Three former baseball staffers are suing Northwestern over claims of retaliation for reporting bullying and other abuses as well as NCAA violations committed by ex-head coach Jim Foster.
Foster himself is also named in the lawsuit, filed by former assistant coaches Dusty Napoleon and Jon Strauss and former director of baseball operations Chris Beacom. They are suing for breach of contract and negligence, claiming Northwestern should have known about Foster’s pattern of abuse at previous jobs before they hired him.
The trio is being represented by attorney Chris Esbrook, who announced the lawsuit Monday.
The former staffers say they first reported Foster to Northwestern administrators in October 2022. In February, on the same day Northwestern said Foster violated university policies in a letter, the three staffers alleged they were made “remote special contract workers” and eventually lost their jobs in June 2023.
Foster, allowed to coach the entire 2023 season, was fired by Northwestern only after the bombshell allegations surfaced against Wildcats football coach Pat Fitzgerald in July.
“Northwestern had told these gentlemen what they had said was true,” Esbrook said. “Northwestern found that Coach Foster engaged in bullying, abusive, racist and sexist behavior. But they didn’t suspend Coach Foster, they didn’t place him on leave, and they didn’t terminate them. What they did was they told these gentlemen and these student-athletes, ‘Just deal with it.’ Northwestern says it doesn’t tolerate conduct in the workplace. That violates its code of conduct. But it did tolerate it and endorsed it.”
Northwestern said the lawsuit is “without merit.”
–Field Level Media