Menlopark@ Let me be clear. I’m not condoning the behavior. In the perfect world we would all live in perfect peace and harmony. But nothing is perfect and this behavior IMO just doesn’t warrant this punishment. The crime doesn’t fit the punishment. To call it sexual harassment is just taking it a bit to far. If they violated the code of conduct then speak to the athletes and make them apologize but to cancel the season is ridiculous
Harvestmoon–yes, people keep quoting this passage but the only details given suggest that 3 team members recently participated in an e-mail discussion about making a current list and that cited conversation suggests that a list had not actually been made yet. That’s why the one player asked why his teammate wasn’t on top of doing it. The other just said “Hahaha.” If there were worse responses than those written by current team members, don’t you think they would have been printed in one of the articles?
“this behavior IMO just doesn’t warrant this punishment. The crime doesn’t fit the punishment.”
“to cancel the season is ridiculous”
It’s a freaking SPORT, a game, for entertainment. Yes, the athletes do put time and effort into it, and years of dedication. But, college is about academics first and foremost, and community should be honored as well - both ahead of athletics. To value a few games ahead of other members of the community is misplaced values IMO.
I highly doubt Scalise made this decision either unilaterally or without serious consideration. Harvard’s administration has my respect for their actions in dealing with this situation.
Some soccer teams are models of exemplary behavior and some aren’t, I guess.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/locker-room-talk_us_5803819fe4b0e8c198a89710
lol that’s sweet. You make being an athlete sound like something people do on the side for fun. This is a varsity sport not a club sport. Some athletes have put in their blood sweat and tears for years and are hoping for a life after college in sports. So although college should be about academics, it’s not for everyone.
“I refer you again to the swimsuit edition, the sexiest man alive edition, 50 Shades, Magic Mike…and on and on and on. Men objectify women and women objectify men.”
Consent is a major distinguishing factor here. Nobody is in the swimsuit edition or Sexiest Man Alive without their permission and cooperation. The Crimson’s magazine has a voluntary 15 Hottest Freshmen feature. If members of the women’s soccer team wanted to have a wet T shirt contest, that’s fine with me. The problem here is that they were drafted into one just by joining the team.
If I had the misfortune to be on this team and I had never participated in any such talk or list-making, I’d feel that my reputation had been unfairly tainted by mere association. If not everyone was guilty, not everyone should be included in the punishment. College kids, especially student-athletes, are very, very busy. It is simply not their job to police the rude words of other students. If anyone is responsible other than the students who actually did the ranking, then it’s the coach. He’s the paid adult supervisor of the team.
Good point Hanna and one that I hadn’t synthesized.
Refusing to answer questions and lying are two very different things. Lying is dumb. The reports state that the members of the soccer team lied.
Lets take it a step further. OP is a big Stanford backer I believe. Brock Turner was part of a similar culture on the Stanford swim team
http://www.zwemza.com/?p=34599.
Brock Turner creeped out the womens swim team and would make extremely lewd comments to the women telling them all about their anatomy .
http://www.intouchweekly.com/posts/brock-turner-stanford-women-s-swim-team-105204
How come Stanford doesn’t suspend the mens swim team just like Harvard did. Is it because they win Olympic medals so that makes it OKAY?
@TheGFG My own understanding is that about 10 days ago the existence of the 2012 document was brought to the attention of the athletic director and coach. The team was questioned about it and allegedly denied that it continued after that year. Statements were then publicly released by the coach about expectations in the community and the season continued.
Then evidence allegedly came to light that confirmed the 2012 document was in fact updated in previous years through 2016. The athletic director, the coach and the president of Harvard concluded the team was less than forthcoming when they were questioned. The coach described the content of the documents “disturbing” and coupled with team’s alleged failure to be truthful the decision to cancel the season was reached.
Just like the Duke lacrosse team’s season was cancelled without interviewing the players, the coach, looking for any witnesses or evidence? Just like the fraternities and sororities were suspended from all social activities, and one house actually closed and the students forced to move out just weeks before finals, because of the Rolling Stone article about events that had happened 2+ years earlier, without any investigation by the school, right to present facts, right to offer another opinion?
Maybe Scalise did investigate and has evidence, but harsh decisions have been made in the past by athletic directions and administration without consideration, punishing many innocent students in the process. The school could have let the players finish the season and then, if facts warranted, forfeited the season after all evidence was in.
Sounds like they did have online evidence so I’ll stick by my comment. I’m not going to excuse the behavior because of the unrelated Duke or UVA events.
We have discussed other sexual harassment cases on CC where college administrations did the politically expedient thing with little regard for anything resembling fairness, much less legal due process. The Columbia mattress girl case comes to mind. So no, I am not convinced that it’s a smart thing for a student to volunteer any potentially incriminating information to non-police or non-judicial authorities.
This is disgusting behavior. No one is defending the behavior. Some of us are just questioning some of the details of what exactly happened and how this case was handled by Harvard.
Not volunteering is one thing. Denying that you know of the existence of something if asked a direct question is something else. Speculating about exactly what the administration did and did not know is getting us nowhere. We can hope that more facts will be forthcoming, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
If the coach/school told the team to knock it off and the team persisted (and/or they lied to investigators) then I could see their season getting nuked. Otherwise, it’s just a group of young people being stupid, over-the-top, trying to one-up the next person, etc. Kids are constantly exposed to vulgar, over-the-top “humor” in movies/TV/etc. these days. Wasn’t there a thread recently about the vulgar signs on frats/sororities at a college in Ohio?
@Jara123 You keep implying that all speech is protected for public employees. In “Connick v. Myers, the Supreme Court held that matters of purely private concern were not protected by the First Amendment in public employee cases.” Freedom of speech does not allow you to say anything you would like. It is limited. Even a public employee can be terminated for their disparaging comments about co-workers.
@Dungareedoll writes ’ Some athletes have put in their blood sweat and tears for years and are hoping for a life after college in sports. So although college should be about academics, it’s not for everyone.’ Life in sports after college? Yes, there are millions of professional athletes, right? Or at least millions who play sports for fun, or do fantasy football leagues, or have their own fantasies about jobs in sports management. And I agree college is not for everyone, that’s for sure. Especially the students who don’t care for academics.
“college administrations did the politically expedient thing with little regard for anything resembling fairness, much less legal due process”
I’m in the middle of writing an expert witness report in such a matter, so I’m sensitive to the issues, but IMHO canceling a fall sport in November is way less serious than any kind of academic consequence. I don’t believe the same kind of due process ought to be necessary. These aren’t future soccer professionals. When you get down to it, Harvard took away their hobby for a month or two. I’m sure that’s not how it feels to the students, but that is what happened. Nothing is going on anybody’s transcript.
Who said there should have been academic consequences? The most punishment this warranted was a stern talking. The athletes responsible for this list should have received a stern reprimand and the rest of the team should have been put on notice that this behavior is unacceptable. But that’s it.
Hanna@not sure it fair to call what these athletes do a hobby. Many of these players can play overseas or in semipro leagues. There is a future for them. That’s no fair to underestimate their achievement by calling it a hobby.