WNBA President Laurel Richie said that she was "surprised by the announcement that Isiah Thomas had been hired as president and part owner" of the Liberty and added that the league "was not given much advance notice," according to ESPN.com. She said Thomas' hiring was "first and foremost a team decision, but there's ultimate responsibility with the league, and that rests in my office." ESPN.com noted the WNBA is "reviewing the hiring of Thomas, who previously was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit." Richie said that the league "hasn't received the completed application yet." Richie: "Once we receive that application, our vetting process will begin. We have read the reports in the news, and that will be a part of our vetting process, absolutely" (ESPN.com, 5/6). When pressed for a timeline, Richie said that she "expected to move quickly through the process" (USA TODAY, 5/7).
FEMALE OPPOSITION: Anucha Browne, who sued Thomas and Madison Square Garden for sexual harassment in January '06, issued a statement in response to MSG saying it still "doesn't believe the allegations" brought against it. Browne, in her statement, called the Garden’s comments “an attempt to re-write history” that was “beyond what any truthful report could say.’’ The statement read in part, "The Garden’s suggestion that the jury somehow exonerated Thomas by failing to award punitive damages against him is simply untrue. To the contrary, six of the seven jurors voted to assess punitive damages against Thomas personally" (N.Y. POST, 5/7). In N.Y., Seth Berkman writes in a league that "relies largely on a female fan base," the inclusion of Thomas is a "puzzling and possibly alienating move to numerous fans and observers of the game." Former Olympian Katherine Starr, who swam for England in the '84 and '88 Summer Games, started Safe4Athletes in '11, an organization that "provides support for athletes and others involved in sport who have been sexually abused or harassed." She said Thomas' hiring was “completely disrespectful to all women in sports and the sports community in general" (N.Y. TIMES, 5/7).
REVISIONIST HISTORY? The NATIONAL POST's Eric Koreen writes MSG Chair James Dolan's decision to hire Thomas "is an example of a very wealthy man thinking (probably correctly) that he can get away with hiring his old pal with nobody stopping him, with no care for the victim of this particular case, the Liberty’s employees or basic human decency." However, the NBA is "complicit in all of this." The NBA in December '12 welcomed Thomas back to be "a part of NBA TV’s studio panel." Additionally, the Raptors this season "honoured Thomas as one of the founders of the franchise." Koreen: "It was as if the league was going out of its way to help scrub the case from Thomas’s résumé" (NATIONAL POST, 5/7). ESPN’s Dan Le Batard said Dolan hiring Thomas is “not defensible” because “you don’t put somebody who was at the head of an $11 million sexual-harassment suit in charge of your women’s team.” Le Batard said of Dolan, “He might be a bad, bad, bad owner -- but man, he’s a good friend.” ESPN’s Bomani Jones said as “abhorrent as it is that Dolan would give Isiah Thomas this job, you have to have a peculiar respect for the fact that Zeke could convince somebody to let him do this in the first place” (“Highly Questionable,” ESPN, 5/6).
