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| Established in 1636, Harvard University's first benefactor John Harvard still presides over campus. (Harvard Media) |
The duration of the 2016- 2017 season has been cancelled for the Harvard Men's soccer team due to a lewd and sexist "scouting report" team members created.
Campus newspaper The Harvard Crimson
reported about the document that "in sexually explicit terms, individually assessed and evaluated freshmen recruits from the 2012 women’s soccer team based on their perceived physical attractiveness and sexual appeal."
University President Drew G. Faust instructed Harvard Office of General Council, the school's team of lawyers to review the situation and found this was not an isolated incident and had involved many team members for many years.
Faust expressed in a statement feeling deeply disturbed by the news reports regarding the men's soccer team.
"Such behavior is appalling and completely at odds with the mutual respect that is a fundamental value of our community,”
Faust wrote. “The offensive and derogatory remarks reported by The Crimson have no place at Harvard.” canceled
Athletics Director Robert L. Scalise
wrote in an email to Harvard student-athletes on Thursday November 3 that he decided to cancel the remainder of the soccer team’s matches because “Harvard Athletics has zero tolerance for this type of behavior.”
The six 2012 women recruits who were the subjects of the “scouting report”
wrote a joint op-ed for The Crimson that both condemned the report and ultimately offered forgiveness.
Kelsey Clayman, Brooke Dickens, Alika Keene, Emily Mosbacher, Lauren Varela and Haley Washburn said upon learning about the report, they "responded with surprise and confusion, but ultimately brushed off the news."
However, as the story continued to circulate they felt it was "increasingly difficult to evade the pervasiveness of this story, harder still to elude the abhorrent judgment of our peers and the outrageous Internet commentary of the public, and hardest to subdue the embarrassment, disgust, and pain we feel as a result."
"We have seen the “scouting report” in its entirety. We know the fullest extent of its contents: the descriptions of our bodies, the numbers we were each assigned, and the comparison to each other and recruits in classes before us. This document attempts to pit us against one another, as if the judgment of a few men is sufficient to determine our worth. But, men, we know better than that. Eighteen years of soccer taught us that. Eighteen years—as successful, powerful, and undeniably brilliant female athletes - taught us that.
We know what it’s like to get knocked down. To lose a few battles. To sweat, to cry, to bleed. To fight so hard, yet no matter what we do, the game is still out of our hands. And, even still, we keep fighting; for ourselves, yes, but above all for our teammates. This document might have stung any other group of women you chose to target, but not us. We know as teammates that we rise to the occasion, that we are stronger together, and that we will not tolerate anything less than respect for women that we care for more than ourselves."
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| Harvard's athletic department website announced on November 4 about an upcoming game's cancellation. Later, the rest of the season was also called off. (Harvard Athletics) |
ESPN interviewed Harvard Crimson President Mariel Klein about The Crimson's coverage of the topic and how it's affected campus culture.
Watch interview here.
The Harvard men's soccer team issued an apology by way of
an op-ed in The Crimson as well. They admitted "there are no excuses for our behavior, and all we can do now is take it upon ourselves to be an example of change for the better."
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