By David Gordon, associate editor
The external review of the UW-Eau Claire Athletics Department, which began in the wake of last fall’s racist Snapchat posts involving five Blugold football players, is on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, UW-EC Chancellor Jim Schmidt told the CVPost on Wednesday.
The review can’t be completed until COVID safety rules allow at least a dozen focus group sessions to take place, Schmidt said in an email.
“The consultants were able to complete (the) quantitative portion of their research, but COVID-19 and the subsequent closure of the campus has delayed the significant qualitative portion that relies on more than a dozen focus group sessions,” Schmidt wrote.
Also this week, investigative reporting by staff members of UW-EC’s student newspaper revealed that the five players, who were suspended from the team last fall, were quietly reinstated after an appeals panel found they had not violated any of the 19 types of non-academic misconduct prohibited by UW-System.
And on Thursday, the members of an Equity, Diversity & Inclusion task force appointed by Schmidt strongly criticized both the reinstatement and the administration’s lack of transparency in the matter.
To read more, and to access a link to The Spectator’s story on this, click on the headline.