Opinion | 10:19 pm | January 27, 2012 | By Max de la Bruyere

For Our Readers: Regarding Patrick Witt ’12

ydn_twitter_picture-2
Photo by Yale Daily News.

Soon after Patrick Witt ’12 announced his decision to play in The Game, the News received a tip that a Yale student had filed an informal complaint alleging sexual assault against the quarterback.

The student who had filed the complaint against Witt chose to make it informal. This meant that no disciplinary measures would be taken against Witt and that the complaint would be kept confidential. All parties involved observed that route of discretion. The complainant, the alleged perpetrator and all those who heard the case honored the discreet process. In order to be fair to all those involved and the process they had adhered to, and because the nature of the complaint meant that all its details remain allegations, the News chose not to print a story.

The News was not aware of a connection between the informal complaint and Witt’s Rhodes Scholarship application until Thursday.

Contact Editor in Chief Max de La Bruyère at editor@yaledailynews.com.

Comments
  • EliFBfan

    Kudos to you Max for not only choosing an ethical path but a logical and reasoned one as well. It would seem obvious that litigation will follow and in that effort I wish Patrick Witt good luck.

  • abby

    According to the New York Times article, posted Thursday, “Vivian Yee,” the editor of the Yale Daily News “contributed reporting from New Haven.” If the News was not aware of the connection, how/why was its editor contributing to the NY Times article?

    • Yale12

      Vivian Yee is not the editor of the Yale Daily News. Max de la Bruyere (duh) is. Yee no longer has any connection to the News.

  • lvjamieson2

    I smell a coverup…

  • basho

    If you really cared about being ethical, you wouldn’t have published the trash you did. Shame on all of you. SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMEEEEEEE.

  • EliFBfan

    Several posters to the original Witt article yesterday asked Vivian to explain herself. So far no response that I’ve seen.

  • Robbie

    Regardless of whether or not she has any reason to do so, Vivian Yee probably isn’t going to acknowledge anonymous Internet commenters posting on an article she didn’t write for a paper she no longer works for.

  • River_Tam

    I think the YDN did the right thing.

  • Standards

    Seriously, YDN.

    Thanks for handing this really delicate matter with integrity and class. Don’t let the particularly loud mouthbreathers and conspirators give you the impression that the campus is anything other than completely behind you.

  • ROFLCOPTERSUX

    ^^ what Standards said. much support from the island!

  • The Anti-Yale

    It is not easy to captain a ship, especially one with a prestigious lineage like *YDN*.

    Lives are involved.

    I trust the editor is doing his best not to steer the ship on to the rocks (as we have seen recently) or to throw passengers or crew overboard to lighten the load.

    Keep your head and heart high, *YDN*.

    PK

  • yayasisterhood

    MLDB and YDN did exactly what they should have done with this story.

  • The Anti-Yale

    Here is the house-of-cards superstructure of the NYT article:

    Several days earlier, ***according to people involved*** on both sides of the process . . .

    This account of the accusation against Witt and how it affected his Rhodes candidacy is **based on interviews** with a half-dozen people with knowledge of all or part of the story; ***they all spoke on the condition of anonymity . . .***

    In September, ***according to people with knowledge*** of the situation . . .

    In early November, ***according to those with knowledge of the matter***, someone told the Rhodes Trust about the sexual assault accusation. The notification was not anonymous; it was not, though, made formally by a Yale official . . .

    Yale had not told Rhodes whether it was re-endorsing Witt when he released a statement through the athletic department the next day.

    **[Did Mr. Witt know WHETHER OR NOT Rhodes had been notified of the sexual harassment charge at this point in the chronology of events?]**

    “I will be playing in the Yale-Harvard game this Saturday,” it said. “I have withdrawn my application for the Rhodes scholarship.”

    The quarterback did not tie the two sentences, but journalists did, reporting that he had given up on the scholarship so that he could play. Neither Witt nor Yale corrected the misimpression.

    Respectfully submitted,

    PK

  • jholland

    Poynter Institute: [“Yale Daily News, New York Times both make wrong call on Patrick Witt sexual assault complaint coverage”][1]

    “If The New York Times overstepped its journalistic boundaries in publishing the story, the Yale Daily News fell far short … I’m not suggesting the Yale Daily should have taken a tabloid approach and printed allegations or the rumor of allegation. Rather, while “respecting the confidentiality” of the woman who filed the complaint and Witt, the journalists in the newsroom missed an opportunity to find a story that held a powerful institution accountable on an important issue.”

    [1]: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/everyday-ethics/161151/yale-daily-news-new-york-times-both-make-wrong-call-on-patrick-witt-sexual-assault-story/

  • observer

    Rhodes speaks, and apparently Yale confirms what Rhodes says about the “timeline” here.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/sports/ncaafootball/rhodes-trust-gives-account-of-quarterbacks-candidacy.html

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