Tommy Tuberville, the former head coach of the Auburn University football team endorsed by President Trump for his Republican Senate candidacy, reportedly once handed a one-game suspension to a player charged with raping a minor, according to an op-ed by Siraj Hashmi in the Washington Examiner.

• In 1999, during Tuberville’s first year as head coach, wide receiver Clifton Robinson returned to the team after pleading guilty to the delinquency of a minor in order avoid going to trial for the second-degree rape of a 15-year old girl.
• The charge came from Robinson’s sexual encounter with a 15 year-old girl. In Alabama law, a second-degree rape charge is when the accused "engages in sexual intercourse with a female less than 16 and more than 12 years old, provided; however that the (man) is at least two years older than the female." Robinson was 20 years old at the time.
• Tuberville pledged to determine an appropriate punishment, but ultimately only handed the player a one-game suspension.
• Hashmi noted that Tuberville’s predecessor had previously suspended “Robinson and three other players from the 1998 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl for breaking curfew” — the same punishment that Tuberville dished out for an outright crime.
• The lack of disciplinary action Tuberville gave Robinson is concerning given the severity of his crime, Hashmi argued, adding that in the context of the current #MeToo movement, such an action can be perceived as complicity.

Read the full report.