A Rutgers professor who was on the athletic director selection committee asked argumentative, pointed questions to one candidate for the job, while letting the other candidate -- the embattled Julie Hermann -- pass without inquiry.
Rutgers professor grilled potential AD on LGBT policy while letting Julie Hermann pass
Search committee member’s vetting of Wisconsin assistant AD Sean Frazier and eventual appointee Hermann further adds to questions surrounding Rutgers’ hiring process.
Associate professor Jeffrey Longhofer asked pointed, “hostile” questions of Wisconsin assistant athletic director Sean Frazier regarding the NCAA’s new guide on LGBT athletes, while Hermann was only asked if she was aware of the new NCAA guidelines, according to the New York Post’s Lenn Robbins:
According to a source, Longhofer asked Hermann one question: Was she aware of The NCAA’s guide -- to assist administrators, coaches and students to develop a more inclusive environment for LGBT-Q students -- that was released in March?
Hermann said she was familiar with the guide. Longhofer did not follow up with any additional questions, said the source.
Frazier was asked virtually the same question, said the source. Frazier also answered he was aware of the guide.
The source said Longhofer then subjected Frazier to a barrage of additional questions so hostile in nature, other committee members felt it was beyond the pale. The source said the line of questioning and Frazier’s answers reached the point of being “argumentative.”
Longhofer later penned a letter to Frazier apologizing for the questioning, after other members of the search committee informed him of their unease at the tone of the questions asked.
Questions regarding Hermann’s hiring have arisen since a Star-Ledger story last week implicated the former volleyball coach in a player abuse scandal and discrimination suit at Tennessee in the 1990s. Since then, additional allegations regarding a sexual discrimination claim filed against Louisville while Hermann was an athletics administrator have surfaced, and Rutgers has postponed planned meetings with Hermann following a visit from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany.
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