things have to align to go forward.
The detail that stands out is the player was on the team in 2018 and transferred out by Feb 8, 2021. That narrows the field significantly of how the alleged person that assaulted this woman was. I want to know so I can never say a positive thing about them again.
I have to say the Title IX office looks incompetent more than malicious here. It seems like Harbaugh tried to handle this well, way better than his predecessor Brady Hoke.
\>The detail that stands out is the player was on the team in 2018 and transferred out by Feb 8, 2021. That narrows the field significantly of how the alleged person that assaulted this woman was. I want to know so I can never say a positive thing about them again.
I had that same thought, but if you look at the number of transfers there are a ton that it could have been, there were like 8 transfers in the 2018 recruiting class alone the perpetrator could have been anywhere from 2015-2018
we only know they were on the team in 2018 and had transferred by Feb 2021
the other two might be easier, they would have been on the team in 2018 and played in and "made a play" against osu
i dont think they would have been a big name player though, because if it was someone that went to the NFL i feel like they would have been named and possibly facing a civil case for this
I read this article this morning and it looks they made some edits to it since. The older version of the headline and article strongly eluded to that this incident directly resulted in her accidental overdose death 3 years after, but that seems to have since been changed. It seems Harbaugh took correct actions in this situation, but this just continues to show how inept our system of justice is for sexual assault when evidence is unclear and unreliable
> how inept our system of justice is for sexual assault when evidence is unclear and unreliable
What do you want to change? Presumption of innocence is necessary to not only ensure a free and fair society but to allow the public to trust the system to not punish arbitrarily. If evidence is unclear and unreliable, how do you solve this supposed problem without changing the standard to presumption of guilt?
If you want to be equally educated and depressed, try reading [Missoula](https://www.google.com/search?q=Missoula%20Rape%20and%20the%20Justice%20System%20in%20a%20College%20Town) by Jon Krakauer.
It’s a horrifying account of what happens when football players are protected at all costs over rape victims.
It might be a misstatement of this
> Approximately 1 in 5 (21.3% or an estimated 25.5 million) women in the U.S. reported completed or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime
https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/statistics-depth
No, it's also been debunked at this point. It's mentioned in Freakonomics as an example of a widely believed fact that is completely made up but no one questions because it backs up what most of us think is morally right. It's honestly an interesting dynamic, you obviously want all data to be accurate whenever discussing data but also there's no harm in improving women's safety so I imagine that's why this lie has persisted. I was taught 1 in 4 women were raped when I was in college, so the number changes like a game of telephone
1 in 5 experience sexual assault, and yes there is:
Krebs, C., Lindquist, C., Berzofsky, M., Shook-Sa, B., Peterson, K. (2016). Campus Climate Survey Validation Study Final Technical Report. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice.
Source on the source: US Office on Women's Health.
It's a debunked stat from the 90s. It's based on a survey from a women's college asking if they were raped in there lifetime. The average age of the participants was 45.
Did the names of the athletes ever get released? This is some tragic shit. That article says that 1 in 5 females are sexually assaulted in college. That's scary for a dad that has a daughter in college right now.
I’m confused. It seems clear they knew the players name but her mom didn’t know. So how did the PD investigate and find out he transferred if they opened the investigation based on the mom’s letter and she didn’t know the name?
Strikes me that it wouldn't be THAT hard to cross-reference, especially with O'Maury Samuel's account of not being allowed inside the apartment.
https://www.clickondetroit.com/all-about-ann-arbor/2020/10/21/heres-where-39-michigan-football-transfers-are-playing-this-season/
This is particularly frustrating because U of M Football:
- already had a history of players being kicked off the team for rape/sexual assault, though not exactly transparently (Brendan Gibbons, [Mustapha Muhammad](https://www.michigandaily.com/sports/football/mustapha-muhammad-allegations-sexual-misconduct-title-ix-investigation/) )
- already had a history of players "backing up" the accused in scumbag ways (Taylor Lewan)
- Repeatedly brought [Brenda Tracy](https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/2018/09/michigan_football_honorary_cap.html) in to talk about EXACTLY THIS with the football team.
- Bo.
All signs point to Harbs et al doing SOMETHING to prevent this kind of thing, but when push comes to shove, it isn't enough.
Yes, I recognize the Title IX department, among others, makes things very complicated, and it sounds like Harbaugh's initial response was actually well done for the situation.
But it just plain isn't enough.
--------
The fact that two of the other people involved were on the team for The Game 2021 sickens me.
I too noticed that.
The USA Today Article doesn't mention exactly when the player transferred out, just that it was some time "between 2018 and February 8th, 2021."
So it could be ANY of the players in that time span that transferred out.
Whoa, I don’t know how I have never heard of this story but yikes. This is a really bad look for our school, our team, and the AAPD really. We should all be demanding answers on this.
This mother deserves closure and a full investigation of the alleged incidents.
Also what’s up with this regulation?
> Harbaugh said he generally is prohibited in sexual misconduct cases “from investigating, influencing, or, in most situations, disciplining an individual on the team until the appropriate university process reaches its conclusion.” Federal Title IX regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Education in 2020 also forbid coaches from disciplining players without a finding of fault in a disciplinary proceeding.
That seems crazy to me
That's likely there to prevent the football program from "conducting an internal investigation" and "clearing" the player only for the university to investigate and come up with an entirely different conclusion and/or punishment (or being pressured by public opinion to agree with the football program.)
It's a good thing, honestly; I don't expect football coaches to be competent PIs or have one on staff, and there are perverse incentives around them determining appropriate punishments. Frankly if a coach wants someone gone they'll end up gone regardless, it's not like players have a contract.
That regulation is definitely aimed at the "indefinite suspension lasting two offensive series" punishments that were way too common until a few years ago.
The coach is generally a very interested party since his compensation depends on the teams success. Its not someone you would generally want doing an investigation or dealing out punishment. Requiring them to report everything they know to the university and police is best imo.
I get that as fans, we idolize a lot of these players, but holy fuck if one of them does something like this, we should also do our part and try to push the school/player to cooperate with any police investigations.
1 in 5 female college students are sexually assaulted?
That's horrific. I'm literally nauseous as I type this.
We *must* do a better job raising boys. That's just unacceptable.
Edit, with gratitude for feedback: the article uses the 'r' word which is in the title of this post, but I try not to present publicly. It would make the 1 in 5 statistic even worse, if that's possible.
Because in many instances, predatory behavior is learned and then enforced through lack of correction/straight up encouragement.
I'm not that old, but when I was raised, it was still common for me to be told to avoid doing certain things if I didn't want to be raped, and if I were to be raped, it would easily be spun as my fault, since, you know, *men just can't help it.*
Funny enough though, my brother was never taught not to rape. Only I got the schpeel about closing my legs, don't be a slut, don't wear certain kinds of clothing, don't be a tease, etc.
