The University of Florida’s student paper The Alligator recently published a story about “an undefined number” of female students who claim they were sexually harassed by men’s basketball coach Todd Golden. A Title IX investigation has been underway for months, according to the paper. Golden issued a statement denying the charges and threatened a defamation lawsuit. But the salacious details have gone viral and the reputational damage to the school, the team, the coach and his family grows by the hour.
I have no role in this case and know none of the parties – all I know is what I read in The Alligator. I do have plenty of experience with clients (respondents and claimants) who have been the subject of damaging articles in student newspapers. A few things in this story jumped out at me:
First, Title IX investigations are supposed to be confidential. In this case, someone gave a copy of the complaint to the student newspaper, a violation of Title IX policy. I don’t know what the motive was behind the leak. Perhaps the source was frustrated with the pace of the investigation. These cases are often complex and can drag on for months, even years, taxing everyone involved. It could also have been a plaintiff’s lawyer hoping to pressure the University into a quick financial settlement. I do not know. Nor am I trying to diminish the allegations—which are serious, but as yet unproven.
Second, some of the allegations against Golden appear to be criminal, which could mean the Gainesville police and the State Attorney’s Office would also be involved. College reporters and editors sometimes lack the insight, experience and/or guidance needed to report a complex story thoroughly. There is no indication that the reporter checked to see if a police report had been filed, or if a criminal investigation is underway.
I assume The Alligator had legal counsel review the story before it was published, and I would guess that the paper gave Golden every opportunity to respond to the allegations. It should be made clear that as the subject of a Title IX investigation, the coach is limited by law and school policy regarding what he can say. Libel law is straightforward. Anyone filing suit must first ask for a correction. Threatening to sue for defamation without pointing out falsehoods in the story rings hollow. Threats are like missed free throws. They do nothing. Conversely, the complainants could also file a civil complaint protesting the release of the report.
Many of the accusations leveled against Golden involve activity on social media, an arena riddled with impostors and disinformation. Virtually everyone who uses Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X or any other social media platform receives unsolicited friend requests and sees deep fake posts from fictitious accounts. Many times, users looking to become influencers click on these invitations to build their networks. College athletes who earn money from Name Image and Likeness (NIL) revenue, for example, are particularly soft targets because they have an economic incentive to build followers. (Look at the two women basketball players at U Miami who have over one million Tik Tok followers.) Exposure translates into endorsements and that means money. I looked at Golden’s Instagram page. He has 6,100 followers, an anemic number for a Division One coach. Compared to John Calipari at Arkansas, who has 400,000 followers, or Jon Scheyer at Duke, with 90,000, Coach Golden doesn’t make it off the bench.
I am struggling to imagine a Division One basketball coach in a highly competitive market like the SEC having enough time in the day to monitor social media. Building a social media base is a full-time job. Did Golden hire a third party to manage and develop his account? I wonder if The Alligator reporters thought to ask.
One more consideration: It is commonplace for anonymous third parties to spoof phone numbers, hijack someone’s online identity or post defamatory information under a pseudonym. Recently, thousands of students at historic black colleges in the U.S. received hate-filled texts from a spoofed phone number after the presidential election. This is only going to get worse. Social media companies have eliminated many safety features designed to prevent online abuses. The Alligator used a software tracker called Snoopreport, which they claim showed the basketball coach’s activity on Instagram. Is that sufficient in the age of deep fakes and AI? Does a student paper have the skill set needed to validate content? The folks at Meta have designed programs that remove geo-tags in photographs uploaded to their platforms. I know cyber experts who have been unable to trace digital evidence posted on social media because it has been wiped clean of all identifiers.
The case at Florida is still in the first quarter. As the facts emerge, we will hopefully get a better picture of what happened. Whether Coach Golden survives is still up in the air.
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