#fyi i’m gonna leave a lot of asks on this topic unanswered

[workingforitallthetime]

“In response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by The Daily on Sept. 17, the University of Michigan indicated that no records related to a suspension of either athlete from their respective teams exist.”

- but both students were obviously identified as the vandals over a week before this as they apologized to the community on September 8?

- Pretty sure J***** was absent from practices and stuff around this time too. Even if it wasn’t an “official” suspension

I don’t know how to feel about it taking a relatively long time for Michigan athletics to take action. What was Michigan waiting for? The school obviously knew what happened weeks before they removed Johnny from the team.

it would be pretty surprising if they managed to navigate this without leaving a paper trail, but much depends on the specifics of Michigan’s FOIA law and how the FOIA request was phrased. for example, if the request used the word “suspension,” maybe there are no responsive records because johnny wasn’t suspended, he was removed.

it’s almost certainly not accurate to assume that the school took no action until the statement that was released last week. removing an athlete from a team, particularly one who’s on scholarship, has due process protections associated with it, and it takes time to get through the notice/appeal rights involved. i assume that johnny’s lawyer was active on that front as well.