Don't do anything you would regret. Messing with Notre Dame football is a bad idea.
-A threat made against Lizzy Seeberg (she later committed suicide) who had accused a football player there of raping her.
Former University of Michigan football player, Brendan Gibbons, was expelled from the school last month, nearly four years after being accused of sexual assault. In New Jersey a Seton Hall athlete recorded and distributed video of a female softball player being sexually assaulted. She was suspended from her team for underage drinking; it is not known what happened to the accused. Florida State University’s Jameis Winston, the winner of something called a Heisman, was accused of rape last December. FSU allowed him to continue to play and did not even hold a disciplinary hearing as most schools do in such situations. University of Missouri student Sasha Courey's financial aid was snatched away as she battled mental illness after being, allegedly, sexually assaulted by a football player. She killed herself three years ago. And only after last month’s ESPN exposé did the university refer the alleged rape to police. Unfortunately for college women there are many more examples of student-athletes raping women and universities failing women.
The weird cult of athletic worship that exists at many universities fosters a sinister environment where entitled male athletes are allowed to prey upon women. The female students are not treated as human beings, but rather as objects belonging to the deified athletes. James Franklin, who heads the infamous Penn State football program, supports this sexist, hubristic mindset. “I will not hire an assistant coach until I've seen his wife,” he said. “If she looks the part, and she's a D-1 recruit, then you got a chance to get hired,” he added. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Franklin was also Vanderbilt’s coach when four players were accused of viciously gang raping an unconscious student. He personifies the patriarchal values responsible for the continued debasement of women. And if the coach is feeding this masculine babble to his assistants, what, one wonders, did he tell the alleged Vanderbilt rapists?
Oklahoma State University is also a culprit in what The Atlantic labels the normalization of sexism. OSU employed female students to assist in the recruitment efforts of football prospects. The hostesses were attractive women who entertained the would-be Cowboys and gave them tours of the campus, among other things. Such recruitment schemes are terrible because, once again, they reduce women to sexual objects; nor is it appropriate to tell women, as Emily Yoffe clumsily did last fall, that if they want to stop getting raped, then they should stop getting drunk. Society—especially universities tasked with educating and raising the consciousness of students—ought to help men become aware of, and jettison, their gender bigotry, not reinforce it. These athletic programs, as evidenced by the incessant flow of rape allegations, are not doing their part. In some cases schools aren’t even investigating the sex crimes (or punishing students who shame victims and make it difficult for others to come forth); certain colleges have, in a way, raped the victims all over again with their lack of compassion and concern.
I personally find the idea of routinely following any sports frighteningly boring. This is particularly true for the brutish activity of football where performers are graded, in part, by how hard they can slam their body up against another. Even President Obama said recently he wouldn't allow his son to engage in such combat. Moreover, according to the Journal of Science and Sport, male-student athletes (specifically those in what are called the "power and performance" sports of football, basketball, hockey and wrestling) rape at a rate six times higher than other male students. And researchers partially blame the sports entitlement culture for this disproportionate statistic. Thus, if schools want to fight the epidemic of sexual assault, it is time to remove all athletic programs from the university experience. This controversial severance will not eradicate rape, but it will decrease assaults by eliminating the institutionalized sports rape culture. Additionally, more money would be available for gender and women’s studies departments and aspiring athletes can attend specialized sports academies. It is galling to read of universities subsidizing sports, while cutting back on academics and raising tuition rates. Ultimately, these entertainment enterprises— the vast majority of which aren’t big money makers—do not belong within academic institutions, given the misogyny that accompanies them and since some athletes, according to a recent CNN investigation, “play like adults and read like 5th graders”.