Win one for Kori
Todd David Whitmore
The Common Good
The Observer has reported the story that the University expelled former running back Cooper Rego for sexually assaulting — raping — then-Notre Dame student Kori Pienovi.
Mr. Rego was permanently barred from campus. He transferred to West Virginia to play and its football team is visiting Notre Dame this weekend.
Ms. Pienovi reported these latter facts to administrators at Notre Dame, but as of this writing they have yet to report back to her with any concrete information on actions they will take.
The University is not disputing the facts of the disciplinary case or its promise to bar Mr. Rego from return.
My sense is that Notre Dame administrators are doing all that they feel they can do within the parameters of what they feel is possible.
The wall of silence is likely out of concern for liability given that student hearings are supposed to be confidential. There are conflicting rights here: Mr. Rego's right to confidentiality versus Ms. Pienovi's right to know and be protected.
The administration may also be publicly silent because it may not know itself what it is going to do. There have been unanticipated issues.
One administrator commented, "As an individual, security would ask them to leave ... as a group, that is something different, something we haven't been confronted with."
My sense is that the individual or group distinction does not hold up. If there is a legal restraining order on a person keeping him from returning to an establishment where he has acted violently, the law would uphold the order even if the person sought to return as part of a bowling team to bowl at the establishment's lanes.
The difficult issue is the relationship between University policy on the one hand, and criminal and civil law on the other.
The problem is whether the findings of private University hearings will hold up when challenged by a civil suit.
This is the administration's conundrum: if quiet diplomacy with West Virginia fails, does the University have Mr. Rego forcibly removed?
My sense is that the University feels morally compelled but legally constrained, again, by the parameters of what it feels is possible.
There are possibilities that the University may not have considered or has yet to announce.
The first is simply to take the legal risk. There are abundant statements in administration documents about acting on a higher moral plane.
Taking a legal risk for Ms. Pienovi is one way it can do so. Legal risks have been taken before by the administration on behalf of the football team in the form of fighting an age-discrimination suit. Notre Dame lost.
It may be wary. But a higher moral calling may make such a risk this time warranted even if it might eventuate that Notre Dame loses in court. Moral integrity even in legal loss.
A second option is, if the University backs off legal measures, for it to issue an official — that is, public — protest.
To do so does not require divulgence of the content of the disciplinary hearing, only of the decision to expel Mr. Rego.
A third option, however unlikely, is for Notre Dame to forfeit the game. This is a stronger version of the public protest. To be sure, there would be lost revenues.
Any policy decision has its cost-benefit analysis component. Is Notre Dame willing to lose financially in order to stay true to its promise to keep Mr. Rego — who the University agreed assaulted Ms. Pienovi — off campus?
Moral integrity even in financial loss. It might be countered that forfeiting would not be fair to the Notre Dame players, but I disagree.
The University often says that playing football here is about more than winning games and pro football careers (and there are 10 other scheduled games for players to display their abilities).
I have also been informed by women at Notre Dame that the football team has a reputation for date rape. Such a reputation is unfair to those players who are upstanding individuals.
For the University to forfeit the game and for the players to support the decision would indicate in no uncertain terms that this is a team that does not tolerate sexual assault. Moral integrity even in athletic loss.
If the University does not forfeit, there is still something that the team can do. Players frequently play games for individuals who have been victims of unfortunate circumstance both near and far, whether it is a brother who is struggling against leukemia or a stranger who died in the World Trade Center.
The players often make public the fact that they are playing for the person in question, say, by writing her name on their shoes.
Notre Dame football players can do the same here: win one this time not for the Gipper, but — and let it be known — for Kori.
Todd David Whitmore is an associate professor of theology and the director of the program in Catholic social tradition. His column appears every other Thursday. He can be reached at whitmore.1@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, October 11, 2001
