Two former athletes sued Northwestern University for its role in reported hazing incidents, CNN reported. The suits are the first to come out of a hazing scandal facing the university’s athletics department.
According to one suit, a person who was listed as Jane Doe experienced “hazing, harassment, bullying and retaliation” as a member of the volleyball team and sustained an injury while running suicides—an exercise where an athlete runs to every line on the court and back in quick succession—as punishment for allegedly breaking the team’s COVID-19 protocols.
Following the injury, in March 2021, the university conducted an investigation into the hazing allegation, according to both the filing and a statement from Northwestern.
The investigation found hazing had taken place. Northwestern canceled two games and instituted antihazing training.
In the suit, Doe alleges that following the investigation and through December 2022, she “never once played in a volleyball game at Northwestern.”
In another suit, former Northwestern quarterback and wide receiver Lloyd Yates alleged he was subject to sexual assault by his teammates as part of ritual hazing.
Yates told CNN Monday that athletes “were forced to do acts in the nude as punishment and for other sorts of, kind of, initiation,” and described the experiences he had as “dehumanizing.”
“These were things that were just really graphic, especially” as a teenager and young adult “who was just trying to fit in and make his mark in college sports,” Yates said.
A statement from Northwestern said, “Shortly after learning the results of the independent investigation into hazing on the football team, the university announced a series of steps including the monitoring of the football locker room, anti-hazing training and the establishment of an online reporting tool for complaints. These steps, while necessary and appropriate, are just the start, and we will be augmenting them in the coming weeks.”
