[Steve-skylar-nash]

Do people really think someone would go through all of this (dealing with athletic department, “viral” story in the paper, fellow students/community hating her) if she was simply making this up?

This is why women (and men) are scared to report abuse when it happens

 

[MileHiCat]

Honestly, I don't know. Becuase I was not there. I do know that rape happens. I also know that sometimes situations get out of control and people start going down paths that they think they cannot get out of so they keep going down that path. I tell my kids that if you are in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Sometimes they don't listen.

To be clear, and before you let your one-sided blindness kick in: I AM NOT SAYING SHE IS MAKING THIS UP. Never have. All I am saying is that nobody on this board knows if it did or did not happen, so stop acting like you do.

And if you think any of my comments would lead to someone being scared to report abuse, you are nuts. If it happened - report it. Shine the light on the scumbags. There is no place in this world for that crap. Yet there is still too much of it.

 

[VCat_2015]

I've never once said don't report the case either. I said find a way to negotiate an NDA with the victim (and yes, that will take $$) and try to carry on. Perhaps I'm just a cynic, but I don't think firing everyone involved, outting, expelling and ruining the student's life and branding "UVM Basketball" as something incredibly toxic is going to have any positive effect on the rape culture that permeates on college campuses all across the country.

The administration needs to get a handle on this scandal before it consumes the entire state (and the people in this state then point fingers at UVM men's basketball) as every day i'm seeing more and more of these "Justice for Kendall" signs throughout Burlington.

 

[RazorRamon]

ahh ok, hush the victim with money and an NDA that they must sign so it never hurts the player or the organization/university and the victim has to deal with the situation on her own for the rest of her life... got it...

 

[GoCatsGo]

I'll preface this by saying I don't live in the Burlington city limits (but do live in Chittenden County). And I have been on UVM's campus about once since March.

So maybe I run in the wrong circles (or the right circles?), but the only place I hear people talking about this is here.

I know people who also follow the team, and many who don't. But most of them know me as someone who is an ardent fan and follower of the team and college basketball in general. And the number of questions related to "Are they going to play?/When are they going to play?/What's this year going to look like?" outnumber all other questions/topics by a score of All to None.

Hey, results may vary. Your friends aren't my friends. But worries about this "consuming the state" feel a bit hyperbolic. I think Vermonters have a lot of things to be consumed with right now.

 

[MileHiCat]

I said find a way to negotiate an NDA with the victim (and yes, that will take $$) and try to carry on.

In my opinion, that is not how UVM should handle it. That would go under the "sweep it under the rug" category. The school should make a full investigation of this. And if they don't someone should investigate them.

ahh ok, hush the victim with money and an NDA that they must sign so it never hurts the player or the organization/university and the victim has to deal with the situation on her own for the rest of her life... got it...

Nobody can force the accused to sign an NDA so you are making a bit of a jump there.

 

[LongTall]

I am perplexed about why situations like this are investigated by the sports infrastructure, adjudicated by the sports infrastructure, reported by a sports writer and consequences weighed by the potential impact on the sports program. If this involved two chemistry students would this be adjudicated by the chemistry department? Why aren't these cases referred immediately to law enforcement or to whatever system covers all students with any consequences regarding sports participation based on those results?

 

[LongTall]

P.S. I am not criticizing reporting by Alex Abrami. He is a high integrity and multi-dimensional journalist who revealed his own courage pursuing the story. I believe very few small town sports journalists would take the risk.

 

[catpower]

I am perplexed about why situations like this are investigated by the sports infrastructure, adjudicated by the sports infrastructure, reported by a sports writer and consequences weighed by the potential impact on the sports program. If this involved two chemistry students would this be adjudicated by the chemistry department? Why aren't these cases referred immediately to law enforcement or to whatever system covers all students with any consequences regarding sports participation based on those results?

It's important to note that in the article, Ware was not obligated to involve the athletic department at all. She could have filed this all through the university's Title IX office if she wanted to. So, no it's not left to individual departments to handle these cases, it does go to a centralized university office.

Ware decided to tell her coaches and Balogh, and then Rahill and Schulman. I'm not her, but my guess is being a student-athlete herself, she felt they should know about the situation, and likely felt that they would take the accusations seriously. They have their own student-athlete code of conduct and I don't know what's in it (not raping hopefully is though), but one would guess that she may have felt that was an avenue for the basketball player to take some responsibility and be suspended for some games?

But, that's the issue. She went to the school. She voluntarily told the athletic department. The athletic department then completely overstepped and involved itself in the situation to dissuade her from a formal resolution and mislead her so the department could get their desired result, which was to sweep this under the rug and wash their hands of it.

Ware isn't out to get the accused. She's said as much. The processes are muddled and confusing to begin with, and the adminstrators in the athletic department didn't help matters. But it seems pretty clear she was seeking some measure of justice that wasn't going to "ruin his life" but was going to at least demonstrate his taking responsibility fo his actions, and facing some measure of consequence for it. The fact that even asking for something like that was completely blown off is just a terrible indictment on the athletic department and how all these cases are handled. Ware was traumatized and suicidal and even still went looking for reasonable solutions and reasonable adults in the room and she found none. That's why we're here.

 

[LongTall]

That's helpful. Thank you.

 

[benchwarmer]

Who woulda guessed that the UVM GOP club are also such big UVM basketball fans

A cheap chance to air your political views and outside the context of the conversation. .

