Harvard University canceled the remainder of its men’s soccer season after learning that sexually explicit ‘scouting reports’ about the women’s soccer recruits continued through 2016.
The ‘reports’ – explicit descriptions of female student-athletes gauging their attractiveness and speculating on sexual preferences – were made public by the student newspaper at a time when the culture around sexual assault and consent are issues of intense interest at Harvard and many other campuses nationally.
Harvard’s general counsel, directed by the university’s president Drew Faust to investigate the behavior of the men’s soccer team after the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, reported that a member of the 2012 men’s team had ranked the attractiveness of female players and assigned them sexual positions as well as their soccer positions, determined that it was an ongoing tradition and that current players were “not forthcoming” about their involvement.
Robert Scalise, the director of athletics, sent a message to student-athletes Thursday explaining that given the findings, “we have decided to cancel the remainder of the 2016 men’s soccer season.
“The team will forfeit its remaining games and will decline any opportunity to achieve an Ivy League championship or to participate in the NCAA Tournament this year. I have notified President Faust, Dean Smith, and Dean Khurana, and they are fully supportive of our decision. We strongly believe that this immediate and significant action is absolutely necessary if we are to create an environment of mutual support, respect, and trust among our students and our teams.
Harvard’s president Drew Faust said in a statement Thursday, “I was deeply distressed to learn that the appalling actions of the 2012 men’s soccer team were not isolated to one year or the actions of a few individuals, but appear to have been more wide-spread across the team and have continued beyond 2012, including in the current season. Given this information, I fully support the clear and unequivocal decision made by the Director of Athletics.”
After the Crimson reported what a member of the men’s team in 2012 had written about them, women from the recruiting class in question responded with a signed, evocative response. “We are these women,” they wrote. “We feel hopeless because men who are supposed to be our brothers degrade us like this. We are appalled that female athletes who are told to feel empowered and proud of their abilities are so regularly reduced to a physical appearance.”
We are distraught that mothers having daughters almost a half century after getting equal rights have to worry about men’s entitlement to bodies that aren’t theirs. We are concerned for the future, because we know that the only way we can truly move past this culture is for the very men who perpetrate it to stop it in its tracks.”