Student Government releases findings about Gibbons case

Submitted by TheDirtyD on

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"The university was regularly missing its 60-day deadline to investigate sexual misconduct," Proppe said Sunday night. "The main reason, at least initially when the moved to the new policy, was that the university didn't have the bandwidth to handle all these investigations. They took about a year to hire a second investigator to look into this.

"So that was probably the most surprising and most concerning finding, that the delay in the Gibbons case was really not an exception but kind of the norm with these investigations."

 

Per the CSG's report, the task force claimed that athletic department officials did not believe the OIE or OSCR failed to notify the department "when a student athlete was accused of sexual misconduct." As a result of that finding, the task force concluded that "Brady Hoke knowingly issued false statements in December 2013 concerning the status of Gibbons."

 

The CSG's task force did not work in concert with officials from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, which will be on campus this week to launch its own investigation into the university's sexual misconduct policy.

 

Quoting MLive

DCAlum

April 14th, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^

On a much broader level than the way it affects the football team. These are issues that should be resolved much more quickly for everyone involved, not just the high profile cases.

DCAlum

April 14th, 2014 at 10:41 AM ^

I don't care about whether Hoke was lying. I care about the fact that it took the University this long to dole out consequences for a terrible event. The whole point of my post (which you missed) is that this is disturbing completely separately from football. It has nothing to do with Hoke or the team.

bronxblue

April 14th, 2014 at 12:37 PM ^

If you were to read the coverage, what he did was tantamount to peeing on Bo's grave.

But yeah, Hoke doesn't have to tell a bunch of reporters the inner workings of his team.  If Gibbons isn't playing, then that's all the coach needs to say.

GoWings2008

April 14th, 2014 at 12:40 PM ^

He handled it very poorly and I won't claim that he should have said one thing or another, but his responsbility at the time was to the individual and the team and the school, in that order.  I think he may have said what he did because saying "he isn't playing" and that's it wouldn't satisfy a bunch of reporters. 

DCAlum

April 14th, 2014 at 1:08 PM ^

And this is certainly the place for discussing it. My original comment, though, specifically was trying to address the broader issue, and then someone turned it into a discussion about Hoke. This thread as a whole is a fine place to discuss the impact on the football team. This particular subthread, less relevant. 

GotBlueOnMyMind

April 14th, 2014 at 1:25 PM ^

But they couldn't do anything under the old rules (when the incident occurred) because they needed the accuser to bring the charges. It was not until the new rules were established that they could bring them without the authority of the accuser. Therefore, it seems fairly reasonable that they did not think about a 2 year old case the instant the new rules cam into effect. Nothing would have happened if the article had not come out bringing it to light again, because everyone had likely forgotten about it (understandably so, given the number of incidents like this during a given year, it seems absurd to expect them to reinvestigate and try every old case in the ex post facto manner they did here).

MI Expat NY

April 14th, 2014 at 10:45 AM ^

He said something along the lines of "Gibbons isn't travelling with the team for family reasons."  Now, one could argue that it's technically true, but the clear implication was that Gibbons' absence had nothing to do with his own conduct.  

GoBLUinTX

April 14th, 2014 at 11:19 AM ^

Gibbons didn't travel to San Antonio because he was no longer a student at the University of Michigan, not because of a violation of team rules.  In fact to imply that he was still enrolled by stating he didn't travel because he violated team rules is arguably a greater lie.

lbpeley

April 14th, 2014 at 11:58 AM ^

is that it's a who-gives-a-shit lie. I could not possibly care less that I was "misled" to believe that Gibbons was still enrolled. Honestly, I can't fathom why Hoke's wording is such a big deal to some people. Once the ruling on Gibbons was handed down he was off the team. That's the important part. 

Mike Kenn

April 14th, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^

I feel like most of the people that are crying about the wording hoke chose are state fans that could care less about the rape, and only want to see our football team look bad

Mike Kenn

April 14th, 2014 at 12:10 PM ^

that's actually a really good point. if he had said ''team rules'' it would implied he was still on the team. ''family matters'' isn't much better, and basically implies the same thing, but, as someone has already said, it wasn't really the time and place to announce that he was expelled.

So basically Hoke really didn't do anything wrong. it was the university, but even the university's mistake wasn't that they made exceptions for football players, but just that they sucked at handling these things in general.

I guess this kinda makes me feel better about the whole thing. The whole situation still sucks, but I can cheer for hoke and not feel guilty about it.

gbdub

April 14th, 2014 at 10:56 AM ^

I don't believe Gibbons had been officially expelled by the time Hoke made the "family matters" statement. I just want to make sure we don't entrench a misconception that Hoke not only (may have known) that Gibbons was under investigation, but actually knew he would definitely never be coming back.

gbdub

April 14th, 2014 at 1:09 PM ^

Four days is a blink of an eye in your typical large bureaucracy especially near a holiday, and Dec 19 is just the date the letter was generated. It's entirely plausible that Gibbons got the letter, told Hoke "I can't travel, it's a family thing" and Hoke was not given word through any official channels prior to the press conference.

Now I'm not saying this is ideal, but it strikes me as plausible, at least as plausible as Hoke choosing to use "family matters" as a deliberate cover up, as he is being accused of. Hoke has dealt with several serious disciplinary issues, rarely stating the violation explicitly, and as far as I know this is the only time he's referred to a violation as a "family issue".

grumbler

April 15th, 2014 at 8:32 AM ^

This is my position as well.  The only new information we have in regards to this is the statement that "the task force claimed that athletic department officials did not believe the OIE or OSCR failed to notify the department which is about as feeble a statement on which to damn a man as one could find.  No one is claiming Hoke was notified; what they are saying is that they don't know he was not notified.

Yeoman

April 14th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^

I don't think Hoke's wishes were material at that point. it was in the hands of the lawyers by then and nobody was going to say anything that hadn't been vetted, whatever their personal feelings might have been. If he drops "gibbons has been expelled for rape" he's violated FERPA (and possibly libel law as well, since the expulsion wasn't for "rape") and he's got much bigger issues than his discomfort at having to go further into the subject.

One Inch Woody…

April 14th, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^

This is so true. Yeah gibbons hoke blah blah. What about the hundreds of other sexual assault cases that were not processed in a timely manner? It's clear that the CSG did not conduct this investigation in an unbiased manner instead choosing to bring inflammatory statements to the table for headline and shock value.

The Batman

April 14th, 2014 at 10:23 AM ^

Confusion...chaos.

These findings are disturbing.

This university has shown us all it's full of people ready to believe in good.

I believe in them. I believe in the commissioner. I believe in Harvey Dent.

Gulogulo37

April 14th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^

Dude, seriously. It's amusing having a random Batman guy in here posting, but this isn't the first time you've made light of a terrible situation. Not to mention that you're defending the university that's dragged it's feet on rape cases. I know it's a joke, but this isn't the place. There are 10 threads on here a day and almost every other one of them is fine to make some Batman joke.

mGrowOld

April 14th, 2014 at 10:27 AM ^

Wow.  Does anybody know if the rumor that 60 minutes was interviewing DB on this issue is true?  

If so and if the allegation that Hoke "knowingly issued false statements" are true then our inability to block anyone on the line may be the least of his worries.