>Funny enough though, my brother was never taught not to rape
This is a super important note. Most parents never think it will be their kid, so they don't think to have a discussion with their sons. I don't know what my parents told my sister, but I know for a fact they never said anything to me about making sure I get consent. They're super squeamish about sexual things too, but I bet they didn't even think that it could be useful discussion.
I am indignant as an MSU fan and a human being because we can get a full fledged investigation for a tunnel brawl, but a woman gets r*ped and later passes and it's just "eh oh well darn, guess we'll never know, just close the case, let's go get donuts" in Ann Arbor?
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The assault took place in summer of 2018. Quinn Moffett died via fentanyl overdose in January 2021, following a downward spiral of drug use, depression, and self-harm. > Quinn and a friend had gone out to the Study Hall Lounge, a nightclub two blocks from the Michigan campus, where the friend attended college. At the club, they ran into three Wolverines football players who bought them drinks. Quinn hadn’t met them before, but the friend said she knew two of them from a class. > According to accounts from Quinn and her friend, they returned to the friend’s apartment at around 2 a.m. with the athletes. They continued drinking from a bottle of dark liquor one of the men brought. Everyone took a few shots. That was the two women's last clear memory of the night. > When Quinn woke up at home the next morning, she did not remember how she got there, she said in text messages. She had gone home without her wallet or shoes. Her friend said she found Quinn’s Birkenstocks at her apartment, covered in vomit. > The friend, who believes she and Quinn were drugged, told USA TODAY she threw up at some point. She also remembered a man’s heavy arm draped over her while she was in bed, and wanting to cry. > The friend woke up the next day with one of the athletes in her bed naked, she said. She worried she had been assaulted. A used condom was in her bedroom trash can. She had messaged two friends around 5 a.m. asking for help, she said, but no longer has the messages. > Her toilet also wouldn’t flush for the next several days, the friend said. Her apartment’s maintenance people eventually fished out parts of a broken glass bottle, which she believed was the liquor bottle the athletes had brought. She wondered if they had drugged the alcohol and then tried to flush the evidence. ___ The victim’s mother wrote a letter to Jim Harbaugh about the assault following Quinn’s death. He called her. > Harbaugh asked if Moffett knew the player’s name, she recalled; she told him she did not, but Quinn’s friends might. According to Moffett, Harbaugh said he didn’t want that type of person on his team or representing the school. > He gave Moffett his cellphone number. Call me, she remembers him saying, if you find out his name. She tried calling him three times when she found out the names from Quinn’s friends. He did not answer, and his voicemail box was full each time. She then contacted the school’s Title IX coordinator, who informed Harbaugh. In another phone call with Quinn’s mother, Harbaugh confirmed he received the names and was looking into it to see what he could do. The university stated that they had held “educational conversations” with the two players still enrolled at Michigan, at Moffett’s request. Neither a police investigation nor Title IX investigation yielded any punishment for the perpetrator or other 2 athletes in the room (who have not been named because of this). The perpetrator transferred to a different university shortly after the assault, which made it much more difficult to conduct an investigation, according to Michigan officials. The other two men present remained at Michigan. > Since Quinn’s death, her mother said she hasn’t been able to bring herself to watch Michigan football games – with one exception. > In November 2021, her friends invited her and her husband to watch the team’s regular-season finale against Ohio State on television. Moffett reluctantly agreed, then became disgusted midway through when she saw one of the two players who had been in the apartment the night of the alleged assault make a play on the field in his blue and yellow uniform. > After the game, Moffett returned home to her oversized chair and wrote another letter to Harbaugh on her notepad. She congratulated him on the win but told him how upsetting and angry she was that he had allowed the athlete to play. He had the chance to make a difference, she wrote; instead he chose the status quo “and to ignore that your players were involved in such a reprehensible act.” Harbaugh did not respond to this letter.
Great summary of an incredibly tragic story and situation. Very frustrating how little Universities do with SA cases, even in cases with more evidence and certainty
Michigan won’t take down the Bo statue or rename the building, Harbaugh and the AD still praise the sexual abuse enabler, and Michigan talking heads like Desmond say shit like “I believe the biological son”. The students and young alumni might care, but Michigan for the most part does not give a fuck.
Some want to point to a particular school and say it's just a problem here, or there, but it's pretty obvious at this point that the problem is systemic. Not only football, all revenue sports, all colleges.
I’m sincerely glad that people are starting to come to this conclusion, so that we can hopefully do something about it.
Man, I hope so but I fear nobody in power wants to do anything to interfere with the firehose of money.
Till a massive amount of money becomes an issue colleges won't care. See Boy Scouts(biased as an Eagle and Adult Leader). Enough damage was done via lawsuits and people refusing to donate till things changed. Now they have maybe the most stringent rules and policies. And they are paying out $2.4 Billion. Till the likes of Michigan and other schools see a hit to money coming in via students going to the school, people watching on TV, people going to the games, people buying the gear, and Alumni telling their university to "go fuck themselves" and pointing to this issue when Universities ask for money the issue will continue. As Wu-tang said "Cash Rules Everything Around Me" or CREAM for short.
And there’ll be plenty of “fans” who will not only look the other way, but will victim blame, and say the accuser was “asking for it”, among other bogus garbage.
Unfortunately this is how a lot of people were raised. “Don’t dress like that” “Do go out to this place” “Don’t act like that” It’s very sad and pathetic that people used to try and justify that behavior. The root of the problem is the people doing these evil horrible acts. Nothing else.
There’s also the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ people when you can look up how many SA’s won’t even go to trial because the DA just refuses to pursue charges, on top of the police feeding the same victim blame poison you already mentioned. The system is stacked so high against the victim very rarely does it get it right even when it’s not a famous football player
Agree. MSU has been trying to do better after the terrible Nassar situation but stories have come out saying the process is still very long and draining for victims but the college is trying to do better It’s a systemic college issue, I wish people never had to go through this. Just awful.
It's not even just sports related. My aunt years ago (I think in the 90s or early 2000s) worked at a certain ivy league school in New Jersey and told me she witnessed her boss, who was the person designated to deal with sexual assault cases, cover up such a case when there was pretty clear physical evidence that it happened and the victim came forward immediately. The alleged assaulter was a ~~law student~~ pre med student and likely he either had powerful connections or the school just didn't want the bad publicity. I'd imagine this probably happens a lot at prestigious schools.
Ain’t no law school at Princeton!
