Column: For Ohio State, even truth is fighting a moving target

"A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on," once said by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. The quote, sometimes seen in slightly differing words, has often been attributed (mistakenly) to Winston Churchill.

It's apropos that Hull be seen so deprived of credit that history has taken from him. The clever snippet just seems something so wise, something so remarkable that Churchill, a stout military marvel, would surely author. But the facts are not always a powerful ally to a good narrative and Hull is just an asterisk in history to that fact.

Urban Meyer, meanwhile, is living it.

Whether Meyer was required to report allegations of spousal abuse by Zach Smith to then-wife Courtney to his superiors is debatable. Whether he did, as he claimed Friday in a written statement, will be hashed out by an investigative board formed to arbitrate that very question.

But Meyer isn't just battling the truth. He's facing an army of reporters that decide the rules of conduct. Unlike Meyer's contractual obligations and duty as an Ohio State supervisor which should provide a simple formula for wrongdoing, this mob is moving goalposts at every turn.

It's not that the media necessarily wants him to be the judge and jury, an arbiter of wrongdoing of his coaching staff. It's simply a convenient stance. Writers rush to print with a form of righteous clickbait on each passing story. Virtue has become the new truth in reporting.

For sure, Meyer is no victim. If there is any victim in this case, it is Courtney Smith. The allegations are ugly but to this point, unsubstantiated. Zach has never been charged of a crime against her let alone convicted. So for the time being, we simply don't know whether abuse occurred.

But neither does Meyer. And that's the point.

On July 23, when Brett McMurphy reported an arrest in a pair of criminal complaints in 2015, he unknowingly spun a web of deceit and confusion that is still burying Meyer in a vicious spin cycle. In Chicago at Big Ten Media Days, when asked about his knowledge of the reported incidents the following day, Meyer was defiant.

"I got a text late last night something happened in 2015. And there was nothing. Once again, there’s nothing – once again, I don’t know who creates a story like that."

McMurphy, a respected veteran reporter did not take kindly to the insinuation. Even if unintentional, it comes off as guiding his motivation since. But worse, his reporting has been ripe with sloppiness.

Whether Meyer was lying or simply addressing the original report in the context that Smith was arrested, we'll never know. But it turns out, Smith wasn't. And there have been five subsequent edits to the very first post between July 23 and July 30. The latest revision states he "was investigated" for felony counts of domestic violence and felonious assault against Courtney.

The revisions –alterations–were made to the posts without any clarification. There were no retractions for the original mistake; no logs or clarification for the following edits. McMurphy's stance is that the original copy of the Oct. 26, 2015 allegation had a checkbox ticked for "arrest" with other versions correcting that mistake made by the Powell Police Department.

We're left with only McMurphy's word on the inaccuracy. To date, he has not released his copy of the report. But it's not the mistake itself that is necessarily unforgivable rather the lack of self-awareness as to how the initial report could have guided Meyer's own missteps.

The flat denial is a mistake Meyer is still paying for, even if he was being truthful thinking about an arrest. After his statement on Fri. Aug. 3, it's become accepted in media circles that Meyer confessed to a lie.

Only, he didn't.

"My intention was not to say anything inaccurate or misleading," Meyer said in his Twitter response. "However, I was not adequately prepared to discuss these sensitive personnel issues with the media and I apologize for the way I handled those questions."

Lying to the media was never going to be relevant. And in attempting to apologize for confusion, it's simply been construed publicly as an admission that hasn't been made.

Despite the moving targets, Meyer's fate is in the hands of the truth and the six-person panel's ability to look past them. Truth will begin and end in a simple concept: the requirement to report an allegation and whether he did.

The legal requirement is anchored by two complementary policies: Title IX, a 1972 federal law that governs institutions who participate in federal financial assistance programs and Ohio State's sister Sexual Misconduct Policy.

Title IX was an offshoot of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At its inception, it was an aid in the ongoing advancement of equal pay and equal treatment of women in educational opportunities. Its designed purpose was to prevent harassment and discrimination on college campuses.

