Round Two? Rutgers Bullying Controversy Continues, New AD Hired . Hollis of Patricia Berkly LLC Comments

Online, May 27, 2013 (Newswire.com) - As a Rutgers Alum, I played volleyball "on the banks," spent close to ten years in athletics administration, served as an NCAA Peer Reviewer, and understand the culture of athletics first hand. In addition, as a scholar, researcher and trainer on healthy workplace issues, I also understand how Rutgers continues to be caught in the spiraling culture of bullying and abuse as they hire their first woman athletic director in Julie Hermann. The celebration for Title XI advocates would be pleased with the ascension of a woman to a major division IA athletic program which is entering the Big Ten. The dark side of this story, according to FORBES, the firestorm picks up again as 15 of Hermann's former volleyball players from the 1996 squad at the University of Tennessee write to the Star Ledger claiming that "Hermann called them whores, alcoholics and learning disabled..."

How can Rutgers or ANY organization, athletics or not, avoid bullying and abuse?

Leadership needs to be committed to truly vetting out candidates before they are hired. Many organizations have probation periods for new hires to evaluate new employees' performance. Once in place, employees should be ushered in to a healthy complement of anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies which will govern the organization, despite the fact that workplace bullying is STILL legal in all 50 states. Then, organizations need to FOLLOW their own policies for people from the custodial staff, all the way through the executive offices. After publishing Bully in the Ivory Tower, I can't reiterate enough, all of this must be supported openly and completely by executive leadership.

Perhaps the reports against Hermann are inconsequential, over embellished, or outdated. Yet, imagine what would motivate a squad of women who played together 17 years ago to mobilize so quickly to craft a letter which they all signed and sent to the Star Ledger? It is not like they all live across the quad from each other and met up at the student center to do this. But also, image the business acumen of a woman administrator who has climbed the ranks in some of the top programs in the country. Neither is a coincidence or happenstance. What IS clear, is that Mike Rice, former Rutgers Men's Basketball Coach was not an anomaly. What is clear, either from research or this most recent report, men and women both engage in extreme incivility. And what is clear, this behavior will continue in athletics, or any work place, as long as there is a delay in implementing healthy workplace legislation which protects those once they leave the student status of the K-12 ranks, and also protects those who intervene to report the problem regardless of the venue.