Northwestern Athletics 'In Crisis': Professors Seek Answers To Hazing

EVANSTON, IL — Like many others with connections to Northwestern University, Susan Pearson was disturbed to read the details of hazing that members of the school’s football program were reportedly forced to endure at the hands of upperclassmen while under the watch of long-time football coach Pat Fitzgerald.

Pearson, a professor of history at Northwestern, says she was disheartened by accounts of former Wildcats players, who — according to an explosive report in the university’s student newspaper over the weekend — were reportedly forced to endure actions that were often sexual in nature at the hands of their teammates for mistakes made during football practice.

Among the allegations are that freshmen were "dry-humped" in a dark room by upperclassmen wearing masks and being forced to go through a "car wash" while naked.

But now, Pearson, along with five other Northwestern tenured professors, are seeking more answers from university President Michael Schill and Athletic Director Derrick Gragg after a six-month investigation into hazing allegations within Fitzgerald’s program were found to be credible and ultimately cost Fitzgerald his job as the head of the program.

In an open letter to Schill, Gragg and Northwestern Board of Trustee Chairman Peter Barris composed on Monday, the six professors wrote that they are concerned about the culture of Northwestern athletics which, in turn — Pearson told Patch on Wednesday — is now affecting the reputation of the entire university.

In the past two days, four high school football recruits who had previously committed to play for Northwestern have announced their choice to re-open their process of deciding and announcing where they will play. That, Pearson said, shows that the reputation of the university has been tarnished by the scandal for which Pearson and her colleagues are now seeking answers.

She said while the need exists for Northwestern University and its athletics program to stand on their own in some ways, the two must co-exist given the way certain sports — namely football and men’s basketball — affect the school’s bottom line. Because Northwestern is a private institution, it is not required by law to provide financial information such as budgets to the general public.

“We cannot be a world-class university unless we have a world-class athletic program,” Pearson told Patch on Wednesday. “What I think of as a world-class athletic program ….is one that protects the physical, emotional and mental well-being of the student-athletes as well as giving them a top-notch education.”

In short, the professors are looking for answers as to what Northwestern officials plan to do to “clean house,” Pearson said, amid “another major scandal that involves allegations of sexual assault and harassment” as well as negligence or indifference by those in positions of power.

The first step in the process of finding solutions is transparency, the group wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Patch this week.

Since issuing the letter to school officials, Pearson said the letter’s authors have not heard from administrators who are, Pearson said, “in crisis management mode” responding to the news cycle. A university spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter sent by Patch on Wednesday.

The findings of the investigation, which was headed up by former federal prosecutor Maggie Hickey, initially led to an unpaid, two-week suspension for Fitzgerald. But a day after Schill announced his decision to suspend the former star Northwestern linebacker, the Daily Northwestern broke the story of detailed allegations of hazing that Schill later said was backed up by 11 players. In response, Schill sent an email to the university community after 11 p.m. on Saturday, admitting he may have erred in Fitzgerald's punishment.

On Monday evening, the university announced that Fitzgerald had been fired. ESPN reported on Tuesday that the coach, who had overseen the program since 2006, had been fired for cause just two years after he signed a 10-year contract valued at more than $50 million. Now, the six Northwestern professors are calling for university officials to release the entirety of the report and to detail what Fitzgerald and other officials within the athletic department knew of the hazing allegations — and when.

Fitzgerald, who said in a statement issued through his attorney that he is pursuing legal action against the university after he says Schill went back on his agreement to only suspend the coach, claims that he had no prior knowledge of hazing that Schill said Monday was widespread.

Pearson said on Wednesday that communication from administrators to faculty members and to the Northwestern community at large regarding the scandal has been “pretty minimal in terms of satisfying what most of what want to know more about.” She said that communications from Schill have been limited to two emails – one announcing the two-week suspension of Fitzgerald and then the other announcing his firing on Monday.

Pearson said the lack of transparency and communication has left the public and university community with “no idea” of what steps may be coming next in terms of what school officials plan to do in response to the hazing scandal. She called Fitzgerald’s firing a first step but says that more needs to be done to address what administrators plan to fix the culture that exists within the athletic department.

The letter calls for the university to provide the necessary support to students who experienced trauma and hazing as part of a scandal that followed previous allegations of sexual assault by Northwestern cheerleaders. Northwestern’s baseball coach has also been accused of fostering an environment in which bullying took place, former players said — a pattern of behavior that Pearson said has damaged the school’s athletic department’s reputation.

The letter also calls for the university to put the school’s $800 million proposal to renovate Ryan Field, Northwestern’s football stadium, on hold. Pearson said because the stadium is not the main story at hand, providing more clarity on what steps will be taken next to “clean house within the athletic department,” the stadium project that “goes around selling our athletics department as an adjunct to our world-class educational system.

Crain's Chicago Business reported this week that Evanston residents opposing the stadium project have also voiced their opinions seeking that the planned renovations be put on hold in the wake of Fitzgerald's firing.

What needs to change within the department, Pearson told Patch, “is sort of the million-dollar question.”

“There are bits and pieces of evidence that there is something larger going on here that we need to understand more fully,” Pearson said Wednesday.

She added: “What we need to do is communicate to the outside world that we’re serious about creating a model athletics program and that that can model how we can move on from this and that can become something we can be proud of and that is something we can take to the outside world. But we’re not there right now. Our athletics program is in crisis right now.”