SAN FRANCISCO – Today, three former student-athletes filed a class-action lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), the NCAA Board of Governors, and John Rembao, the former track and cross-country coach at the University of Arizona, University of Texas-Austin and other NCAA universities.
The complaint alleges that the NCAA put student-athletes at all NCAA member schools in harm’s way by failing to prohibit sexual abuse, sexual harassment, or sexual contact between coaches and student-athletes, and by permitting coaches accused of sexual abuse to move unfettered between NCAA schools. The lawsuit seeks immediate adoption of clear and best practices around coach-student relationships, and compensation for those who were subjected to abuse as a result of the NCAA’s failures to employ such practices.
The lawsuit, filed by the law firms FeganScott and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the NCAA facilitated a national epidemic by perpetuating a cycle of sexual abuse—like that seen in the Catholic Church—because it chose not to implement rules or impose any sanctions that would require schools to take steps to prevent and report abuse by coaches and deter perpetrators.
Read more here.