A former Falcons executive and current athletic director at Arizona State has been accused of ignoring alleged incidents of sexual harassment by a university booster. The accusation comes from a former employee at Arizona State who reported the alleged incidents.
Ray Anderson was executive vice president and chief administrative officer for the Falcons before leaving for a high-ranking job in the NFL office. He left the NFL to become athletic director at Arizona State. The Arizona Republic newspaper reported that David Cohen, a former senior associate athletic director at Arizona State, alleges that a prominent Arizona State athletic booster sexually harassed Cohen’s wife and two other women at the school’s athletic events.
Cohen claims he reported the alleged actions to Anderson and then to four other senior administrators at the school, but he claims the school failed to take action. Subsequently Cohen was fired, and he attributes that decision to his complaints against the booster. The newspaper reported that a $1.5 million notice of claim was filed against Arizona State last week.
According to the newspaper, Arizona State conducted an investigation and later said it cancelled the booster’s season tickets and told him “he is no longer welcome at university events” and said that the booster disassociated himself from Arizona State athletics. The school claims that Cohen was terminated for not complying with a department reorganization.
Anderson worked for the Falcons from 2002-06. He left to become the NFL’s senior director of football operations in August 2006 and later was promoted to executive vice president of football operations. He left the NFL in December 2013 to pursue other opportunities and became Arizona State’s athletic director in January 2014.
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