DOJ says Maryland college failed to protect students from swim coach’s abuse

A Justice Department investigation found that a Maryland college failed to respond properly to allegations of sexual abuse brought against the former swim and diving coach at the school.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Monday that its investigation into the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) found that its failure to address allegations of sex discrimination violated Title IX. UMBC, it said, failed to address allegations that the former head coach filmed student athletes who were showering and sexually touched male student athletes.

The DOJ said it informed UMBC of its findings in a letter on Monday, writing that the school “failed to sufficiently oversee its Athletics Department and did not devote adequate resources to its Title IX compliance efforts.”

The letter said that failure “enabled” the coach “to engage in sex-based harassment, including unwanted sexual touching of male student-athletes, as well as sex discrimination against female student-athletes, on an ongoing basis for years.” The DOJ said that UMBC was “on notice” of the allegations of sexual abuse from 2015-2020 but “failed to address it adequately.”

DOJ noted that while the head coach was placed on leave in October 2020 and died in March 2021, the investigation concluded there were “University-wide failures well beyond the conduct of this coach that left student- athletes vulnerable to ongoing sexual harassment.”

Officials also said the Athletics Department failed to report “several incidents of dating violence by male student-athletes against female teammates” between 2016 and 2020.

“UMBC takes full responsibility for the breakdown in Title IX enforcement between 2015 and 2020 that the Department of Justice investigation identified,” Kacey Hammel, chief of staff to UMBC’s president, said in a statement. “We deeply regret the pain this caused for students who were directly impacted by the misconduct. The university is working to strengthen our Title IX policies and processes, and we are committed to doing all we can to ensure the safety and well-being of all students.”

DOJ directed the school to undertake new policies as a result of the investigation, including enhancing the school’s Title IX office, expanding training to respond to allegations of sexual abuse and sex discrimination and providing more support for student-athletes.

“We will not tolerate sexual harassment and abuse of student-athletes on college campuses in our country. Too many school officials and administrators knew something for UMBC to have done nothing,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

“The Justice Department will continue to hold our nation’s colleges and universities to their promise to educate students free from sexual harassment and discrimination — our young people deserve nothing less,” she added.

—Updated at 5:32 p.m.