And in some colleges, especially those with strict honor codes, not reporting a violation is itself considered a violation even if one wasn’t a direct participant in some way.
And it’s not restricted to some private colleges as shown by state run institutions like UVA or moreso…the Federal Service Academies or state-run military themed colleges like VMI.
“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.”
Put on notice of what? That if they do something like that next time they’ll also get a “stern reprimand”?! Ooohhhh, scary stuff! :))
“Who said there should have been academic consequences?”
Posters compared the hypothetical due process issues in this case to cases where the consequences were suspension or expulsion. I’m pointing out why I think that is inapt.
@Dungareedoll – that’s more or less what happened in 2012, and the behavior continued.
I don’t see it as a due process issue either. I do agree that men’s soccer at Harvard is probably more than a hobby as a Div I team.
My daughter is an athlete at a much lower level than Harvard. It is not a hobby. Intramural sports is a hobby but varsity sports are 30+ hours a week of work.
Most college athletes will not become sports professional. Most kids in the high school orchestra won’t be professional musicians but that doesn’t mean they don’t take it seriously while they are in school, that they don’t put in the work to make it more than a hobby. It also doesn’t mean that is it fair if the school disbands the orchestra because some kids used the music rooms for sex.
That’s not logical @twoinanddone . Working hard and being a hobby are not mutually exclusive; this situation isn’t analogous to “some kids used the music rooms for sex.”
(I played two varsity sports in college, one of which was Div I. They were definitely hobbies–my “job” was getting a degree.)
My daughter’s job is playing as that’s what pays for her education.
@twoinanddone - The Ivy League allows no sports scholarships, so that’s irrelevant here.
Seriously? This is Harvard. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Harvard athletes who have gone on to professional sports. Jeremy Lin. And I googled and found maybe a dozen more.
@mathmom : Not to totally disagree with you, but a number of Ivy League grads have had excellent careers in sports. Kyle Hendricks Dartmouth '12 and member of the World Champion Chicago Cubs. Pretty sure that the current manager of the Detroit Tigers was a Dartmouth grad. Theo Epstein. Peter Magowan (well, that one’s a stretch.) The current captain of the US Rugby 7s team has a career in professional rugby if he wants (don’t think he’s even graduated yet). I would not denigrate the argument simply because this is not a common path to the big leagues.
Actually, if you let me count Stanford, the numbers get a lot higher. 
^^ that doesn’t mean they don’t take sports seriously or that they don’t work in sports. I know many who are refs or coaches or own youth sports organizations, work in sports related sales positions, own companies making sportswear or equipment.
Stanford seems to provide a quality education and yet have students excel at sports and no one claims those athletes should just consider it a hobby, that cancelling the season is ‘no big deal.’ Plenty of Stanford grads playing on Sundays.
“The crime doesn’t fit the punishment.”
excuse me??
cancelling the LAST 2 GAMES of the season and forbidding this team to represent Harvard in championship games this year is unwarranted punishment??
oh poor dears!!!.. they will just have to sit in their dorm rooms and perhaps while there they will have time to contemplate WHY this heinous “punishment” happened to them AND what they could and CAN do to prevent it from happening in the future!
they are smart kids.
their world has not ended.
Harvard is NOT the world, nor is it a perfect place, but it has the option of EXPECTING more from the lucky students who have been given the rare opportunity to go there.
And as I said before-
TO THOSE WHO MUCH HAS BEEN GIVEN- MUCH IS EXPECTED.
Going to Harvard is a privilege- NOT a right. And students there do NOT have the right to make fellow students feel like pieces of meat- regardless of the amount of testosterone running uncontrollably through their veins.
the “boys will be boys” excuse does not give students a blank check to act like jerks.
Castration would have been a severe punishment. Missing some games seems like a joke. IMHO
"Stanford seems to provide a quality education and yet have students excel at sports and no one claims those athletes should just consider it a hobby, that cancelling the season is ‘no big deal.’ Plenty of Stanford grads playing on Sundays. "
Stanford offers ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIPS. That brings in an entirely different caliber of athlete.
Harvard and the Ivy league DONT.
So if you want to compare Stanford athletes to others, you’ll have to look at Big 10, Pac 10 and colleges in other football conferences that DO pay students to play ball.
People are so oversensitive these days. Getting all bent out of shape because some sexist soccer players at Harvard had a few games cancelled? Buncha special snowflakes.
“@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”
Athletes are not employees. I would bet millions that Harvard would fight tooth and nail to avoid having then classified as such. Just as Northwestern has done. If they WERE employees I’d agree with you on the limitation of their right. But of course they’d so have to be paid and oh yeah could unionize.
Athletes are students who are participating in an activity and students at public universities have full unadulterated free speech rights, especially outside the classroom.
Of course as I’ve said Harvard isn’t public. The question of whether they are contractually bound to provide free speech rights is an open one.
Says a lot that resisting the urge to compile sexist lists about your friends and classmates is considered a high expectation.
Sorry but where were the coaches in this equation? I know the character of my son’s coach and if he found this happening there would be s#^* to pay and rightly so!