The ensuing case would detail Robinsons harassment and unequal treatment of mens and womens sports teams at the university, and be the first publicly-recorded allegation of a decadeslong pattern of behavior.

The complaint claimed that Robinson allotted unequal resources to and purposefully derailed womens athletics programs, such as in one case, where he allegedly refused to plow womens lacrosse fields during the winter at the same time that he dedicated a large amount of funding to new facilities for mens teams. After years of proceedings, Students case ended without a jury trial. As a result, the state paid Student a sum of $200,000.

New Paltz chose to protect the abuser rather than their staff and students. NYU either ignored Robinsons past or was too lazy to do the proper hiring diligence to protect NYU from Robinson, a former coach at New Paltz told WSN. Sadly, Robinsons victims could have avoided the degradation.

Multiple people close to the New Paltz athletics department said that many staff members and student-athletes were impacted by Robinsons behavior, but that few were in a position to take legal action. Many said they made complaints to the universitys human resources department or to the Title IX office, and others said they went to their union. When no action was taken, some decided to leave the university. New Paltz did not respond to questions about allegations against Robinson during his time at the university.

He had been called into investigations within the administration about his behavior, one source said. Nothing was ever done with it, and that was very frustrating.

The way that female coaches were treated was unheard of, another source said. If that was my daughter, I would have hit him with my car.

Robinsons alleged harassment was not limited to athletics department staff. Rachael Purtell, a former student-athlete at New Paltz who played for Student, said she experienced sexual harassment involving Robinson. When Purtell reported her experience to the universitys department of human resources and Title IX office, she said nothing changed. This pattern would continue at NYU.

I observed Stuarts impact on the department in the forms of disparities in scheduling, facility maintenance, funding and uniform quality disadvantaging the womens sports teams, Purtell wrote to WSN. This was a consensus among the student-athletes as was the fact that sexually harassing behaviors were normalized and condoned within the department.

The university has maintained that it was not aware of Robinsons history when it hired him as athletics director. According to email correspondence obtained by WSN, now NYU president Linda Mills was a member of the committee that selected Robinson. The university did not respond to questions about Mills role in Robinsons hiring.

NYU has told WSN that it used a search firm to conduct a background check on Robinson during the hiring process, which it said included looking into candidates civil and criminal legal history. University spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement that NYU was not aware of Students case before it was reported by WSN.

NYU had not seen the lawsuit before it was reported in the WSN, and the search firm has indicated that it likewise had not seen the lawsuit before it appeared in the WSN, Beckman wrote. Thats a source of concern to us, and we intend to look into this matter to see how that can be avoided in the future.

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How Stuart Robinson's misconduct went overlooked for years - Washington Square News