A Sea Of Red

Wow.

Yeah...that's definitely not ok...

It’s one thing to be found guilty of breaking the honor code. That would just mean they had sex. But to be found guilty of breaking the sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault policy is pretty damning. It means the school found enough evidence to pass this along to Lynchburg PD for an investigation and criminal charges.

While the allegations are horrible, I want to commend the University, Athletic Department, and Coach Gill on taking swift action once the school ruled on their investigation and not hiding this. It would've been very easy to sweep it under the rug (as I'm sure it has been in the past).

Jonathan Carone wrote:It’s one thing to be found guilty of breaking the honor code. That would just mean they had sex. But to be found guilty of breaking the sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault policy is pretty damning. It means the school found enough evidence to pass this along to Lynchburg PD for an investigation and criminal charges.

While the allegations are horrible, I want to commend the University, Athletic Department, and Coach Gill on taking swift action once the school ruled on their investigation and not hiding this. It would've been very easy to sweep it under the rug (as I'm sure it has been in the past).

+1
Glad this isn't an AC 2.0

This is enough for dismissal for both in my opinion. Sounds like james was in all kinds of trouble. Wasnt he suspended a couple times prior. Hes now playing for south carolina as a reward for his conduct.

Sitting out 2016 actually

Jonathan Carone wrote:It’s one thing to be found guilty of breaking the honor code. That would just mean they had sex. But to be found guilty of breaking the sexual harassment, discrimination, and assault policy is pretty damning. It means the school found enough evidence to pass this along to Lynchburg PD for an investigation and criminal charges.

While the allegations are horrible, I want to commend the University, Athletic Department, and Coach Gill on taking swift action once the school ruled on their investigation and not hiding this. It would've been very easy to sweep it under the rug (as I'm sure it has been in the past).

This all day long. It absolutely sucks this happened but I am so glad it is being handled the way it has been.

jinxy wrote:This is enough for dismissal for both in my opinion. Sounds like james was in all kinds of trouble. Wasnt he suspended a couple times prior. Hes now playing for south carolina as a reward for his conduct.

What's the protocol for a normal student with these charges? Would they be dismissed for breaking this policy? If so, I would agree they should be dismissed. If not, I'd support whatever the normal protocol is.

This is one of the reasons I love you key Gill running the Program. Not that his players do this stuff, but they are dealt with appropriately when they do

The biggest unknown for this is where the action lies on the harassment to assault scale. Not that any of them are acceptable, but assault is much worse that harassment.

Agreed on the praise for Coach Gill and the Admin. It goes so much farther than athletics. It truly reflects positively on LU when they confront such issues head-on and proactively.

This is just an ugly situation all around. I'm still piecing together details but from what I'm hearing, this likely isn't on the assault side of the harassment to assault scale.

I'm going to try to give some details but at the same time dance around some things because I don't want to victim shame or make accusations.

There are two things at play that made it harder for the players to be exonerated before it got to this point:

1) Baylor. Because of what happened at Baylor, everyone is going to err on the side of turning things over to the police. That's not a bad thing, but it doesn't help the players when the other issue is

2) The Liberty Way. Because there was a sexual event that happened at a party where alcohol and possibly drugs were present, Liberty was fining and reprimanding everyone there. People who could've otherwise spoken out and cleared the events in question didn't do so because they didn't want to be reprimanded and fined for being there. When you add possible suspensions for other athletes because of the reprimands/fines, you see where self-preservation comes into play. You'd hope people would speak out regardless of outcome but at 20 years old, I don't know that I would've either.

I hate the "once the details come out" phrase because we were burned by it with Asa, but the more I hear about what happened, the more I realize there's a lot more at play here than what's on the surface.

As long as they don't bring the players back before it all plays out then I think they're good

thepostman wrote:As long as they don't bring the players back before it all plays out then I think they're good

Agreed completely. The suspensions right now are totally justified because of the situation. If innocent, it sucks for the players and hopefully they can bounce back from it and get a second chance here or somewhere else.

If I'm not guilty ur not suspending me period. Their is GUILTY and guilty by association, big difference in this case

forbidden wrote:If I'm not guilty ur not suspending me period. Their is GUILTY and guilty by association, big difference in this case

They're guilty of the Honor Code violations regardless of the outcome of the assault allegation.

Agreed

Im glad for how Coach Gill and the department are handling this situation, but these guys are probably done regardless. As Jon said, you still have the Honor Code violations in play even if they are a) not officially charged by the Commonwealth's Attorney (as a side note, one has to think that any prosecutors working in that office who are LU alumni would possibly consider recusing themselves from this particular case) or b) fall closer to the harassment side of the scale

Beej - I wouldn't say they're 'done'. If these allegations prove to be false, they'll serve their suspension and then likely be reinstated. They may have to sit out all of this year or some other form of punishment, but I wouldn't say they're 'done'. We're a school of second chances. If this turns out to be something legal but against The Liberty Way, there's no reason for them not to be allowed back.

Typical BJ. Jumping the gun.

Fair enough Jon. I guess my thought was with the honor code violations they probably are going to be out of school at least for this semester and if they do come back for spring ball its not guaranteed that they slot right back into wherever they were heading into this season, especially considering the guys that play in their absence. If there ends up being a legal component added to this situation (i.e. charges are filed), my guess is they probably are withdrawn from school and they probably end up transferring like James did.

The suspensions are def warranted. They were there and put themselves in this position. If they are cleared and reinstated so be it but they absolutely deserve the suspension at minimum.