Commonwealer Melinda Henneberger (also my editor at PoliticsDaily as well as a devoted Notre Dame alum) has been reporting on a terrible story out of South Bend about the suicide of Lizzy Seeberg, a 19-year-old Saint Mary's College freshman who committed suicide 10 days after accusing a Notre Dame football player of molesting her in his dorm room on Aug. 31. At the time of her death, the campus police to whom she reported the incident still had not interviewed the player.The investigation was concluded on Dec. 16 with an announcement that no charges would be filed against the player. But numerous questions remain about the incident and the university's response, or lack thereof, and the sway of the football program. (Notre Dame's struggling team, at 7-5, is to play Miami in the Sun Bowl on Friday.) Seeberg had received text messages after the incident from a fellow student warning her not to mess with the football program. Lizzy Seeberg, who grew up in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook and had suffered from anxiety and depression since her freshman year in high school, died of an intentional drug overdose of the anti-depressant drug Effexor.The case also overlapped with the October death of 20-year-old Declan Sullivan, the football team videographer who was up on a scissor-lift in a wind twice as strong as any in which he should have been allowed up on the tower. Melinda reports that Indiana's Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating Sullivan's death, and the U.S. Department of Education is launching an inquiry into the way Notre Dame handles sexual harassment complaints.In the Seeberg case, ND president Father John Jenkins just gave an interview to the South Bend Tribune attributing the 15-day delay in interviewing the accused to "discrepancies" between the hand-written account Seeberg wrote immediately after the incident and an account she provided to police a few days later.
That assertion contradicts what Seeberg's parents say they were told by police investigators. During a five-hour interview with Politics Daily on Dec. 15, Tom and Mary Seeberg said those investigators told them back in September that the two accounts were "materially the same," though the second was more detailed. The Seebergs also said in that interview that police had told them the player's account of the evening was essentially consistent with their daughter's -- except that he had characterized the fondling Seeberg described as frightening as consensual......The Seebergs are a Notre Dame family -- 11 of them have attended the school over the last century -- and their loss has been compounded by Jenkins' refusal to meet, talk to or even read a letter from them. Other than the school's lawyers, the only Notre Dame official who has met or spoken with them is Father Tom Doyle, vice president of student affairs. Doyle is a friend of a priest friend of Lizzy's, and someone Lizzy's father met briefly at her memorial service at Saint Mary's; since then, the two have spoken on the phone a number of times.In the Tribune interview, Jenkins says he avoided the family in an effort to remain innocent of the facts of the case: "I'm the ultimate court of appeal in disciplinary matters," Jenkins said. "And consequently, I try to remain somewhat distant so I'm not tainted by one side or another presenting their side of the story."He did not explain how, if he still does not know the details of the case, he could be so sure that the investigation had been handled well. Or if he does now know the facts of the case despite his best efforts to steer clear, why has he still not picked up the phone and called the Seebergs?
And Father Jenkins in the interview acknowledges that perhaps Notre Dame officials could have acted more quickly but he stressed that due diligence was more important than speed. But the slowness of the investigation and the involvement of ND authorities in this case seems to raise all manner of issues related to Catholic identity and big time college sports and the influence of such a large institution. Melinda notes that the local prosecutor who eventually agree with the findings of ND authorities that the case was handled well is the father of Notre Dame graduate Ryan Dvorak, who is running for mayor of South Bend.And Lizzy's mother said police investigators told her it might take time to wrap up their investigation: "They said they were pretty busy because it's football season,'' she said, "and there's a lot of underage drinking."In her account and in conversations with family and friends before her suicide, Lizzy Seeberg said the player told her to pee in the sink instead of going to the bathroom (she didn't) and he complained that the first three weeks of football training had been a nightmare because it was the longest he'd ever gone without having sex.The player has hired a Notre Dame grad and high-powered Chicago attorney who told the Tribune that his client is mulling legal action against what he called the "false accusations" that he "raped Seeberg or otherwise attacked her sexually.'' The attorney says the young man "did nothing wrong.'' In fact, he said, "he was a complete gentleman."Father Jenkins told the South Bend Tribune that he was speaking out now because "I cannot stand by and allow the integrity of Notre Dame to be challenged so publicly. The values at issue go to the very heart of who and what we are at Notre Dame."That last statement seems to be the one indisputable lesson from this ongoing tragedy.
