COLUMBUS, Ohio – In his first interviews since being fired as director of Ohio State’s marching band, Jonathan Waters says he wants his job back and will keep trying to fix the culture issues that led to his dismissal.
In an interview Monday with The Columbus Dispatch, says his July 24 firing was based on a “very flawed, very inaccurate report” of what was going within the unit.
He told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the decision to fire him was a “rush to judgment.”
A two-month investigation concluded Waters knew about but failed to stop a “sexualized culture” of rituals that included students marching in their underwear and performing sexually themed stunts to get explicit nicknames.
He offered to return and help rid the band of offensive traditions that he says date back decades. He’d been director since 2012.
He told “Good Morning America” that he had started to try to change the culture before he was fired but something as grounded in tradition as some of the band’s rituals “doesn’t change overnight.”
The university says Waters should have known about the activities of the band members and did not do enough to put an end to them.
Two music professors will be interim leaders of the OSU Marching Band while a replacement for Waters is found, with one focusing on compliance and student safety in the wake of the investigation that led to the director’s firing.
The university announced the appointments Monday.
Ohio State’s director of university bands, Russel C. Mikkelson, is now overseeing the marching band. The associate director of bands, Scott A. Jones, is responsible for student safety and Title IX compliance.