Dive Brief:

• An arbitrator has ruled that Minnesota State University Mankato must reinstate the head football coach it fired last year after videos of his nude children were discovered on his cell phone.
• The ruling states that Todd Hoffner should be rehired, with his contract extended to 2018, and paid back pay. Or, if he works elsewhere, then MSU should pay any difference in his salary through 2018.
• Hoffner, who was hired as head coach at Minot State University in North Dakota, is deciding whether to return to MSU.

Dive Insight:

This all started when a university employee discovered videos on Hoffner’s cell phone of his nude children dancing and turned him in to the police, who charged him with creating child pornography. He was suspended and arrested in August 2012 and then fired in May 2013, even though the child pornography charges had been dismissed in November 2012 after a district court judge ruled the videos were not pornographic. At one point during this ordeal, he had to work as a farmhand to make ends meet.

The university based its termination on the fact that porn sites had been accessed on the three university computers issued to Hoffner. Hoffner denied that he accessed the porn sites, and other university personnel had used the computers. At most, Hoffner should have received an oral reprimand for giving the passwords to his work computers to his wife, the arbitrator said.