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A two-page summary of the San Jose State 2009-10 investigation into head athletic trainer Scott Shaw that was “kept secret” until Friday shows a “deeply flawed” review of the sexual misconduct allegations.
The U.S. Department of Justice stated in its Sept. 21 findings that the university “failed for more than a decade” to adequately respond, as Shaw’s initial clearance of wrongdoing enabled him to treat more than 1,000 female student-athletes before retiring in August 2020.
“SJSU’s actions gave [Shaw] unfettered access to student-athletes,” the department said in its summary.
The new 2010 report details come after the Bay Area News Group filed a Public Records Act request to the university six months ago.
Two interviewees in the first investigation, who were first-year athletic trainers on new-hire probation when they were interviewed in 2010, told the Mercury News Monday they were only recently made aware of the investigation’s scope.
“We both thought that what he had done was wrong,” trainer Shawna Hernandez said of Shaw in the Monday article, adding their concerns weren’t in the recently-surfaced report details. “We thought for sure we were going to have a new boss. We thought for sure he was going to be fired over this. We were confused when he wasn’t.”
Hernandez and her former colleague Hisashi Imura told the news outlet that in their interviews, they said no physical therapist or trainer should ever touch athletes with their bare hands in private areas.
They said it’s one of the first teachings in physical therapy coursework.
“What was left out of the report is, I remember being asked specifically if there was any reason to pressure-point a female athlete in the private or genital region or breast region and I flatly stated, ‘No,’ ” said Imura, who now works in a San Jose private practice, in the Mercury News article.
He said other muscle injury treatment options include using a lacrosse ball or foam roller but nonetheless, his and Hernandez’s skepticism wasn’t included in SJSU’s report.
“Athletes used to joke that if I get Shawna, I get treatment,” Hernandez said in the article. “If I go to Scott [Shaw], he’ll just cup my boobs.”
University officials told the Mercury News in the same article that other material gathered or produced by Arthur Dunklin, SJSU’s equal opportunity manager at the time, during his review was destroyed as part of a “routine records purge.”
Dunklin, who conducted the 2009-10 investigation, died several months after completing the report, in which he stated Shaw’s pressure-point therapy of the breast and groin area was a “bona fide” means to treat muscle injury.
The university didn’t respond in time for publication regarding the new 2010 report details or the Mercury News’ Monday article on the investigation.
Kenneth Mashinchi, SJSU director of media relations, said in a Monday email to the Spartan Daily that the university launched an external Title IX Procedural Response Investigation to “examine the adequacy of the 2009-2010 investigation, how the university responded to the findings, and subsequent concerns about the original investigation.”
Mashinchi said SJSU is “committed to learning from the past.”
The Justice Department said in its Sept. 21 findings the 2020-21 reinvestigation was “only” initiated after Sage Hopkins, swimming and diving head coach, circulated a 300-page dossier through the FBI and NCAA in December 2019.
Hopkins sent out the dossier, which detailed more than 17 swim and dive student-athletes’ sexual misconduct accounts against Shaw, after it “disappeared” from the university’s Title IX office in 2019, according to a Sept. 25 Mercury News article.
Mashinchi said in a Sept. 28 email to the Spartan Daily that while the university disputes some aspects of the Justice Department’s findings regarding the recent external reinvestigation, it agrees the 2009-10 investigation “did not satisfy today’s best practices and standards for a Title IX investigation.”
As of Monday, Mashinchi said SJSU has made “significant progress” in improving its Title IX processes including: restructuring and expanding the Title IX office; increasing the offices’ funding; launching a chaperone program for sports medicine treatments; and enhancing education and programs regarding Title IX resources.
The FBI continues to investigate Shaw but he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Many victims of Shaw are in the process of suing the university.
Editor’s note: the story will be updated as new information becomes available.