Lawsuit alleges Auburn changed grade of former football player in 2019

[Hank2020 3,212]

52 minutes ago, AUDevil said:

He was fired 8 days ago, of course this is coming out now...doesn't seem like its related to Propst.  Unless he was fired March 1 of 2020?  And that dude's story is all over the place.  Why do you make conditions so bad for an employee to make them want to quit if that employee has dirt on you?

Of course He thinks he has dirt. Time will tell if he has dirt or just innuendo.

[auburn4ever 1,266]

I smell UAT and UGA behind the scenes.

[ScotsAU 1,340]

By any chance, does this guy refuse to say War Eagle because the word “war” is offensive?

[Bro Johnny Mac 1,398]

17 hours ago, ScotsAU said:

By any chance, does this guy refuse to say War Eagle because the word “war” is offensive?

Cool tartan BTW.. on your avatar 👍

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

Lawsuit against Auburn casts light inside secretive athletics department

Updated Mar 09, 10:00 AM; Posted Mar 09, 9:15 AM

 

By Joseph Goodman | jgoodman@al.com

 

The living hell that Travis Thomas has endured over the past few years is almost too much to process.

The nightmare started when his 32-year-old wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. It killed Ruby Thomas in six months, leaving Thomas with a toddler to raise alone. That was July of 2019.

“Talk about your world being thrown upside down,” Thomas said.

Ruby Thomas was a beloved teacher at Auburn High School, and her death was mourned throughout Auburn’s athletics department where Travis Thomas was employed. After his wife’s death, then came the pandemic and trouble at work for Travis. Might want to sit down for this one.

Thomas was the director of academic support services for Auburn football until March 1. That’s the day Auburn fired him. He is now suing Auburn for discrimination. A lawsuit against Auburn was delivered in Thomas’ name last Friday, and I was emailed a copy of the complaint on Monday.

It claims that Auburn discriminated against Thomas based on race and gender. Essentially, this is the case: a grade for a football player was apparently changed in December of 2019, and Thomas allegedly was fired for knowing about it, but his three superiors were not because they’re white women. The lawsuit also alleges that Thomas experienced a hostile work environment and unfair pressure because football players were making bad grades.

“I feel like a lot of this was done to sabotage my career and make sure I don’t get another job in athletics,” Thomas said.

As if the Auburn athletics department isn’t under enough heat already. The men’s basketball team is not competing in the SEC tournament this week because of a self-imposed one-year ban for apparent NCAA rules violations the university won’t even publicly acknowledge because it loathes transparency like vampires hate sunlight. Accusations of discrimination and a strategic grade change involving football and academic support on top of everything can potentially be a major problem.

This lawsuit alleges that Thomas was the “token” Black guy of his department “to provide the illusion of racial and gender equality by Auburn University, and help Auburn defend itself against its criticized image as the whitest school in the SEC.”

Man, where to begin?

Civil litigation aside, I want to give Thomas a hug and offer him some emotional support. After speaking with him for over 70 minutes on Monday, I’m just hoping he can find some health insurance for his son and a place to hit the reset button.

As for Auburn’s whiteness, well, it is indeed the whitest school in the SEC, according to U.S. News’ 2019 campus ethnic diversity rating system. Auburn scored a 0.27 with 1.0 being the highest possible score for diversity. That puts Auburn right there with BYU and the University of Charleston. I would argue that Ole Miss and Alabama historically have a whiter “criticized image” than Auburn, but that’s not really a debate anyone wins.

Why did it have to come to this?

During his wife’s chemotherapy and other medical procedures, Thomas said Auburn’s athletics department had a running list for families to bring them food in the hospital. The Malzahns would drop off Tazikis, for example. How could that support system devolve into Thomas feeling like Auburn never wants him to get another job for the rest of his life? A native of Montgomery, and a double graduate of AUM, Thomas was hired as an academic counselor inside the Auburn athletics department in 2017. An employee at Old Dominion from 2016 to 2017, Thomas says he had a choice of working for Notre Dame or Auburn in 2017 and chose Auburn to be closer to home.

