It’s one thing when this or that fraternity pimps out women for itself (as when Indiana University’s already way-notorious Alpha Tau Omega hired women for one of its forcible-group-bonding sessions), or when this or that university sports team orders up prostitutes for itself, as the Duke lacrosse guys did (you remember how things got out of hand there). It’s another thing when the university pimps out women to recruits, as – allegedly – the University of Louisville athletic department did. With official approval and indeed organized by campus officials, the practice would tend, as the woman quoted in my headline suggests, to give teenage male athletes, uh, ideas about women.
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These 17 and 18-year-old kids are making one of the most important decisions of their entire lives, and an adult is purposefully using sex to affect their decision making. These are not the actions of a shrewd negotiator attempting to gain an advantage over the competition, but a predator, manipulating a young mind into making a decision that would benefit himself.
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If Louisville is guilty, the school has created a dangerous environment for women, and it has opened itself to lawsuits from all angles.
Yes, at a time when all American universities are pledging to act on sexual violence, you’ve got a school like Louisville – a school already as notorious as Indiana’s ATO for all sorts of officially sanctioned scummy behavior (put Louisville in my search engine) – acting, it seems, with a disregard for on-campus sexual behavior reminiscent of Sandusky’s Penn State.
Showers and dorm rooms and frat lounges oh my!
We’ll probably discover, pretty soon, whether Rick Pitino knew how his program recruited players. For the record, UD is quite certain he did.
[Pitino] did an interview today … that was really bizarre and ended up with him rambling about a lot of things and taking a subtle shot at the school president.
Yes now it’s every man for himself as the rancor’s wheeled out and the bloody civil war begins. Talk about an athletics arms race! The weaponry’s been redirected – from rival schools to your own evil meddling institution, which found your recruitment tactics perfectly okay until the evil media began paying attention and then it’s oh no we’re not pimps here we’re scholars and gentlemen and we have no idea who hired rascals like Rick Pitino and Bobby Petrino but we have nothing to do with them either…
As an extra bonus, watch for Pitino to go mad in public (rambling, bizarre) as his dictatorship begins to crumble…
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Pitino’s buddy does a full Coacha Inconsolata on him.
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Rancor, and sniping. This comes from a local comment thread:
I think if this was an institutionally sponsored recruiting tool we could have found a more upmarket supplier, maybe?
October 9th, 2015 at 5:30AM
Dear Professor Soltan
Your coverage of human depravity makes for wonderful entertainment. Occasionally, however, your passions may get the best of you. In an otherwise great piece on the abuse of woman by various elements of “higher education” you reference Duke and the lacrosse team saying “when this or that university sports team orders up prostitutes for itself, as the Duke lacrosse guys did (you remember how things got out of hand there)” Now few sports are as unpleasant as lacrosse where a bunch of white guys who can’t make it in real sports pretend to be Indians. But “what got out of hand” was the ambitions of a DA and the liberal elite of the Duke community that would cost one man is career and the school $100 million dollars.
October 9th, 2015 at 5:39AM
Bruce Foster: Yes, that stuff got out of hand too.
October 9th, 2015 at 3:15PM
One of the many unfortunate consequences of “that stuff” is the way the hysteria about the kinds of schmucks the Duke lacrosse players were not has led people to forget the kinds of schmucks they were.
October 9th, 2015 at 3:44PM
Dr_ – Exactly. The Duke guys had every right to be martyred – I mean this – because they were truly subjected to a lot of injustice. On the other hand, that team was made up of some extremely well-established jackasses who got into a lot of trouble. This seems to be forgotten.