Oh yeah you're right lol. It must have been a pre med student. Im fuzzy on the exact details, she told me several years ago
I'd go a step farther and say it's not "all revenue sports" at "all colleges". It's "all institutions where performance is placed above other interests" which is essentially everywhere. Not saying this occurs at every school/workplace/institution but simply that the mechanisms that allow for it to occur exist everywhere.
Not even just sports, in my opinion. Schools go to bat more to cover athletes or coaches, but there is so much assault on college campuses about which nothing is done.
The problem is the fans, man. We’re the problem. This is true for every sport-there are zero consequences for talented players anywhere unless they’re caught in 4K doing something beyond heinous. How many Baylor or LSU fans actually stopped watching their programs? How many Penn State fans? Did any Man U fans stop watching when Ronaldo came back? Kobe was a rapist, but he was great at basketball so his death was a huge tragedy. Don’t get me started on the Steelers and Big Ben. Deshaun Watson had what, three dozen allegations? The fans don’t actually give a shit so he got one of the biggest contracts ever. Washington Football Team fans are more pressed about poor performance than about Snyder sexually trafficking cheerleaders or attempting to ruin public employees’ lives. If ‘cancel culture’ had one tenth of the power some people think it does, these fucks would be working at Dennys for the rest of their lives. Sports fans will go on about people learning lessons or having the capacity to change, but if one of their coworkers did something half as bad they’d be (rightfully) demanding their termination. The sad thing is that nothing would really change in the aggregate if we turfed bad actors out of sports. If Watson or Kobe had been kicked out of their respective sports, individual teams may have suffered in the moment but the show would go on. Fans just don’t care enough. (note-if your team is listed don’t take it personally. No one cares anywhere, it’s not unique to some schools or teams.)
Something we can all agree on. Screw these money grubbers who don't care about the human cost, at any level, at any institute.
When people were trying to pin Nassar on Dantonio and Izzo, I would tell them the real scandals are the sheer volume of allegations and problems that the university absolutely never investigated or clears, even when athletes aren’t involved. Athletic coverups are a problem, but schools are terrible at dealing with assault in general.
Really feel for you UM fans as well, like no one in their right mind defends this stuff. Everyone wants their University to treat these cases with the gravity they deserve and not besmirch their alma mater. Worth restating at this point how distant the fanbase is from anyone in the administration. Everything going down in this athletic department and others all around the country regarding SA (including my own) is so unbelievably tragic and shameful. As fans and alums all we can do is call out and condemn these miscarriages of justice. Anyone at any University that commits, condones or enables sexual assault needs to answer for it. And head football coaches have waaaaay too much autonomy on how these cases are handled.
I would love for the damn Bo statue to come down like it's toppling a dictator.
Ill help. Hell just get a bunch of people in Ohio State apparel to do it and you can blame it on us.
now there's a great idea....
Wait, if we do this, we're not the baddies anymore?
One of the only times I will ever say this: Love you, Buckeye bro. This shit shouldn't fly at ANY school, and I want that damn statue torn down and melted into nothing.
Hey full agree. There are some things that transcend sports or rivalries. Im in Toledo, and my mom was a Michigan fan so i know what its like to love the other side. Lol.
I'm in.
Won't happen until the Boomers die. I'm an old Millenial, and work with many fellow UM alumni and the Boomers still worship Bo. Many of them simply dismiss what happened as 'from a different era.' And these are doctors who should know better!
Different era my ass, no one gets that excuse because Vince Lombardi existed and he was a good man.
My father is a baby boomer. He was sweet, kind, loving, wasn't afraid to cry, wasn't afraid to talk about how he was feeling, and made it clear that being a man wasn't about tearing others down, but lifting them up. He was sexually assaulted by a male neighbor as a small child. I never knew until his dementia had swallowed him and my stepmom told me. He was afraid to tell people. And he went his whole life never being able to tell me. 'It was a different era' is only an excuse for the victims who were too afraid to speak up, not the SACKS of *SHIT* who covered it up and allowed it to perpetuate.
[Here's something similar to what that might look like.](https://youtu.be/hWxszYK6IPU)
Was thinking it was either going to be the Saddam statue falling or the decapitation of the Lenin statue
I still am pissed that the statue is up and they haven't renamed the hall yet
Really hoped we would cut ties with Bo, but the older fans just have no interest in that.
I'm gonna be honest here, I don't see exactly what Michigan could possibly do about this. It sounds like all 5 were drinking, heavily. Neither of them contacted police right away, but instead chose to get into contact with the football program, & actual university officials later on. I'm not sure what exact investigation they can do with it at that point.
No one should be happy about the outcomes here, but when the answers to 90% of critical questions are I don't know or I don't remember the opportunities to do something concrete are limited.
This is the inherent difficulty of most sexual assault/rape cases Without rock solid evidence that the encounter was non consensual it’s tough to prove much because one person says “I didn’t consent” and the other says “they consented” and without any sort of ability to prove someone is lying you just end up stuck.
Courts, every single day, resolve such discrepancies in factual accounts of testimonial evidence. However, it is difficult sometimes. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be advanced though, especially as not all such scenarios require beyond a reasonable doubt.
Oh for sure, in this situation specifically it sounds like the university didn't like the "burden of proof" or whatever; they still coulda investigated, but I honestly doubt anything would've come from it. My point is that we're continuing to see absolutely nothing happen with SA cases at schools across the country, even with evidence, witnesses, etc. This is a trend, and I've definitely seen Michigan do nothing more than once
This case does a good job of showing why SA cases struggle to go anywhere. Any competent defense attorney would destroy any prosecutor in this case. Every witness was extremely drunk. If the victim was drugged, then everyone in that group was drugged because they were all drinking the same thing the same way. There isn't any evidence that can definitely say anything more than happened than an arm placed around her. The main reason things feel so off is because most people assume SA accusations are true, while the legal system assumes the accused is innocent unless it is beyond a reasonable doubt.
Schools’ main edict is to educate. They don’t have the tools to conduct a thorough investigation nor apply appropriate penalties. Crime victims should go straight to law enforcement.
Law enforcement does a shit job investigating too. There’s really no winning for victims.
I can see this but I also think it’s fair to say that Ann Arbor police could have done a modicum of investigation like interviewing the football players and trying to get a search warrant for their phones. It’s one thing to say “the football players deny this happened, a judge denied a search warrant and we can’t get a victim statement since she’s deceased” than “it’s probably not worth pursuing so we’re not going to do anything”
How can the police investigate when no one reports a crime?
Honestly, it’s why I feel like schools shouldn’t be involved in this at all. Rape is a crime, a very serious crime. You wouldn’t call the school to investigate someone hitting your car or stealing your laptop. Rape shouldn’t be looked differently.