He came with a “long list of new ideas,” and for a time he said “it was like I could do no wrong.” Thomas was promoted to the director position within a year. Why is Thomas now suing Auburn University for discrimination? He is a reluctant whistleblower, and said he never in a thousand years ever wanted to talk to a reporter, but things need to change at Auburn. People in academic support, he says, live in fear.

“This culture is never going to change unless someone says something,” Thomas said. “I don’t know why all this happened to me. To have all of his stuff happen to me and the way it is laid out, something has to be done.”

Thomas’ great sin against collegiate athletics, according to the lawsuit, was that he just didn’t keep his mouth shut and look the other way in a meeting with all the big shots. The lawsuit claims that a professor, in a Dec. 23, 2019 email, “persisted in refusing to change” a grade of Jay Jay Wilson, who had two ‘Ds’ and a ‘C’ for the fall semester of 2019. Wilson isn’t named in the lawsuit, but he is identified as being a graduate transfer from Arizona State. Auburn needed one of those ‘Ds’ bumped up to a ‘C’ to remain compliant with the NCAA, according to the complaint.

It was Thomas’ job to know about all grade changes for the football team, but, as outlined by the lawsuit, “Thomas was not informed of any activities concerning the student after that, until the January 2020 certification meeting weeks later.”

Represented at that annual meeting were the register’s office, the athletics compliance office, the faculty athletic representative, the senior athletic director for student academic support services, two associate athletic directors for SASS, the director academic support services and football academic counselors, per the complaint.

“During that meeting,” reads the lawsuit, “Mr. Thomas brought up that [Wilson] should have been ineligible because he did not receive two C’s to play in the bowl game, or to remain eligible for Spring 2020. Mr. Thomas raised concerns at that meeting but was informed ‘you know his grade got changed’. The conversations were awkward, but Mr. Thomas never received any information on the grade change until that meeting.

“Further when Mr. Thomas brought up the grade change in the meeting, it was laughed off by people present, as if no big deal.”

That meeting was the beginning of the end of Thomas’ time at Auburn, and if nothing else, it speaks to the pressures of big-time college football on academic support staffers. A year later, after Thomas had already filed one complaint about discrimination, Auburn’s compliance officer told Thomas if he thought a grade had been changed and didn’t report it then that was a fireable offense.

“Anyone I could ever report something to was in that room,” Thomas said. “I said I never got an email. They said, ‘We’ll forward it to you.’”

A grade was allegedly changed, but that could mean a lot of different things. It happens all the time at the end of semesters. When I was in college, I’m pretty sure a professor bumped up one of my grades because I was working three jobs at the time, had a family and just needed some help. If one grad student’s grade needed to go from a ‘D’ to a ‘C’ at Auburn so that the entire football team could be eligible for access to the graduate portal for the next season, then that’s a different story, though. Thomas’ lawsuit is seeking a jury trial, and his attorney, Julian McPhillips, says his client is prepared to testify in court about the allegation of alleged academic fraud, in addition to other information in the lawsuit.

In a statement, Auburn denied the allegations vehemently. “Auburn is compelled to clarify that Mr. Thomas’s complaint includes egregious mischaracterizations regarding the academic record of a student athlete who was under his mentorship,” Auburn said in a statement. “Prior to filing this lawsuit, Auburn informed Mr. Thomas that this information was inaccurate.

“His decision to make false and damaging statements about a student for his personal benefit cannot be ignored. Auburn will use all available legal resources to protect our students and to defend the University against the allegations in the complaint.”

If only Auburn had a record of transparency to support its threatening rhetoric.

Here’s the problem with Auburn’s statement. If Thomas was fired for not reporting a suspicious grade change that didn’t happen and was just a misunderstanding, then someone has some explaining to do.

And someone please answer this question. Why did any of this have to happen at all? It’s difficult to understand, but that’s the toxic nature of secrecy. After so many people in the athletic department cared for Thomas during his wife’s battle against breast cancer and her death, he doesn’t fit the profile of a disgruntled employee. He thinks he does fit another profile, though, and that’s disheartening.

