Absolutely untrue. He is the head coach at a major university with a well-known football team. His opinion matters to other coaches and athletic directors. If he wanted to pass along that she is crazy and not worth hiring, her career would be over.
Speaking as a pervert, what he did was wrong and IMO constitutes sexual assault. It was NOT flirting or a sexual advance. Again speaking as a pervert, I would never do such a thing. I have initiated phone sex in the past. It was in the context of an ongoing consensual sexual relationship. There is a massive difference there.
If it’s any consequence Mel Tucker will likely find another job. Jeffery Toobin was rehired by CNN. Hell, even in the world of college athletics, former Texas head basketball coach, who assaulted his fiance was hired within a few months by Ole Miss.
Assuming you’re coming from a place of good faith here notwithstanding the curious choice of reframing this as “unwanted intrusions into her personal life” (???)… a large majority of Title IX violations take place within the context of “personal relationships.”
The fact that you’re buddies with another professor in your department or you and a student go out for lunch sometimes, or you stay after work at the lab and talk about your weekend from time to time, doesn’t mean it’s just open season on sexual misconduct against other people at the school without professional repercussions.
Hey welcome to the Dope, I appreciate your post and thank you for sharing your perspective. It’s a powerful statement and it surprises me no one else in this thread has replied to you.
Also like your username, quite interesting!
Peace out!
I haven’t followed this particular story, and have no opinion on the he said/she said aspect. I am interested in “could her story be true? And to that my answer is unequivocally " yes”. Freezing for a few minutes when sexually assaulted is completely normal behavior. Calling colleagues frequently is completely normal behavior. Men and women who work together talk to each other frequently. That doesn’t suggest a sexual relationship in the slightest.
This is the first I’ve heard of her deleting text messages. (Because i haven’t been following this particular story.) That’s not completely normal. But if she counsels women who’ve been raped, it’s plausible she was trying to protect others. It’s also suspicious behavior.
People have discussed above what consent to phone sex looks like. For example:
Once again, taking to a colleague after midnight is a thing that happens when people have jobs with squishy hours. The marital status of the participants is irrelevant. I sure as hell do not consent to phone sex by talking to someone in the middle of the night. Any more than i consent to lewd messages by posting here in the middle of the night. The assumption that a woman talking toa men is inherently “asking for sex” is grossly insulting and the implication is that women can’t work or otherwise interact outside a narrow cloister.
(also, i didn’t know the races of the people until reading your posts.)
I own a business and have female employees. It’s not unusual for someone to call me at home. I once woke up to my cellphone vibrating at 1 am. An employee called to let me know she wouldn’t be in the next day. I appreciated knowing, so I could leave the house a bit early.
Then she started telling me why she wouldn’t be in. I got out of bed and moved to the living room and talked to her for an hour. No phone sex, and my gf understood when I told her what happened in the morning.
She wasn’t an employee. She was a contractor who did the same job for 100 universities. Came in for seminar/speech.
27 phone calls seems like a lot for what she did. It could be one a year. Or really zero. Though what she did was sorta related to the athletic program, the arrangements could have and would have been handled by other people. The head football coach isn’t going to be booking a hotel room for some speaker.
Let’s get one thing clear - she could have literally been fucking him in the Uni stadium parking lot every given Sunday, and if she didn’t want a particular sexting call, it would still have been non-consensual phone sex.
MrDibble:
There are three different issues here:
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Was it non-consensual phone sex? I think almost all of us agree it was.
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Was the university right to fire him for moral turpitude? Probably, as his behavior has a strong negative effect on the image of the university. Similar type examples:
- Does it involve a violation of Federal Title IX rules? I quite disagree. As Jay_Z said “She wasn’t an employee. She was a contractor who did the same job for 100 universities. Came in for seminar/speech. 27 phone calls seems like a lot for what she did. It could be one a year. Or really zero. Though what she did was sorta related to the athletic program, the arrangements could have and would have been handled by other people. The head football coach isn’t going to be booking a hotel room for some speaker.”
The behavior was private and not related to her contracts with the football program and thus Title IX doesn’t apply.
Irrelevant - the same office handles Title IX and RVSM investigation. Any articles that call it “the Title IX office/investigators” are just using shorthand.
Part-time/contract employees are still employees.
No “sorta” weasel-wording about it. It was related to the program.
It really seems like in the minds of some people there can be no platonic relationship between unrelated people of the opposite sex. Not friendship, not a professional relationship… nothing.
Obviously that’s the case for religious nuts like Pence (who refused to be left alone in a room with a woman) or the people who live in theocracies where women can’t go out alone by law. But it always surprises me to see that attitude among so-called normal people, who are part of the mainstream secular American culture.
Well, in this case it wasn’t platonic for the coach. As for the woman, if I was shocked and appalled as she claims today, I would not be deleting the chat history of any conversation.
Right, but there are all these people implying that this is what you must expect if you try to have a professional or friendly relationship with a member of the opposite sex.