The review ensures that the saga will not end quickly or quietly.
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Rutgers University President Robert Barchi is scheduled to talk in a town hall meeting today.
The review ensures that the saga will not end quickly or quietly.
A video of Rice’s behavior was made public last week, more than five months after it was given to the university, which initially decided to suspend the coach, fine him and send him to anger-management counseling.
After it became public, the university fired Rice. Athletic director Tim Pernetti resigned and so did a university lawyer who had advised him, and an assistant basketball coach. Some faculty members and others have also called for university President Robert Barchi to step down, although he’s received support from the school’s Board of Governors and Gov. Chris Christie.
The scandal has prompted the FBI to investigate whether a former Rutgers basketball employee tried to extort money from the university before recording practices at which Rice was seen pushing and otherwise belittling players, a person familiar with the investigation said.
Rutgers said its Board of Governors will meet Thursday to discuss hiring the independent adviser to review the case.
Also today, board chairman Ralph Izzo said that one board member — athletics committee chairman Mark P. Hershhorn — had seen the video in December. Izzo said that it was not shown to other members and while the topic of the coach’s conduct was discussed at a committee meeting in December, it was not discussed at the whole-board meeting that month. The university did not immediately respond to a request to interview Hershhorn.
Today, Barchi is scheduled to hold a town hall meeting that had been planned for last week but was postponed after a video surfaced showing Rice pushing players, throwing basketballs at them and berating them with invectives, including gay slurs.
The meeting was meant to address the sweeping plan to re-organize the state’s higher education system, a priority of Christie that the state legislature signed off on last year. The New Jersey Assembly will hold a budget hearing that will address the plan at the school Tuesday.
The goal, Barchi and state officials say, is to make Rutgers competitive with elite public institutions including the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. Strengthening the school would also bring in more tuition from out-of-state students who are charged more.
Barchi, a neurologist, was hired to help implement the transition and oversee a meshing of Rutgers and the state’s University of Medicine and Dentistry. Some members of Rutgers’ board of governors have expressed concern over the merger, because Rutgers would absorb $500 million in the medical school’s debt. The merger could cost up to $75 million, Barchi said in December.
Some say Barchi’s plans for the university shortchange the school’s campuses in Camden and Newark.
Rutgers has three campuses: Camden, Newark and New Brunswick. Faculty and students at the outlying campuses fear Barchi wants to turn New Brunswick — where its sports teams are based, along with neighboring Piscataway— into a flagship campus, diverting resources from the other two. There is already a proposal to merge the Newark and Camden law schools and move strong research institutions to New Brunswick.