More on Unfolding Vanderbilt Football Sex Crime Investigation

The Associated Press reported this morning that Vanderbilt University has kicked four football players off the team and off the campus. Metro Nashville PD spokesman Don Aaron made it clear to the AP that the University's action was related to a sex crimes investigation. In fact,

School officials say the players can't return to campus "without explicit permission" from the school's office of student conduct and academic integrity.

Names of players under investigation may have been published on social media, and full disclosure, an old school friend of mine (like, since elementary school) tweeted them. I'm not publishing them, but searching hashtags on Twitter like #Vandy and #VandyScandal (a hashtag so offensive to Commodores fans at least one press outlet had to apologize for using it) will bring them up.

Though I don't want to post the names of the dismissed players here before some large media outlet makes them public, I do believe the source for the names was reliable.

My friend, Lee Crowe, made an interesting observation about how some Nashville media have reported on the alleged sex crime at Vanderbilt so far:

Funny how TSU QB Mike German made headlines in the Tennessean for vandalizing a Ford Fiesta, yet alleged #Vandy rape still has no names.
— Greek Montana (@leecrowe) June 29, 2013

Given that Tennessee State University has a mostly black student body and that Vanderbilt has sometimes been informally referred to as a Southern Ivy League school (along with Duke, Tulane, Rice, etc), Lee's point is clear. (The Tennessean's article on German's arrest is likely archived, you can read about it here. It sure wasn't a sex crimes investigation.)

Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez's alleged connection to possibly as many as three homicides has put high profile athletes of all stripes (professional and likely soon-to-be professional, college athletes) back in a white hot spotlight. The investigation at Vanderbilt may amount to nothing. It may even be a Duke Lacrosse repeat, which would be one of the worst possible scenarios for everyone. I suspect the clampdown on reporting much about it so far is in part due to the media circus that surrounded the Lacrosse case.

If the investigation drags out and the University continues to seem especially wary and reticent, though, that national media spotlight will swing to Nashville and it'll be a hotter, more uncomfortable summer than usual on that big campus on West End Avenue.

[Associated Press]