The University of Maryland at Baltimore County (UMBC) has agreed to pay up to $4.14 million as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) after a federal investigation found it failed to protect student-athletes from sexual harassment by a former swim coach.
Under the terms of the settlement, UMBC must also make numerous changes, including significantly improving its process for responding to complaints of sex discrimination, providing additional resources and staffing for its Title IX compliance program, and administering surveys to student-athletes regarding their experiences with sex discrimination, according to an April 3 press release from the DOJ.
The university must provide students who have experienced sexual assault with a full-time support person. It should also deliver training to student-athletes and athletics department employees on topics such as healthy relationships, intimate partner violence, and power dynamics within the coach-athlete relationship.
The DOJ noted it will monitor to ensure UMBC’s compliance and implementation of the agreement, which will remain in place through the 2028-2029 academic year.
Female Students ‘Subjected to Degrading Comments’
Among other things, the department’s investigation found that Mr. Cradock had “filmed students while showering and sexually touched male student-athletes on the pool deck, in the locker room, and in the bathroom of the university’s aquatic center.”
Some female students on the swimming and diving team were also subjected to dating violence and degrading comments about their bodies which the school’s athletics department failed to report, according to the DOJ.
Mr.Cradock also allegedly asked female student-athletes invasive questions about their sexual relationships.
According to the DOJ, the school also failed to do enough to respond to allegations of sex discrimination, and these failures allowed Mr. Cradock to “exploit his power over student-athletes, prey on student-athletes vulnerabilities and engage in egregious and ongoing abuse spanning many years.”
Settlement Sends ‘Resounding Message to Our Nation’s Colleges’
“The young student-athletes at UMBC experienced a double betrayal: their coach’s prolonged abuse compounded by their university’s utter failure to acknowledge, respond to or remedy this egregious conduct. UMBC has now taken full responsibility for its failures and has expressed its commitment to addressing them and rebuilding the trust of its community,” Ms. Clarke said.The assistant attorney general noted that the DOJ also recognizes the “brave and resilient student-athletes who came forward and continue to come forward to share their stories with us.”
“This settlement should send a resounding message to our nation’s colleges and universities: sexual assaults and harassment of students will not be tolerated,” Ms. Clarke concluded.
“In the agreement, the DOJ acknowledges the significant steps the university has taken recently to help prevent and strengthen our response to sex discrimination and sexual misconduct,” she said.
“Those efforts have enhanced our Title IX reporting structures and procedures, expanded training and prevention initiatives, and provided additional support and resources to students and employees. The work is ongoing, and it has included the following improvements since my tenure began in 2022,” Ms. Ashby wrote.
“We cannot take away the suffering and trauma that many of our students endured in those years, nor can we undo the actions or inactions of the past. We can control how we respond to that painful past and how we ensure that this never happens again. Our resolve and resilience are our strengths, and my confidence in the UMBC community has never been greater,” UMBC’s president concluded.
