Vanderbilt football coach Clark Lea: 'Dan Jackson made a mistake' on post defending Kanye West
Vanderbilt football coach Clark Lea declined to answer why defensive backs coach Dan Jackson was allowed to coach in Saturday's game against South Carolina after receiving criticism for an comment on Facebook defending antisemitic and inflammatory statements by entertainer Kanye West.
Jackson was not made available to the media for comment after Vanderbilt's 38-27 loss to South Carolina.
Jackson faced criticism from the organization Stop Antisemitism after his comment on West on the social media platform. West has recently frequently espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories that Jews control the world and oppress others. Jackson released an apology statement Friday in which he said he was "embarrassed" by his actions and that the comment was in "poor judgment." The statement also said, "antisemitism has no place in our society."
Lea and athletics director Candice Lee released a statement later Friday saying the matter would be handled internally. Lea said that he had a meeting with Jackson in which Jackson was apologetic and embarrassed for what he had posted. Lea declined to comment further on the situation, refusing to answer follow-up questions about his reaction to stakeholders who might be upset about the situation and why Lea felt he was still fit to coach.
"Dan Jackson made a mistake," Lea said. "And I'm deeply disappointed by this situation. We want to create an environment here where we have conversations around this, and we want to have an environment where we learn in these situations, too. I sat down with Dan as soon as I caught wind of this and as he expressed in his statement, he was embarrassed and apologetic in that meeting, feels awful.
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"Obviously, as a program, we value diversity in all forms. And that's evidence in our staff and the makeup of our team. And certainly we reject antisemitism; We reject hate speech of any kind."
Quarterback Mike Wright deferred comments on the situation to Lea.
"I'll leave the specifics to Coach Lea," Wright said. "As far as the distraction, we're here to play football. We don't even look at the media on game day, man. Twenty-four hour rule, not even looking at our phone or anything like that. We're trying to just worry about the game plan and figure out what our week's preparation is, and just get ready to play."
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt football: Clark Lea won't say why Dan Jackson allowed to coach
