FILE - This photo combo shows Rutgers President Robert Barchi, left, and Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti. Mike Rice was fired as the Rutgers men's basketball coach after a video surfaced showing him shoving players and berating them with gay slurs, but critics said New Jersey's flagship public university still has more explaining, and maybe some more firing to do. A group of 13 faculty members Wednesday, April 3, 2013, demanded that Barchi resign for his "inexcusable handling" of the situation. Some Rutgers alumni say Pernetti should be dismissed. (AP Photo/File)
FILE - This photo combo shows Rutgers President Robert Barchi, left, and Rutgers Athletic Director Tim Pernetti. Mike Rice was fired as the Rutgers men's basketball coach after a video surfaced showing him shoving players and berating them with gay slurs, but critics said New Jersey's flagship public university still has more explaining, and maybe some more firing to do. A group of 13 faculty members Wednesday, April 3, 2013, demanded that Barchi resign for his "inexcusable handling" of the situation. Some Rutgers alumni say Pernetti should be dismissed. (AP Photo/File)
Former Rutgers men's basketball coach Mike Rice leaves his home Wednesday, April 3, 2013, in Little Silver, N.J. Rice was fired Wednesday after a videotape aired showing Rice using gay slurs, shoving and grabbing his players and throwing balls at them in practice. Athletic director Tim Pernetti was given a copy of the tape by a former employee in November and, after an independent investigator was hired to review it, Rice was suspended for three games, fined $75,000 and ordered to attend anger management classes. University president Robert Barchi signed off on the penalty. But on Wednesday, Rutgers referred to new information and "a review of previously discovered issues" as the reasons for Rice's termination. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
Former Rutgers head coach Mike Rice is driven from his home, Wednesday, April 3, 2013, in Little Silver, N.J. With political and social pressure mounting after video showed Rice screaming gay slurs and shoving, kicking and throwing balls at his NCAA college basketball players, the university fired Rice on Wednesday, and then did their best to avoid the blame for not getting it right four months ago. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
In this four-image combo taken from an ESPN video, Rutgers men's basketball coach Mike Rice kicks, shoves, and throws balls at his players during NCAA college basketball practices in Piscataway, N.J. Fueled by outrage from even the governor when the video went public, Rutgers fired Rice on Wednesday, April 3, 2013, after deciding it didn't go far enough by suspending and fining him for shoving, kicking and throwing balls at players along with spewing gay slurs. (AP Photo/ESPN)
FILE - In this May 6, 2010 file photo, Mike Rice, left, former coach of Robert Morris, is introduced as the new men's basketball coach of Rutgers by athletic director Tim Pernetti, during a news conference at Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J. Rutgers has fired Rice after a videotape aired showing him shoving, grabbing and throwing balls at players in practice and using gay slurs during practice. With mounting criticism on a state and national level, the school decided to take action on Wednesday, April 3, 2013. relieving Rice of his duties after three largely unsuccessful seasons at the Big East school. (AP Photo/Rich Schultz, File)
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) ? The call from faculty members and politicians to oust top Rutgers University administrators grew louder Thursday, a day after men's basketball coach Mike Rice was fired for mistreating players, including shoving them and berating them with gay slurs.
More than 50 faculty members signed a letter calling for the dismissal of Athletic Director Tim Pernetti and an explanation from President Robert Barchi for why he didn't fire Rice last year when he learned of a video showing Rice's behavior during practices.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney also called for Pernetti to step down or be fired. Pernetti deserves credit for getting Rutgers into the Big Ten conference but mishandled this situation, Sweeney said.
"This incident will continue to hang over Rutgers like a dark cloud for weeks, months and perhaps years to come," the Democratic lawmaker said in a statement. "It seems pretty clear that things were not handled well from the start."
Meanwhile, the number of faculty members calling for Barchi to step down more than doubled Thursday to 28.
