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!

**************************************************************************

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

**************************************************************************

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.]