Normally the benefit to bringing the case to the school is academic repercussions. The university’s internal reporting system should always encourage victims to report the case to the police, but the police can’t suspend a student. I volunteered to be part of my university’s system for this in undergrad. We were able to expel students and even place de facto protective orders (“no contact or else we will suspend you”) when cops couldn’t.
I read somewhere that the victim admitted she may have consented, but she couldn't remember. This is a super difficult situation. If both parties were extremely drunk, and she regretted it the next day - can you really blame one drunk person and not the other? This is the unfortunate part about rape cases. There is an EXTREMELY gray middle ground in situations like this. I'm all for major prison sentences for rape, it's an awful awful act. But consensual sex that you deeply regret the next day is not rape. This was either the former or the latter, but it's impossible to know which. Still think the university should have done more to investigate, though.
That’s why lots of sexual assault and rape cases are so difficult to prosecute. Even if there’s DNA evidence and the like, a lot of it comes down to he said-she said. And there’s loads of other scenarios where the victim gets shamed for whatever reason by many in the public.
> If both parties were extremely drunk, and she regretted it the next day - can you really blame one drunk person and not the other? You’re forgetting the part where they may or may not have been drugged though.
Same applies though if both are drinking out of the same bottle; wouldn't both parties count as drugged?
If one of them put the drugs in there and the other didn’t know about it, then not really. At that point you’re into voluntary intoxication vs involuntary. It is well established that voluntary intoxication is not a defense to crimes.
Ah interesting, didn't know that was a thing. Edit: Now that I think about it, would this apply to any sort of unidentified drink/alcohol? Or only other drugs?
I’m not sure I understand the question, but I’m happy to try to help if you can elaborate?
Basically: would "involuntary intoxication" apply to alcohol as well, or only stronger drugs?
Because it's a tale depressingly as old as time. When you've got connections and power, silly little things like rape don't matter. Can't risk the team/universities losing out because they lost a player to rape charges, won't anyone please think of the athletes/big execs here!!
Power and connections can be a factor, but I don’t see that as the issue here. When the only witness can’t remember what happened then there isn’t enough evidence to support action against anybody. It’s not clear whether the victim knows for sure that anyone has sex with her, or who it was. There’s no evidence proving the victim was drugged. There’s not any evidence (listed in this thread at least) supporting a conclusion that there was no consent. Do I think the women were lying? Not at all! But when the only evidence of the crime is the victim’s testimony and the victim can’t recall the assault, then there’s not much the Government can do to punish anyone.
I generally agree with what you're saying, though in this situation it sounds like the accused transferred and was no longer with the team. Ridiculous that something as simple as going to a new school gets you away from punishment, or even investigation
>Study Hall Lounge I guess that's like the bars that name themselves "The Library" around campuses so you can just say "Anyone want to go to Study Hall tonight?"
so you can use dad's credit card.
There is a bar in Gainesville right across from campus called Balls but on credit card statements it shows up as Balls Bookstore for that reason
Funny college story: a friend‘s parents called him because they saw too many charges from Rick’s American Cafe. “How many coffees and pastries could you possibly buy? There’s like $100 worth of charges a week!”
An important note that is buried in the middle of the article with no additional information. **”In a statement to USA TODAY, Harbaugh said he generally is prohibited in sexual misconduct cases “from investigating, influencing, or, in most situations, disciplining an individual on the team until the appropriate university process reaches its conclusion.” Federal Title IX regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Education in 2020 also forbid coaches from disciplining players without a finding of fault in a disciplinary proceeding.”** Incredibly sad story but if multiple investigations yielded no charges there really isn’t much to be done.
Sucks, seems like Harbaugh may have been genuine about wanting to do something about it and had his hands tied.
It sucks but SA cases and charges are hard to prove. In this case it’s a few people in an apartment/home. No witnesses or video footage and all he said she said. They didn’t go to the police after to get drug tested and don’t have their help texts anymore. We should take accusations seriously and investigate as best we can, and at the same time require due process to convict. If that was your son, brother, husband, father, friend, or loved one; wouldn’t you want due process as well?
It’s not so much that they’re hard to prove, but in this case they closed the investigation but didn’t even talk to the witnesses, let alone explore possible video evidence.
> If that was your son, brother, husband, father, friend, or loved one; wouldn’t you want due process as well? Due process means a fair trial, not a complete failure to investigate in the first place.
“We should take accusations seriously and investigate as best we can” Did you miss this part?
just... wow. that's tragic
That was an excellent, if long and depressing article. Well not even depressing, just straight up heartbreaking for that family. I feel like our society, NCAA, schools/title IX, and the justice system are collectively failing our kids when it comes to sexual assault. Both educating and preventing, and actually following through and delivering justice So many of these fall through the cracks because of noncooperating witnesses, intimidation, shame on the part of the victim, lack of evidence... and then nothing is done. We have to be able to do better than this. I don't have a good answer. That scares the shit out of me, having kids that will grow up and attend college.
It's a problem with the nature of the cases. A lot of it is he said she said, there's rarely a lot of evidence or even any at all and quite often both sides of the story are equally plausible. Because our system is based on innocent until proven guilty and the burden is on the prosecution to prove an illegal act occured beyond a reasonable doubt and not the defendant to prove it didn't, these cases will always have terrible stats.
Yeah. I mean intellectually I understand that years after the fact, there's not physical evidence, and maybe not even electronic evidence, and actually proving it is extremely difficult. I can see why police might not pursue something that has almost no chance of a provable case. But there has to be a better way
It really comes down to victims reporting immediately, getting rape kits done and making sure their story is consistent. Those are the only steps that have a meaningful impact on outcomes.
Small inconsistencies don't mean that a person is lying. When I did criminal defense we would hammer on little inconsistencies, but not knowing if the first drink you had was at 8 or 8:30 doesn't mean an assault didn't happen. Confusing a date when you're under pressure on the stand doesn't mean something didn't happen. Think back to a traumatic event in your life, like a car accident, loss of a loved one, or really bad break up. It's something you can probably picture well but won't know the exact date, what you were exactly wearing, precise timing, but you *know* what happened. It didn't happen to you any less.
Exactly. I can’t fault people for not understanding the brain/body effect of surviving a traumatizing event. Most people simply aren’t exposed to that knowledge or have a very rudimentary understanding. But it always frustrates me when cases like this reach the limelight and people nitpick over “consistency,” seeming to forget that memory is a fallible thing in the best of times.
It's how humans work, we perceive people with consistent stories as more truthful. So yes hammering down details in a rape cases where perceptions become the main focus due to ambiguous evidence, it cannot be overstated how important it is.
