University of Tennessee Subject of Federal Sexual Violence Investigation

By Caleb Calhoun | Jul 18, 2015

The Federal Government is investigating the University of Tennessee for its handling of sexual violence incidents that have taken place.

With at least six University of Tennessee football players allegedly involved in sexual assault incidents in the past year, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights launched an investigation into the schools handling of the incidents at the end of June, according to a report from The Tennessean.

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Tennessee is among 121 schools and 135 cases under investigation for handling of sexual violence, according to the report in the story.

"In an emailed communication to faculty, staff and students, UT Chancellor Jimmy Cheek said the university had been notified that an individual had filed a complaint with the federal government regarding the university’s response to a report of sexual violence.“While privacy laws prevent the university from disclosing the details of the complaint, I can assure you we will cooperate fully with OCR as it investigates the complaint,” his email said."

Michael Williams, A.J. Johnson, Riyahd Jones, Marlin Lane, and Von Pearson have all been involved in sexual violence cases in the past year. Williams was indicted with Johnson named as another suspect in one case, Jones and Lane were named as suspects in separate incidents but had no charges pursued in either one of them, and Pearson has been suspended indefinitely after being named as a suspect in a separate case despite no charges yet being filed.

Another football players was involved in another incident last September, but The Tennessean did not name him because he was never publicly accused, and no police report was filed.

Based on another story in the paper back in February, in that incident a woman filed a sexual assault complaint against the player to the university, and the school determined that no sexual assault had occurred after its own internal investigation. However, she did not want to report it to the police, according to the story.

This investigation is obviously very preliminary, and we are not clear of everything that is going on so it would be very irresponsible to make any comments on this. However, it is certainly not a good look right now for the football program.

We will have to wait and see what comes out of this.

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