It’s hard to believe — impossible, really — that a person who has gone through so much, and who has dedicated his life to the academic support of student-athletes, would want any of this for himself.

 

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group. He’s on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.

 

[slyinsocal 831]

2 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Lawsuit against Auburn casts light inside secretive athletics department

Updated Mar 09, 10:00 AM; Posted Mar 09, 9:15 AM

 

By Joseph Goodman | jgoodman@al.com

 

The living hell that Travis Thomas has endured over the past few years is almost too much to process.

The nightmare started when his 32-year-old wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. It killed Ruby Thomas in six months, leaving Thomas with a toddler to raise alone. That was July of 2019.

“Talk about your world being thrown upside down,” Thomas said.

Ruby Thomas was a beloved teacher at Auburn High School, and her death was mourned throughout Auburn’s athletics department where Travis Thomas was employed. After his wife’s death, then came the pandemic and trouble at work for Travis. Might want to sit down for this one.

Thomas was the director of academic support services for Auburn football until March 1. That’s the day Auburn fired him. He is now suing Auburn for discrimination. A lawsuit against Auburn was delivered in Thomas’ name last Friday, and I was emailed a copy of the complaint on Monday.

It claims that Auburn discriminated against Thomas based on race and gender. Essentially, this is the case: a grade for a football player was apparently changed in December of 2019, and Thomas allegedly was fired for knowing about it, but his three superiors were not because they’re white women. The lawsuit also alleges that Thomas experienced a hostile work environment and unfair pressure because football players were making bad grades.

“I feel like a lot of this was done to sabotage my career and make sure I don’t get another job in athletics,” Thomas said.

As if the Auburn athletics department isn’t under enough heat already. The men’s basketball team is not competing in the SEC tournament this week because of a self-imposed one-year ban for apparent NCAA rules violations the university won’t even publicly acknowledge because it loathes transparency like vampires hate sunlight. Accusations of discrimination and a strategic grade change involving football and academic support on top of everything can potentially be a major problem.

This lawsuit alleges that Thomas was the “token” Black guy of his department “to provide the illusion of racial and gender equality by Auburn University, and help Auburn defend itself against its criticized image as the whitest school in the SEC.”

Man, where to begin?

Civil litigation aside, I want to give Thomas a hug and offer him some emotional support. After speaking with him for over 70 minutes on Monday, I’m just hoping he can find some health insurance for his son and a place to hit the reset button.

As for Auburn’s whiteness, well, it is indeed the whitest school in the SEC, according to U.S. News’ 2019 campus ethnic diversity rating system. Auburn scored a 0.27 with 1.0 being the highest possible score for diversity. That puts Auburn right there with BYU and the University of Charleston. I would argue that Ole Miss and Alabama historically have a whiter “criticized image” than Auburn, but that’s not really a debate anyone wins.

Why did it have to come to this?

During his wife’s chemotherapy and other medical procedures, Thomas said Auburn’s athletics department had a running list for families to bring them food in the hospital. The Malzahns would drop off Tazikis, for example. How could that support system devolve into Thomas feeling like Auburn never wants him to get another job for the rest of his life? A native of Montgomery, and a double graduate of AUM, Thomas was hired as an academic counselor inside the Auburn athletics department in 2017. An employee at Old Dominion from 2016 to 2017, Thomas says he had a choice of working for Notre Dame or Auburn in 2017 and chose Auburn to be closer to home.

He came with a “long list of new ideas,” and for a time he said “it was like I could do no wrong.” Thomas was promoted to the director position within a year. Why is Thomas now suing Auburn University for discrimination? He is a reluctant whistleblower, and said he never in a thousand years ever wanted to talk to a reporter, but things need to change at Auburn. People in academic support, he says, live in fear.

“This culture is never going to change unless someone says something,” Thomas said. “I don’t know why all this happened to me. To have all of his stuff happen to me and the way it is laid out, something has to be done.”

