Report Backs Claim of Racism in CSUN Athletics : Findings: Cleary says university task force ‘missed the mark on several points,’ but he vows to implement suggestions.

The Cal State Northridge athletic program is filled with subtle and often not-so-subtle forms of racism, including an absence of black head coaches and a graduation rate of less than 10% for black student-athletes, according to a report released Friday by a university task force.

The 68-page report was presented by the committee to university President James W. Cleary on May 8 but not made public for another week. The task force was formed March 23, less than two weeks after a rally on the campus by the Black Student Union during which BSU leaders called for the resignation of Athletic Director Bob Hiegert and accused the athletic department of racism.

The call for Hiegert’s dismissal was later rescinded by the BSU and was not addressed in the report. However, Hiegert still called the report flawed, citing numerous inaccuracies.

BSU President Karen Brannon, who made the charges of racism and led the drive to investigate the allegations, canceled an appointment Friday with Cleary to discuss the report and could not be reached for comment. School officials said Brannon told them she would pick up the report Monday.

Cleary, who announced his resignation earlier this year and will step down June 30 after a 23-year tenure, said the university will try to implement any of the suggestions contained in the non-binding report that are deemed worthy by school officials.

“The issues raised are very hot issues on the national scene today,” Cleary said. “The disposition of the report will be important. I hope the BSU will be satisfied with the report, but I also know they won’t be satisfied until we see some of these suggestions implemented.

“I congratulate the committee on its thoroughness, yet I believe they missed the mark on several points.”

Cleary said the committee failed to see the benefits that athletics provide to the educational process.

“They forgot that athletics are the only means for some to get to a higher educational experience,” he said.

Regarding the criticism of Hiegert, Cleary said the report, although harsh on the athletic director, did not accuse him of any form of racism in overseeing the school’s 350 athletes.

“The report tells me, as I already knew, that there are no racial motives in Bob Hiegert.”

Among the BSU’s strongest allegations was the charge that the athletic department provided inadequate academic advising for black athletes. That, the BSU said, is a key reason for the dismal graduation rate for black student-athletes.

In its report, the committee, composed of four faculty members, a member of the women’s basketball team and a community representative, agreed with all of the BSU’s claims and offered potential solutions to some of the problems.

“It is clear that the CSUN African-American athletes are hurting and have needs that need attention,” the report stated.

Among the most damning information claimed by the committee--and most heatedly denied by Cleary, Hiegert and football Coach Bob Burt--was an allegation that the black and white members of the school’s football team travel--by their own choice--on separate buses.

“The fact of a ‘white bus’ and an ‘African-American’ bus on football trips, though the result of student choice, is nevertheless a statement . . . “ the committee wrote. “How can a winning team be developed when any segment of the team has a paramount thought of racial divisions among team members?”

Burt adamantly denied that such a situation exists.

“That is an absolute fabrication and it’s totally inaccurate,” said Burt, who has coached the team for six years. “The buses are completely and totally mixed. I have never had a single player raise the issue with me, and the committee, in a 2 1/2-hour interview with me, never raised the issue. I don’t know who they asked about this, but the one they should have asked, they didn’t.”

Hiegert, who routinely travels with the football team, also called the claim, and its inclusion in the report, an error.

“I never heard of such a thing and certainly never saw such a thing,” Hiegert said. “The offensive players get on one bus and the defensive players on the other, usually.

“To cite such a rumor of black and white buses as fact is just one example of the flawed nature of the report.”

The committee saved its harshest words for the school’s alleged lack of concern for the academic progress of its student-athletes, making it clear in the report that student-athletes of all races suffer in this area.

“There are serious problems with the academic advising of student-athletes at CSUN,” the report stated. “That problem is an apparent lack of interest in the education of athletes in the athletic department and the university as a whole.”

As an example, the report cited the formation in September of a group of volunteer advisers from the faculty to work exclusively with the student-athletes. The group, however, didn’t hold its first meeting until April, two weeks after the BSU rally and the charges of racism.

In addition, the report stated that student-athletes at Northridge have still not been given the names of those volunteer advisers. Most athletes, in fact, do not know such a group exists, according to the report.

