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On Monday morning, we wrote that Northwestern University President Michael Schill needed to take some classes in communications or at least beef up his staffing in that area. Schill’s Saturday statement in the light of revelations of alleged hazing in Northwestern’s football program was a master class in how not to deal with such a polarizing situation.
For one thing, Schill had introduced the laughable clause “upon reflection” to explain why he was doing an about-face in his thought process after deciding to suspend head football coach Pat Fitzgerald following an investigation into a complaint by a football player that the team had engaged in hazing practices. On Friday, Schill attempted to close the matter — hence, the summer Friday timing — by releasing the executive summary of the report, commissioned by the university but conducted by an outside party, and saying that the findings did not offer persuasive evidence that Fitzgerald had knowledge of these goings-on and that various reforms and penalties had been put in place. Most notably, those included a two-week suspension for Fitzgerald, effectively a vacation, and the end of football activities at a Kenosha training camp, where these activities allegedly took place.
Then the student journalists at The Daily Northwestern proceeded to do their job and spoil Schill’s weekend. In vivid detail, the student newspaper detailed the allegations, which include ritualistic, even sexualized, humiliations for freshmen, especially freshmen who had blundered on the field. We won’t further dignify them by detailing them here. Once the descriptions of the allegations were out, the climate on campus clearly changed. A more honest phrase than “upon reflection” would have been: “Upon the Daily Northwestern’s publication of these allegations and due to the attendant outrage on campus and negative publicity for the university’s athletic program …”
By Monday evening, Schill finally got his act together and fired Fitzgerald. And rightly so.
Still, there was a lot of presidential dithering on Monday. After all, Schill had read the full confidential report, which presumably contained the same details that those fine student sleuths had dug up through at least one interview with a primary source and some good old-fashioned reporting of the kind that makes us more positive about the future of journalism.
Schill’s about-face then got into the matter of whether, even if he did not know about the allegations, Fitzgerald, as the head football coach, was still responsible. In Schiff’s words: “I focused too much on what the report concluded he didn’t know and not enough on what he should have known.”
We’ll note again. These same details were available to Schill before his first letter.
This “should have known” question is, of course, complicated. One argument is that players are adults who make their own decisions and that their coach cannot, and never will, know everything about what they are doing when he is not physically present. The opposing view would be that ignorance is no defense in instances like these when you are the boss, and an educator to boot.
Indeed, Fitzgerald had a duty to adhere to the university’s policy on harassment and inappropriate conduct, and most people would say that also means creating the right kind of climate.
The other flash point here was the conduct itself. On Sunday, an email that said it was co-signed by “The ENTIRE Northwestern Football Team” surfaced in which the anonymous writers said that “the recent allegations brought forth are exaggerated and twisted” and that Northwestern football players “do not tolerate hazing.”
A lawyer or a skilled investigator would not have found it hard to undercut that letter, given that you can’t exaggerate something that is not happening. That said, we don’t doubt there are a variety of player opinions over whether or not the hazing was horseplay, team-building fun or something much worse. That can be a difficult question in any discussion of collegiate hazing, but as media organizations began calling players, it became clear that at least at some points during this coach’s tenure, more than one student had an issue with what was transpiring.
Let’s be clear: No student sports team’s cohesion is enhanced by ritualistic humiliation. Period.
What a mess for Northwestern’s athletics program, which already is immersed in a stadium controversy pitting the university against its Evanston neighbors and that already had one scandal involving allegations of sexual harassment and racial bias in its cheerleading program, resulting in the resignation of a recently hired athletic director, Mike Polisky.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
Also, on Monday afternoon, the Tribune reported that sources had told the newspaper that the university has been investigating accusations of problematic behavior from Northwestern first-year head baseball coach Jim Foster.
Is there still more for Schill to do? Darn right.
Job one is releasing more of a full report from the hazing investigation, albeit with redacted names. The executive summary clearly is inadequate, and the Northwestern community needs to know more precisely what the outside investigator found. Only then can Northwestern’s football program begin to heal.
Leadership of a great American university requires transparency wherever possible, as well as thoughtful decision-making. It took a while for all that to become clear to the president’s office.
But as painful as it surely was for all concerned, especially Fitzgerald, Schill eventually did the right thing.
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