KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The lawyer for six women suing the University of Tennessee on its handling of sexual assault complaints by student-athletes is focused on the school’s systemic problems he believes exist and is surprised at the attention the complaint’s brief mention of Peyton Manning generated.
“It’s certainly unanticipated,” attorney David Randolph Smith said.
Smith said he included events from the last two decades — one involved Manning in 1996 — to show how Tennessee has handled reports of misconduct.
“We included one small paragraph about the Manning situation in the complaint, just as part of the overall background and history,” Smith said. “… Peyton Manning is not a party to our lawsuit. All these reports that say he’s in the lawsuit, well he’s referenced, but it’s part of the historical” background.
The lawsuit that was filed last week in federal court in Nashville states Tennessee has violated Title IX regulations and created a “hostile sexual environment” through a policy of indifference toward assaults by student-athletes.
The suit focuses on five cases that were reported between 2013 and 2015, but it also references incidents involving Tennessee student-athletes dating to 1995.
One paragraph in the 64-page document refers to a sexual harassment complaint made by a Tennessee trainer in 1996 involving an incident that occurred in a training room while she was treating Manning, the quarterback at Tennessee from 1994-97 and who just helped the Broncos win the Super Bowl.
Smith did say that as he prepares discovery for the Title IX lawsuit, he would look into some of the allegations in the 2003 document that details how former Volunteers trainer Jamie Ann Naughright perceived Tennessee was handling her sexual harassment complaints against the men’s athletic department.
Manning’s father, Archie, declined comment via text.
After giving his “State of the University of Tennessee” address Tuesday in Nashville, school President Joe DiPietro read from a statement in which he said he couldn’t take any questions related to pending litigation, specifically the Title IX lawsuit.
DiPietro instead reiterated a statement issued last week by the school’s attorney, Bill Ramsey, that said “any assertion that we do not take sexual assault seriously enough is simply not true.
“To claim that we have allowed a culture to exist contrary to our institutional commitment to providing a safe environment for our students or that we do not support those who report sexual assault is just false.”