“The group was not formed in September,” Hiegert said. “That was when we started discussing such a group. In December it started coming together. After that it took long weeks of determining who should be on the group, what areas we needed advisers and what areas we did not. And the first meeting in April was scheduled long before the protest rally.”

The report advocates the immediate hiring of a full-time black academic adviser to deal exclusively with the school’s student-athletes. That, said Cleary, is one of the top priorities for the school.

The committee said it found numerous examples of student-athletes making little or no progress toward a degree, completing courses almost at random without any plan for completing required courses in a particular field.

The report further said, “It may be that coaches advise student-athletes to take courses thought by the coach to be easy, guaranteed to keep the athletes with a grade-point average that will allow them to retain their (athletic) eligibility.”

Because of those problems, according to the report, only 9.2% of black student-athletes graduate from the school. More than 33% of white student-athletes receive degrees at the school.

“No one is happy with the graduation rate, for black student-athletes or all student-athletes or the student population in general,” Hiegert said. “We want to improve in that area. We are trying.”

Also criticized was the university’s failure to hire full-time black coaches and athletic department officials.

Included in the report was a charge that Hiegert ignored federal affirmative action hiring polices by elevating acting women’s basketball Coach Kim Chandler to full-time head coach, replacing the departed Janet Martin, without any notice of such a job opening or an affirmative action search for a minority candidate.

Hiegert said the committee erred in that portion of its report. The hiring of Chandler, he said Friday, was on an interim basis and allowed by NCAA rules because Martin’s sudden departure created an “emergency situation.”

“Kimberly Chandler will coach the team through next season, and then the job will be officially opened for all candidates,” Hiegert said. “She can apply for the permanent position at that time, along with anyone else.”

Hiegert has not, the report stated, hired a single full-time black head coach for any sport at the school during his 14 years as athletic director, with only two part-time, paid black assistant coaches in the entire program. Both work with the track and field team.

“That section of the report needs much explanation,” Hiegert said. “The Afro-American hiring problem is not unique to the athletic department or the university. The pool of available black candidates is simply much smaller than the pool of available white candidates. We take the person who can come in here and do the job. That’s our concern.”

The committee recommended the immediate hiring of a black head coach and a legitimate search for qualified black candidates for all coaching and athletic department jobs.

Financially, black student-athletes suffer too. But the report--which did not focus all of its investigation on that group of people--also stated that all student-athletes suffer financially.

Only partial scholarships are available through the athletic program, leaving the athletes to produce part of the approximately $6,000-per-year fees for tuition, room and board and books through their own means or through grants and loans.

The committee cited examples of student-athletes being forced to consume only bagels and glasses of water for dinner on a regular basis.

An unidentified coach is quoted as telling one of his hungry players to go to the student union building and “they may have some leftover pizza or something that they’ll let you have.”

There is, the report said, an obvious need for a school-subsidized meal plan for athletes, many of whom cannot take part-time jobs because of the demands of their athletic careers.

The committee also said it spoke extensively with former Northridge coaches and players and listed in the final pages of its report excerpts from those conversations. In them, the former coaches and players said racism was rampant at the university.

Talking about a senior official in the athletic department, a former player said that while the official claimed to have an “open door” to his office to field complaints, the athletes referred to it as a “trap door, and once inside, your legs or head would get chopped off.”

Hiegert, who indicated he was the person involved in that allegation, bristled.

“It saddens me to think anyone here believes they can’t come and talk to me,” he said. “I try to encourage as much feedback as possible from the athletes. I have always done that.”

Also, several former players claimed a coach (not identified by the committee) had told a black player that “either you play better or go back home and pick watermelons.”

A team meeting was later called by the players, they claimed, and the coach apologized for the comment. The allegation was not substantiated in the report.

Committee members are Bridgette Ealy, a member of the women’s basketball team; Penelope Mercurio, professor of business law; Webster Moore, adviser to the BSU; Tommie White, professor of kinesiology; Kayte Fearn, professor of education, and Mel Wilson, a former CSUN football player and now a local businessman.