DOJ puts Utah State on notice for ‘substantial non-compliance’ issues related to Title IX violations

Four and a half years after Utah State University signed a resolution with the U.S. Department of Justice intended to address Title IX violations by the university — especially within the Aggies’ football program — the DOJ is alleging “substantial non-compliance” by USU.

In a letter sent to the university on Aug. 31 by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah, officials argue that Utah State “has failed to take prompt, equitable and effective steps to remedy an ongoing hostile environment within its football program.”

The letter also states that Utah State failed to “establish criteria for and a process by which the Title IX Coordinator and the Athletics Department will determine appropriate interim measures during the grievance investigation and adjudication process. ... This failure has contributed to the University’s inadequate response to the hostile environment that persists in 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 from the DOJ reads. “This environment has been allowed to grow and fester due to repeated ineffective, inequitable and untimely responses by the University, including the OOE (Office of Equity) and the Athletics Department.”

In a Sept. 10 response to the letter from the Department of Justice, Utah State president Elizabeth Cantwell said: “We acknowledge and share the DOJ’s concerns. We will take all steps necessary to create an enduring culture of respect within USU and especially within USU Football.

“Our students, staff and faculty have put an enormous amount of work into making USU better, with a culture we can all be proud of. We will build on those accomplishments. We will fully ensure that our whole community not only knows our policies and state and federal law, but respects and are held accountable for them.”

DOJ conclusions

In its letter detailing alleged non-compliance by Utah State, the DOJ singled out two specific incidents of sexual misconduct connected to the Aggies’ football program and Utah State’s athletic department.

The first centered on the reporting surrounding the arrest of a former USU football player in the spring of 2023 , the same incident that led Utah State to engage the law firm Husch Blackwell to conduct an independent review. That review of events ultimately led Utah State to terminate Blake Anderson as head football coach, Jerry Bovee as deputy athletic director, Amy Crosbie as executive associate athletic director for internal affairs and Austin Albrecht as director of player development.

The DOJ determined that multiple violations of university Title IX policy occurred in the reporting of the incident, but beyond that, “Anderson’s and Acting Athletic Director Bovee’s actions (and inaction) show a gross lack of professional judgment and blatant disregard for USU’s Title IX policies and procedures, on which they were trained annually.”

Interviews and/or the solicitation of statements from witnesses to the alleged crime, made by Anderson, were concerning to the DOJ and “potentially jeopardized a criminal investigation.”

“Anderson interviewed these witnesses without having read the police report (which was not yet made available to anyone at USU) and with no independent knowledge about the alleged events,” the letter from the DOJ reads. “Furthermore, Anderson’s interviews and requests for exonerating statements may have felt coercive to the witnesses due to a power imbalance between Anderson — a prominent and powerful individual in the USU and Logan community — and the individuals he interviewed.”

The DOJ went on to say that the people Anderson interviewed were all individuals over whom Anderson had “a great deal of power and authority.” And that a lack of correction of Anderson’s actions by both Bovee and Crosbie could have harmed the alleged victim and damaged an active police investigation.

“Athletics Department leadership cannot and should not allow their coaching staff to conduct their own investigations into Sexual Misconduct,” the letter reads. “Doing so communicates to student- athletes, and the broader campus community, that athletes are subject to an alternate system of accountability that is not afforded to other members of the community and fails to adhere to the University’s own policies and procedures for complying with Title IX.”

The DOJ noted that although the Office of Equity at Utah State took immediate action to determine if the football player in question was a threat to the campus community and also sought police reports to further its own investigation into events, the OOE failed to “respond promptly, equitably and effectively to notice that Anderson may have been in contact with the alleged victim,” which the DOJ determined to be a serious misstep.

“The OOE failed to communicate promptly and directly with Anderson, other football coaching staff, and Athletics Department leadership and ask the relevant questions,” the letter reads. “This resulted in the University, for a full year, allowing a head football coach and Acting Athletic Director the latitude to make up their own rules and procedures applicable to football players who faced allegations of Sexual Misconduct. The University’s delayed response also left a team of football players with the sense that they were special, subject to a different, more favorable set of rules.”

Training incident

The other incident singled out by the DOJ occurred in fall 2023.

On Oct. 23, 2023, an OOE prevention specialist delivered a sexual misconduct training to part of the Aggies’ football team, with a football support staff present.

The next day, the specialist submitted an incident report that detailed “inappropriate, disrespectful and sexually hostile behavior exhibited by football players at that training,” per the DOJ.

