Iowa and President Bruce Harreld are all in on Athletics Director Gary Barta.

By Danny Payne
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Another day, another lawsuit filed against Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta. For those keeping score at home, that is three active lawsuits, plus an impending Title IX complaint investigation by the U.S. Department of Education against Barta and the Athletics Department. The UI also settled for $200,000 with a former male track and field assistant over a gender-bias suit in January.

The latest suit, which the Associated Press reported Monday, comes from former field-hockey head coach Tracey Griesbaum, who alleges “unfairly removing female coaches and the top women’s sports administrator during a tenure marked by gender bias.” Barta and the athletics department have repeatedly denied all gender-bias accusations.

By recently giving Barta a contract extension and a healthy raise, UI President Bruce Harreld and his legal counsel either believe these suits have no legal merit, or they’re not paying attention. Either way, Iowa is in this for the long haul.

Since Griesbaum’s firing announcement came on football media day prior to the 2014 season, Hawkeye alumni, students, and student-athletes have voiced opinions against Barta. Some of it has been regarding off-field issues, and some has been based solely on winning and losing.

Over the past two years, alumni, students, and student-athletes have told me Barta has no backbone and only cares about winning football and men’s basketball games. One student-athlete told me she lied during a speech thanking Barta for the opportunity to play at Iowa on scholarship. Another said she doesn’t know a female Hawkeye who likes him.

Due in large part to the success the football and men’s basketball programs have enjoyed so far in the 2015-16 academic year, Barta hasn’t come under as much fire as he did following last year for Kirk Ferentz’s contract (among other things). But the fact remains — Iowa sports teams have combined to win only seven Big Ten Championships since 2008-09 (including wrestling sharing last year’s Big Ten title with Ohio State), and only a Big Ten West title in football during the current academic year.

Those numbers are, of course, underwhelming for an Athletics Department whose leader was given a healthy contract extension and recognized as one of the recipients of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics’ Athletics Director of the Year award.

Despite the lack of conference titles, Iowa student-athletes did what they were supposed to in the classroom, posting an 89 percent NCAA Graduation Success Rate, so there’s a positive for Barta and Company. That number tied Iowa’s own record.

However, unless positives begin to pile up — especially related to the gender-bias complaints — we’re going to see more of a cloud cast over Barta’s office in Carver-Hawkeye, and consequently, the University of Iowa.

Harreld backed Barta with the new contract. These impending cases and investigations now reflect even more on a president and university no strangers to controversy.

That first student-athlete mentioned above said the following three words:

“Down with Barta.”

Should anything come of these lawsuits — and there isn’t a guarantee anything will — she won’t be alone in her belief.