ACU dean answers to sex offender's enrollment

3-12-2010 Texas:

Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson, Abilene Christian University’s dean of students, realizes the news that former ACU football player Tony Washington spent two years at the school while registered as a sex offender might come as a shock to many people, but he said the decision to allow Washington to enroll wasn’t taken lightly — and there was a strict process the school went through.

“It was not tough for us to see a young man who made a mistake when he was a kid who really wanted very badly to have a new life,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t difficult to make a decision based on that information. What was difficult was that we’re also responsible for a broad constituency — faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community neighbors. We have to understand how they’ll take that information. That was the difficulty in managing the message and also saying enough without violating the confidentiality and destroying a young man. That’s the difficulty.”

Washington, a two-time All-American offensive tackle for the Wildcats the last two years, broke the news about his status as a sex offender while participating in the NFL Combine recently in Indianapolis. He was convicted of having sex with his 15-year-old biological sister in May 2003 while a student at Alcee Fortier High School in New Orleans. Washington was 16 at the time and received five years probation. He didn’t serve jail time, but he had to register as a sex offender wherever he lived. He told scouts and college coaches the sex was consensual.

ACU doesn’t do any formal background checks on students. But the school does require applicants to report whether or not they have any criminal history, other than a minor offense such as a traffic violation. Thompson said if a student does admit to a past criminal offense, then the university gets involved.

“Once the admission office gets that information, they send it over to me as dean of students to explore to say ‘yes we should or should not’ admit based on that prior conduct history,” he said. “Most of those are not serious. The ones that we feel are more serious, we check into.”

Thompson said he works with Jimmy Ellison, the ACU Police Department’s Chief of Police, during his investigations.

“We work through a process of background checks, talking to references, meeting personally with the student — in this case we did several times with Tony — talking with coaches and family and all those things,” Thompson said. “We do a pretty thorough investigation of what’s the level of severity and the risks to our community. If we feel that is very little to none, we ask if it’s OK to have that student on campus.”

Thompson said in Washington’s case, it helped that he would be working closely with football coach Chris Thomsen and his staff who “are passionate and very intentional about the development of young men.”

But Thompson said ACU does take those kinds of chances on non-athletes, too.

“We have through this process accepted non-athletes who have come from a broken or troubled situation but have showed promise” and are low risk, Thompson said. “Part of that process is we’ve got to connect you to someone who can help walk alongside you and really, truly invest and mentor you. It’s not just about a new admit and new enrollment number.”

Washington lived off campus, and Ellison said both Washington and the university did follow the necessary procedures mandated by law.

“He registered with the Abilene Police Department, which is legally required,” Ellison said. “But all that is required is that he registered and any member of the public, student or nonstudent, is given the Texas Department of Public Safety Web site where they view all sex offenders living within a city or a specific area of the city or you can even search by several search parameters.”

Ellison believes ACU, his department and the city of Abilene did a thorough job in handling the situation with Washington.

“We did extensive interviews with Mr. Washington, researched and we consulted with Detective (Gary) Heslep at the Abilene Police Department specific to his status as an offender and what that meant specifically under the law of the offender registry issues and then gathered some specific information related to his offense,” Ellison said. “Compiling all of that in total, we felt he would not impose an undue risk to the campus community or the community at large.”

And Washington, a possible second-round pick in this year’s NFL draft, did get through his time at ACU without incident.

“Tony never had any off-the-field issues, was never in the dean’s office,” his coach, Thomsen, said. “You have to understand, when you’re a registered sex offender, the accountability is high. You just can’t make a wrong move anymore or you’re going to jail. The accountability level for Tony at our program, our school and our community was much greater than any of our other players.” ..Source.. Joey D. Richards