Utah State University has had more than four years to clean up its athletics department — particularly its football program — which was deemed by the Department of Justice to be plagued by sexual misconduct. It hasn’t happened, the DOJ says.
Now, USU has less than 45 days to show it is making progress.
The DOJ last month slapped the university with a notice of “substantial noncompliance.” In the letter, the agency said USU was not adhering to a 2020 agreement to improve its response to reports of alleged sexual assault. In fact, the DOJ wrote, USU had “failed to take prompt, equitable, and effective steps to remedy an ongoing hostile environment within its football program.”
It then set a deadline of 45 days from the Aug. 21 issuance of the letter for the school to show it has turned things around.
“We acknowledge and share the DOJ’s concerns,” USU President Elizabeth Cantwell said in the university’s official response to the noncompliance letter. “We will take all steps necessary to create an enduring culture of respect within USU and especially within USU Football.”
The DOJ began looking into sexual misconduct and harassment within the football program, the school’s fraternities and sororities and its piano program in 2017. By that time, several allegations of sexual misconduct at the school had been reported in the media, including a 2016 Salt Lake Tribune investigation into Torrey Green, an Aggies player who was accused by four women of rape or sexual assault. In 2019, Green was convicted of sexually assaulting six women while at USU.
In its scathing 2019 report, the DOJ took issue with USU’s failure to respond to reports of misconduct at the hands of players and staff. Over a period of time, it said, the university received 15 reports of alleged sexual assault involving Aggies football players, several of whom were accused multiple times. Allegations against two members of the football team staff also were made during that time. Yet, the report found, “it was common for the University to close the incident files involving the football team after only minimal investigation.”
The DOJ’s report echoed the findings of an internal investigation conducted by USU in 2016.
As a result of the two investigations, USU agreed in February 2020 to lay out a blueprint for cleaning up the football program. It also committed to improving its response to allegations and bringing itself into compliance with Title IX’s regulatory requirements.
The DOJ says USU isn’t keeping those promises.
“Four and a half years after our initial notice to the University of our findings regarding the football program, there continues to be alarming evidence of a pervasive, sexually hostile culture and climate within the football program and in (now former) senior leadership in the Athletics Department,” the letter, issued Aug. 21, said. “This environment has been allowed to grow and fester due to repeated ineffective, inequitable, and untimely responses.”
The noncompliance letter referenced two specific incidents in its rejection of USU’s efforts.
In one, it outlined how former coach Blake Anderson conducted his own “fact-finding mission” into the allegations behind a football player’s 2023 arrest for domestic violence rather than report it to school officials. Anderson declined to suspend the player while investigating the alleged victim and the player’s teammates about the altercation, the letter said. USU fired Anderson in July for “significant violations” of his contract and violating Title IX reporting requirements. Former interim athletic director Jerry Bovee and director of player development Austin Albrecht, who were singled out in the DOJ letter, were also fired for failing to comply with the university’s policies in regard to reporting sexual misconduct and domestic violence.
The second detailed the experiences of a specialist brought in to deliver a training on sexual misconduct prevention to a portion of the USU football team in October. The specialist reported, according to the DOJ’s letter, that throughout the training that “football players collectively jeered, snickered, laughed, and repeatedly interrupted the training with offensive sex-based commentary.” She and the DOJ interpreted their actions, and the failure of football staff to intercede, as “yet another indication of toxic culture and climate and example of disrespect by the football team members for the University’s efforts to comply with Title IX and the [2020 compliance] Agreement.”
The DOJ recognized some steps USU has taken in the right direction. In particular, it singled out the firing of Anderson, Bovee, Albrecht and Amy Crosbie, the executive associate athletic director for internal affairs for reporting violations. The agency also noted the school has hired someone to conduct trainings about sexual misconduct with student athletes and staff.
In addition, the school said it added staff to its Office of Equity to better address reports and is working “to create a reporting culture.” It also pinpointed six other steps it could take more immediately. Among those were improving communication between the Office of Equity and athletic staff, emphasizing to football players that sexual misconduct will not be tolerated and updating training materials to keep employees from conducting their own investigations into sexual misconduct.