TerryP
Staff
Thomas was the director of academic support services for Auburn football until March 1. That’s the day Auburn fired him. He is now suing Auburn for discrimination. A lawsuit against Auburn was delivered in Thomas’ name last Friday, and I was emailed a copy of the complaint on Monday.
It claims that Auburn discriminated against Thomas based on race and gender. Essentially, this is the case: a grade for a football player was apparently changed in December of 2019, and Thomas allegedly was fired for knowing about it, but his three superiors were not because they’re white women. The lawsuit also alleges that Thomas experienced a hostile work environment and unfair pressure because football players were making bad grades.
Thomas’ great sin against collegiate athletics, according to the lawsuit, was that he just didn’t keep his mouth shut and look the other way in a meeting with all the big shots. The lawsuit claims that a professor, in a Dec. 23, 2019 email, “persisted in refusing to change” a grade of Jay Jay Wilson, who had two ‘Ds’ and a ‘C’ for the fall semester of 2019. Wilson isn’t named in the lawsuit, but he is identified as being a graduate transfer from Arizona State. Auburn needed one of those ‘Ds’ bumped up to a ‘C’ to remain compliant with the NCAA, according to the complaint.
“During that meeting,” reads the lawsuit, “Mr. Thomas brought up that [Wilson] should have been ineligible because he did not receive two C’s to play in the bowl game, or to remain eligible for Spring 2020. Mr. Thomas raised concerns at that meeting but was informed ‘you know his grade got changed’. The conversations were awkward, but Mr. Thomas never received any information on the grade change until that meeting.
“Further when Mr. Thomas brought up the grade change in the meeting, it was laughed off by people present, as if no big deal.”
That meeting was the beginning of the end of Thomas’ time at Auburn, and if nothing else, it speaks to the pressures of big-time college football on academic support staffers. A year later, after Thomas had already filed one complaint about discrimination, Auburn’s compliance officer told Thomas if he thought a grade had been changed and didn’t report it then that was a fireable offense.
www.al.com
It claims that Auburn discriminated against Thomas based on race and gender. Essentially, this is the case: a grade for a football player was apparently changed in December of 2019, and Thomas allegedly was fired for knowing about it, but his three superiors were not because they’re white women. The lawsuit also alleges that Thomas experienced a hostile work environment and unfair pressure because football players were making bad grades.
Thomas’ great sin against collegiate athletics, according to the lawsuit, was that he just didn’t keep his mouth shut and look the other way in a meeting with all the big shots. The lawsuit claims that a professor, in a Dec. 23, 2019 email, “persisted in refusing to change” a grade of Jay Jay Wilson, who had two ‘Ds’ and a ‘C’ for the fall semester of 2019. Wilson isn’t named in the lawsuit, but he is identified as being a graduate transfer from Arizona State. Auburn needed one of those ‘Ds’ bumped up to a ‘C’ to remain compliant with the NCAA, according to the complaint.
“During that meeting,” reads the lawsuit, “Mr. Thomas brought up that [Wilson] should have been ineligible because he did not receive two C’s to play in the bowl game, or to remain eligible for Spring 2020. Mr. Thomas raised concerns at that meeting but was informed ‘you know his grade got changed’. The conversations were awkward, but Mr. Thomas never received any information on the grade change until that meeting.
“Further when Mr. Thomas brought up the grade change in the meeting, it was laughed off by people present, as if no big deal.”
That meeting was the beginning of the end of Thomas’ time at Auburn, and if nothing else, it speaks to the pressures of big-time college football on academic support staffers. A year later, after Thomas had already filed one complaint about discrimination, Auburn’s compliance officer told Thomas if he thought a grade had been changed and didn’t report it then that was a fireable offense.
Lawsuit against Auburn casts light inside secretive athletics department
“This culture is never going to change unless someone says something. I don’t know why all this happened to me."
