Northwestern gamers retain lawyer for potential hazing lawsuit
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Eight former Northwestern soccer gamers have retained a outstanding civil rights and damage lawyer within the wake of the hazing scandal that has embroiled the Wildcats’ program and led to the dismissal of longtime coach Pat Fitzgerald.
“Whether or not the coaches at Northwestern authorised or participated within the harassment of those gamers or not, they’re chargeable for permitting and enabling a poisonous, disgusting, and damaging tradition of their packages,” lawyer Ben Crump stated in an announcement. Crump rose to nationwide prominence following George Floyd’s homicide in 2020 by representing a number of households in circumstances of alleged police brutality.
Crump and his co-counsel, Steven M. Levin, are “in conversations with many others,” they stated Monday, including that future authorized motion is “anticipated to broaden past Northwestern’s soccer program and can expose excessive and abusive hazing in different faculty athletic packages as effectively.”
“Sadly, our analysis means that this sort of abuse of scholar athletes could also be much more frequent on faculty campuses than we all know, as a result of there’s great stress to maintain quiet,” Crump stated. “It’s time for a reckoning to guard younger athletes.”
Earlier this month, a long-gestating unbiased investigation commissioned by the college discovered credible proof to hazing allegations throughout the soccer program however “didn’t uncover proof pointing to particular misconduct by any particular person soccer participant or coach.”
Simply days after suspending Fitzgerald for two weeks with out pay, and amid an article from the scholar newspaper The Every day Northwestern detailing hazing-related actions contained in the locker room, the college modified course and fired Fitzgerald for trigger.
That call has arrange a potential authorized showdown between Northwestern and the longtime coach and former linebacker, who employed a Chicago-based lawyer “to take the mandatory steps to guard my rights in accordance with the legislation,” he stated.
The eight gamers who retained authorized illustration “need to help and validate the allegations of abuse” outlined within the Every day Northwestern story, stated Levin.
“They consider that extra stringent oversight and accountability are required in faculty athletics to stop such abuses from taking place to different gamers sooner or later,” he added.
In accordance with Crump and Levin, the previous gamers have alleged incidents such because the “Gatorade Shake Problem,” the place former gamers have been pressured to chug protein-heavy Gatorade drinks “to the extent of illness and vomiting.”
No less than three of the previous gamers have pointed to “a tradition of racism throughout the program,” alleging that Black coaches and gamers felt pressured to vary hairstyles.
“The bodily, emotional and sexual abuse not solely violated Northwestern’s personal insurance policies, but in addition quite a few legal guidelines, and worse, has led to irreparable hurt, with some gamers even experiencing suicidal ideas,” stated Levin.
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