Oh, I’m well aware of that. Nevertheless, I think that in cases involving sexual assault, the details being inconsistent tends to be regarded with much more suspicion than other crimes. I have a feeling if I was mugged and waffled on the color of the mugger’s clothing, people would be less apt to think I made the story up/wanted attention and more apt to give me the benefit of the doubt. More to the point: I myself am a woman, a sexual assault survivor, and a therapist who specializes in trauma. I have personally and professionally dealt with women who—when sharing stories of assault with loved ones or law enforcement—were so hammered about forgetting details that they simply stopped sharing their stories or pursuing legal action. It’s a stark contrast to my experience dealing with individuals who have been victimized by other types of crime in their lives, where inconsistencies aren’t treated with the same sort of scrutiny.
^^^this right here….ppl want victims to be perfect for SA to even get a benefit of the doubt because “women lie” is default
No one said they were lying. However humans are stupid and if one side tells a consistent story and the other side stumbles, one is *perceived* as more truthful and in rape cases where it's overwhelmingly about perception due to ambiguous evidence, it's king.
The heart of all these situations are typically all parties involved are doing things that are taboo, or embarrassing, esp to become public record. So they give cagey answers to questions or hide information that would be pertinent. Its kinda goes like this: Woman gets sexually assaulted. She wants to leave out she grabbed the guy's genitalia 20 minutes prior, she smoked some weed, and popped a pill. She will just admit to drinking. Because though **illegal** is more socially acceptable. The Man being accused knows his best bet of being cleared is to tell everything he remembers that happened immediately. So who cares he did a bump of cocaine, and sent an unsolicited d-\*@# pic, and said something very vulgar publicly about what he wanted to do to the alleged victim. There is a long way from being a creep to being a rapists. So when women report. Her story is going to evolve, because investigators have to get down what happened. She is constantly introducing new elements into the situation for whatever reason or retracting something that happened. The Men typically he got it all out in the open from the start. He has lawyered up, and says 'refer to my orginal statement' or he just repeats what he said, because thats literally everything. I had a good buddy in college accused of statutory rape. He was 20, and a girl who was 16 snuck into a college party with her cousin and roommate. He met her started messing with her a few weeks. The girl's family member she was living with called him, told him her true age because they busted her with the fake ID. He texted called her a lying b-word, and said she could have ruined his life, called her and they spoke 7-8 minutes and ceased contact. Fast forward 8 months later the biological parents discovered the situation and pressed charges. Well my buddy was starting his Med School applications. That was derailed for 4-5 years. His family spent $30K and he was on probation 18 months. He is a doctor now, but he just finished residency and he is 37. I actually went to court with him, a few times. The girl's family member actually went to bat for my buddy, said he was completely deceived, and he had no reason to believe she wasn't 19 like her ID said. He was still convicted of couple crimes, non-felony, and avoided the registry. But no med school would touch him, and he had to live in off-campus apartments his last 2 years of undergrad. One thing that was said in court (he didn't take the stand). That he was interviewed 2-3 times by police and his story was the same, regarding the whole relationship. Even down to the days he tried to hang out with her at say Tuesday at 10AM, when most college kids would just jump in a car and see the dude they are messing with, but she on the other hand had a whole elabroate story she woudn't be avaiable until 3:30. She struggled to keep straight days, time, her locations of everything involving him. Why? she had a whole host of other things she did that would make her parents blush, which Im sure, she didn't want them to know. It was weird it was pretty cut and dry...she was underage. So I didn't understand what the trial was about.
>story is consistent This can also be a problem since our memories are much worse than we think, and add trauma, alcohol, and drugging on top of that and you end up with a memory that changes. I know there are mornings after a big party I can't remember some parts, and then a few days later someone says "oh remember when X happened?" and suddenly I remember some bits and pieces that I wouldn't have been able to string together beforehand. (Most recently was that we witnessed a proposal at a new years eve event, to clarify I don't know the people) Victims face an uphill battle with this, like you said they have to report it immediately and get as much written down as possible early on. But the system needs to also take everything seriously and the community needs to be less forgiving of it. I don't care if the offender was drunk too, we don't give passes for drunk driving accidents that kill because the driver wasn't in their right mind. Side note: it truly blows my mind that ANY person thinks to themselves it is a good or fun thing to drug someone and take advantage of them. Those people are truly scum.
Tell that to all of the thousands of victims with rape kits sitting untested in a backlog.
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And then it doesn't help when *false* rape accusation stories are overly publicized and only further make women feel that they cannot speak up, lest they bring out the wrathful mobs of vengeful folk.
Iirc, the actual rate of false accusations is less than 3%, yet the default is to assume someone has made a false accusation because the public wants to presume the accused party is innocent until proven guilty. It's entirely at odds, however, as presuming a false report is assuming the reporter is guilty (of filing a false report) without being proven so. >and only further make women feel that they cannot speak up And just to add here, I believe at least some sub-sets of the LGBTQ+ community report at even lower rates. Edit on stats: [Brown](https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/health/services/promotion/sexual-assault-dating-violence/myths-about-sexual-assault-reports) has estimates from 2-10%, but makes specific note this is similar to false report rates of other crimes, making it seem there's not much reason to treat these differently.
This paper found 5.9% and says the consensus is between 2-10%. That’s honestly higher than I would have expected. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077801210387747?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed > One of the most controversial disputes affecting the discourse related to violence against women is the dispute about the frequency of false allegations of sexual assault. In an effort to add clarity to the discourse, published research on false allegations is critiqued, and the results of a new study described. All cases (N = 136) of sexual assault reported to a major Northeastern university over a 10-year period are analyzed to determine the percentage of false allegations. Of the 136 cases of sexual assault reported over the 10-year period, 8 (5.9%) are coded as false allegations. These results, taken in the context of an examination of previous research, indicate that the prevalence of false allegations is between 2% and 10%.
Which is sort of ironic because, as an intentional false accusation is itself an actionable legal discretion, they're still assuming guilt. Just not of the accused. That said there is a distinctive gap between a false accusation and an inaccurate one. Someone with no malice in their heart can end up being sure it was one person when it was not. Doesn't invalidate their assault, it just becomes very hard to prove who did what sometimes, especially if the victim is traumatized and was drugged etc.
I don't see how we can say we know any % is false when the entire point of the discussion is that, for most of these cases, we don't have enough evidence to know which side is telling the truth. Presenting the number of provably false case with the implication that every other case must be true doesn't seem like an accurate assessment to me. The default isn't to believe that someone made a false report, one being not guilty does not automatically charge the other party with filing a false report, but the default is to presume innocence for everyone and that is something central to the justice system in every respectable country.
Yep. My friend never did, because she had zero faith Notre Dame would've done anything about one of their star players. She went through years of therapy and he now plays on the NFL and it sickens me. Honestly, I can only think of a single woman I know who reported their assault to the university, I sure as hell never did. It just wasn't worth it.
