Florida’s entry into the Title IX sweepstakes

I’ll just leave you with this:

A woman who accused Florida football players Antonio Callaway and Treon Harris of sexually assaulting her in December is boycotting a Title IX hearing because the university appointed a Gators football booster to adjudicate the case…

Florida officials appointed attorney Jake Schickel to serve as a hearing officer. Schickel, a founding partner of a Jacksonville, Florida law firm, has a bachelor’s degree in political science and law degree from Florida. He is also a past trustee of Florida’s Levin College of Law.

A former track and field athlete at Florida, Schickel is a Scholarship Club donor to Florida Football Boosters, which requires annual contributions of $4,800 to $8,599, according to a 2014-15 “Year In Review” program published by the UF athletics department. According to the documents, Schickel is also a 3-Point Club donor to Florida basketball, which requires annual contributions of $2,000 to $4,999.

“To be clear, this letter is not intended to cast any aspersions about Mr. Schickel’s character or his service to his alma mater,” Clune wrote in an Aug. 2 letter to Hass. “However, UF should never have asked him to serve as an objective reviewer and decision-maker on this matter when the claim has been brought against a star member of the very team for which both he and his law partners have provided considerable financial support.

“:Quite frankly, short of finding a relative of Mr. Calloway, I’m not sure how UF could have found someone with more conflicts [than] Mr. Schickel.”

I’m sure he’ll be fair and impartial.  Go Gata!

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UPDATE:  Huntley Johnson will not let this aggression stand, man.

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UPDATE #2:  Believe it or not, this apparently is the school’s official response:

The University of Florida is prohibited to comment on the existence or substance of student disciplinary matters under state and federal law.

However, I can tell you that our student conduct process may be handled by a hearing officer, who could be a university employee or an outside professional, or by a committee of faculty and students.

Any hearing officer and all committee members are trained and vetted for their impartiality. A hearing officer or committee member would not be disqualified or lack objectivity simply because he or she had been a student athlete decades earlier or purchases athletic tickets as more than 90,000 people do each year.  [Emphasis added.]

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“… and he’s hiding behind some fine print…”

Barrett Sallee thinks there’s a simple explanation for why Nick Saban is stonewalling Maurice Smith.  He’s skeered.

The threat of Georgia becoming a power is the underlying theme in the ongoing Smith saga.

After I stopped chuckling, I was gonna respond, but instead I think I’ll outsource the retort to Finebaum, of all people.

The more the media keeps this up, the harder it’s going to be for Saban to stonewall.

“You want me to do a (Bill) Belichick on you.”

Methinks the Coke bottle is getting a wee bit testy.