Brandeis University announces investigation into how complaints are handled

WALTHAM, Mass. – Brandeis University has launched an independent investigation into how the school handles discrimination complaints after the men’s basketball coach was fired for allegedly making racist comments to his players.

On Monday, the university president held a town hall-style meeting to hear what students and faculty had to say about racism and discrimination on campus.

Many students who spoke to Boston 25 News said it’s been an ongoing problem for years, well before this coach was fired.

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“It’s demoralizing to some students that this is something we have to keep talking about over and over,” student Nathan Greess said.

Students are appalled over the remarks, but some aren’t surprised. Many of them told university leaders that there needs to be a better, faster way to investigate cases of discrimination.

“I would elect for there to be direct action, I think we need to stop telling people that we’re a university that commits itself to social justice, because that’s not the truth,” student Chari Calloway said.

Brandeis University President Ron Liebowitz said he’s taking student feedback very seriously.

“I think they’re right, I think the culture we’re trying to change here really stems from something that’s been here for a long time,” he said.

Liebowitz said the school has hired two external investigators to look into the process by which students made complaints about the now-fired coach and see why it took several months to discover his misconduct.

“Hopefully the goal of the outside investigation is to learn where we went wrong,” he said.

Students say they now have more questions than answers as to how the university will prevent discrimination like this in the future. Many of them said they feel this investigation won’t be enough.

“You’re just trying to fix one isolated incident and hope that nothing else comes of it and I feel that’s not really the way to go about it,” student Jayla Mobley said.

The university president said there’s no timeline on when this independent investigation will be complete, but while it’s going on the athletic director will also be on administrative leave.

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