The letter calling for Barchi's resignation was first sent to the university's governing boards on Wednesday. In it, the faculty members cite Barchi's "inexcusable handling of coach Mike Rice's homophobic and misogynist abuse" of players, his "continued pattern of insensitivity and arrogance toward issues of diversity" and the "secrecy and lack of transparency that he has exhibited in his relations" with faculty, staff and students.
It's unclear what effect the calls might have on the president or the athletic director. Neither was willing to be interviewed by The Associated Press. Barchi also skipped a town hall meeting at which he'd been scheduled to appear Thursday at Rutgers' Newark campus. Members of the university's two governing boards have been mum.
Barchi, a neuroscience researcher before he became a university administrator, was hired a year ago and took office Sept. 1 to lead the university, which has 58,000 students and 13,000 full- and part-time faculty members on three campuses. He had been president of Thomas Jefferson University, a Philadelphia health sciences university, and before that was an administrator at the University of Pennsylvania.
He was brought to Rutgers as the university takes over two medical schools that now are part of the separate University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The ongoing reconfiguration of the state's higher education system is intended to expand Rutgers' life-science research prowess, and Barchi was chosen largely to oversee that.
He had never been an administrator, though, at a school with athletic scholarships.
Over the past decade, Rutgers' athletic program has grown increasingly ambitious and expensive, largely as the university's football team transformed from an also-ran to a power in the Big East conference. The school's teams are set next year to join the more prestigious Big Ten, a move engineered largely by Pernetti, a former TV sports executive.
Shortly after Barchi took office, he told reporters that high-profile sports teams are an important way to increase the university's visibility but that he wanted to gradually reduce the university's operating subsidy for sports, currently about $8 million per year, while continuing to pay for scholarships for athletes at a cost of about $10 million annually.
Barchi said in a statement Wednesday that Pernetti told him last year about the video of Rice made by a former basketball program employee, but he said he did not watch the video until Tuesday, the day it was made public. A university spokesman declined to comment on why Barchi didn't watch the video last year.
In December, after the university consulted lawyers and commissioned an independent report on Rice's actions, Barchi said he agreed to suspend the coach for three games, fine him and order him to anger management counseling.
He said that when he saw the video, he realized that Rice needed to be removed.
The faculty members calling for Barchi to step down said in their letter that he knew enough to remove the coach months ago.
"Although President Barchi is now suggesting otherwise, he has known about Coach Rice's homophobic, misogynist and abusive behavior for several months now," the letter said.
Ron Becker, head of special collections and university archives at Rutgers, said he believes the handling of the situation needs to be reviewed.
"The value of sports and the Division I atmosphere often trumps some of the basic needs of the university," he said. "The pressure to win and succeed at athletics seems to trump (academics) around here."
While practically everyone who has spoken publicly about the case says it was right to fire Rice, two players in interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday defended the coach, saying the snippets of video were taken out of context.
"I feel if people had a chance to see the other portions of practice, or had been at practice, their judgment would not be as severe," sophomore forward Austin Johnson said. "I am not saying what he did wasn't wrong, because I do believe it was wrong. But it is also tough because it was a highlight reel of his worst moments."
Junior Wally Judge said Rice, who apologized Wednesday, has treated him well and helped him grow as a person and a basketball player.
A Rutgers assistant coach has resigned amid the scandal. According to The Star-Ledger, the assistant, Jimmy Martelli, could be seen on the video shoving a player.
Martelli said in a statement he was "sickened that as an assistant coach I contributed in any way to an unacceptable culture," and he apologized to the players "from the bottom of my heart."
Democratic state lawmakers, particularly Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, have been calling for legislative hearings on why Rice was not fired sooner, but as of Thursday, none had been scheduled.
Keeping the coach on through the season cost the university a portion of his salary ? he was paid $622,500 in 2012 ? and a $100,000 bonus for coaching the final game of the year, which Sweeney said makes his suspension and fine "look even more ridiculous."
Athletic department spokesman Jason Baum said Thursday that the university is contractually obligated to pay the bonus, which is due this month.
___
Delli Santi reported from Trenton. Also contributing to this report were AP reporters Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, Katie Zezima in Newark and AP sportswriter Tom Canavan.
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