Harvard & Penn Coaching - Alleged Harassment & Misconduct

Comments like this are not funny. They are a part of the problem. You are a part of the problem.

I would really like to hear the other side of this. So the young lady takes a year-long mental health break. We don't know what for. Any coach can tell you that an athlete (male or female) that is experiencing mental health issues can destroy the team. So perhaps her issues were beyond what the coaching staff can deal with. I have had the university tell me that I had to keep athletes on the team (to make them feel good) and it caused great problems. Coaches aren't supposed to have to deal with issues that go beyond the scope of their expertise.

You read the article and this is your take away? Wow.

Well we know how this goes. Head coach probably getting let go.

Track is hard, too many athletes and too few coaches. People are always going to be unhappy. Sounds like some crude jokes from a volunteer.

Also the athlete that took a break for mental health then wasn’t offer a spot on the team, that’s a super hard call for a head coach.

I used to coach and was told multiple times I need to let athletes back on the team and pretty much babysit their mental health. I refused for one kid but was over ruled by the AD, he OD’d less than a month later and was hospitalized again. You can’t win sometimes

it's a valid takeaway. important to see all sides rather than just go full chicken little and scream that the sky is falling gun to tape.

Should clarify that the reported accusations happened while at Penn, but one of the coaches is now at Harvard. The reporters were not able to get any statements from any current Harvard athlete about their new coach.

It’s a very selective takeaway that only speaks to one woman’s experience reported in the article and there are MULTIPLE women who brought forward concerns. If a “D1 coach” —or ANY coach— reads the article and that’s the post they want to make, no way I’d want my kids working with them.

From the article:
”Emails reviewed by the DP show that Lindner and three other members of the women’s throwing team met with Dolan on April 1, 2022, to discuss their concerns about Pavlenko and Brooks. In an email that Lindner sent to Dolan on April 3, 2022, as a follow up to the meeting, she claimed that Dolan expressed a willingness to speak with Brooks and help him “adjust to the Penn environment,” but, according to the athletes, downplayed their complaints about Pavlenko, citing them as a matter of “immaturity.”
During the meeting, Lindner said Dolan asked her and the other throwers if any of them had been physically touched.

“No,” Lindner said.
“Then it’s not an issue,” Dolan said, according to Lindner.

Another women’s thrower present at the meeting, who was granted anonymity after citing fear of retribution, said that she felt as if Dolan “was trying to … determine the level of severity he should treat it [with],” and that she “didn’t give a f**k what the severity was.”
“[Pavlenko] was making all of us very uncomfortable, and [Dolan] should’ve taken it seriously at the jump,” the women’s thrower said.“

Characterizing a response to this as “chicken little” is bizarre. One of the women here reported this up through appropriate channels and it was handled poorly at every level over years.

A couple of things should be said, I think. I don't know what happened here of course, but there are some institutional things people commenting should keep in mind.

1. It seems from the article that the coach notified the Title IX office upon receiving the initial complaint in 2023, and the Title IX office investigated but took no action. This is significant. I think you'd have to be pretty conspiracy minded to believe that an Ivy League Title IX office would bend the truth to shield a track coach from harassment allegations. Ivy League Title IX offices are independent of the athletic department and are staffed by individuals who see themselves as advocates for victims of harassment. That's why they go into this line of work. They do not care about track coaches. If Penn's Title IX office declined to take action, that is a significant indication that the complaint may be minor or even misguided/mistaken.

2. The only people at liberty to talk about these allegations are the complainants. The coaches and Title IX officers are required to maintain confidentiality; the students are not. Therefore, by definition, you can only hear one side of the version of events. All of the dialogue and situations presented in the article come from the viewpoint and memory of the complainants. Often this means recalling conversations and feelings that happened years earlier. The Title IX investigator would be able to get more information from the coaches, other witnesses, medical records, etc, but they can not share that information.

3. It seems from the article that Penn immediately removed the young assistant accused of making crude jokes from working with women, and then did not rehire him after that season. In other words, it seems that the HC responded to the complaints in a timely and reasonable way. Firing the asst. coach mid-season for speech acts would likely be a messy and potentially litigious process. Moving him out of women's practices and getting rid of him when his contract was up was a good solution, I think.

