Notre Dame has fired a female academic coach for violating the school’s “values” and its “discrimination harassment policy” amid claims that she coerced basketball and football players into having sex with her daughter.
The NY Daily News obtained an internal school report that states multiple African-American students lodged complaints against the coach. One student has sued the school and the academic coach on grounds of a forced “sexually and racially motivated” relationship with the tutor’s daughter.
“She was exploiting African-American males,” said lawyer Peter J. Agostino, who is representing the unnamed student. “He was invited to the family’s private home to facilitate the relationship.”
Allegedly, the tutor would ask the student about the “nature, frequency, and quality of the sexual activities” after setting him up with her daughter. She would also make “racially-charged comments about his sexual prowess and genitalia.”
“She was encouraging it,” said the student’s other lawyer, Michael Misch. “The mom sought him out and promoted the relationship by providing hotel rooms and condoms.”
When the student tried to end the relationship, the academic coach allegedly pressured him into converting to Catholicism and also worked with the school’s psychiatric support to “medicate Plaintiff John Doe to keep him passive, cooperative, and under control.”
Notre Dame itself has also been called out by the lawyers for fostering a “sexually abusive and hostile educational environment,” though the a statement to the South Bend Tribune the school has called the claims “unfounded” and has suggested that they are part of a publicity stunt.