Accuser Boycotts After U. Florida Appoints Booster To Oversee Title IX Hearing For Football Player

A former University of Florida student who accused two members of the school’s football team of sexually assaulting her will not be attending the Title IX hearing for at least one of her alleged assailants.

Antonio Callaway and Treon Harris were accused of sexual assault in December and the University appointed, Jake Schickel, a booster for both the Gators’ football and basketball teams, to oversee Callaway’s TItle IX hearing taking place Friday.

Accuser Boycotts After U. Florida Appoints Booster

ESPN has obtained a letter from the woman’s attorney, John Clune of Boulder, Colorado, stating that his client, her parents and five witnesses will not be attending the hearing due to a “biased university process.”

The letter was addressed to UF’s deputy general counsel, Amy Haas.

“This has been a difficult decision but as I previously indicated to you, the fact that UF has hired a football booster to adjudicate a sexual assault allegation against one of the team’s own football players is a fundamentally skewed process in which [the complainant] refuses to participate,” Clune wrote to Haas Friday Morning.

Callaway and Harris were both suspended from the team in January for violating the school’s code of conduct policy. They were barred from campus last spring, but were permitted to take online classes while absent.

The woman reported the incident to the University’s student conduct and conflict resolution office in early December, according to the worldwide leader, but did not file a report with Gainesville Police or Campus Police.

“To be clear,” Clune’s letter to Haas continued. “(The complainant) remains very willing to participate in a fair and unbiased disciplinary process. Mr. Calloway’s behavior has had a great impact on her life and continuing as a student at UF is of great importance to her and her future.”

The Department of Education permits institutions to set up their own process for hearing Title IX within certain guidelines and standards. The agency stipulates that anyone involved in the adjudication of a TItle IX grievance be trained in handling complaints of sexual violence and sexual harassment and that he or she be unbiased.

Schickel, 68, is a former Track and Field Athlete at Florida, and a founding partner of a Jacksonville law firm.

The University appointed Schickel as hearing officer after serving as a past trustee to UF’s Levin College Of Law. He is also a donor to the Florida Football Boosters Scholarship Club, for which to be a member, one must donate from $4,800 to $8,599 annually, according to the Florida Athletic Department’s Year in Review 2014-2015.

Schickel is also a 3-Point Club Donor to the Gators basketball program, requiring annual contributions from $2,000 to $4,999.

Florida issued a statement on the hearing Thursday, through media relations vice president Janine Sikes.

“Any hearing officer and all committee members are trained and vetted for their impartiality,” Sikes’ statement said. “A hearing officer or committee member would not be disqualified or lack objectivity simply because he or she had been a student athlete decades earlier or purchases athletic tickets as more than 90,000 people do each year.”

Clune never spoke publicly of Schickel’s apparent athletic exploits.

He did, however, make his point abundantly clear to Haas in his letter.

“Quite frankly, short of finding a relative of Mr. Callaway, I’m not sure how UF could have found someone with more conflicts (than) Mr. Schickel.”

Article by Kevin Xavier