Good evening, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) sports fans.
We almost never talk about government or social issues at All Sports Discussion mostly because this is an ACC sports site. For many people, watching sports is a safe haven away from the rest of the real world (it’s those few hours a week where you can tune out your day job and enjoy watching your favorite college or pro team of any sport).
However, we do from time to time discuss social issues on our site (if you go through those archives, you will see a lot about Title IX issues at Baylor University – and the institutional inaction).
This is a post of praise for University of Louisville (U of L) president, Neeli Bendapudi.
Bendapudi first day as the U of L President was in the middle of May 2018. She has been in her position about 60 days.
On day 56 (about 7 weeks into per university presidency), July 11, 2018, she had to address a Forbes Magazine report where the Papa Johns pizza restaurant founder (also a member of the U of L Board of Trustees) quite frankly, showed his true colors with a racial slur:
John Schnatter—the founder and public face of pizza chain Papa John’s—used the N-word on a conference call in May. Schnatter confirmed the incident in an emailed statement to Forbes on Wednesday. He resigned as chairman of Papa John’s on Wednesday evening.
And Bedapudi addressed this with high quality leadership. Let’s talk about the timeline of events here:
- On July 11, 2018 (about 12 hours after that report), Schnatter resigned from the U of L Board of Trustees.
- On July 12, 2018, Bendapudi stated that the U of L is re-evaluating its relationship with Papa Johns. The U of L President basically said that she was confident that Schnatter would apologize to the entire university community. Two days later, Schattner apologized. He has offered to apologize to the school’s football players, as well, and he should.
- On July 13, 2018, the U of L renamed its stadium from Papa John’s Stadium to Cardinal Stadium.
- On July 14, 2018, U of L officials removed Papa John’s name from the stadium.
- On July 15, 2018, Papa John’s Chief Executive Officer also disavowed the Schnatter comments.
These are swift, decisive actions that a strong leader takes. A leader in Bendapudi who says racism has no place a university community (or any place for that matter) where the diversity of the people and thoughts are of utmost importance. A university exists because of the students that are enrolled – that’s it – you don’t have a university if you don’t have students.
Kudos to Bendapudi – she made the ACC proud this past week.
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