Former Northwestern football player files 4th lawsuit amid hazing allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse in school athletics

A fourth lawsuit was filed Monday against Northwestern University as the school grapples with allegations of a pervasive hazing culture and a toxic environment that extended beyond the football team and into other sports including baseball, softball and volleyball.

The hazing scandal that has rocked the school this month includes allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The plaintiff in Monday’s lawsuit, 26-year-old former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates, recently told the Tribune in an exclusive interview he has been haunted by nightmares and anxiety since he joined the Wildcats in 2015 and graduated in 2018.

Yates is being represented by attorneys Ben Crump and Steven Levin, who have said they will be filing suits on behalf of at least 15 former student athletes with similar experiences and that they are in conversations with at least 50 others. Crump and Levin are suing Northwestern on Yates’ behalf seeking monetary damages to cover damages and costs incurred from negligence, willful and wanton conduct and gender-related violence.

At a news conference Monday, the Crump legal team detailed some of the graphic allegations in the 52-page complaint and acknowledged Yates’ bravery for being the first named plaintiff in a hazing lawsuit against the university.

“It’s a real big deal when these young people have the courage to take a stand and refuse to be victims anymore, refuse to have their voices silenced but to take a stand,” Crump said.

The lawsuit will hopefully encourage others to speak out about their experiences whether at Northwestern University or other schools, Crump said.

“This will be acknowledged as college sports’ (#MeToo) movement in which we hope we will provide awareness around the issue and support to victims and the eradication of physical, psychological and sexual hazing in college sports,” Crump said, referring to the slogan of the anti-sexual harassment and abuse movement that gained prominence in 2018.

In fact, another incoming lawsuit was announced beyond the Yates claim Monday. A former volleyball player will be the first female athlete to file suit against Northwestern University over its recent hazing scandal, her lawyers announced.

The forthcoming suit claims that Northwestern’s volleyball program has had long-standing problems with hazing, harassment, bullying and retaliation.

In the latest suit, a former volleyball player identified anonymously as Jane Doe 1 said a coach held sessions called “coach on one” in which he would “blast” volleyballs across the gym toward the player, who was required to run and hit the balls.

The whole team, players and coaches, would watch the drill, which the suit maintains was not to improve skills but to “humiliate” the player.

Similarly, the suit claims, the coach required players to run in front of the team for minor rule infractions, not for fitness, but “to embarrass and humiliate.”

In February of 2021, the suit asserts, the volleyball program was paused due to Jane Doe 1 contracting COVID-19. Though she said she had followed all the team’s COVID protocols, the coach threatened to terminate her scholarship if she didn’t improve her performance, and told her she’d have to undergo “punishment” for allegedly breaking the guidelines.

Team captains chose the punishment, which was “suicides,” running the length of the court while diving on the floor at each line while players and coaches watched, a form of sanctioned hazing, the suit stated. Jane Doe 1 suffered injuries from the drill on March 2, 2021, and the following day, the school began an investigation of hazing in the volleyball program.

Following the investigation, the incident was deemed to be hazing, the suit stated, but Jane Doe 1 was never given the results.

In December of 2021, the school renewed the coach’s contract with a multiyear extension.

Jane Doe 1 didn’t played again the rest of 2021, was isolated from the team, and kept from traveling with the team, despite previously having done so, according to the suit.

Jane Doe 1 was under constant social and financial pressure to maintain her scholarship, the suit stated, but in December of 2022, she “medically retired” from the volleyball program.

The Chicago law firm Salvi, Schostock & Pritchard announced that it would file the suit Monday with co-counsel The Stinar Law Firm.

“We see in Jane Doe 1′s story how hazing and abuse causes physical and emotional harm,” attorney Patrick A. Salvi II said. “Her story is sadly not uncommon, and it permeates across sports, men and women, and across campuses.”

Northwestern issued a response that stated: “In March 2021, a student made an allegation of hazing on the volleyball team. The University responded by conducting an investigation, during which it suspended the team’s coach and coaching staff. The investigation confirmed that hazing had taken place. Appropriate disciplinary action was taken. Among other actions, the University canceled two games and implemented mandatory anti-hazing training.”

“Although this incident predated President Schill’s and Athletic Director Gragg’s tenure at the University, each is taking it seriously,” the statement said.

Yates spoke at the Monday news conference about his early experiences in the Northwestern football program and how he and other players were conditioned to believe these behaviors were normal. He said he hopes this raises awareness of an ongoing issue in college sports.

“To all the young athletes out there, I urge you to stand up. Stand up for yourself even when the odds are against you. For I’ve come to realize no one else will,” Yates said.

Yates called for justice for all the victims of hazing, closure for himself and hundreds of players who “suffered in silence” and for the protection of future student athletes.

