Letting a University of Michigan athlete attend classes and play varsity football for more than four years while accused of a sex offense raises "serious questions," an editorial in The Michigan Daily says.
The word "atrocity" is used to question whether a football star's punishment was "knowingly postponed."
Student editors comment on last month's expulsion of fifth-year senior Brendan Gibbons, the football team's starting kicker. As the campus daily reported Tuesday, the 22-year-old was booted eight days before UM played in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl.
While it is commendable that the University succeeded in punishing Gibbons for violating the Student Sexual Misconduct Policy, there are serious questions that the school needs to answer. . . .
In November of 2009, Gibbons was allegedly involved in a sexual assault incident. On Nov. 20, 2013, a letter from the University’s Office of Student Conflict Resolution . . .stated that a preponderance of evidence was present to find Gibbons responsible for the alleged sexual assault. . . . More than four years after the incident, action was finally taken against Gibbons, which leads to many questions. . . .
The university’s delay in reaching a decision regarding the Gibbons case until now is suspect. . . . If the university knowingly postponed the expulsion of Gibbons in any way over the last four years, it would be an atrocity of the highest degree.
The case makes news less than a week after President Obama announced a White House task force to help protect college women from sexual assault.
Before his first varsity kick, Gibbons was questioned by detectives shortly after the Michigan-Ohio State game Nov. 21, 2009, because an 18-year-old freshman said he raped her at a party in the Chi Psi fraternity house, according to Ann Arbor police reports obtained last summer by Doug Smith and posted on his independent site, Washtenaw Watchdogs. The player wasn't prosecuted.
The alleged incident occurred five months after Gibbons graduated from Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he was rated as the No. 8 kicker nationally by rivals.com
Brendan Gibbons thought of brunette girls while preparing to kick a 2012 bowl game's winning field goal, he says in video below. (Photos via YouTube)
The Washtenaw blog, linking to police documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, gives this account of the investigation:
[The complainant said] she met Gibbons at the party and at one point was sitting with him on a couch. She needed to use a bathroom, which was located on the second floor of the fraternity. Gibbons walked with her to the second floor and followed her into the bathroom.
She was wearing leggings under her dress, which Gibbons tried to pull down. She said no and left the bathroom. Gibbons followed and forced her into an open bedroom. He pushed her down on the bed, grabbing onto her arm to control her. She told him “no” multiple times. He did not use a condom and semen was found on her dress.
After the rape, the woman left the Chi Psi house immediately. She called a friend who met her on the way back to her dorm. She was crying hysterically and she told her friend what had happened. She reported the incident to the resident advisor of her dorm, to a university housing security officer, campus police and to Ann Arbor police.
She was taken to University Hospital for a rape examination, which showed vaginal tearing.
Brendan Gibbons admitted to having sex with the young woman but claimed that it was consensual. “She never asked me to stop. We were both into it.”
A case file note says police observed bruises on the girl's arm.
In its unsigned editorial Wednesday, The Michigan Daily finds the four-year timeline suspicious:
The timing of the expulsion is questionable — and the University has not provided an explanation for why the separation process concluded in late December. The disciplinary action of the University comes right at the end of Gibbon’s football career and at the end of the football team’s season. . . .
The university . . . needs to clarify the details of the case to the best of its ability under the law to save the university’s reputation and reinforce that this is truly a community that expects respect.
The six-student opinion page staff is led by editorial editors Megan McDonald and Daniel Wang.
Earlier coverage:
Wolverines Kicker Brendan Gibbons Expelled From U-M For Sexual Misconduct, Jan. 28
Video: Gibbons says he was thinking of brunette girls before kicking the winning field goal in a 2012 bowl game.