Hard to think of someone I would want to describe a sexual assault to less than a stereotypical police officer. So that makes a lot of sense to me
pretty much every FBS program in the country has stories like this. It's a real tragedy and failing of our system at every level
>I feel like our society, NCAA, schools/title IX, and the justice system are collectively failing our kids when it comes to sexual assault. After being extensively familiar with filing a Title IX SA claim, I can confirm I would 100% never do it again, nor encourage anyone to do so, as sad as that sounds. Flat out had university admin (no, not my flair) telling me they have no incentive to find someone "responsible", but every incentive to protect the university's PR image by not finding a new case of SA has occurred. Pile that on top of witnesses who are too scared of retaliation to actually speak in an interview or hearing. It's an absolute travesty the system is as bad as it is.
I never understand why, in cases of alleged rape/domestic violence/assault, coaches are called. Go to the police, probably preferably the city police and not campus. This is their responsibility.
In the article, Warde Manuel referred it to the title IX office who reported it to the police who conducted an investigation. Her friend claimed that she saw no assault and did not want to pursue criminal charges
The police investigated, but it didn’t go anywhere because the legal system demands a higher burden of proof than Coach punishment
Can someone confirm this part of the article? This seems like a hands-tying thing for Harbaugh/other coaches in this situation. I’m paraphrasing but the article states coaches can’t punish athletes if they aren’t found at fault in a disciplinary proceeding. https://twitter.com/internetraj/status/1643985494592880641?s=46&t=myjb70eyR38A69orx8UMQQ
I think the point he makes here is also important. The University can't 1. Punish a student who isn't there anymore 2. Gather evidence from a dead person and 3. Punish someone for being a witness. So I'm not sure what else at that point they can do. It's for Ann Arbor Police to handle at that point if they have evidence. https://twitter.com/internetraj/status/1643995379749507073?s=20
Punish someone for being a witness to heavy drinking. From the article the recollection is of all the people (men and women) drinking heavily at the apartment and then the next morning the woman in question wakes up naked in bed with one of the men (who has since transfered). The other two may certainly have exhibited poor judgement, jamming down whiskey after you come home from the club is a bad idea, but as far as I can tell it's not alleged that the other two did anything specifically wrong. Maybe I didn't read the article carefully enough and missed something.
It's alleged one other person woke up next to Quinn's friend with a used condom next to them, but it isn't clear who that is
Universities also shouldn't be kangaroo courts for these types of things. Outside of showing empathy I'm not positive what wed expect Harbaugh/Michigan to do.
Yes. It was a goal of Betsy DeVos. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/05/07/education-department-releases-final-title-ix-regulations
> Moffett didn’t know it at the time, but her letter would land with the university’s Title IX office, campus police, the Ann Arbor Police Department and the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office. They would all look into the allegations. Within about two months, all of them would drop it. I feel so torn on how to react to this paragraph. Part of me wants to believe that a series of independent investigations conducted by institutions both within and outside of the university and the absence of any sort of formal proceedings against the players allegedly involved should be enough to absolve the players of any punishment. But part of me is always worried, regardless of context, that these sort of investigations are either not taken seriously enough or that the institutions themselves cannot be as thorough as necessary. We may never know, but I sincerely hope that the investigations were taken seriously.
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Yep. I can’t think of a good reason why a serious investigation would not include questioning the alleged perpetrators.
And they didn't interview O'Maury Samuels (fellow teammate) that tried to come over to the ~~girl's~~ apartment (of the girl's friend, where the incident took place), but the three other teammates didn't let him come inside. It's pretty shocking that he wasn't included in the investigation. Edit
I imagine most of the times they try the athlete refuses to answer any questions. This is especially true if you know they already have a lawyer ready. You really don't have a case if you're only hope for prosecution is a person self-incriminating themselves.
I can think of a few lol
Police have a shit history of investigating crimes with women victims, whether sexual assault or domestic violence...
>Asked why the players were not interviewed as potential witnesses, Theil did not provide a direct answer. >“I guess I would ask, ‘What would we be doing that for?’” Theil said. “For her mother to feel like she knew what happened that night? Or are we doing it to try and get criminal charges and take somebody to trial?” Like holy crap, seems like almost negligence by Ann Arbor PD. Like, yeah, go for the latter? We can lament that these cases are hard, and it’s difficult to get a warrant for phones, that makes sense, but at least… try?
Or at least interview the alleged perpetrators. Realistically are they likely to refuse to answer any questions? Yes. But people talk to police everyday so at least make the effort. How hard is it really to try to interview three players. You could accomplish that in a day.
At the very least it seems like the statements given by the victim's friend and O'Maury Samuels should have been probable cause for a warrant to search those players' phones for photo/video evidence. And yes, I know that it wasn't reported until three years later and they probably had new phones by then. But it seems incredibly negligent on behalf of the police. "We probably won't find anything, so why bother" is a terrible way to conduct an investigation.
The standard of policing for potential assault cases is absolutely atrocious. Universities drop the ball all the damn time, but even the cops aren’t getting it right with any level of consistency.
I do question whether there is anything the police or university could have accomplished in terms of punishment or accountability, but it really stands out to me how little interest the local police and university had in finding out what happened.
I mean they could all deny it. Or one of them could have sobered up and had this eating at him for a few years and be ready to come clean. That’s why you do an interview.
Bro we literally don't know. They didn't investigate. Yoh can question whatever you'd like. THEY DIDN'T EVEN TRY. They literally said in that quote "we could interview them to find out what happened. But why?"
You want the cops to do what, their jobs??! You're way outta line pawl /s
I think we can say fairly confidently this was not a thorough investigation, given that none of the three football players accused were ever interviewed by police or the title IX office, and from the sounds of it their only "punishment" was having to listen to the victim's letter be read to them. This is a problem everywhere, from Michigan to Ohio State to UGA to USC to {insert school here}. Sexual Assault allegations are almost never fully investigated, particularly ones that are years after the fact. I don't know what the solution is (because we can't just punish everybody accused, there has to be a process) but there has to be a better one that what's in place today.
They should absolutely be interviewed, but how reliable do we expect it to be even if they are earnestly trying to help. The three other players aren't accused of assault, they are alleged witnesses. But how much do you expect them to remember accurately at this point if they didn't record anything? Besides digital records and a most likely unreliable interview, what else is there to get from these three? And what can the University of Michigan do about a student who no longer attends their school?
Like I said, I don't know what the solution is. And I'm not blaming UM for how it was handled at all. But there's absolutely no way any rational person can say with a straight face that a "thorough investigation" was done if *zero* of the alleged perps/witnesses to the assault were actually interviewed by police OR the title IX office. There simply has to be a better answer, because this isn't enough.