Thomas’ great sin against collegiate athletics, according to the lawsuit, was that he just didn’t keep his mouth shut and look the other way in a meeting with all the big shots. The lawsuit claims that a professor, in a Dec. 23, 2019 email, “persisted in refusing to change” a grade of Jay Jay Wilson, who had two ‘Ds’ and a ‘C’ for the fall semester of 2019. Wilson isn’t named in the lawsuit, but he is identified as being a graduate transfer from Arizona State. Auburn needed one of those ‘Ds’ bumped up to a ‘C’ to remain compliant with the NCAA, according to the complaint.

It was Thomas’ job to know about all grade changes for the football team, but, as outlined by the lawsuit, “Thomas was not informed of any activities concerning the student after that, until the January 2020 certification meeting weeks later.”

Represented at that annual meeting were the register’s office, the athletics compliance office, the faculty athletic representative, the senior athletic director for student academic support services, two associate athletic directors for SASS, the director academic support services and football academic counselors, per the complaint.

“During that meeting,” reads the lawsuit, “Mr. Thomas brought up that [Wilson] should have been ineligible because he did not receive two C’s to play in the bowl game, or to remain eligible for Spring 2020. Mr. Thomas raised concerns at that meeting but was informed ‘you know his grade got changed’. The conversations were awkward, but Mr. Thomas never received any information on the grade change until that meeting.

“Further when Mr. Thomas brought up the grade change in the meeting, it was laughed off by people present, as if no big deal.”

That meeting was the beginning of the end of Thomas’ time at Auburn, and if nothing else, it speaks to the pressures of big-time college football on academic support staffers. A year later, after Thomas had already filed one complaint about discrimination, Auburn’s compliance officer told Thomas if he thought a grade had been changed and didn’t report it then that was a fireable offense.

“Anyone I could ever report something to was in that room,” Thomas said. “I said I never got an email. They said, ‘We’ll forward it to you.’”

A grade was allegedly changed, but that could mean a lot of different things. It happens all the time at the end of semesters. When I was in college, I’m pretty sure a professor bumped up one of my grades because I was working three jobs at the time, had a family and just needed some help. If one grad student’s grade needed to go from a ‘D’ to a ‘C’ at Auburn so that the entire football team could be eligible for access to the graduate portal for the next season, then that’s a different story, though. Thomas’ lawsuit is seeking a jury trial, and his attorney, Julian McPhillips, says his client is prepared to testify in court about the allegation of alleged academic fraud, in addition to other information in the lawsuit.

In a statement, Auburn denied the allegations vehemently. “Auburn is compelled to clarify that Mr. Thomas’s complaint includes egregious mischaracterizations regarding the academic record of a student athlete who was under his mentorship,” Auburn said in a statement. “Prior to filing this lawsuit, Auburn informed Mr. Thomas that this information was inaccurate.

“His decision to make false and damaging statements about a student for his personal benefit cannot be ignored. Auburn will use all available legal resources to protect our students and to defend the University against the allegations in the complaint.”

If only Auburn had a record of transparency to support its threatening rhetoric.

Here’s the problem with Auburn’s statement. If Thomas was fired for not reporting a suspicious grade change that didn’t happen and was just a misunderstanding, then someone has some explaining to do.

And someone please answer this question. Why did any of this have to happen at all? It’s difficult to understand, but that’s the toxic nature of secrecy. After so many people in the athletic department cared for Thomas during his wife’s battle against breast cancer and her death, he doesn’t fit the profile of a disgruntled employee. He thinks he does fit another profile, though, and that’s disheartening.

It’s hard to believe — impossible, really — that a person who has gone through so much, and who has dedicated his life to the academic support of student-athletes, would want any of this for himself.

 

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group. He’s on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.

 

This guy does nothing but one sided attacks and cheap shots at Auburn. But what else should one expect from the hypocritical "Alabama" Media Group. The group who proudly proclaims their own employee diversity score. No? The same group who practices the kind of non investigative, fluff pieces, and pampered reporting about all things Bammer, in the same manner their fellow media members looked the other way on LSU's behalf all these years while a toxic atmosphere was happening right under their noses. (1) Why is the student's name and grades even mentioned? Can't imagine why any student would want this to be public. Was he asked for permission? (2) Why doesn't the lawsuit, or this writer, QUOTE for the record, the real, actual bylaw or provision from the NCAA handbook that support this claim? Where is it? What is it? If that's a motive, then quote the rule that is in jeopardy. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME an article is written about the FBI saga, the entire history of it is regurgitated from A-Z.

