Nihon University officials at all levels tried to downplay a drug use problem before and after the arrest of an American football team player said to be involved, according to a third-party report on the scandal.
The report, submitted to the education ministry on Monday and unveiled at a news conference on Tuesday, highlights how the university’s system of governance led to the delay in taking action against the American football team’s culture of drug use, as well as other problems relating to how they responded to the scandal.
“The biggest issue was an error in basic decision making,” Mariko Watahiki, former judge and head of the third-party committee who compiled the report, said during the news conference.