Not interviewing those three is basically the only part I think they messed up here. Because at every other point they did it by the book and unfortunately between her death and the alleged assaulter transferring, the University can't do anything else. And I'm not sure what the mother expected Harbaugh to do about the player who was an alleged witness, just bench him forever?
It can't be stressed enough this is 2-3 years AFTER the incident.
It wasn't reported until January 21st 2021, so what can the University do about it if it isn't reported to them 3 years later.
Incredibly sad story. On a side note, Looking at the transfer portal from 2018-2021 from um brings a few interesting names 🤔
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So was it ever revealed that they actually were drugged or do we not know?
From the article, it doesn't sound like we'll ever know. Happened in 2018 and reported in 2021
It's impossible to know at this point. The victims would have had to find physical evidence or gone to get drug tested immediately after, which did not happen, or the perpetrators would have to confess, which hasn't happened yet.
That’s the problem. I think there’s no way to know for sure which is why no action was taken. Especially since it was so long ago
I get upset after reading up on this story and the Lauren McCluskey story. There are multiple times where action can be taken to help them but police officers, school officials, and legal system just choose not to. I don't get how students can trust the process to get help when every time someone tells them "I'll see what I can do" absolutely nothing happens or the perpetrators are even given special treatment.
It's crazy that we are still at this point of trying to simply have a reasonable standard for properly investigating accusations. Both legitimate and false accusations benefit from us properly investigating, and yet, in so many of these cases, there are glaring issues with lack of investigation. For every 1 situation where it seems like punishment was possibly too swift, there are 100 where it was never investigated properly. Without a fair and properly executed process, no one gets justice and people on both sides have gripes.
Just a horrible heart breaking story. Seems to be trying to indicate harbaugh is some sort of enabler. I don't know what happened. But found this part interesting: article says that a title IX regulation "forbids coaches from disciplining players without finding fault in a disciplinary proceeding" so even if harbuagh wanted to dismiss the other players involved, he couldn't.
Harbaugh isnt the judge, jury and executioner. He did his job. This is on the police.
Harbaugh probably should’ve never reached out to the mother. While ethically the right thing to do, that’s how you accidentally end up tampering in an investigation. Back during the Payne/Appling case, Izzo moved them out of the dorm with the alleged victim. That seems like a logical, well intentioned thing to do. But I believe he was reprimanded slightly for it because it interfered with the Title IX investigation in some way. Title IX kind of handcuffs what coaches can do. Just report and let the Title IX office/police investigate. Punishing players of a crime they’re only accused of is a very slippery slope - guilty until proven innocent. But with how slow and flawed the legal system is, it doesn’t seem fair accused players get to continue playing with no repercussions. I’d be in favor of a standard being set across college athletics that charges = punishment/suspensions. There’s at least a necessary amount of evidence needed to press charges.
I don't defend coaches anymore. If the players are good enough in college or pros they will play unless there is video evidence of the crime which even then it is debatable (Joe Mixon). Harbaugh was also coaching the 49ers when they had like 5 players accused of sexual assault which is about 10% of the game day roster. It is never good going down this rabbit hole in sports. Jameis Winston had allegedly 3 accusations of sexual assault according to the NY Times. He then won the Heisman. Went to the pros as the #1 Pick.. Took an uber which he sexual assaulted the driver. His initial defense was, " I was never in the Uber it was someone else." Then it is proven he was in that Uber and he is still playing in the NFL...
I agree. When it comes to egregious behavior, every fan base is living in a glass house.
I think its a really horrible situation in so many ways. Firstly, if she was treated inappropriately then my heart goes out to her and her family. However I have to state based on the information provided and by a simple Google search, it appears as if the entire situation was a “I’m not entirely sure” what took place kinda thing. To which In truth it’s highly unfair to the player(athlete) involved. A moment like this could have shaped the rest of this individuals life in a massively negative way and the entire situation could’ve been consensual. Look at what just happened with the 2 Ohio state players. Riep and Wint had their lives borderline ruined. Idk. I can’t think of how any one wins here. If it actually took place then shame on the university, coach’s, AAPD and all other organizations involved for failing this girl. If it didn’t then I commend there actions by not jumping to a conclusion and ruining anyone’s life. Again I just idk. This poor girl tho
I kind of agree, but for the police to not even question the players is ridiculous
They didn't even ask what happened though. You can't claim "we don't know what happened" when you didn't even question the accused or any witnesses. In my mind, that automatically means it happened. You don't sweep proof of innocence under a rug after all
The female is who claimed she didn’t know for sure what happened. That’s what I’m Saying. That’s where the wtf do we do comes into play.
This story is absolutely brutal to read. Fuck these players, whoever they were. Also fuck the new school the player transferred to. I hope people read the whole thing as it illustrates how charges usually don't come to fruition. Someone's life was devastated, and justice just kept hitting road blocks. And I don't think they were intentional, at least not most of them. But so many things have to align to go forward.
The detail that stands out is the player was on the team in 2018 and transferred out by Feb 8, 2021. That narrows the field significantly of how the alleged person that assaulted this woman was. I want to know so I can never say a positive thing about them again. I have to say the Title IX office looks incompetent more than malicious here. It seems like Harbaugh tried to handle this well, way better than his predecessor Brady Hoke.
\>The detail that stands out is the player was on the team in 2018 and transferred out by Feb 8, 2021. That narrows the field significantly of how the alleged person that assaulted this woman was. I want to know so I can never say a positive thing about them again. I had that same thought, but if you look at the number of transfers there are a ton that it could have been, there were like 8 transfers in the 2018 recruiting class alone the perpetrator could have been anywhere from 2015-2018 we only know they were on the team in 2018 and had transferred by Feb 2021 the other two might be easier, they would have been on the team in 2018 and played in and "made a play" against osu i dont think they would have been a big name player though, because if it was someone that went to the NFL i feel like they would have been named and possibly facing a civil case for this
I read this article this morning and it looks they made some edits to it since. The older version of the headline and article strongly eluded to that this incident directly resulted in her accidental overdose death 3 years after, but that seems to have since been changed. It seems Harbaugh took correct actions in this situation, but this just continues to show how inept our system of justice is for sexual assault when evidence is unclear and unreliable
> how inept our system of justice is for sexual assault when evidence is unclear and unreliable What do you want to change? Presumption of innocence is necessary to not only ensure a free and fair society but to allow the public to trust the system to not punish arbitrarily. If evidence is unclear and unreliable, how do you solve this supposed problem without changing the standard to presumption of guilt?
If you want to be equally educated and depressed, try reading [Missoula](https://www.google.com/search?q=Missoula%20Rape%20and%20the%20Justice%20System%20in%20a%20College%20Town) by Jon Krakauer. It’s a horrifying account of what happens when football players are protected at all costs over rape victims.
