Last Tuesday, April 18, two lacrosse players at Duke University, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, were arrested on charges of rape and kidnapping. On Wednesday, they were suspended.
Two weeks before their arrests and suspensions, the release of a sealed warrant against the players led the president of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, to cancel the upcoming lacrosse season, pending the resolution of the legal situation. He accepted the resignation of the team's coach, Mike Pressler, the same day.
While the current UW-Madison Student-Athlete Discipline Policy, which has been in place since August 2003, stipulates the automatic suspension of athletes charged with law violations involving drugs, gambling or violence, no athlete's arrest has ever lead to the cancellation of an entire team's season.
Unfortunately, there are going to be issues of sexual and physical assaults on every campus in the country,\ said Meghan Bradshaw, UW-Madison senior and Athletic Board representative. ""It is by reminding the student-athletes and the public that there are consequences to such behavior that we keep morality intact. In turn, student athletes are compelled to act in acceptable ways.
Since December 2003, there have been six instances of student-athletes perpetrating crimes of sexual and physical assault at UW-Madison. In three of these cases, the immediate suspensions were lifted: Men's basketball guard Maurice ""Boo"" Wade was accused of choking a woman twice. Running back Dwayne Smith was charged with secondary assault and admitted to having had sexual contact with his accuser. Cross country runner Bobby Lockhart faced felony charges of substantial battery, but all successfully appealed their suspensions after receiving favorable court decisions.
""When athletes are accused of sexual assault … what usually ends up happening is that they get suspended because they've been accused of a crime, and then they appeal, and then the suspension process is reversed,"" said Kelly Anderson, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center, 128 E. Olin Ave. ""So the message that that sends to the campus, and to the victim, is, ‘How seriously is this really being taken? What will really happen if I seek help?'""
""The Department of Justice estimates that about 40 percent of victims report and 60 percent do not,"" Anderson added. ""Working in the rape crisis field, we know from the people who talk to us is that it's more like 10 to 20 percent have reported. … Whenever we're talking about reported sexual assaults we're talking about a small subset of the assaults that are actually happening.""
""The policy itself is not designed just to be a deterrent,"" said Vince Sweeny, senior associate athletic director for external relations at UW-Madison. ""We hope that it's a deterrent, but what we have concentrated on is trying to deal with these issues as they arise in a manner that is fair to the student-athletes.""
However, Anderson stressed the importance not just of punishment, but of prevention through education. Typical sexual assault, she said, happens not out of desperation, but out of a feeling of entitlement. ""And, I think we all know that by the time we get to Big Ten athletics, … we treat [them] like they're some kind of minor gods,"" Anderson said.
According to Walter Dickey, the chair of the Athletic Board and a law professor at UW-Madison, ""There are several matters of concern"" with the current discipline policy, including that it does ""not permit the development or knowledge about the full facts that's really necessary to make an informed decision.""
Dickey also mentioned the large number of members on the Appeals Committee creates problems of accountability.
The current policy allows for only two disciplinary actions to be taken against a student athlete: suspension and the appeal of the suspension.
""It would be desirable to have a range of dispositional options, lifting the suspension and continuing it are obviously two of them, but you could have people do community service, you could require apologies, you could require restitution,"" Dickey said.
In an attempt to address these problems, the Athletic Department created a committee to revise its current Student-Athlete Discipline Policy. The committee will submit its suggested revisions to the Athletic Board May 5.
""It is much clearer than the previous policy and it gives more specific guidelines,"" Bradshaw said of the new draft. ""These new guidelines protect the student-athlete by eliminating the grey areas.""
""The revisions are going to really require us to inquire of the victim more completely than we have in the past,"" Dickey said.
With its newly drafted allowance for a range of disciplinary actions and a new emphasis on the voice of the victim, the new draft is a step closer to the goals of both the Athletic Board and Anderson.
""My encouragement across the board for universities is that they consider setting a higher standard,"" Anderson said. ""If you're not going to let your athletes drink or be out after curfew or whatever else, why would you let them commit rape or battery? I'd like to see coaches step up and say, ‘Yeah, you know what? Regardless of the student-athlete disciplinary process, if you get accused of a crime, especially a crime against another person, you're off the team. Be careful enough about your behavior that that doesn't happen.'""
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