Michigan's Jim Harbaugh takes blame for Shemy Schembechler hire, denounces it: 'It's not who we are'

06-01-2023
3 min read

Michigan football has found itself embroiled in a Schembechler controversy this offseason, and it isn't because of Bo.

In May, Michigan hired Glenn "Shemy" Schembechler, the son of Bo, to be the team's assistant director of recruiting. However, Schembechler stepped down just three days later after it was revealed that he liked a series of racist tweets that contained implications that Jim Crow laws and slavery strengthened Black families.

Schembechler's Twitter has since been deleted, but the fallout is still setting.

Coach Jim Harbaugh, who played under Bo Schembechler at Michigan, addressed the situation Thursday, claiming responsibility and saying Michigan is switching from the agency that vetted Schembechler before he was hired.

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“I read the report myself,” Harbaugh said of the background check, per Yahoo Sports. “We have a company that vets that, social media, and they came back and (cleared him). We’ve got a new company doing that, but they’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."

To Harbaugh's point, it was a group of fans who unearthed the liked tweets — not that much digging was necessary.

"Once we became aware of things that were just offensive, offensive to me, offensive to other members of our team, we just didn't want that mindset around," Harbaugh said. "It's disappointing. You know? I've known Shemy for a long time. But there are no sacred cows. It's not who we are. It's not us."

Schembechler issued a statement through a PR firm shortly after he resigned. In part, his statement read, "any words or philosophies that in any way seek to underplay the immeasurable suffering and long-term economic and social inequities that hundreds of years of slavery and the 'Jim Crow' era caused for Black Americans is wrong. I was wrong."