4. It's possible for someone to sincerely feel that a coach made them feel unsafe and uncomfortable, but for a Title IX office to determine that the situation was not objectively unsafe or that the alleged behavior was not harassment. There doesn't have to be a liar or a villain in this story.

Fletcher's response looks a bit problematic in this scenario.

1. According to the article the Title IX complaint is still open and the complainant feels the process was "slow rolled". The fact that this office didn't do anything means nothing about the legitimacy of this complaint. It also is irrelevant that this is Penn or an Ivy League school. You have a lot more faith than I do in universities doing the right thing over protecting themselves and their own. After all, it appears Harvard either didn't do due diligence in vetting and hiring Brooks or is ok with this behavior. Why, when there are multiple women saying the same thing, would the assumption be that this is "minor or even misguided/mistaken"?

2. It seems Linder (one complainant) was documenting--kudos to her for doing that. She wasn't "recalling conversations and feelings that happened years earlier." She had emails and texts that were dated and the article references that.

3. Both Brooks' and Dolan's management of this situation is disturbing--chalking the harassment up to "immaturity," asserting there isn't a problem because he didn't touch the athlete, telling the complainant it is up to her if the assistant would continue working with the team, and multiple instances of retaliation, according to the article. Furthermore, moving this assistant out of women's practices but still having him be with the team? Why? Why is it ok to keep him working with the men after multiple women said he made them uncomfortable? (Of course being on campus and working and traveling with the team would continue to impact the girls). Is it ok for the men to be around that? No. Is it ok to just move this guy along and let him go get another job and continue this behavior? No. Sadly, this happens all too often.

4. Yes, it is possible "for someone to sincerely feel that a coach made them feel unsafe and uncomfortable". But if Brooks and Dolan behaved as reported in this article, there are villains in this story.

In a situation with an extreme power differential, it is very confusing for a young adult (a freshman when this started) to know what is ok. Even when behavior is clearly NOT ok, it is common for victims to try to excuse it or justify it as something else, at least at first, because the pain and potential consequences of bringing it forward are significant. What so many people fail to understand is that any kid who comes forward with a complaint like this has struggled with what to do, probably for a long time. They have nothing to gain from something like this, and potentially a lot to lose. These girls lost a lot.

A friend of mine reminded me that the team had two suicides from almost 10 years ago (early in Dolan's tenure at Penn) - one was a female distance runner (2014) and the other was a male sprinter/hurdler (2015). I would think that mental health concerns would be taken a bit more carefully by the team after going through those tragedies.

I think what people expect from coaches for dealing with mental health has gotten a bit unrealistic.

Truth is a lot of these kids are an absolute mess and probably should not be doing track at all. It is honestly very tough. Coaches are caught in the middle, kids don’t have to sign the Hippa releases, no one gets the full story.

Maybe it is the right call that if you aren’t mentally well, track can wait or go away.

But we want coaches to win, but be fair and hold everyone accountable. Also handle everyone’s mental health perfectly, make sure no one is ever offended, take responsibility for everything, recruit better, develop better. On and on

Milestogo: To me YOU are the problem in our society.

I have personally coached female throwers. Unfortunately, they are the most insecure and hyper-sensitive of any group in track & field. Why? They live in a society that rewards "skinny" and being thin. Well, throwers don't fit that narrative and they are bigger than the norm. So they most likely have grown up trying to balance their natural size with societies norms. Not an easy thing for a young kid. So they over-react to what may be just normal discussions during long training periods. In no way, shape, or form do I accept a coach who would do something negative but I could give you multiple examples of where something said was taken way out of context by especially a freshman female thrower.

As a parent of a female thrower who is interested in both of these schools, I appreciate this coming out. She'll be able to read the article and make up her own mind, taking into account any personal interactions she will have with the coaches. It will be interesting to see if this leads to any additional coaching movement at these schools.

Tell me you've never worked in education without telling me you've never worked in education