Former Duke guard Rasheed Sulaimon has reportedly been accused of sexually assaulting two female students, which could help explain why he was suddenly dismissed from the team roughly a month ago. Now, one of the most important questions will be whether coach Mike Krzyzewski should have given Sulaimon the boot last year.
A lengthy report that was published by The Duke Chronicle indicates that Coach K and his staff were made aware of the allegations against Sulaimon in March 2014. Yet, it wasn’t until Jan. 29, 2015 that Sulaimon was kicked off the team.
A week before Sulaimon was dismissed, Duke senior Lincoln Wensley, a former secretary in the Duke basketball office who now works in the Office of News and Communication, was made aware of the sexual assault allegations when he heard a fellow intern talking about “the next big Duke scandal.”
“We started texting that Wednesday night,” Wensley told The Chronicle. “She informed me that one of her friends had been raped by Rasheed Sulaimon. [She] was very upset and had known for some time about this because of the Common Ground retreat. She expressed an interest in taking action herself, but obviously [was] scared because of the power the men’s basketball team possesses on this campus.”
Wensley was still working in the basketball department at the time. The next day, he notified Duke basketball administrative assistant Laura Ann Howard that he knew of the allegations against Sulaimon and then quit his job. Wensley received a text message from deputy director of athletics Mike Cragg on Jan. 22 asking for an in-person conversation.
Wensley agreed to the meeting and the two met in Cragg’s office the same day. According to Wensley, Cragg began the conversation by advising him on how to better handle professional situations such as the one Wensley had with Howard.
But the conversation with Cragg did not end there.
“I wanted personally for the conversation to steer toward Coach K and Kevin White and I think he could sense that too,” Wensley said. “After advising me on my interactions with Laura Ann, he said that if I wanted to pursue further action on this issue that I would need to go through Student Conduct. And that Coach K had known and knew that Rasheed had these rumors swirling about him and that Kevin White had also known.”
Six days after Wensley’s conversation with Cragg, Sulaimon was kicked off the team. Coach K cited “recurring conduct issues” as the reason for the dismissal, but one has to wonder if Krzyzewski and company were concerned that the sexual assault allegations were about to go public.
While neither female student who accused Sulaimon wanted to take legal action (perhaps because they were familiar with this situation), The Chronicle notes that the university is obligated by Title IX to look into any allegations of sexual assault and investigate if it is deemed necessary.
Keep in mind that we have basically only heard Wensley’s side of the story, but Coach K could have some explaining to do going forward. Knowing about sexual assault allegations for a year without taking action seems like an awfully long time.
