Attorney: Media attention on Peyton Manning in Title IX case missing point

Bill Polian congratulates Peyton Manning after the Broncos won Super Bowl 50.

That light has somewhat dimmed now.

“When institutions like the University of Tennessee tacitly condone violence against women by ignoring cases of sexual assault by student-athletes, it perpetuates a unsafe culture of violence that ultimately hurts women everywhere”, said Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, in a statement.

The focus of the six female plaintiffs is on five additional and more recent alleged incidents of sexual assault.

One incident listed as an example in the lawsuit is a 1996 sexual assault complaint against Manning by the university’s first female associate trainer, who is not a party to the current case.

The Tennessean newspaper said the alleged incident was among those outlined in a suit filed last Tuesday in Nashville claiming the school has violated regulations requiring equal support for men’s and women’s athletic programs. The alleged incident in 1996 between Peyton Manning and a former athletics trainer.

Naughright’s sexual harassment claim involved a 1996 incident in which Manning exposed his buttocks as Naughright, then known as Jamie Whited, bent over to examine his foot in a training room. The male student that Manning later claimed he had been mooning, track athlete Malcolm Saxon, wrote a letter saying he was not the intended recipient of any mooning and urged Manning to “maintain some dignity and admit to what happened…” One of the incidents, from 1994, is redacted, which could be a second involving Manning that was alluded to in the court document from Naughright’s legal counsel and by Daily News writer Shaun King on Sunday.

For her depiction in the book, Naughright sued the Mannings, their ghostwriter John Warren Underwood, and the Harper Collins Publishing Company in 2001. In some circles-and not just in New England-there’s a belief that the halo has been knocked from Manning’s head.

There is no mention of physical contact made in this affidavit, which is contrary to what the public is being led to believe.

Professor Roy says re-surfacing of these allegations after 20 years couldn’t come at a worse time.

Attorney Brian Kent of the firm behind AbuseGuardian.com commented on this news by stating, “Reporting an assault can be an emotional experience, which can reopen wounds”.

“It was the gluteus maximus, the rectum, the testicles and the area in between the testicles”, Naughright says. ESPN, meanwhile, has always been the “Worldwide Leader” in sports entertainment and has played a major role in promoting Peyton Manning’s brand and his image.

PFT has already attempted to get Peyton’s agent, Tom Condon, to weigh in, and that hasn’t happened at the time of this post. However, since the civil case was settled and criminal charges were never pursued against Manning, they remain merely allegations.

And somehow it seems the Manning-Naughright story has lent credence to the Al Jazeera report that Manning used human growth hormone in his recovery from neck surgery four-plus years ago.

Manning’s career in the National Football League may be coming to an end anyway.

According to The Daily Beast’s Robert Silverman, whose piece was published February 1, the only discipline UT gave Manning was to take away his “privilege to eat at the athletic facilities dining room, and requiring him to run at 6:00 a.m. for two weeks”. Active NFL players are prohibited from pitching alcohol, so it was widely interpreted that Manning is planning to retire.