Northwestern Athletic Director Mark Murphy has suspended the women’s soccer team indefinitely, pending a Division of Student Affairs investigation of allegations that hazing took place at a party attended by several members of the team last year.
Monday’s announcement followed the publication of 16 photos depicting NU women’s soccer players in what appear to be initiation rituals on the Web site BadJocks.com. Players could be seen in their underwear, dressed in costumes, blindfolded with their hands bound by athletic tape and performing sexually suggestive acts, but there did not seem to be any foul play.
“I have asked all Athletic Department staff, team coaches and members of the team to cooperate fully in the investigation by Student Affairs,” Murphy’s press release said. “If the investigation shows that there has been a violation of Northwestern’s policies, appropriate sanctions will be imposed and the Athletic Department may take additional action as well.”
The athletic department had no further comment. Reached through e-mail, women’s soccer coach Jenny Haigh, who guided the team to a 9-9-1 record last fall, said she had no comment.
None of the players contacted for this story wished to comment. The women’s soccer team’s roster has been removed from NU’s official athletic Web site.
According to BadJocks publisher Bob Reno, the photos on display were part of a 46-picture album that he found on a public hosting site. Several names were listed in the caption info, which he crosschecked with the NU women’s soccer roster.
Photograph captions on the public hosting site suggest that the photos were pulled from an account managed by Communication freshman Amanda Hoffman, though it cannot be verified whether she took or uploaded the pictures herself.
“There are literally tens of thousands of these pictures (from other schools) out there,” Reno said. “It’s something that happens at every school, in every sport, and the shocking thing is, they’re all very much the same.
“But I think the thing that caught the attention of (hazing expert) Dr. (Susan) Lipkins and myself about these pictures was the blindfold and the hands-tying – there was something creepy about that.”
Reno said the album was posted to the hosting space on Aug. 29, 2005. He also said he plans to release pictures on Wednesday from “at least a dozen” other colleges depicting similar initiation rituals.
Lipkins, a psychologist who has studied hazing for the past three years and wrote a book called “Preventing Hazing,” said the pictures of NU’s soccer players are telling because they show, from beginning to end, the progression of a common but rarely documented ritual.
“It’s clearly the kids documenting the event, and I believe the reason it was online is they didn’t see it as hazing,” Lipkins said. “For me the issue is not about punishing the perpetrators, because I strongly believe they were once victims.
“The victims become bystanders, then they become senior members who feel like they have the right and duty to repeat the tradition, to do unto others what was done to them … Whose responsibility is that? In my opinion it’s the responsibility of the institution in charge of that group, the university and the athletics department.”
Hazing is explicitly prohibited under NU’s anti-hazing policy, which can be found in the student handbook. Athletics Media Services Director Mike Wolf said all athletes are given orientations as incoming freshmen on a range of issues, including hazing.
But Lipkins said she feels the university needs to do more, including a reassessment of its hazing policies.
“I basically challenge the university, because they spend huge amounts of money to recruit these kids … but they spend very, very little money, if any, on hazing prevention,” Lipkins said.
“The university and the media often want to look at those kids that did the wrong thing. I’m not saying that. I’m saying look at this culture of sports that we as a society encourage and support.”
Reach Anthony Tao at [email protected].
