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Contact: Gloria Allred(323) 653-6530E-mail:gallred@amglaw.com
Criticisms of the Report of the Special Committee of the Board of Trustees of Syracuse University
 Last week a “Special Committee of the Board of Trustees of Syracuse University”(S.U.) issued its long awaited report. It had been charged with investigating the 2005S.U. response to allegations of Bobby Davis that he had been sexually molested by aUniversity employee, Bernie Fine, when Bobby Davis was a “ballboy” for the S. U.Men’s Basketball Team and Bernie Fine was an Assistant Coach of that team. After careful review of this 2012 “investigation” it is clear to us that the Special Committeereport is a complete whitewash, is self serving, suffers from a lack of transparency andraises more questions than it answers.
1.The Report points out that the University determined that Davis wasnot and had never been a student and therefore it viewed Davis' complaint as raisingprimarily HR and employment issues as to Bernie Fine. What difference did itmake whether or not Mr. Davis was a University student in terms of how theUniversity went about conducting its investigation?
Are they suggesting that a "ballboy" for the Syracuse University Mens’ BasketballTeam is entitled to less protection against childhood sexual abuse than a student?Does the fact that Bobby Davis was not a student make his alleged molestation anyless serious? 
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2.The Report states that the University was employing a procedure it hadused in "other such matters" when it referred the matter to its outside counsel.What other "such matters"?
Were there other occasions where allegations of sexual molestations were madeagainst a coach where the University used the same or similar procedures? The "other matters" are not identified in the report. If the “other matters” involved allegations of child sexual abuse by a University employee, were these “other matters” referred to lawenforcement and the Board of Trustees or kept from them as were the allegations of Bobby Davis against assistant coach Bernie Fine? 
3.The University asked its “regular outside counsel, the law firm of Bond,Schoeneck & King (“BSK”) to work with the University’s office of HumanResources to investigate Davis’ allegations.” How could the University's own
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lawyers conduct an unbiased, impartial and independent investigation
?Any findings that implicated Bernie Fine in wrongdoing would potentially createliability against the University as well as reputational damage. This was an inherentconflict of interest.Further, the law firm of Paul, Weiss, which conducted the investigation of theUniversity’s 2005 response to Bobby Davis, goes out of its way to point out that it washired to do this investigation by the Board of Trustees because it had no pre-existing tiesto the University- but then does not criticize the fact that the University chose a law firm
“BSK” for decades has acted as outside counsel to the University representing Syracuse
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in the majority of legal matters.” (Page 22 of the Report.)2
 
(BSK) which was entwined with the University and financially benefitted from it toconduct the investigation in 2005.Why is that important and obvious point regarding an inherent conflict of interestmissing from the current report on the 2005 response? The choice of its own lawyersrather than independent counsel to investigate Bobby Davis’ allegations against BernieFine in 2005 injected a virus into the investigation which infected the outcome andassured that it could not be impartial since the University was BSK’s client before, duringand after its “investigation” of Bobby Davis’ allegations. The fox was left alone toinvestigate the chicken coop.
4.The Conclusion that the BSK law firm reached was that the allegationswere "unsubstantiated". The issue should not have been whether or not themolestations were substantiated but rather whether or not they occurred.
Few cases of childhood sexual abuse can be "substantiated" because by their verynature these events occur in private under circumstances where there cannot besubstantiation, often because the victims are afraid or ashamed to speak out until yearsafter the fact. What about the issue of credibility? Did the lawyers consider Mr. Davis'demeanor- his ability to recall the facts of his molestation with specificity- whether hewas able to provide details of the molestations? Did the BSK attorneys attempt to findout if there were records that would verify whether Mr. Davis traveled with Mr. Fine andstayed with him in hotel rooms? If not, why not?
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