Yates and his legal team said that the anti-hazing policies are only part of the problem. Even with a reporting system, hazing and other behaviors were so ingrained in the culture that players didn’t recognize the harm, Yates said, which is why no other players are named as defendants.

“We were all victims. And I want to make that clear, no matter what role if you’re being hazed or on the, you know, perpetrating side. It was just really a culture that you had to find a position within,” Yates said.

The lawsuit also details how two assistant coaches were hazed “in the same manner as players,” while the Crump legal team did not share additional details regarding their identities due to the sensitive nature of the acts.

“I was conditioned to think this stuff is normal, and this was what goes on in college football, this is what goes on in these locker rooms,” Yates told the Tribune earlier this month. “And I think Northwestern has a bit of work to do to make things right, and make sure that this culture doesn’t exist.”

In a statement, the school has noted it launched an investigation into hazing allegations after complaints late last year. A letter to faculty from Schill released last week stated that the school would hire an outside firm to “evaluate the sufficiency” of the school’s accountability measures.

Former Northwestern athletes say they were forced to participate in sexual acts and receive punishments that inflicted physical and psychological trauma. In Monday’s lawsuit, Yates alleged that as a freshman he experienced hazing in the form of “running,” whereby a group of a dozen or more upperclassmen would forcibly hold down underclassmen football players and simulate sexual activity.

The ordeal left Yates feeling “embarrassed, ashamed, dehumanized, powerless, dirty and anxious,” according to the 52-page complaint.

Other instances of hazing Yates and his teammates allegedly experienced and witnessed included “rituals” whereby they would be forced to perform exercises and drills while being fully naked in front of others, and the “Gatorade Shake Challenge” whereby players would be forced to drink as many protein shakes as possible in a given window of time, often causing physical discomfort to the extent of sickness and vomiting.

Attorneys for the players claim coaches knew and even participated in some instances of hazing and abuse. In the aftermath of the allegations, former head football and baseball coaches Pat Fitzgerald and Jim Foster were fired from their respective positions in the span of three days.

Fitzgerald’s attorney, former federal prosecutor Dan Webb, has repeatedly denied the longtime Wildcats coach knew of or participated in the alleged hazing and abuse, calling the allegations “broad-based” and “imprecise.” He has also emphasized that an investigation conducted by the university found Fitzgerald had no knowledge of the hazing.

“Moreover,” Webb wrote in a statement, “the facts and evidence will show that coach Fitzgerald implemented and followed numerous procedures and protocols to ensure that hazing would not occur, and he repeatedly emphasized to Northwestern’s student-athletes that hazing was forbidden and, if anyone was aware — or was the victim — of hazing, that they should immediately report it so that he could stop it.”

But former mentees like Yates have contested these claims, while still pointing their fingers at a larger institutional problem rather than at a specific individual. Yates has also said some of his teammates and fellow athletes have dealt with suicidal thoughts as part of the fallout from the toxic culture entrenched in university athletics.

“The abusive hazing was so entrenched in the Northwestern football culture that even some of our coaches took part in it. So where would we go to complain?” Yates said in a news release Wednesday. “The hazing was well-known in the football program. It was no secret. We were all adversely impacted by the hazing, especially when it came to our mental health. We were physically and emotionally beaten down.”

The first lawsuit against the university, which was filed in Cook County court Tuesday, alleged that Fitzgerald and other university higher-ups knew about and covered up sexual misconduct as well as racial discrimination. The anonymous plaintiff, a Black former player, is being represented by attorneys Patrick Salvi Jr. and Parker Stinar.

Since then, two other anonymous athletes represented by Salvi Jr. and Stinar have filed lawsuits against Fitzgerald, the university, former athletic director James Phillips, now commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and other defendants affiliated with Northwestern.

Levin said his and Crump’s clients are seeking more oversight and accountability in Northwestern’s athletic programs to prevent hazing and abuse from occurring in the future.

“The revelation that our clients have had to endure humiliating, deeply damaging emotional, physical and sexual abuse is both shocking and inexcusable. For many scholarship athletes, leaving was not an option,” Crump said in the Wednesday news release. “It’s time for a reckoning at Northwestern and colleges across the country where this kind of behavior has been excused for too long.”

Crump has represented students from Ohio State University and Michigan State University who have alleged sexual abuse and assault by authority figures on their campuses.

Crump said that this lawsuit is the first of over 30 individual lawsuits they plan on filing in the next few months regarding hazing practices throughout Northwestern athletic programs and other universities. The legal team said it’s too early to say whether this will evolve into a class action lawsuit.

“If you’re listening, and you were a victim of hazing at Northwestern University, or any other college across America, you are not alone. We stand with you. We hear you,” he said. “Join this #MeToo movement for college sports and let’s make a difference.”

Read the lawsuit below: