Full-time worry is part of the job description for parents, and in the wake of child sex-abuse allegations which have rocked two of the nation’s more respected college sports programs, the list of worries has grown longer.
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Representatives of Miami University and the University of Cincinnati have said their schools are working hard to keep their campuses safe. In light of the recent cases, school officials said they have given clear expectations to employees and encouraged people to report problems anonymously.
They were eager to make that clear, because public trust in the safety for children on any college campus was dealt a blow last month.
First it was Penn State.
Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coordinator of the football team there, was charged with sexually assaulting at least eight boys over a period of 15 years.
Coaching legend Joe Paterno was fired and Penn State president Graham Spaner was forced to resign following criticism that neither had taken enough appropriate action quickly enough.
Then Syracuse assistant men’s basketball coach Bernie Fine was fired after three men accused him of molesting them when they were boys. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is investigating.
“On so many levels it’s just tragic … a huge tragedy that reflects on our system and organizations,” Miami athletic director Brad Bates said.
A series of laws are in place to prevent serious crimes such as child molestation, and also to ensure the prompt reporting of such crimes to police.
“Our policy is to follow Ohio law,” said Doug Mosley, associate athletic director for media at UC. “If you don’t follow the law, you will be fired, and Ohio law says you must report (child abuse).
“The feeling of the university is that we don’t need to add another guideline or law,” he said. “We follow the law of the state.”
Mosley added that Cincinnati’s new athletic director, Whit Babcock, is taking the potential dangers suggested by the allegations from Penn State and Syracuse very seriously.
“Whit just got here, and at his very first all-staff meeting, which was less than a month ago, he addressed it, and he delivered the very clear message that we will not tolerate it,” Mosley said, noting that Babcock “cited the Penn State situation and laid out clear expectations for all employees with the department.”
Robin Parker, general counsel for Miami, explained that “Ohio Law requires every citizen to report a felony to law enforcement, and child abuse is certainly a felony.”
Failure to report knowledge of a felony, she added, is a crime itself.
There also is a federal law which specifically targets crime on university campuses. The Clery Act is named after Jeanne Clery, a 19-year-old student who was raped and murdered at Lehigh University in 1986.
“It requires an institution to collect and publish an annual campus safety and security report (for students and employees),” Parker said. “Part of what that law says is you have to designate certain people on campus who need to report crimes to police, and on that list are coaches and the athletic director.”
As an added precaution, Parker and her staff meet with Bates and Miami’s coaches once a year, usually in September.
“They get training from my office saying this is what you’ve got to do, that when there is a crime it must be immediately reported to the Miami University Police Department,” Parker said. “I give this training to the coaches and athletic director and a bunch of other people. The training is recommended but not required by law.”
The interaction of children with Miami athletic department staff members in their normal routine of work, according to Bates, is “nominal and not unsupervised.”
There is an exception when interaction is more than nominal — the summer sports camps held at most major universities, including Miami and UC.
“Summer camps are a big deal,” Parker acknowledged, “and beginning in 2005 at Miami we started requiring criminal background checks of everyone who was going to work at the camps other than undergraduate students.
“If you’re going to work at a camp that Miami University sponsors, you’re going to have a background check,” she said. “And if you rent space from Miami University for a camp, the contract specifies that you have to background check your folks because you’re putting them up in our residence halls.”
Parker said Miami also conducts background checks on workers at the Miami Rec Center, which offers activities for children which include swimming lessons and after-school rock climbing.
The background checks for targeted groups were in place from 2005-09, Parker said, and have been expended.
“In 2009 we started doing criminal background checks for all new hires, including faculty and staff,” she said.
Another recent safety addition for both Miami and Cincinnati is a hot-line system for the anonymous reporting of illegal or unethical behavior called EthicsPoint.
“It’s a system we purchased,” Parker said. “There is a hot line system and an on-line component which allows us to respond to you and investigate.”
“It’s a way of protecting people so that no retaliation takes place,” Bates pointed out. “From our end, it allows people to report something that’s not the right way of doing things and it gives us another set of eyes on campus.”
