In the wake of the disastrous Mitchell Miller signing earlier this month, the Boston Bruins announced Tuesday they have retained law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an independent review of the club’s player vetting process.
The Bruins signed Miller despite extensive past reporting detailing a pattern of racist attacks he committed in grade school against Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, an intellectually disabled Black classmate. The Arizona Coyotes previously drafted and then renounced the rights to Miller in 2020 after severe backlash.
Miller remains under contract with the Bruins, although National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman has clarified that he’s not currently eligible to play in the league. The Bruins cut ties with Miller shortly after signing him amid growing scrutiny from around the hockey world — with criticism even coming from current Bruins players, including team captain Patrice Bergeron.
The Bruins’ player vetting process will now be subject to an independent review by a team of legal professionals.
“The Boston Bruins strive every day to live our values and meet the high standards our associates, fans and community have come to expect,” the Bruins said in a statement issued Tuesday. “This includes treating everyone inside and outside our organization with dignity and respect. We recently fell short of our high standards and disappointed both ourselves and many in our community. Moving forward, we are committed to ensuring that our values are reflected in everything we do as an organization, including our process for vetting future players.
“As part of this commitment, the Boston Bruins have retained an experienced and respected team of professionals, led by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch of the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, to conduct an independent review of our player-vetting process. This will help us ensure that our process going forward reflects our core values. The Bruins organization will fully cooperate with the independent review team and will publicly disclose the results of the review upon its completion.”
Meyer-Crothers recently released a statement through the Hockey Diversity Alliance in which he detailed Miller’s abusive behaviour.
“Mitchell isn’t my friend,” Meyer-Crothers said. “It hurts my heart what he did to me. So I just wanted to tell everyone—when Mitchell says we’re friends it isn’t true. I can’t take more of this.”
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