The question involving the propriety of the termination of Coach Fitzgerald by University of Northwestern President Michael Schill is being hotly debated all over the Worldwide Internetz, including this site. That issue is not what this post is about. Rather, the question for debate herein is whether the ultimate responsibility for the alleged student and staff misconduct has further to travel up the hierarchical ladder?

I raise this question because President Schill publicly stated that, in rendering his original decision to suspend the coach, he had focused "too much on what the report concluded he (Coach Fitzgerald) didn’t know and not enough on what he should have known.” Now this statement, in conjunction with a number of recent high profile employment actions in the wake of various scandals occurring at numerous institutions of higher learning, apparently presents a conflict.

Stated another way, if Coach Fitzgerald is to be faulted and held responsible for failing to know about misconduct by his staff and student athletes, cannot the same be said for those above him?

This question presented itself to me because my rickety old man memory, while hazy and imprecise, has not completely abandoned me. I vaguely recalled embattled university leaders across the nation losing their jobs following athletic department scandals. So I hopped on the line and spent thirty minutes on The Google, and this is what I got (many of you may have some familiarity with these findings inasmuch as many of them were kinda "big things" in their day):

University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh voluntarily accepts responsibility for the death of student athlete Jordan McNair, fires football coach Coach Durkin and ultimately resigns his position.

San Jose State University President Mary Papazian resigns after a sexual misconduct scandal involving an athletics trainer and numerous female student athletes.

UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Herbert Holden Thorp resigns amid an NCAA investigation into a massive academic fraud involving the athletics department, among others.

Baylor University demotes university president Kenneth Starr in the wake of a huge athletics department Title IX/sexual misconduct scandal. 

Here is an interesting one: Oregon State University President F. King Alexander resigns due to fallout from a sexual misconduct scandal involving the athletic department AT LSU, due to his prior term there during which some of that misconduct was alleged to have occurred.

Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon resigns in 2018, mere hours after university physician Larry Nassar is sentenced to prison for sexual misconduct against student athletes. Subsequently, she survives criminal charges that she lied to investigators about the extent of her knowledge regarding complaints against Nassar.

University of Penn State President Graham Spanier is fired by the university in the shakeout following the Jerry Sandusky scandal. 

So . . . here we have it:  Prez. Schill essentially says he had to fire Coach Fitzgerald, not so much for what he knew, but rather for what he should have known; and we see numerous prior instances where university officials holding positions much higher within their respective university hierarchies have been held to that very standard and suffered adverse employment actions as a direct result. (This parenthetical note is to point out that "resignations" from positions can be considered adverse employment actions for a whole host of reasons, and that even truly voluntary resignations motivated solely by a sense of honor and nobility [looking at you Mr. Loh] can be included within its ambit).

So, should Prez. Schill be looking over his shoulder here? Is a university president, by virtue of his position and authority, an insurer and guarantor of student safety at his institution? Or do we need some evidence that he was in the position to know what was going on, should have known what was going on, and yet ignored it? Please, grab a steaming hot cup of coffee from the Bunn ICB Dual Volt commercial coffee maker over on the credenza and state your positions for or against passing responsibility further up the ladder here. Cream and sugar are available for those who insist on ruining their coffee.

Or merely downvote the thread as being boring, overlong, and pretty much a waste of time. I know that's what I'm gonna do!