Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore was fired for violating a university policy regarding supervisor-employee relationships.
The staff member involved in the affair was not fired because the policy places the responsibility of disclosure on the supervisor.
The policy was created in 2021 after a previous scandal involving a university provost and subordinate employees.
The staff member who had an affair with Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore was not fired from her job because of it, unlike Moore, who was dismissed on Dec. 10. She previously concealed the relationship from the university, which received a tip about it and looked into it and even searched her phone, according to the Detroit Free Press.
After breaking up with Moore on Dec. 8, she finally came clean and told the university about the relationship Dec. 10, triggering Moore’s firing the same day.
Yet she’s still employed by the university, the university confirmed Dec. 15.
So why wasn’t she fired, too, if only because of an apparent lack of prior honesty about the relationship?
The university responded to this question from USA TODAY Sports Dec. 15 by pointing to university Policy No. 201.97.
That policy itself is the product of a different scandal at Michigan. It also stresses the importance of the power balance in supervisor-employee relationships and why employees are treated differently than supervisors when it comes to secret affairs. This is the policy Moore violated to get himself fired.
What is the policy that got Sherrone Moore fired but kept staffer employed?
Policy No. 201.97 governs supervisor-employee relationships at the university. It states a supervisor may not, “implicitly or explicitly, initiate or attempt to initiate an intimate relationship with a supervisee.”
It’s not clear whether Moore or his staff member initiated the relationship, which went on for multiple years, according to the prosecutor in Moore’s criminal case. But even if she initiated it, the policy still requires the supervisor, not the employee, to disclose the relationship to university officials. Upon disclosure, the university then would implement a management plan to remove the supervisor’s power over that employee.
“Recognizing that Intimate Relationships exist or may develop in the workplace that are not initiated by a Supervisor and are free from coercion and abuse of power, immediate disclosure of the relationship by the Supervisor is required,” the policy states. “Failure of the Supervisor to disclose an Intimate Relationship is a serious offense and cause for discipline, up to and including dismissal from employment.”
Moore did not previously disclose it, which alone is a policy violation that could have cost him his job. By contrast, the policy notes the disclosure requirement doesn’t apply to supervisees.
“Although encouraged, Supervisees have no obligation to disclose,” the policy states.
Why is the employee not required to disclose the affair?
The supervisor’s influence over the employee gives the employee reason to fear retaliation if the employee doesn’t obey the supervisor’s wishes. That could mean loss of job or pay.
In this case, Moore retaliated in a different way after she went against his wishes and reported the affair, according the prosecutor. Moore showed up at her apartment to confront her, leading him to get arrested on charges of stalking and home invasion.
The university doesn’t want to put employees in that position.
The policy recognizes the power supervisors have over employees gives them the opportunity to abuse it in these situations. It puts the onus on them for that reason — to disclose it and avoid initiating intimate relationships.
“Intimate Relationships initiated by a Supervisor are at high risk of being unwelcomed and experienced by the Supervisee as sexual harassment,” the policy states. “Supervisors are therefore responsible for understanding how their statements and conduct may reasonably be interpreted by persons who do not share their same level of power.”
How this policy came about
The policy came in response to a different scandal in 2020 involving university provost Martin Philbert, the second-highest administrator at the school. He was accused of sexually harassing multiple members of the university community, including university employees and graduate students who worked in his lab.
After the university hired a law firm to investigate, the firm produced a report that included some recommendations. One of those recommendations was to develop a standalone policy “explicitly focused on consensual relationships between employees in positions of unequal authority.”
“Philbert engaged in multiple sexual relationships with subordinate employees,” the report from WilmerHale stated. ‘Such relationships between employees — though they may be consensual — create the potential for actual and perceived conflicts of interest, exploitation, and favoritism where the employees occupy unequal positions of authority, and may disrupt the workplace environment. Moreover, such relationships can involve issues of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
The university didn’t have a specific policy to address this previously and instead relied on its nepotism policy to address issues of favoritism and discrimination from employees’ “close personal relationships,” the report noted.
The university responded by adopting Policy No. 201.97 in July 2021. Less than five years later, it led to the firing of the football coach “supervisor” while sparing the “employee” in a relationship of unequal authority.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
(This policy was updated to add new information.)