The NCAA Talks Tough, But Does Nothing to Punish Violence Against Women

When Les Miles suspended offensive lineman Jevonte Domond from Louisiana State University's football team in May following Domond's domestic violence arrest, the coach didn't mince words: "He is suspended from the team. It is a crime we can't condone and a behavior we will not tolerate."

Three months later, Domond is back on the team, not having missed a single game or practice. His domestic-violence charges are still pending, yet Miles appears to have undergone a change of heart—just before the start of fall camp.

"We're letting the disposition of whatever entanglement he's involved in run its course. He's not suspended," Miles said.

That is almost inconceivably hypocritical, but given Miles's past behavior, it's not actually that surprising. When star running back Jeremy Hill was sentenced for sucker punching a man outside a bar—just three years after pleading guilty to engaging in a sex act with an underage girl—Miles initially suspended Hill indefinitely, but then allowed him back on the team after a team vote.

Miles can do this all he wants, and nobody—neither the university nor the fans—really cares. (LSU did not respond when asked for comment about whether there was any standardized process or higher authority governing Miles's discipline decisions.) For all the talk of leadership in college sports, the lack of any meaningful, systemic oversight in how coaches and universities handle allegations, and even convictions, of sexual and physical exploitation and violence against women is extremely disconcerting.

"Without any of those standards, it leaves a lot of subjectivity among the universities for how they're going to handle it, which leads this Wild West situation," said Tom Newkirk, a Des Moines-based attorney who specializes in civil rights and Title IX cases. "It should absolutely be done by an oversight organization."

The natural candidate for such a role is, of course, the National Collegiate Athletic Association. In its moral crusade to preserve amateurism, the NCAA will punish a coach whose players receive free tattoos, but so far it has done nothing to a coach whose players batter women. And that, in a way, is what led Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill to ask NCAA president Mark Emmert a blunt, impolitic question during a Capitol Hill hearing last year: "Why should you exist?"

McCaskill was referring to the NCAA's lack of leadership on sexual assault allegations against athletes, which can be grossly mismanaged by both universities and their athletic departments, but she touched on a broader issue plaguing the association in this time of change: What is the NCAA's purpose in college sports, beyond making sure no money is funneled to athletes?

Last August, the NCAA Executive Committee issued a resolution stating that it expects schools to stop giving their athletic departments oversight over sexual assault allegations against athletes. That's a small step in the right direction, but hardly enough. The NCAA is unique among sports organizations in that it does not punish players and coaches for violence against women or other crimes. Even the National Football League, flawed as it may be, has a discipline policy.

Some individual schools do discipline players accused of—and found at fault for—violence against women, but these punishments are erratic, even within schools. More important, the lack of any organizational oversight encourages coaches to take chances on players that have a history of problems.

After all, very little of the risk lands on coaches and administrators.

The University of Oregon is a perfect example. The school recently reached an $800,000 settlement with a student who alleged that she was gang-raped by three basketball players last year. Citing insufficient evidence, prosecutors did not file criminal charges against the players. However, a school investigation led to the players being dismissed from the team. The student filed a Title IX lawsuit against Oregon and head basketball coach Dana Altman, claiming that Oregon failed to investigate the alleged assault in prompt fashion and that Altman had recruited one of players, Brandon Austin, despite knowing that Austin previously had been investigated for sexual assault at Providence College.

Another one of the players, Damyean Dotson, transferred to Houston. The Cougars are taking "a risk" by bringing Dotson on, but not much of one—at worst, they may have to pay a settlement if Dotson is involved in another alleged assault and the school is found liable. Coach Kelvin Sampson has little incentive not to sign Dotson—if Dotson is again accused of committing a crime, Sampson could be sued the way Altman was, but more likely he simply would have to kick Dotson off his team and go without the services of a good player.

Altman was not suspended. He did not have his pay docked. Oregon basketball was not banned from the NCAA tournament, and no one in the school's athletic department was fired. This is the way the schools want it. They want to win, and they want no barriers to achieving that goal. They talk tough, but know they will not be held accountable through any punitive action.

"You've got the subconscious desire to see the athlete play," Newkirk said. "The reason why coaches can get away with it … is because the university, the biases they apply, that exists outside the university as well."

It is true that the NCAA and schools have come out strongly against violence against women, running "It's On Us" campaign commercials and raising awareness. Without actual procedures in place to punish coaches who don't back the tough talk with action, that rhetoric rings hollow—particularly when every other oversight organization in sports has at least some policy in place. And this prompts the question the association must answer as both awareness of and outrage over violence against women grows: Why should you exist? Currently, on this issue, for all intents and purposes, the NCAA does not.