With an epidemic of sexual and domestic abuse on-campus in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, it was also necessary to keep universities helping to clean up their streets. At that time, schools were very wary of crime data and often suppressed reporting of abuse by female victims to keep statistics tolerable. Unreported abuse became a form of discrimination and educators were now required to take it seriously.

"One of the key parts is that if you feel that student has been harmed or is in danger, and definitely if it's something of an abusive or sexual nature, you're supposed to report that," said a source with nearly 15 years of experience in Title IX reporting in Division I athletics.

"There are various people you can report it to–one is the police and one is the Title IX coordinator. But essentially if you're what's called a responsible employee, someone that works with students in a regular basis in a supervisory role and they disclose something to you, then you have report it."

But Title IX has its limitations. The protections are limited especially to students or participants in educational programs. In a narrower sense, it mostly applies only on campus.

Because of purpose behind protecting students, allegations of Smith's abuse against his wife would have no coverage under Title IX nor would Meyer, a mandatory reporter, be required to inform of these allegations.

The University Risk Management and Insurance Association (URMIA) is a consortium of dozens of universities around the country. In a 2013 journal, it describes the essence of how Title IX is implemented.

"To hold an educational institution liable for damages for sexual harassment under Title IX, a plaintiff must show that an official with authority to address harassment had actual knowledge of, and was deliberately indifferent to, harassment that deprived the victim of access to the educational benefits or opportunities provided by the school."

The mission of protecting students of access to educational benefits and opportunities is seen in practice as well.

"It only applies to students," the source explained, "and discrimination or harassment to employees."

That would preclude Courtney Smith from such coverage and Ohio State from needing to protect her.

Although Ohio State is assuredly clear of any potential Title IX violations, it doesn't mean Meyer is necessarily free from his obligation to report. The Sexual Misconduct Policy, which governs all university employees at Ohio State, would apply to the mandatory reporting process in certain situations.

Though separate from Title IX, it is still administered by the Title IX coordinator usually with deputy coordinators scattered around the university departments.

Meyer's contract spells out his obligation as a supervisor to report promptly "any known violations of Ohio State's Sexual Misconduct Policy (including, but not limited to, sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, intimate violence and stalking) that involve any student, faculty, or staff or that is in connection with a university sponsored activity or event."

The misconduct policy itself states mandatory reporters have 5 days to report an allegation.

In the simplest form, the policy essentially covers any form of harassment, abuse or sexual violence of any kind, including domestic and forms of stalking or exploitation.

This is where the reporting requirement is a bit murky for Meyer and Ohio State. The policy itself governs only those things Ohio State can control. As with Title IX, it is designed to protect the campus environment. As such, the location is limited to "university property or at university-sponsored events, regardless of their location."

It also does allow some discretion to the Title IX coordinator to determine if any off-campus behavior would create a hostile environment. A good example of this would be a teacher's assistant that goes off campus with a professor and alleges misconduct. Their working relationship after such an allegation could create a hostile environment, so there would be possible reason to separate them.

Further reading of the policy corroborates this approach, as almost all remedies are designed to assist a student or employee from a possible harasser, abuser or attacker.

There is also some precedent here behind this principle in a real world example.

Just recently, on July 19 to be exact, a federal judge in Denver dismissed a lawsuit against four University of Colorado employees over a charge they did not act properly in handling allegations by Pamela Fine against former assistant football coach Joe Tumpkin. Tumpkin had allegedly abused her repeatedly while dating in 2016 and her complaint to the university yielded no further follow-up to the investigation process. Tumpkin was eventually fired, but Fine still went to court with a suit against the head coach, athletic director, president and chancellor.

The U.S. District judge, William J. Martinez, delivered a verdict that strikes close to the heart of this case.

"Defendants' alleged failure to follow the university's rules and policies did not increase the risk of harm to her given that, as someone with no affiliation with or connection to the university, she was not within the group of individuals that the policies were designed to protect," he said.

