Thanks to a settlement announced Monday morning, Gary Barta and the University of Iowa are on the hook for $4.2 million to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit. And for those inclined to keep tally, this would be Barta’s fourth settled lawsuit in a nine-year span. Barta's cost of doing business: 11 million dollars and rising.
11 mil can buy a lot of Boys and Girls Club tickets for an Iowa-Illinois game. Or, as many football fans are happy to point out: a shiny new offensive coordinator.
It is worth acknowledging that the athletic director role is a thankless, all-consuming position. Among Barta's myriad responsibilities: hire/evaluate head coaches, serve as chief fundraiser, improve athletic facilities, navigate the ever-changing NIL terrain, and represent athletic department interests to stakeholders spanning President Barbara Wilson to your Hawkeye homer at the Keg Stand. It would be a challenging gig for the most accomplished of professionals — made all the more difficult with the Klieg lights on any Hawkeye news in this college sports-crazed state.
And to Barta's credit, he has a number of undeniable accomplishments as AD, from hiring Fran McCaffery to resurrect a moribund men’s basketball program (and keeping him for 13 years and counting), to bringing the transformative Rick Heller onboard for baseball, to modernizing Hawkeye football and basketball facilities, to sustaining healthy, successful partnerships with the likes of Kirk Ferentz, Tom Brands, and Lisa Bluder. On coaching hires alone, even with the early swing-and-miss on Todd Lickliter, Barta would earn a B to B+.
But while Barta deserves his flowers for savvy coaching hires and facility upgrades, the costly settlements and PR blunders have sapped his credibility. There is no other way to put it.
While the latest $4 million dollar settlement pales in comparison to, say, the $6.5 million settlement for the Tracey Griesbaum and Jane Meyer cases, it requires Iowa taxpayers to fork over $2 million for Barta and the football program’s culpability.
UPDATE: Per a statement released by University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson on Thursday, March 9, the UI Athletics Department will be reimbursing the state general fund $2 million for the recent settlement, and thus covering the entire cost of the settlement.
The statement from UI President Wilson reads:
The statement from UI President Barbara Wilson concluded with the following note: "The UI Department of Athletics is a self-sustaining unit that does not receive tuition revenue or taxpayer support."
Kirk Ferentz’s statement contesting the settlement is somewhere between irrelevant and immaterial; UI attorneys determined that settling was more fiscally prudent than a jury trial — and based on a Polk County jury’s $1.43 million award for Meyer in her 2017 discrimination case against Barta and the University of Iowa, the logic is understandable.
At this point, Iowa fans are almost accustomed to seeing the athletic department digging into its coffers to settle (or avoid) civil claims against its leadership. Even former UI strength coach Chris Doyle received a $1.1 million buyout following allegations of racial bullying.
The inevitable next question: Instead of saddling Iowa taxpayers with a $2 million tax burden, why isn’t Barta using athletic department reserves to cover the rest of the settlement cost? According to the Iowa athletic department’s financial reports for fiscal year 2022, the department enjoyed its first surplus since FY2019. And considering the imminently ballooning television contracts starting in 2023 (a lovely parting gift from ex-commissioner Kevin Warren), the UI athletic department ought to have sufficient financial resources to cover and recoup the $4 million dollars. So why are Iowa taxpayers being asked to pay for the latest legal settlement involving the Hawkeye athletic department?
As the saying goes, Barta’s calculation was penny-wise and pound-foolish, assuming he pressed for taxpayers to cover half of the settlement cost. Iowa politicians, from state auditor Rob Sand onward, are already sharpening their focus on Barta’s financial stewardship and athletic department leadership. And while Iowa’s athletic department may be a self-sustaining entity, the UI is dependent on state funding. To this point, the University of Iowa (along with Iowa State and UNI) asked the Iowa Board of Regents for an additional $32 million in appropriations for the next fiscal year. In some of these meetings, conversations and questions about Barta’s leadership will assuredly come up, with UI funding serving as a leverage point, stated or otherwise.
In fact, Republican state Senator Annette Sweeney just foreshadowed that discussion, pledging on Monday to "review the Regents budget and hold it until the stench over Iowa City is dismissed." Sweeney's biggest financial supporters include former University of Iowa president Bruce Rastetter and University of Iowa mega-donor Dale Howard.
As for that stench over Iowa City, well, it is unfortunate that Barta and the athletic department’s decade long string (or stench) of litigation overshadows what, at least in Carver and Kinnick, has been a golden five-plus years for Hawkeye athletics. And while Barta deserves some credit for this halcyon era of Hawkeye sports, it is hard to reconcile the potential glory of a Caitlin Clark Final Four run or Kris Murray shattering the Sweet 16 barrier with hard-working taxpayers subsidizing the latest in a long list of Iowa athletic department settlements for discriminatory behavior.
