One week before playoffs were to begin, Harvard University’s men’s soccer team prematurely ended their season and forfeited their first place ranking in the league. It was discovered that the players had participated in a lewd “scouting report” for over four years. According to the Harvard Crimson, the men’s team assessed the women’s team based on sexual desirability and physical appearance, even assigning them with “hypothetical sexual positions.”
Athletic Director Robert L. Scalise disciplined the team immediately.
The remaining games, including playoffs, were canceled and forfeited.
Harvard President Drew Faust explained the decision in the university newspaper:
[An] investigation into the 2012 team found that their “appalling” actions were not isolated to one year or the actions of a few, but appeared to be more widespread across the team and continued through the current season. The decision to cancel a season is serious and consequential, and reflects Harvard’s view that both the team’s behavior and the failure to be forthcoming when initially questioned are completely unacceptable, have no place at Harvard, and run counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of our community.
Though mutual respect might be a core value at Harvard University, it would seem that this issue is not isolated. Evidence recently surfaced that the men’s cross-country team engaged in a similar ranking system creating spreadsheets to evaluate female athletes.
This news comes less than one month after salacious comments made by President-elect Donald Trump were released to the public. While Trump apologized, he also dismissed his inappropriate comments as mere “locker room banter.”
In their official response to the Harvard soccer team scandal, the women’s team wrote that sometimes it seems “the whole world is the locker room.”
Read the remainder of this article at Relevant Magazine.