Harvard suspends men's soccer team after lewd 'scouting reports' continued

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:33 p.m. ET

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Allyssa Lee

Harvard has suspended the men's soccer team for the season after an investigation discovered the team had continued to produce sexually explicit "scouting reports" of female players up until this year, the Harvard Crimson reports.

A general counsel review had found that these "scouting reports," which rated women's soccer recruits on their physical appearance and sexual appeal, "appears to be more widespread across the team and has continued beyond 2012, including in 2016," Harvard athletic director Robert L. Scalise wrote in a statement.

“As a direct result of what Harvard Athletics has learned, we have decided to cancel the remainder of the 2016 men’s soccer season,” Scalise continued, “the team will forfeit its remaining games and will decline any opportunity to achieve an Ivy League championship or to participate in the NCAA Tournament this year.”

The university announced that had called upon its lawyers to investigate after the Crimson reported that the 2012 men's team had circulated a document online rating the attractiveness of the women recruits in a sexually explicit manner last week.

The women recruits discussed in the "report" wrote an op-ed to the Crimson condemning the document.

“We are appalled that female athletes who are told to feel empowered and proud of their abilities are so regularly reduced to a physical appearance,” they wrote.

The men's soccer team was ranked first in the Ivy League.

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