 

[catpower]

Student paper with an article on the issue:

Students demand change amid claims that UVM Athletics mishandled sexual assault investigation

Some repeat info in there, but talks to other female student-athletes and the changes they want to see in the department. Speaking out about the louder truth that UVM gives no shits about women's sports and have created a very unequal experience as well. For as much as people understand basketball is going to draw more support and revenue over swimming or track, I think it's good that others are saying the ugly part out loud.

 

[VCat_2015]

There is a lot going on these days between the unrelenting student-led City Council/police department protests, and obviously the election, etc. but still--Kendal Ware's case has been taking up a lot of oxygen not just on campus, but throughout Burlington.

Yes, there are a lot of "Justic for Kendall" signs around town (not just students or even from anyone with directly affiliated with UVM). They aren't nearly as numerous as BLM/Defund BPD, Biden-Harris or the increasingly ubiquitous Molly Gray signs, but if you look for them you can easily find them (Momo's market on Willard street has had "Justice for Kendall" plastered on their sandwich board for the past month). To say this is not already a highly-publicized scandal that people throughout UVM and Burlington are talking about would be incorrect.

 

[catpower]

There is a lot going on these days between the unrelenting student-led City Council/police department protests, and obviously the election, etc. but still--Kendal Ware's case has been taking up a lot of oxygen not just on campus, but throughout Burlington.

Yes, there are a lot of "Justic for Kendall" signs around town (not just students or even from anyone with directly affiliated with UVM). They aren't nearly as numerous as BLM/Defund BPD, Biden-Harris or the increasingly ubiquitous Molly Gray signs, but if you look for them you can easily find them (Momo's market on Willard street has had "Justice for Kendall" plastered on their sandwich board for the past month). To say this is not already a highly-publicized scandal that people throughout UVM and Burlington are talking about would be incorrect.

Good.

 

[Green Baron]

but

 

[UNHFan]

I hope someone does some digging to see if Becker knew or at least heard rumblings about this. If he did he needs to go also. Schulman absolutely needs to go for telling the girl that people pay to see that player play basketball. All of the UVM fans falling all over themselves for this basketball player is a sad state and a bad look.

 

[TovarishchLisa]

I hope someone does some digging to see if Becker knew or at least heard rumblings about this. If he did he needs to go also. Schulman absolutely needs to go for telling the girl that people pay to see that player play basketball.

Based on the original article I'm not sure he knew, it seemed like an A & B conversation between Ware and the athletic dept with no B & C conversation between Becker and the athletic dept.

Or maybe that's just me hoping for the best. (It probably is)

I wanna organize my thoughts about this at some point, because it's been weighing on me for a while. But that time is not now when I'm working off like 2 hours of sleep

 

[UNHFan]

Lisa,

Always enjoyed your posts and your love and work for UVM. I would hope you're right also but this is a bad look that comment by the AD I can't get that out of my head that he would say that.

 

[Mr quint]

A few things:

Just for clarity, it seems Balogh was the one who made the comment about fans coming to see the player, not Schulman. I realize to some extent that’s semantics because as an employee, she’s an extension of him and he’s accountable for his department. But I think worth mentioning because it’s a ridiculous thing to say and therefore should be tagged to the source.

I suppose it’s possible Becker didn’t know about all of this, but that stretches logic. It’s a small ecosystem and I don’t see how the coach isn’t hearing about this somehow. That said, I‘m not sure that should automatically indict him. Once this gets disclosed, there is a process that is designed to handle it (the potential botching of that process is a separate topic). At that point, what is Becker supposed to do? I don‘t know the process completely, but is a coach even allowed to intervene in an active Title IX process? If he suspends the player or kicks him off the team, he’s essentially taking the law into his own hands. If I’m the coach in that situation, I think the best thing I can do, and maybe the only thing, is just keep doing my job and let the process play out. It would be different if he did things to actively impede the process. That would obviously be a problem, but I have not heard that so far.

From what I have experienced over the years and heard in response to this situation, the vast majority of the UVM fan base would not want something like this to be swept under the rug in the interest of keeping a player on the court. Everyone enjoys winning games but not at the expense of the program’s credibility.

 

[ball_of_rubber]

A few things:

Just for clarity, it seems Balogh was the one who made the comment about fans coming to see the player, not Schulman. I realize to some extent that’s semantics because as an employee, she’s an extension of him and he’s accountable for his department. But I think worth mentioning because it’s a ridiculous thing to say and therefore should be tagged to the source.

I suppose it’s possible Becker didn’t know about all of this, but that stretches logic. It’s a small ecosystem and I don’t see how the coach isn’t hearing about this somehow. That said, I‘m not sure that should automatically indict him. Once this gets disclosed, there is a process that is designed to handle it (the potential botching of that process is a separate topic). At that point, what is Becker supposed to do? I don‘t know the process completely, but is a coach even allowed to intervene in an active Title IX process? If he suspends the player or kicks him off the team, he’s essentially taking the law into his own hands. If I’m the coach in that situation, I think the best thing I can do, and maybe the only thing, is just keep doing my job and let the process play out. It would be different if he did things to actively impede the process. That would obviously be a problem, but I have not heard that so far.

From what I have experienced over the years and heard in response to this situation, the vast majority of the UVM fan base would not want something like this to be swept under the rug in the interest of keeping a player on the court. Everyone enjoys winning games but not at the expense of the program’s credibility.

When this exact scenario happened at UMBC in 2015, Aki Thomas immediately suspended the players, and the school later expelled the players by the end of the fall semester. I don't know if, based on UVM's actions so far, if they would expel whichever player did this, but as far as Becker is concerned, he could have easily suspended him and encourage him to leave.