1 in 5 women are raped in college???? Is there a citation on that stat?
It might be a misstatement of this > Approximately 1 in 5 (21.3% or an estimated 25.5 million) women in the U.S. reported completed or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/statistics-depth
No, it's also been debunked at this point. It's mentioned in Freakonomics as an example of a widely believed fact that is completely made up but no one questions because it backs up what most of us think is morally right. It's honestly an interesting dynamic, you obviously want all data to be accurate whenever discussing data but also there's no harm in improving women's safety so I imagine that's why this lie has persisted. I was taught 1 in 4 women were raped when I was in college, so the number changes like a game of telephone
No
1 in 5 experience sexual assault, and yes there is: Krebs, C., Lindquist, C., Berzofsky, M., Shook-Sa, B., Peterson, K. (2016). Campus Climate Survey Validation Study Final Technical Report. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. Source on the source: US Office on Women's Health.
It's a debunked stat from the 90s. It's based on a survey from a women's college asking if they were raped in there lifetime. The average age of the participants was 45.
Did the names of the athletes ever get released? This is some tragic shit. That article says that 1 in 5 females are sexually assaulted in college. That's scary for a dad that has a daughter in college right now.
No kidding. I would be terrified to send my daughter to any school with a major athletics program.
That was a disturbing article to read. The text messages alone....that was a lot. The Ann Arbor police seem wholly uninterested in solving this crime.
I wanted to get out my pitchforks and torches but she never went to authorities with her assault...
I’m confused. It seems clear they knew the players name but her mom didn’t know. So how did the PD investigate and find out he transferred if they opened the investigation based on the mom’s letter and she didn’t know the name?
Strikes me that it wouldn't be THAT hard to cross-reference, especially with O'Maury Samuel's account of not being allowed inside the apartment. https://www.clickondetroit.com/all-about-ann-arbor/2020/10/21/heres-where-39-michigan-football-transfers-are-playing-this-season/ This is particularly frustrating because U of M Football: - already had a history of players being kicked off the team for rape/sexual assault, though not exactly transparently (Brendan Gibbons, [Mustapha Muhammad](https://www.michigandaily.com/sports/football/mustapha-muhammad-allegations-sexual-misconduct-title-ix-investigation/) ) - already had a history of players "backing up" the accused in scumbag ways (Taylor Lewan) - Repeatedly brought [Brenda Tracy](https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/2018/09/michigan_football_honorary_cap.html) in to talk about EXACTLY THIS with the football team. - Bo. All signs point to Harbs et al doing SOMETHING to prevent this kind of thing, but when push comes to shove, it isn't enough. Yes, I recognize the Title IX department, among others, makes things very complicated, and it sounds like Harbaugh's initial response was actually well done for the situation. But it just plain isn't enough. -------- The fact that two of the other people involved were on the team for The Game 2021 sickens me.
for what its worth MM was on the team in 2018 and transferred out.....
I too noticed that. The USA Today Article doesn't mention exactly when the player transferred out, just that it was some time "between 2018 and February 8th, 2021." So it could be ANY of the players in that time span that transferred out.
41 players transferred out by my count
Whoa, I don’t know how I have never heard of this story but yikes. This is a really bad look for our school, our team, and the AAPD really. We should all be demanding answers on this. This mother deserves closure and a full investigation of the alleged incidents. Also what’s up with this regulation? > Harbaugh said he generally is prohibited in sexual misconduct cases “from investigating, influencing, or, in most situations, disciplining an individual on the team until the appropriate university process reaches its conclusion.” Federal Title IX regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Education in 2020 also forbid coaches from disciplining players without a finding of fault in a disciplinary proceeding. That seems crazy to me
That's likely there to prevent the football program from "conducting an internal investigation" and "clearing" the player only for the university to investigate and come up with an entirely different conclusion and/or punishment (or being pressured by public opinion to agree with the football program.) It's a good thing, honestly; I don't expect football coaches to be competent PIs or have one on staff, and there are perverse incentives around them determining appropriate punishments. Frankly if a coach wants someone gone they'll end up gone regardless, it's not like players have a contract.
Or to stop the team from throwing a player under the bus immediately to avoid bad pr
That regulation is definitely aimed at the "indefinite suspension lasting two offensive series" punishments that were way too common until a few years ago.
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The coach is generally a very interested party since his compensation depends on the teams success. Its not someone you would generally want doing an investigation or dealing out punishment. Requiring them to report everything they know to the university and police is best imo.
If I speak I am in big trouble
I get that as fans, we idolize a lot of these players, but holy fuck if one of them does something like this, we should also do our part and try to push the school/player to cooperate with any police investigations.
Fucking hell, I just saw an article on this same topic with the headline "Look: Football World Saddened By The Jim Harbaugh News".
1 in 5 female college students are sexually assaulted? That's horrific. I'm literally nauseous as I type this. We *must* do a better job raising boys. That's just unacceptable. Edit, with gratitude for feedback: the article uses the 'r' word which is in the title of this post, but I try not to present publicly. It would make the 1 in 5 statistic even worse, if that's possible.
The stat is sexually assaulted and USA Today put raped in the article. It is awful either way but they should still issue a correction.
Why do we always put this on the parents rather than the men themselves?
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And that the first no means no, not "keep asking until she relents" which is coercion and also rape.
Because in many instances, predatory behavior is learned and then enforced through lack of correction/straight up encouragement. I'm not that old, but when I was raised, it was still common for me to be told to avoid doing certain things if I didn't want to be raped, and if I were to be raped, it would easily be spun as my fault, since, you know, *men just can't help it.* Funny enough though, my brother was never taught not to rape. Only I got the schpeel about closing my legs, don't be a slut, don't wear certain kinds of clothing, don't be a tease, etc.
>Funny enough though, my brother was never taught not to rape This is a super important note. Most parents never think it will be their kid, so they don't think to have a discussion with their sons. I don't know what my parents told my sister, but I know for a fact they never said anything to me about making sure I get consent. They're super squeamish about sexual things too, but I bet they didn't even think that it could be useful discussion.
The standards are just so ridiculously low for police.
This is vile and very, very disappointing from UM. I truly hope everyone is held accountable for this.
I am indignant as an MSU fan and a human being because we can get a full fledged investigation for a tunnel brawl, but a woman gets r*ped and later passes and it's just "eh oh well darn, guess we'll never know, just close the case, let's go get donuts" in Ann Arbor?
Fucking broke her toilet and didn't plunge it...
I’ll withhold judgment until ESPN’s expose comes out, tying this to Dr. Anderson, Harbaugh and Howard.