Sports

Update: Albom Tries to Clarify What He Meant About Florida Rape Case Settlement

February 02, 2016, 8:41 PM by  Alan Stamm

Mitch Albom's only public response so far to an outcry over ESPN remarks Sunday comes in an email to Fox 2 News, Dave Spencer reports.

He goes with being misunderstood about his view of a Florida State rape case settlement with an ex-student, but doesn't acknowledge insensitivity or misspeaking. Here's what he sent the local station Monday:  

"In no way was my 'Sports Reporters' comment about giving a settlement to charity meant to imply it would have made the accuser’s case more believable, or to tell her what to do with her money.

"Quite the contrary. I hoped that it would take money out of the discussion to allow the important conversation about sexual assault to stand alone, without talk of settlement amounts.

"The impact of sexual assaults are devastating, and it takes great courage to come forward and report them. No comments, including mine, should ever shift the spotlight away from that, or from this terribly serious problem in our society. I hope that is where the focus will now remain."

In other words, even though he said "I’d feel a lot happier about this if the woman took that money and gave it to charity," Albom he didn't mean to imply he was telling "to tell her what to do with her money."

Got it now?

Original article from Monday:

Critics around the country accuse Mitch Albom of insensitivity toward a young woman who says a college football player raped her.  

The Free Press columnist delivered just a few sentences Sunday about the Florida State case, but his ESPN remarks spark an online outcry in Detroit and nationally.

On "The Sports Reporters" program, Albom participated in a brief discussion about the university's agreement last week to settle a federal lawsuit by Erica Kinsman for $950,000. It's the largest payment ever to resolve a Title IX claim of indifference to a student’s sexual assault report.

“I’d feel a lot happier about this," Albom tells host John Saunders and Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News. "if the woman took that money and gave it to charity and said, 'That's not what this was about.' I always am suspect when people end up saying, ‘Well, I’m going to take it.” (Half-minute video is below.)


Top of Deadspin's post Monday.

Cue the critical chorus.

► "In a clip lasting mere seconds, it is impressive how idiotic Albom manages to be." -- Justin Spiro, Detroit Sports Rag managing editor

► "The implications of Albom's statement are disgusting." -- Alexandra Fluegel, Metro Times

► "This is a legitimately impressive string of compounding inanities." -- Tom Ley, Deadspin staff writer

► "What in the wide world of asshole sports reporters is this, man? . . . Have you ever turned down money someone voluntarily gave you?" -- Sean Newell, Vice Sports weekend editor

► "Never thought I'd yearn for him to get back to writing The First Snapchat From Purgatory or whatever." -- Emma Span, Sports Illustrated senior editor, in tweet 

► "I would donate to any charity that made Mitch Albom stop talking." -- Ashley Holcomb, Atlanta sports radio co-host, in tweet

► "When a victim receives a settlement for sex assault it should be ok to do whatever they want with it. Don't take women's choice away again." -- Josh Mansour, MSU sportswriter at The State News and Free Press contributor, in tweet

► "I'd be a lot happier if you, a public figure, donated all your salary to the prevention of rape culture on college campuses and in media presentations. I'm always suspect of anyone who is paid for their opinion." -- Rebecca S. Radcliff of Clarkston, in tweet to Albom, who deleted it twice

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" I always am suspect when people end up saying, 'Well, I'm going to take it,' " Albom says Sunday on ESPN (above).

In his Sunday post, Spiro pounds Albom for "giving financial advice to an alleged victim of rape:"

How condescending is Albom to think the issue has anything to do with how happy the result makes him? A $950,000 settlement for a school with an endowment pushing $700 million is like an average Joe getting a parking ticket in Birmingham because they parked illegally in front of Bella Piatti. Is Albom that rattled by this outcome? . . .

And who is [he] to tell anyone else how to spend their money? This is a guy with homes in multiple states including one on the ocean in Malibu, California. The nerve.

If my daughter had to leave the school she grew up loving because the institution was trying to cover for her rapist, I am sure I’d want more than $950,000 on sheer principle.

Instead of it going to charity, perhaps this poor woman can put that money toward receiving an education that Florida State made it impossible for her to gain in Tallahassee. Or maybe it can buy a really good shrink to help her cope with the trauma. . . . Frankly, what she does with the money is not my business. And it is certainly no business of Mitch Albom’s.

At Deadspin, Ley writes that Albom "had remarkably awful things to say."

What he’s saying, in so many words, is that Kinsman not giving her settlement to charity makes him think she’s a liar who fabricated a story for profit.

The most remarkable thing is how casually this falls out of Albom’s face; he just flings it out there like it’s the most normal thing in the world to say.

And in his Vice Sports post, Newell -- an attorney -- comments:

Where do you, a stranger who is  somehow in a position to offer an opinion on something you almost certainly only have a superficial understanding about, get off telling a rape victim how to spend a settlement award? . . .

Of all the dishonorable parties involved here, why are you requiring the victim to prove she is acting with pure intentions?

In addition, these shots fly on Twitter. The top one is from Deadspin's editor-in-chief: 



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