U of M Black football players bearing the burden

Mitchell Hamline School Of Law professor Marie Failinger said the nine U of M football players suing the University have a lot to prove to win their case. According to a June 8, 2018 Star Tribune article, “disparate treatment alone isn’t enough. To win on a civil rights claim, the students will need to prove that the university ‘intentionally’ treated them differently because of their race. ‘That’s a very high burden’,” said Failinger.

No, it’s not. The most important thing, in this case, is the October 23, 2016 Star Tribune article, When a rapist went free,” about a White male student at the U who raped a female student. The article reported that over 1,000 sexual assaults had been reported at the U of M since 2010, “yet not one single rapist had been prosecuted.”

Once the public saw this article, the University knew they were in a lot of trouble. It was after this article, they went after the Black football players.

If Harvey Weinstein can be arrested for sexual assaults he committed years ago, why couldn’t the U of M have gone after any of the over 1,000 White males accused of rape since 2010? But, no, they went after the Black students only.

What more would the courts or a jury need to see as proof that they were singled out based on race – would they need to see 10,000 White male students accused of rape passed over to go after the high-profile Black athletes? Once the Star Tribune article hit the streets, the U of M had many options — they chose to go after the Blacks. One hundred percent intentional.

Frank Erickson lives in Minneapolis.