While it's still being determined if Meyer's requirement to report would extend off campus, and whether he did, the standard could be as simple as just notifying athletic director Gene Smith as opposed to going to one of the Title IX coordinators.

"Essentially if you're a responsible employee and something comes to you that happens off campus, you probably would just go to your supervisor and get out of the way," the source added.

Confidentiality is a key to all reporting, both on and off campus.

"When we take it to our Title IX coordinators, we would be thanked for bringing it to their attention and told not to discuss it either with the victim or the people they're accusing."

Which brings us back to McMurphy.

In his latest Facebook post, dated Aug. 6, he quotes Courtney's attorney in a prepared statement sent to him.

The attorney states that although Courtney is eager to cooperate with Ohio State's investigation, neither she nor her attorney Julia Leveridge have heard from anyone at the university throughout the entire process.

Like Fine, because Smith is not a person designed to be protected by Ohio State's policy, it's unlikely she would ever hear from the university. Though the source is not familiar with Ohio State's specific university policy, he did say there's not much they could do given the lack of jurisdiction.

"They're not the police," he added. "There's nothing they could or would likely do in that situation."

"There really is no point of contacting someone in her situation, ever."

The implication made with McMurphy's reporting comes off as Ohio State is acting irresponsibly in their handling of the case because it never reached out to Smith.

If there's anything we've learned with previous Title IX cases, Baylor most notably, it's that a coach or university official reaching out to a potential victim is a faux pas if not an outright instance of misconduct.

However, it's not just the inference that's worrisome, it's the continued pattern of unbalanced reporting. While Leveridge was offered a platform for what amounted to a staged press release, Smith's attorney Brad Koffel was given no such ability to respond. And that's been an ongoing problem.

In none of McMurphy's seven posts on Smith since July 23 has Smith or Koffel been quoted or offered a chance to give their side. In a post dated Aug. 1, McMurphy transcribes text exchanges between Courtney Smith and Meyer's wife Shelley in 2015 where Smith appears to describe allegations of ongoing abuse and her fear for Zach. Shelley Meyer was also offered no chance to respond to the authenticity of the conversation.

In an interview with Deadspin, McMurphy's rationale for not affording Meyer a chance to respond was indefensible.

"It could have got her side, but part of me is also like, 'I’ve been working on this story for three weeks; there’s no way that somebody else is not pursuing the same story'. And again, by not contacting Shelley Meyer, it doesn’t change the accuracy of the story, it just would’ve given her the opportunity to give a comment on her behalf."

McMurphy's case rests on a flimsy deck of cards.

His evidence, screenshots of text messages, some containing no timestamps, would be inadmissible in practically every court in America. Courts generally would allow texts only if they're authenticated at the source...recovered from the carrier directly or physically retrieved from the phone with send/receive metadata intact. With an iMessage, as is Courtney's texts, neither is practical.

It's odd that his best evidence wouldn't be admitted in court, and clearly wasn't enough to precipitate any criminal action in 2015, yet he feels no sense of ethical obligation to seek the second side of this story. Yes, Shelley Meyer offering the ability to refute those conversations taking place is an ethical priority that should supersede inconvenience.

Fortunately for Meyer, Ohio State appears to be interested in uncovering whatever truth awaits us. It acted responsibly in delivering the administrative leave when it could have simply acquiesced to the media-driven verdict.

Guilty as charged on July 24.

Now the only critical fact that appears to matter is whether Meyer reported the allegation. Or even if he had to. McMurphy's reporting has become a sidebar into legal mudslinging he afforded one party but not the other.

We can only hope Smith is not guilty. Not because of the optics, but because as decent human beings we don't want anyone getting away with something so heinous. But his guilt or innocence was never a verdict to be rendered by Meyer especially since the Powell Police Department couldn't even substantiate reason for an arrest.

His biggest obstacle now is not just the truth, but also how quickly it puts its pants on.