Coach Fader’s Interview with WISC-TV (Channel 3000)

Update: Video interview embedded immediately below.

On Monday night, WISC-TV Madison broadcast an interview with UW-Whitewater’s former wresting coach, Tim Fader. Coach Fader was dismissed from his position in June 2014, two months after he reported an alleged sexual assault to the Whitewater Police Department. A story based on the broadcast interview is now online. See, Former UW-Whitewater wrestling coach seeks to clear name.

The interview provides significant new information about UW-Whitewater’s actions in Coach Fader’s dismissal, and more broadly the university’s evident misunderstanding of the difference between actual reporting and mere formalism.

Here’s the reported account of Fader’s actions:

But on Good Friday, April 18, he [Fader] said he received a phone call from the mother of a student he knew on campus. His reaction, he believes, cost him his job and has harmed his chances to continue his career.

“She was very emotional and she said, ‘You know that recruit you had here yesterday. (He) sexually assaulted my daughter,'” Fader said. “I called the police and said, ‘I’m Tim Fader. I’m the wrestling coach. I have a sexual assault allegation. What do I do?'”

Fader said the Whitewater police officer he spoke to suggested he get the recruit to the station for questioning. Fader did that, sending the recruit with an assistant coach to meet with detectives.

A spokesman for the Whitewater Police Department said officers are meeting with the Walworth County District Attorney’s Office this week to determine if charges will be filed. Whitewater police would not discuss how the department learned about the alleged incident, stating it remained an open investigation.

Fader believed that by reporting as he did, the Whitewater Police Department would notify the university, as it had in past incidents.

The interview also includes key information elicited from university officials Sara Kuhl and Mary Beth Mackin.

Of the April incident reported to the city’s police department, Dean of Students Mackin states that the “university responded appropriately in accordance with its obligations under Title IX and its own institutional policies and practices.”

It’s an empty response, three times over.

First, it was Fader, not the university, not an institution, that initially responded.

Second, an appropriate response would not have been to create the impression of punishing direct, initial communication to the police, as that is the very opposite of the goals of Title IX reporting. (It’s the opposite of any climate that correctly supports reporting and open discussion). Mackin obtusely conflates actual conduct with mere formalism, and rests on the latter rather than the former.

Third, if the university had wanted a more canned reply, it could not have picked a better one than Mackin’s defensive, organizational one; it’s as though she thumbed through a phrase book for institutional defenders and found something especially lifeless (‘Defenses, company men and women, Page 6…’).

The WISC-TV story also relates that UW-Whitewater press spokeswoman Sarah Kuhl “denied an open records request asking for documents related to the Title IX investigation into the alleged incident in April because she said its attorneys and the federal government advised the school to do so.”

Included is the reasoning behind the denial:

“Given that your request seeks information that has been or is likely to be requested by OCR as part of the investigation, the university believes that the release of information could compromise the integrity of the investigation, including the university’s ability to adequately represent its interests,” Kuhl said the records request response.

A refusal to release information now is temporary only, as Kuhl (or others) must know. Here’s why. A federal investigation may resolve administratively and if so records will be available via subsequent state and federal records requests to UW-W and the Department of Education, respectively. Alternatively, UW-Whitewater may also find itself in litigation with the 2-14-14 claimant or others in a necessarily public forum.

Either way, information about these matters will become public. There’s no avoiding a public airing – nor should there be such avoidance.

There’s no way to know, of course, whether Kuhl’s concern about protecting the university’s position is boilerplate or also an implicit admission of a true vulnerability concerning the claimant’s case from which the ongoing federal investigation derives.

One can be sure, however, that Chancellor Telfer was quick to issue a statement in May protecting his position in all this, but made no mention of Coach Fader’s actions. It was, after all, Fader and not Telfer who took practical action here.

Now that there’s investigative press coverage, Chancellor Telfer’s nowhere to be found, leaving the talking to a spokeswoman and subordinate.

And that, to be sure, is neither a positive climate nor even personal leadership at UW-Whitewater.

For prior posts about this matter, please see:

Questions on Assault Reporting, Formality, and Former UW-Whitewater Wresting Coach Fader

Assault Reporting, Formality, and Former UW-Whitewater Wresting Coach Fader

Caution on Publishing About Criminal Investigations