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Coach O calls Husch Blackwell findings 'sickening,' as F. King Alexander faces grilling over report at Oregon State

3 years 1 month 1 week ago Tuesday, March 16 2021 Mar 16, 2021 March 16, 2021 10:11 PM March 16, 2021 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - As spring football gets underway on LSU's campus, questions continue to swirl about Husch Blackwell's report into Title IX failures at LSU and how university leaders plan to address years of non-compliance and promote a safe campus.

"We're very committed to that," Ed Orgeron said Tuesday during a Zoom call with reporters. We want to be on the forefront. We want to be leaders. You know we had an interview, I told them everything that I knew."

Following the team's first practice Tuesday afternoon, Orgeron briefly touched on the 260-page report when asked by WBRZ sports director, Michael Cauble.

"You guys saw the report, I was sickening (sic) to hear some of the things that have happened," Orgeron said. "Take the accountability where we have to take the accountability and move on."

As current LSU officials promise to make systematic changes, moving on for many on and off-campus is difficult or downright impossible. The questions appear to be sticking around as demands for accountability from leaders continue, even as some of those leaders are no longer at LSU.

Former LSU president, F. King Alexander, now in the same position at Oregon State University, is set to face the university's board of trustees Wednesday afternoon to address and answer for failures during his time at LSU. The meeting, announced Monday, will include a private board discussion about the potential 'dismissal or disciplining of' Alexander.

Before Alexander faces the public and the board of trustees, he faced a grilling from faculty members for nearly ninety minutes Monday.

"Do you refute the findings of the independent investigators that the Title IX problems at LSU were fundamentally the result of a failure of leadership," the moderator of a faculty senate forum asked Alexander.

"I take accountability and ultimate responsibility for this," Alexander replied. "As president, that's what I do."

However, even as Alexander told OSU faculty that he takes 'ultimate responsibility,' he didn't take the blame for LSU's massive missteps.

"What happened is, we had an area where a couple [of] individuals did not report when they should have reported," Alexander explained.

Alexander will hear from the public and board members Wednesday, and be asked to explain 'his handling of sexual misconduct at LSU.'

Monday's virtual forum served as a potential preview for Wednesday's discussion, where Alexander appeared to stress personal responsibility in making sure Title IX processes are followed, implying leaders can only do so much.

"We can ask, and coach, and educate people on when to report, where to report, and when they have to," Alexander said. "What we can't do is make them report."

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