[AUGoo 2,664]

Read like an "unbiased" NY Times article.

[Mike4AU 1,739]

PLEASE QUIT POSTING ARTICLES BY GOODMAN!  The guy is a hired hitman to try to make AU look bad. 
 

Enough of this guy.  SERIOUSLY. 

[CoffeeTiger 5,135]

8 hours ago, slyinsocal said:

This guy does nothing but one sided attacks and cheap shots at Auburn. But what else should one expect from the hypocritical "Alabama" Media Group. The group who proudly proclaims their own employee diversity score. No? The same group who practices the kind of non investigative, fluff pieces, and pampered reporting about all things Bammer, in the same manner their fellow media members looked the other way on LSU's behalf all these years while a toxic atmosphere was happening right under their noses. (1) Why is the student's name and grades even mentioned? Can't imagine why any student would want this to be public. Was he asked for permission? (2) Why doesn't the lawsuit, or this writer, QUOTE for the record, the real, actual bylaw or provision from the NCAA handbook that support this claim? Where is it? What is it? If that's a motive, then quote the rule that is in jeopardy. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME an article is written about the FBI saga, the entire history of it is regurgitated from A-Z.

 

I'll read AL.com because it's basically the only state wide news organization that exist now in Alabama. It is a corporate news entity though. Owned by people up in new york and they have news websites all over the country that use the exact same website layout and post the same articles. I don't like it, but in todays environment it's hard to exist as a proper local news agency. Nobody wants to pay for news anymore thanks to the internet and everyone uses adblock so even online ad revenue isn't very consistent and has been decreasing over the years. 

 

3 minutes ago, Mike4AU said:

PLEASE QUIT POSTING ARTICLES BY GOODMAN!  The guy is a hired hitman to try to make AU look bad. 
 

Enough of this guy.  SERIOUSLY. 

I don't think it's any kind of conspiracy. Most people who read AL.com are Bamma fans and pro-bama/anti-Auburn articles get more clicks and make more money, I think that's basically it. 

[steeleagle 2,945]

3 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

I'll read AL.com because it's basically the only state wide news organization that exist now in Alabama. It is a corporate news entity though. Owned by people up in new york and they have news websites all over the country that use the exact same website layout and post the same articles. I don't like it, but in todays environment it's hard to exist as a proper local news agency. Nobody wants to pay for news anymore thanks to the internet and everyone uses adblock so even online ad revenue isn't very consistent and has been decreasing over the years. 

 

I don't think it's any kind of conspiracy. Most people who read AL.com are Bamma fans and pro-bama/anti-Auburn articles get more clicks and make more money, I think that's basically it. 

who was the writer that wrote these type of hit pieces before for AL.com, and then took a job out in Texas, I think Dallas. 

And it is amazing that this guy puts so much into his 'personal' opinion interviewing this employee, talking about 'wanting to give him a hug'?  

And I'm a little confused on the writer's timeline. Was the employee fired this March 1 or was it last year? It seems like since the issue started in December of '19 that this continued to be an issue with the employee and the AD and admin for a while...

[toddc 13,194]

The above article sounds like “one big hug” in itself. Ridiculous article!

[ScotsAU 1,340]

21 hours ago, Bro Johnny Mac said:

Cool tartan BTW.. on your avatar 👍

It is actually the Auburn tartan! If only I could find someone who makes kilts with this tartan...

 

https://clan.com/tartan/browse/filters/name-auburn/

[Mikey 16,640]

A disgruntled former employee files a lawsuit hoping to get a settlement in lieu of going to court. This happens thousands of times every day across this country. When/if we change our legal system so that a failed plaintiff has to pay the defendant's legal fees, this practice will stop. Of course, that will put a lot of lawyers in the soup line, so we shouldn't hold our collective breaths.

[Hank2020 3,212]

Hope they are transparent on finality of this one.