Princeton University has announced the cancellation of the remainder of its 2016-2017 men’s swimming and diving season. That means the Tigers won’t swim in their final two regular season meets (versus Navy on January 7 and versus Harvard and Yale on February 5), nor at the Ivy League or NCAA Championships.
The decision, announced by Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan, was the result of a “vulgar and offensive” email chain on the team’s official university-sponsored listserv.
Princeton announced a week ago that they would suspend their season while further action was being considered. Since that announcement, more information has come out about the nature of the offending emails, which included crude comments about the Princeton women’s swim team and their incoming recruits. The emails were described as “misogynistic and racist in nature” in the Princeton release.
“We make clear to all of our student-athletes that they represent Princeton University at all times, on and off the playing surface and in and out of season, and we expect appropriate, respectful conduct from them at all times,” Samaan said. “The behavior that we have learned about is simply unacceptable. It is antithetical to the values of our athletic program and of the University, and will not be tolerated.
“After reviewing the situation with Coach Orr, we have decided to suspend the season, and all associated team activities, effective immediately,” Samaan added. “In the coming days we will make a determination about the status of the team’s remaining schedule and we also will work collaboratively to determine additional actions aimed at education and positive culture building for the team.”
The entire men’s team roster has been stripped from the official team website (live version here), as have all rosters back through the 2013-2014 season. Among the swimmers whose collegiate careers will be ended by the decision are seniors En-wei Hu-Van Wright, Julian Mackrel – seniors on the team who both earned Honorable Mention All-America honors as part of relays at last year’s NCAA Championships. Princeton placed 37th overall at that meet with 8 points.
The team was also due to defend two-consecutive Ivy League Championships.
“The athletics department and the University are committed to providing an inclusive environment free from harassment and intimidation and characterized by mutual respect and concern for the well-being of others,” Samaan said. “In recent years we have worked closely with Princeton’s SHARE office (Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising Resources and Education) to provide educational and training programs for our students and our staff.
“One program developed by SHARE in conjunction with my office is SCORRE (Strength in Coaching on Relationships, Respect and Equality),” she added. “This program uses the bond between coaches and players to foster interactive dialogue and develop skills that promote healthy interpersonal relationships. Its modules cover such topics as respect, integrity, language, consent, and bystander intervention. We have also developed a program that will be introduced next month that focuses on the responsible and productive use of social media. We will continue to focus on such programs as well as redouble our ongoing efforts to achieve our primary goal, which is education through athletics.”
Geez, what has happened to our civilization when we elect a moron who did the same thing in front of the entire nation…and was still elected president!
This is not about mutual respect. There is no respect and there is no equality. There is no dialog. Dialog is not cancelling the season if one person says something that Ms Athletic Director doesn’t like. Just saying something is offensive when we cannot even see what it was does not mean that it really was offensive, There is only raw power as far as I can see.
The director of athletics is responsible for setting the tone on matters like this and should be fired immediately.
Ivy League “safe spaces” certainly make these colleges a “unsafe place” for their dopey male athletic teams.
Some of the comments are about what degree of punishment this unfriendly ( at best ) mob activity deserves . I am thinking these boys are all home for Christmas & they will be getting it from everyone at dinner . I hope Grandma has a few too many nips & twists their ears .
Again assumptions without knowledge as to the situation. It was provided in this thread by someone that Princeton agreed in November 2014 as part of a settlement to establish policy requiring staff to report and ostensibly that was extended to bystanders – basically, if you see something, say something or you are creating a non-compliant culture and environment. If every other school had the same policy then there would be no swim meets this season. Essentially, if out of a 1,000 emails in a semester on a team of 40 if a handful are vulgar and the team either does not pay attention to the list serve or they do and do not report their teammate then they are non… Read more »
Has any student brought charges against the school for being wrongly accused? Nope. They’re all guilty as charged. You can’t get away with this kind of stuff in 2016.
The comments here allowed me to realize, for once and for all, swimming is not a great way to build character.
These people that have no understanding of (and no desire to understand) “safe spaces” and “political correctness” really are the worst to have any discussion of free speech with. In their deeply flawed eyes, free speech should mean the freedom to say ANYTHING without any type of repercussion. That is a truly frightening idea. One of the previous commenters said something to the effect that the real tragedy is: “everyone’s all for political correctness, until it’s directed at THEIR speech”. I would contend a more valid statement is: “ everyone’s all for free (hate) speech, that is, until the attacks are directed at THEIR race,group, deviance, religion, stigma etc.” People ought not have to worry about their employer’s, peer’s, teacher’s,… Read more »
Free speech with consequence sounds a lot like no free speech at all. Suppose there were a law that anyone criticizing Trump were to be shot without a trial. In the past that would have been viewed as a violation of our first Amendment rights–but with modern views of free speech I guess it could be viewed as not restricting free speech in any way, but merely providing consequences for free speech.
Your argument doesn’t hold any water I’m afraid. Remember none of these students’ first amendment rights have been curtailed. Members of the team used the LISTSERV to make offensive comments about women and the team’s season was canceled. They violated school policy. Would you expect an employee that addresses customers as “a-holes” not to be fired? Have any of these students been arrested or even contacted by authorities?
This country was founded upon the belief that we all have certain God-given unalienable rights as described by the bill of rights. There was no mention of certain words or phrases that would be of exception. It was held to the belief that people would be moral and peaceful with each other, yet it was also believed that there would be no punishment for what you say so long as it is not of personal threat. This is why one can say, *insert racist term here*, and not “fire” in a movie theatre. How about you take a gander at 1984 and see the hypothetical reality of your censorship.
If you’re referring to the USA, this country was founded on genocide, slavery and strict restriction of freedom of speech to a much larger degree than anything you’ve listed. Please remember none of these students have been charged with a crime over the emails. This is not the government punishing them. They violated policy and so action was taken by the school.
I replied on the basis that you believe free speech should be censored speech and never did I condone their childish actions. And if you don’t believe that the USofA was founded on the ideology of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness you are wrong. Yes slavery is wrong. Many founders believed so as well. However you can not unite a people and fight a war while also taking away many of their livelihoods. We did right by that later on but we still took care of it. Yes, we took the natives lands but not until a hundred years later was it an international crime to do so. Also, the natives sided with the losers in several wars.… Read more »