A Louisiana couple has accused the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL), its president, and athletic director for conducting a shoddy investigation and then making and publishing false and defamatory statements about their role in the firing of the school’s former softball coach, Mike Lotief.
Lotief reportedly disagreed with the university when he suggested that the university was violating Title IX in its treatment of his softball program.
The same day that the coach was fired in November of 2017, supporters of the program, including plaintiffs Carl and Belinda Vincent, signed their names to a letter expressing concern over the university’s handling of the situation. The letter read:
“We are a group of Ragin Cajun supporters that would like to voice our concerns over the handling of the issues with UL’s Softball program and Coach Michael Lotief. We fully support the softball program and admire the values that Coach Lotief brings to the program. To leave our coach on administrative leave and the matter unresolved for nearly three weeks is a serious problem that can have many negative consequences.
“Along with this being a black eye to our recruiting efforts, we think it is a serious problem for our student athletes, ask any softball player why they came to our university and one of the first things they will list is Coach Lotief! Has the athletic administration thought about what is going through the minds of our athletes while our program is in this state of uncertainty? Do our players feel that they have been abandoned or forgotten? Is the administration alienating our players? Will our softball players leave?
“We don’t want to judge, but if there are Title IX violations, how is it going to look if our school is penalizing our coach for voicing his objections to the problems and stating his needs? Why does softball in particular, not have an athletic trainer? Why are our facilities not maintained as well as those of other major sports (i.e. grass, cleaning of bleachers, painting, field maintenance)? Why are some of our support staff not paid for their work?
“It is an understatement to say that Coach Lotief is very passionate about the softball program. He has a nationally recognized program and to have the issues that are before him, the team and the staff, makes our university look very bad, definitely not like a Division I contender. He is respected and honored by the coaching community across the country and by his program’s supporters, US. What other mid-major softball program is most always ranked nationally on a meager budget like ours? Our family of supporters embrace our players, their families, and our coaches and strive to give all we can to help them.
“We now need support from you and our university. We the fans and supporters are hoping for a swift and amicable resolution to the issues at hand and for Coach Michael Lotief to be reinstated so that our Softball Program can continue to flourish.”
Shortly thereafter, the university allegedly released a document about its investigation in which it suggested, by name, that the Vincents were among “fans … expressing concern with Coach Mike’s behavior.” Other names in the document were redacted, according to the lawsuit. They further claim that they learned about the document after friends contacted them when their names appeared in several media reports.
The Vincents filed suit in late December, naming ULL, President Joe Savoie, and Athletic Director Bryan Maggard as well as Jessica Clark Leger, who served as interim AD between Maggard and his predecessor, Scott Farmer. The suit accuses the defendants of “publishing a false and defamatory statement” about the Vincents; failing to perform “a legitimate and complete investigation” into the complaints prior to publishing the statement; failing to call the Vincents to see if the statement was true; failing to redact the Vincents’ names as they had everyone else’s names; and making false statements attributed to the Vincents.
The Vincents are seeking to be compensated for damages they sustained from the negligence of the defendants.
The lawsuit can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://KATC.images.worldnow.com/library/58c23af5-f156-4adf-8272-7f8bc56c9ba5.pdf
