Report rips Colorado administrators for scandals, out-of-control athletics program.(Newswatch)

Sex, alcohol and drugs were regularly used to recruit high school football players to the University of Colorado at Boulder. Leaders should have known about it and taken proper action, according to a commission report issued last month that failed to call for their immediate firing.

Appointed by the university system board in response to at least nine women claiming sexual assaults by football players and recruits, the panel harshly criticized the school's football coach, athletics director and chancellor for allowing such a culture to develop and continue.

Improprieties dated back at least to 1998, when Boulder district attorney Mary Keenan told school leaders to stop using sex and alcohol to recruit players, but little changed. An employee called it a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Three women have filed Title IX lawsuits against the school, as a result of football recruiting parties.

To produce the 51-page report, commissioners held 15 meetings, read 20,000 pages of documents, hired a private investigator who interviewed 85 people, and heard 56 witnesses. They included administrators, employees, football players and recruits and their parents, police and victim advocates.

The commission focused on four "critical incidents and the university's response" to them:

The 1997 party and alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl by two recruits; parties held in December 2001 and alleged rape of student Lisa Simpson; harassment and alleged rape of place kicker Katie Hnida by a teammate, and the alleged rape of a female athletic ...