Former San Jose State athletic director Marie Tuite announced her resignation from her position as special director of external relations and capital project development in a Twitter statement Sunday.
After congratulating the SJSU football team on its Saturday win against Southern Utah, Tuite said she is “turning her time and energy to exploring future opportunities.”
Tuite announced her resignation to some athletic department personnel in a Friday email, according to a Tuesday Mercury News article.
Tuite’s decision to step down from her prior position as athletic director was announced in a May 21 campuswide email by SJSU President Mary Papazian shortly after Sage Hopkins, swimming and diving head coach, filed a lawsuit in March against California State University and SJSU administrators, including Tuite.
The lawsuit alleges Tuite and other administrators retaliated against whistleblowers and ignored reports of sexual assault by former director of sports medicine Scott Shaw, according to the 93-page court documents obtained by the Spartan Daily.
Several students and faculty members expressed disappointment with Tuite and her role in Shaw’s 12-year-long sexual misconduct cases.
Shaw was the director of sports medicine from 2008 up until his resignation in August 2020, where he was accused by female swimming and diving student athletes of sexual assault during physical therapy sessions.
Taylor Lehr, former SJSU swimming and diving captain and alumna, said while she was on the swim team, Tuite “didn’t really care” about its success because of animosity toward the coach.
Lehr said she believes Tuite’s actions were always “very calculated” and only to benefit her position as athletic director.
Hopkins circulated a 300-page dossier to university, Mountain West Conference and NCAA officials in 2019 alleging Shaw sexually assaulted 17 swim and diving athletes, according to an April 17, 2020 USA Today article.
Hopkins detailed claims of retaliation by Tuite against him and other faculty members for reporting the misconduct, according to the same article.
The 300-page packet prompted Papazian to request an external Title IX investigation because of concerns about the original 2009-10 investigation, according to the SJSU For Your Information (FYI) webpage.
The FYI webpage details the university’s statements regarding Shaw’s reinvestigation.
The original 2009 investigation by the university determined the sexual assault claims to be unsubstantiated because his method, pressure point therapy, was a “bona fide means of treating muscle injury,” according to the university’s summary of the investigation.
It was determined in the 2020 reinvestigation the sexual misconduct allegations were substantiated, according to the same summary.
Ten additional claims of sexual misconduct also surfaced in the reinvestigation, according to the same SJSU Athletics Department and Investigations For Your Information (FYI) webpage.
After Tuite’s reassignment in May, she said her objective was to let the community heal, according to the same May 21 campuswide email from Papazian.
“As a leader, I am deeply sorry our student-athletes were impacted by Scott Shaw,” Tuite said in the email. “I will continue to fully cooperate with any and all investigations.”
Lehr said Tuite’s final decision to leave the university seemed like she was trying to “get out” because of the continued accusations regarding her mishandling of the investigation.
“I feel like she knew that [more details about the investigation were] going to come out and that she was in the wrong,” Lehr said. “I feel like she knew what her fate was going to be, so that was kind of a way of just taking it upon herself to just leave.”
