Harvard men's soccer season canceled in women's team 'scouting report' scandal
Harvard canceled the remainder of its men’s soccer team’s season after discovering that its “scouting report” practice of objectifying the women’s soccer team was still going on into the present fall semester, the Boston Globe reported on Thursday.
The school’s investigation was sparked by a Harvard Crimson student newspaper story about the men’s soccer team writing an apparently annual assessment on the incoming freshmen of the women’s team. The crudeness of the report was exceeded only by its crassness, and it left the six women objectified in the 2012 version with no choice but to respond with an open letter in the Crimson last weekend.
The Crimson obtained the 2012 document and surmised, credibly, that it was a yearly thing, although at the time it was unclear if the sordid tradition had been carried on until today. In it, six women were described and graded. Those six women, none of whom are on the team anymore – five played all four years and the sixth played just her freshman season – decided to speak out in an open letter.
We are these women, we are not anonymous. …
When first notified of this “scouting report” each of us responded with surprise and confusion, but ultimately brushed off the news as if it didn’t really matter. As if we weren’t surprised men had spoken of us inappropriately. As if this kind of thing was just, “normal.”
The sad reality is that we have come to expect this kind of behavior from so many men, that it is so “normal” to us we often decide it is not worth our time or effort to dwell on.
…
We feel hopeless because men who are supposed to be our brothers degrade us like this. We are appalled that female athletes who are told to feel empowered and proud of their abilities are so regularly reduced to a physical appearance.
Having considered members of this [men’s] team our close friends for the past four years, we are beyond hurt to realize these individuals could encourage, silently observe, or participate in this kind of behavior, and for more than four years have neglected to apologize until this week.
…
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.
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.
…
Finally, to the men of Harvard Soccer and any future men who may lay claim to our bodies and choose to objectify us as sexual objects, in the words of one of us, we say together: “I can offer you my forgiveness, which is – and forever will be – the only part of me that you can ever claim as yours.”
The document assigned the players grades on their appearance and speculated about their sexual habits. When the Crimson presented the document to Harvard’s Director of Athletics Robert L. Scalise, he expressed concern and disgust, but also attempted to prevent a story from being published.
“This is not a media thing,” he told the paper, according to the Crimson’s story. “This is something that should be looked at by us in the administration to figure out what our steps are, but we shouldn’t do anything more with the media on this other than ‘thank you for letting us know about this, OK. We need to look at it.’ ”
This, too, is troubling at a time when accountability for sexual misconduct on college campuses goes largely unreported and unpunished. Colleges seeking to keep embarrassing episodes such as the inexcusable tawdriness exposed by the Crimson, or sexual violence, in-house in order to avoid damaging their reputations to the public also tend to create cultures of impunity.
According to the Globe, Harvard’s athletic department has vowed to work with the college’s Office of Sexual Assault and Response to educate its men’s players and other athletes “about the seriousness of these behaviors and the general standard of respect and conduct that is expected.”
The Harvard men’s soccer team, with two games remaining in its regular season, was in contention for the Ivy League title and an NCAA Tournament berth.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
