With the business of college sports becoming more crucial to a university s prominence not to mention its bottom line the choice of Mr. Pernetti seemed to pay off. Sports at Rutgers were on the rise and in November the university received a coveted invitation to join the Big Ten an athletic conference that guaranteed vast exposure and huge television revenue.
But now with outrage growing over the abusive behavior of Mike Rice the university s men s basketball coach Mr. Pernetti and the university s president Robert L. Barchi find themselves under scrutiny for their handling of the case. Their jobs may be in jeopardy and their university is once again attracting unflattering attention just two years after Tyler Clementi an 18 year old gay student killed himself after a bullying incident.
On Wednesday morning Rutgers fired Mr. Rice a day after video surfaced of him berating players during practice throwing basketballs at them kicking them and taunting them with vulgar language including homophobic slurs. The firing came four months after Rutgers learned of the abuse allegation and punished Mr. Rice by suspending him for three games fining him $50 000 and ordering him to take anger management counseling.
College sports analysts noted that the video of Mr. Rice first surfaced just as Rutgers was engaged in sensitive negotiations with the Big Ten when the university would have been especially wary of attracting negative attention of any kind.
They had a lot of things going on said Tyrone Thomas a Washington lawyer who advises universities on N.C.A.A. matters. Any type of controversy would have been poorly timed for them.
They had to be sensitive to anything that could rock the boat publicly in any way at that point he added.
In a statement Wednesday Mr. Pernetti said he regretted how the initial disciplining of Mr. Rice was handled.
I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to rehabilitate but I was wrong Mr. Pernetti said. Moving forward I will work to regain the trust of the Rutgers community.
That was not good enough for state officials in Trenton who said they would hold hearings into how Mr. Pernetti and other Rutgers officials responded to initial reports of the abuse after a video was provided to Mr. Pernetti by the former team assistant Eric Murdock. Stephen M. Sweeney a Democrat and the president of the State Senate said officials should strongly consider firing Mr. Pernetti.
Sheila Y. Oliver a Democrat and the speaker of the State Assembly said I want to know what role everybody took in the whole fiasco.
Gov. Chris Christie a Republican said he supported Mr. Rice s dismissal adding The way these young men were treated by the head coach was completely unacceptable and violates the trust those parents put in Rutgers University.
At least 10 faculty members including the dean of the Graduate School at Rutgers in Newark signed a letter calling for Dr. Barchi just seven months into his term to resign for his inexcusable handling of Coach Mike Rice s homophobic and misogynist abuse of our students.
The faculty members accused Dr. Barchi of covering up the coach s behavior by neglecting to tell them and the student body about the extent of it in the fall. In the meantime in December President Barchi reviewed Coach Rice s $700 000 contract and renewed it the letter said.
Top Rutgers officials held an emergency meeting Wednesday afternoon on the university s New Brunswick campus.
Last year under pressure from Mr. Christie the Legislature passed a law reorganizing Rutgers and its three campuses. The plan bitterly debated among students faculty lawmakers and university trustees gave Rutgers control of the medical schools of the long troubled University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey which officials believed would attract more research money and therefore more prestige to Rutgers.
Ariel Kaminer contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction
Correction April 3 2013
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the day Mike Rice was fired. It was Wednesday not Monday.
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