What has been the fallout from the Kansas University (KU) hiring and firing of its football coach Les Miles? Miles’ departure came three days after he was put on administrative leave after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced from his prior employer, Louisiana State University (LSU). These allegations were reported in an internal investigation report completed by the law firm of Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips LLP, Taylor Porter, during his tenure at LSU. The allegations in the report were quite damning with a remedy which included a requirement that Miles could not be alone with any female students or employees.

Over several blog posts this week; I have been looking the disastrous hiring of Miles by KU and its Athletic Director Jeff Long (AD Long) and mining it for lessons that the compliance practitioner can put into place. I began with the KU decision to hire Miles. I then considered the less than adequate due diligence performed by KU. Next, I considered the fallout from KU’s failures, LSU’s conduct and Miles actions for multiple persons; the reputational hit to all involved. Today, I want to wrap things up with the dénouement.

The LSU Board

One group which does not seem to have suffered much public backlash as yet is the LSU Board of Trustees. However, other than perhaps the Blue Bell Ice Cream Board of Directors, I cannot think of a much more pathetic example of ethics and compliance than the actions of some but not all of the LSU Board of Trustees. Note, I did not say the entire Board. This is because only select members of the LSU Board of Trustees were told of the report on the conduct of Miles while at LSU, including his admonition that he could not be alone with a female student. These select members not only did not inform the entire Board but at least one denied anything untoward when asked by another Board member.

Ross Dellenger, writing in Si.com, said that only a small group of Board members were informed of the report on Miles. While all options were allegedly “on the table” and the LSU AD, Joe Alleva, recommended firing Miles; Stanley Jacobs, “a New Orleans attorney who served on the LSU Board of Supervisors for 18 years and played basketball for the Tigers in the 1960s” was quoted in the piece “I feel like we made the right decision. It’s the evidence we had before us.” Apparently, the graphic details that I noted in prior blog posts was not enough to convince Jacobs or the other Board members.

The Hiring Process

Candice Tal, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Infortal Worldwide, has often noted the monetary damage and reputational harm that comes from ineffective due diligence on senior executives, stating “You don’t know a person even if you’ve been good friends for 10 years!” She also noted, “In this case it sounds like they did virtually zero due diligence.” Of course, now former AD Long said he performed a thorough due diligence, but KU has produced none of it. She went on to state, “Reference interviews with Miles’ sports colleagues do not comprise independent due diligence at all. Neutral third-party references were needed as a baseline minimum (even for a routine background check) – that is where they might have obtained an inkling of the real issues in Miles’ history. After all, word gets around in sports leagues about a coach’s behavior. A routine background check does not look at online media searches.”

Adam Rittenberg, writing in ESPN, picked up on this same point in the context of universities and colleges using professional search firms. While noting that many alums and others “question the rationale for using search firms after athletic directors and schools make familiar or seemingly obvious hires”; these “are misconceptions about the firms. They don’t make hires. They assess interest among coaches, conduct background checks and provide an extra layer of protection for the schools…Long’s decision not to use a firm exposes him and Kansas to more criticism about what they could have or should have known about Miles. Long’s decision ultimately could cost him his own job.”

Lack of Candor

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this entire sordid saga is the lack of candor for all involved. Miles for his part has always maintained he did nothing wrong; not at LSU when he was alleged to have sexually harassed co-eds; not during the KU hiring process when he told AD Long there was nothing untoward in his past; and not after the release of the Taylor Porter report which detailed LSU’s findings involving Miles or the Husch Blackwell report which detailed the numerous institutional failures involving sexual conduct which occurred during Miles’ watch involving football players.

Indeed, as reported by Harry Lyles, writing in ESPN, “Long said that in early February, Miles’ camp made Kansas aware of a legal dispute in Louisiana but couldn’t share information on it. Long said that he asked Miles if there was anything they should be concerned about from the reports, and Miles told him no.”

As troubling as Miles’ conduct was throughout this affair is that of LSU, which went out of its way not to release either the Taylor Porter or the Husch Blackwell reports, fighting in court to keep them secret and hidden away. Equally troubling is the attitude of former Board of Trustee Jacobs who when asked if he would have told KU the truth about Miles, his conduct at LSU and the Taylor Porter report findings said that he would not have done so.

LSU seemed happy to foist its dysfunctional culture off on literally any other university who hired Miles. When you couple that attitude with former AD Long’s desire to hire his buddy and perform no substantive background investigation into Miles, you can see it was only a matter of time before it all blew up.

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