Northwestern president Michael Schill continues governing his university via blog post, on Tuesday by addressing his constituents for the first time since announcing Pat Fitzgerald's July 10 firing through his blog.
In that time, Northwestern also fired head baseball coach Jim Foster for allegedly bullying his players and assistant coaches, and so Schill wrote Tuesday to announce two concurrent investigations. One will examine the checks-and-balances to determine threats to student-athlete well-being within the university, and the other will focus on the culture within Northwestern athletics "and its relationship to the academic mission."
Both investigations will be conducted by a third party and, unlike the investigation that ultimately ended Fitzgerald's tenure, both will be made public.
In my view, which I know many of you share, we must ensure that we have in place appropriate accountability for the athletic department. We will implement the Faculty Senate’s prior request that we engage an outside firm to evaluate the sufficiency of our accountability mechanism including the Committee on Athletics and Recreation and our ability to detect threats to the welfare of student-athletes. I also believe it is important to examine closely the culture of Northwestern Athletics and its relationship to the academic mission. Both of these reviews will be conducted with feedback and engagement of faculty, staff and students, and both will be made publicly available.
And in perhaps the least sincere sentence ever written in the English language, Schill closed his letter to Northwestern faculty and staff like this:
I hope your summer is providing you with time for rest and reflection.
Elsewhere, two separate lawsuits have been filed by ex-Wildcats as they attempt to take their grievances against their former football program and university to the legal system.
About a dozen ex-players have hired noted civil rights attorney Ben Crump and his Chicago-based firm for what they say is "a vast array of incidents of abuse" within the program.
"For many of the players, their exposure to this abusive culture began when they were being recruited at ages 16 or 17. They were just kids at that time," Margaret Battersby Black, a managing partner at Levin & Perconti, said in a statement. "The school and its football coaches induced the parents to send their children to Northwestern because they were falsely assured the university and the coaching staff would look out for them and protect them. Unfortunately, that was not the case."
Levin & Perconti says it expects more ex-Wildcats to join the suit, and for the suit's purview to grow beyond Northwestern.
Additionally, a player who played for the Wildcats from 2018-22 anonymously filed a separate lawsuit naming Fitzgerald, Schill, AD Derrick Gragg, former Northwestern president Morton Schapiro, the Northwestern board of trustees, and the university itself as defendants.
That suit's lawyers, Patrick Salvi and Parker Stinar, also expect more ex-Wildcats, stretching beyond just football, to join as plaintiffs. Jim Phillips, the former Northwestern AD and now the ACC commissioner, could also be added as a defendant.
Of course, Fitzgerald could quite possibly bring his own lawsuit against his alma mater and former employer in time. His slap-on-the-wrist suspension to termination left a reported $40+ million on his contract.
As it relates to the 2023 Northwestern football team, freshman linebacker Nigel Glover entered the transfer portal on Monday. A 6-foot-3, 210-pound linebacker out of Clayton, Ohio, Glover was the highest-rated member of Northwestern's 2023 recruiting class. Glover was also an early enrollee.
First-year defensive coordinator David Braun was appointed Northwestern's interim head coach on Thursday.