According to the report, football players in attendance made light of the training and “collectively jeered, snickered, laughed and repeatedly interrupted the training with offensive sex-based commentary.”

Specifically, the incident report cited by the DOJ states that when the specialist gave examples of sexual harassment, “players joked and laughed, engaging in numerous inappropriate side conversations,” which the DOJ said showed that football players at Utah State have “normalized the treatment of women as sexual objects, the engaging in sexual contact without consent, and the idea that Title IX did not apply to them.”

In another instance, the specialist led a discussion about healthy relationships and a football player shouted “sex” as an answer for every question and/or scenario that was presented.

When the specialist later asked about healthy ways to deal with breakups, the same football player yelled out, “I just go and have sex with more women. Like so many. That is how I get over it.”

The specialist also discussed incapacitation and consent, but players made sexual jokes, per the report, which said that “The specialist then tried to emphasize that if there is any doubt about consent, players should not engage in sexual activity, to which another football player responded, ‘So we should all just be celibate. No sex for any of us during the season.’”

Utah State’s response to the incident was encouraging, the DOJ noted, as athletic director Diana Sabau — upon learning of the incident — addressed the football team and staff, stating that “this behavior was not appropriate, acceptable and not within the value system of the team.”

However, the DOJ noted that there were also some real missteps by USU, specifically:

• The OOE specialist did not “work with the Athletics Department to identify the athletes she described to hold them personally accountable for their disruptive and disrespectful conduct,” a failure to “demonstrate to the football team that displays of disrespect in sexual misconduct trainings are inappropriate and will not be tolerated,” the DOJ stated.
• Additionally, no one from athletic department leadership or any senior football coaching staff attended the training, which the DOJ said was “yet another missed chance for the Athletics Department and football program to address the hostile environment.”
• Finally, there is no evidence that the football staff member who was in attendance “was counseled about his failure to set expectations for respectful behavior from the football players in the training he oversaw,” which the DOJ saw as yet another missed opportunity by Utah State to affect change within the football program’s culture.

“Given the backdrop of years of concerns about the culture and climate within the football program that the Department has shared with the University, there were notable missteps in USU’s response to this additional evidence of a sexually hostile environment,” the letter from the DOJ reads.

The DOJ based its determination of “substantial non-compliance” by Utah State on “relevant incident reports, related OOE case files, police reports and interviews with OOE staff,” as well as the external investigative report by Husch Blackwell, which the DOJ described as “an independent, third party factual investigation and review of football program.”

Some progress

The DOJ did find that Utah State has put in work to implement its agreement with the DOJ and cited the university’s response to the Husch Blackwell report as evidence of that.

“The University terminated the employment of four Athletics Department staff who the University found to have violated USU policies related to reporting of Sexual Misconduct, and issued strong public statements emphasizing the importance of employees fulfilling their reporting responsibilities to ensure USU can address Sexual Misconduct in its community and prevent its recurrence. We also understand that, in response to a recommendation by DOJ, the University has engaged an external trainer with expertise working with student-athletes and is working on developing smaller, targeted trainings for USU student-athletes and staff,” the letter from the DOJ reads.

Still, the DOJ determined that “significant work remains to be done to address ongoing issues with USU’s response to Sexual Misconduct related to the Athletics Department, and the football program specifically,” and gave the university 45 days to “take action to correct the areas of non-compliance identified.”

Within that 45-day window, the DOJ requires that Utah State “submit in writing ... a summary of all actions taken to correct the areas of noncompliance identified, as well as any supporting documentation.”

Utah State announced six steps that it has taken in response to the letter from the DOJ:

• Updating training materials to further emphasize policy 340′s prohibition on employees conducting their own investigations of sexual misconduct.
• Developing an internal protocol to enhance the Office of Equity’s ability to identify and remedy culture and climate issues.
• Facilitating direct and prompt communications between the Office of Equity and Athletics staff.
• Engaging Athletics leadership in the development and delivery of training and customizing and tailoring training for Athletics staff and student-athletes.
• Ensuring that leaders of the football program send clear, consistent and firm messaging that sexual misconduct will not be tolerated.
• Establishing criteria and a process for determining appropriate interim measures, which is documented in an updated memorandum of understanding between the Office of Equity and Athletics. Additionally, Athletics is updating the student-athlete handbook to ensure a consistent Athletics-based response to arrests for criminal conduct.

“This is a renewed opportunity for leaders and coaches in Athletics to engage with university partners to create a respectful culture, and our staff is committed to this goal,” Sabau said in a statement. “This will benefit our entire campus, especially our student-athletes, who are already contributing positively to the Cache Valley community.”