Last month, the Michigan Wolverines hired Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler, the son of longtime Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler, as a team analyst. He did not last long in the position as he was quickly forced to resign due to his controversial social media use, and now Jim Harbaugh is taking responsibility for not further vetting the hire.
Shortly after Shemy Schembechler was hired by Michigan last month, people noticed that his Twitter “likes” contained transphobic tweets, political conspiracies, and multiple racially insensitive posts that implied slavery and Jim Crow laws were an overall benefit to Black people.
Schembechler was forced to resign, and Jim Harbaugh explained that he and the team did not approve of the messaging from Schembechler’s Twitter account.
“Once I became aware of things that were offensive — offensive to me, offensive to other members of our team — (we acted),” Harbaugh said according to MLive.com. “We didn’t want that mindset around.”
Harbaugh has long admired Shemy Schembechler’s father, former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, and has known Shemy for “a long time.” Despite that, Harbaugh said he could not support the views he shared online.
“I’ve known Shemy for a long time, but there’s no sacred cows,” Harbaugh said. “It’s not who we are — it’s not us.”
As for how Shemy Schembechler was hired in the first place, Harbaugh explains that Michigan did hire a company to vet his social media presence, but Harbaugh acknowledged that the vetting process obviously was not good enough if others could find it within a day of his hire.
“I read the report myself,” Harbaugh said. “We have a company that vets that — social media — and they came back and (cleared him). We’ve got a new company doing that (now), but we’ve got to be better.
“I’ll take responsibility for that. If somebody can find that in a day, then we have to be better ourselves.”
