In response to Ingrid Lilligren’s March 4 letter, I heavily disagree with her arguments. We do have the facts. They are a matter of public record. I realize you are the Chairwoman of the University Committee on Women, and I agree that when a woman is discriminated against because of her gender, there should be justice.

However, in this instance, the facts add up to a just termination of employment. After looking up the case in the court and viewing various articles I have composed the following facts:

There were multiple complaints from athletes and parents stating that with Ruth Crowe as coach, the athletic experience was horrible for the students. Crowe made no effort to meet with parents when they requested to talk about some of the problems on the team. She also refused to meet with boosters to help get funds for the softball team after being asked to meet with them by the athletic department.

For more than a decade, she had a losing year every year. After her employment had been terminated, she failed to look for a new job in the year leading up to her bringing a case against Iowa State. She said something along the lines of “I didn’t think anyone would want to hire me.”

This proves that she failed to mitigate her damages after the supposed breach of contract. In most cases, failure to mitigate damages will get you awarded nothing in the court of law. In her defense, she argued that the department fired her because she had been a strong proponent of Title IX. In the end, judgment fell in the favor of Crowe. This case was not about her treatment within the department — it was a frivolous lawsuit sought to punish the university.

Just because someone argues against a woman, does not mean they don’t know the facts nor are they sexist. They are simply looking at the issue at hand and weighing the facts. I doubt the authors of the original column sat down and started ranting about Crowe getting a large sum of money. Maybe some of the facts were left out to save space or because they were complex.

In the end, she had horrible job performance and was awarded a large sum of money for that ill-performed job. I have one question for you and the audience: should the CEOs of the failing companies on Wall Street get big bonuses for not producing results if they claim they were mistreated?

Paul Vidmar

Junior

Civil engineering