Minnesota paid nearly $300,000 in sexual harassment settlements related to Teague

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per STrib:

Two prominent women on University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler’s senior leadership team received settlements totaling nearly $300,000 in 2016 after a sexual harassment scandal that ousted former athletic director Norwood Teague, according to newly released documents.

Teague resigned from the university Aug. 6, 2015, amid reports that he had drunkenly groped and sexually harassed two women who were not publicly identified at the time. He apologized for what he called his “offensive behavior,” which included sending graphic text messages to one of the victims.

In separate agreements signed several months apart, the women waived any legal claim they might have had against the school in exchange for financial payouts ranging from $50,000 to $181,630, in addition to attorney’s fees and reimbursed health care costs. Terms of the previously undisclosed settlements were revealed in response to an information request from the Star Tribune and the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.startribune.com/u-of-m-p...r-athletic-director-norwood-teague/481160281/

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
per STrib:

Two prominent women on University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler’s senior leadership team received settlements totaling nearly $300,000 in 2016 after a sexual harassment scandal that ousted former athletic director Norwood Teague, according to newly released documents.

Teague resigned from the university Aug. 6, 2015, amid reports that he had drunkenly groped and sexually harassed two women who were not publicly identified at the time. He apologized for what he called his “offensive behavior,” which included sending graphic text messages to one of the victims.

In separate agreements signed several months apart, the women waived any legal claim they might have had against the school in exchange for financial payouts ranging from $50,000 to $181,630, in addition to attorney’s fees and reimbursed health care costs. Terms of the previously undisclosed settlements were revealed in response to an information request from the Star Tribune and the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.startribune.com/u-of-m-p...r-athletic-director-norwood-teague/481160281/

Go Gophers!!
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You would think someone would be held responsible for bringing that kind of flawed moral person into the fold. Oh wait, that only applies to those that work for him that he'd like to get rid of.
 


caliGopher said:
You would think someone would be held responsible for bringing that kind of flawed moral person into the fold. Oh wait, that only applies to those that work for him that he'd like to get rid of.
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His career ended, he resigned. .... seems like consequences.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
His career ended, he resigned. .... seems like consequences.
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Kaler lost his job for bringing in and fostering the environment Teague created, after failing to do basic checks on his behavior at previous stops?

I missed that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 



caliGopher said:
Kaler lost his job for bringing in and fostering the environment Teague created, after failing to do basic checks on his behavior at previous stops?

I missed that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Hiring an AD is surely more high profile than other hires a university president makes, but in the grand scheme of things it's actually not a very big part of their job. It seems silly to want Kaler's head over a simple AD hire. I would assume most university presidents want to be able to hire an AD and then be done with it so they can go back to the other 98% of their job.
 

50PoundHead said:
It doesn't seem like a lot of cash.
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That's what I thought too. It's almost half of what it cost to fire Claeys (less than half when you include the buyouts for his assistants), and Tracy didn't even sexually harass anyone.
 

caliGopher said:
Kaler lost his job for bringing in and fostering the environment Teague created, after failing to do basic checks on his behavior at previous stops?

I missed that.
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What behavior from previous stops would basic checks have uncovered?
 




Actually, I have a big problem with Senior Vice Presidents of any university getting settlements for sexual harassment when the university acted on it immediately. It is one thing for a lower level administrative position where there is a huge power, difference, but this was basically a Teague "death wish" and they knew they would be supported.
 

corcoran1 said:
Actually, I have a big problem with Senior Vice Presidents of any university getting settlements for sexual harassment when the university acted on it immediately. It is one thing for a lower level administrative position where there is a huge power, difference, but this was basically a Teague "death wish" and they knew they would be supported.
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Not sure what you're referring to, but neither of the women receiving the settlements was a Senior Vice President. Neither was an administrative assistant, but neither was close to Teague in stature, power, or compensation.
 

corcoran1 said:
Actually, I have a big problem with Senior Vice Presidents of any university getting settlements for sexual harassment when the university acted on it immediately. It is one thing for a lower level administrative position where there is a huge power, difference, but this was basically a Teague "death wish" and they knew they would be supported.
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So, a person's right to a safe work environment stops when they reach a certain title? That seems odd to me.
 



dpodoll68 said:
Not sure what you're referring to, but neither of the women receiving the settlements was a Senior Vice President. Neither was an administrative assistant, but neither was close to Teague in stature, power, or compensation.
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I'm not sure how someone's title or "ranking" matter in this sense. If anyone in your work place is harassing you and it reaches level where you're forced to leave, a settlement is perfectly acceptable.
 

caliGopher said:
Kaler lost his job for bringing in and fostering the environment Teague created, after failing to do basic checks on his behavior at previous stops?

I missed that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

dpodoll68 said:
What behavior from previous stops would basic checks have uncovered?
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GophersInIowa said:
Part of your job as a University President is to be able to predict the future.
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Getting sued for sexual discrimination because of dismissing a losing women's basketball coach is the same as sending lewd pictures and texts to people. C'mon people, don't you know anything?
 

caliGopher said:
Kaler lost his job for bringing in and fostering the environment Teague created, after failing to do basic checks on his behavior at previous stops?

I missed that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

You want Kaler to go because Teague?

Unless we knew Kaler knew about it and ignored it. I don't see a problem.
 


WarriorGopher said:
I'm not sure how someone's title or "ranking" matter in this sense. If anyone in your work place is harassing you and it reaches level where you're forced to leave, a settlement is perfectly acceptable.
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Agreed - it's a faulty premise. I was just pointing out that the basis for the premise (individuals relatively close in status) isn't even true in this instance.
 

die hard gopher said:
All predictions are based off of prior events. What events would have given Kaler reason to predict Teague would do this?
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I was kinda being sarcastic. It's impossible to know what will happen in the future with 100% certainty. Kaler can only make his decisions on what he knows at that time. For all we know Teague didn't start doing these things until he came to MN.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I was kinda being sarcastic. It's impossible to know what will happen in the future with 100% certainty. Kaler can only make his decisions on what he knows at that time. For all we know Teague didn't start doing these things until he came to MN.
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IIRC, I think there were some later articles that indicated there were other settlements, but they only came to light later and it wasn't clear that even Sherlock Holmes could have found them as they were entirely off the record type situations.

There have been legit issues with the U's ability to discover rotten high level folks before they hire them (there was a POS IT guy) who had issues. But MEGA TOUNGE didn't have anything out there on him that anyone could have been expected to find IIRC.

If anything it was good MEGA TOUNGE stepped down immediately. It really resolved a lot of things, made the U look swift and no long drawn out PR issues. If anything he did that right and saved the U a lot of time.

Bad administrator, $300k, over quick... that's a good deal all things considered!
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
IIRC, I think there were some later articles that indicated there were other settlements, but they only came to light later and it wasn't clear that even Sherlock Holmes could have found them as they were entirely off the record type situations.

There have been legit issues with the U's ability to discover rotten high level folks before they hire them (there was a POS IT guy) who had issues. But MEGA TOUNGE didn't have anything out there on him that anyone could have been expected to find IIRC.

If anything it was good MEGA TOUNGE stepped down immediately. It really resolved a lot of things, made the U look swift and no long drawn out PR issues. If anything he did that right and saved the U a lot of time.

Bad administrator, $300k, over quick... that's a good deal all things considered!
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Thanks. I don't remember a lot about it to be honest.
 

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