A hazing scandal uncovered by the student newspaper brought down Northwestern’s football coach. After what appears to be a failed cover-up, should the university president be next?
The grotesque Northwestern University football hazing scandal is an almost too-perfect case study in how cultures of harm are allowed, even encouraged, to flourish in the world of big-time US college football.
The details of how younger players were subjected to abusive hazing, brilliantly reported by the university’s student paper, The Daily Northwestern, are appalling, including the disturbing practice of “running”, in which first-year players who had made mistakes in practice would be subjected to “8-10 upperclassmen dressed in various ‘Purge-like’ masks, who would then begin ‘dry-humping’ the victim in a dark locker room”. In another hazing practice, “freshmen were forced to strip naked and perform various acts, including bear crawling and slingshotting themselves across the floor with exercise bands.” The Daily Northwestern’s report catalogs additional forms of hazing as well. Collectively, these allegations were supported both by an independent report by law firm ArentFox Schiff and by subsequent reporting from ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg and WildcatReport.com’s Louie Vaccher.
