Former U.S. Attorney General To Review Northwestern Practices, Culture

EVANSTON, IL — More than a week after the first lawsuit was filed in connection with the Northwestern hazing scandal, the university has announced that former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will oversee an independent review of the school’s accountability practices and a review of the culture of its athletic department culture.

The school announced Tuesday that Lynch will oversee the review, which Northwestern President Michael Schill said is being done to review mechanisms to “detect, report and respond to” potential misconduct within the school’s athletic department.

The misconduct, the university said, includes hazing, bullying, and discrimination of any kind.

The announcement comes after six lawsuits have been filed in recent days by former Northwestern athletes, who claim in their complaints that they endured sexualized hazing and harassment during their athletic careers in Evanston. The lawsuits include complaints filed by former football players who are represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump while another group of athletes — including a former Northwestern volleyball player — is represented by another Chicago law firm.

The university said on Tuesday that Lynch will examine the culture of Northwestern athletics to ensure it is consistent with the University’s mission and values as a leading academic institution. Lynch will conduct this review with feedback from and engagement with faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

The results of her review will be made public. This differs from the six-month investigation that was conducted this spring that led to the eventual firing of long-time football coach Pat Fitzgerald. The school has only released an executive summary of the report, which Schill admitted in an interview with the Daily Northwestern that he had only read before deciding to initially suspend Fitzgerald for two weeks without pay.

The school has said it will not release the entirety of that report.

“Hazing has absolutely no place at Northwestern. Period,” Schill said in a statement released on Tuesday. “I am determined that with the help of Attorney General Lynch, we will become a leader in combating the practice of hazing in intercollegiate athletics and a model for other universities.

“We will provide all of our students with the resources and support they need and do whatever is necessary to protect their safety and ensure that our athletics program remains one we can all be proud of.”

In response, Crump and co-counsel Steve Levin from Chicago law firm Levin & Perconti, said on Tuesday that the university's newest study provides more questions than answers. Levin said at a recent news conference that Northwestern already "indicted itself" by ordering the independent investigation that ultimately led to Fitzgerald's firing.

But on Tuesday, the attorneys said in a released statement that the new inquiry into the school's athletic department culture may be an indication the school believes the initial investigation was "flawed."

"If the university is dedicated to transparency as they say, then why are the findings of the first investigation yet to be made public? We have to wonder if this is nothing more than an effort to counteract negative press, and more importantly, the growing number of former Northwestern football players filing lawsuits against the university," Crump and Levin said in the joint statement.

"The university’s top priority should have been, and should be, doing right by the victims of these despicable acts and eradicating hazing from their campus. And they can start by being transparent and releasing the full report from the first investigation to the public.”

Crump said recently that he expects to file at least 30 lawsuits on behalf of former Northwestern players in the coming weeks as part of the college sports #MeTooMovement. This week, Northwestern volleyball coach Shane Davis said he would not be appearing at Big Ten volleyball media day because he could not address complaints made against him by the former player who named him as a defendant in her lawsuit.

Levin said that ultimately, they are looking for the university to change its policies about hazing moving forward. The school has an anti-hazing policy in place, but former athletes and their attorneys said that “extreme sexual hazing” has become institutionalized at Northwestern, where harassment and bullying have become normalized in a number of athletic programs.

In addition to football, complaints over racial discrimination, bullying, sexual assault, and hazing have been reported in baseball, volleyball, men’s soccer, and cheerleading.

“The Athletics Department welcomes this review as a critical tool in identifying the additional steps Northwestern can take to eradicate hazing,” Northwestern athletic director Derrick Gragg said in a statement released on Tuesday. “By making the results of her review public, we hope our entire community will be better informed and guided as we all work to address this critical issue in college athletics.”

Lynch’s review is part of a series of immediate actions the University has taken in response to the findings from the independent investigation of allegations of hazing in the football program, which were announced July 7.

Those actions include:

• Monitoring of the football locker room.
• In-person anti-hazing training led by outside experts for all University sports teams, coaches and staff. The first session begins on Thursday for the football team — its first day of fall practice — with training for other teams to follow.
• Enhancement of the University’s existing reporting resources with the development of an online tool for reporting complaints of hazing, bullying, and other misconduct.

Lynch will begin her review immediately and will provide updates to both President Schill and the Board of Trustees Audit and Risk Committee, the school said. At the conclusion of her review, Lynch will make her results public.

“Northwestern’s Board of Trustees fully supports President Schill’s decision to conduct this critical review and to engage Ms. Lynch to lead it. The board will cooperate fully with Ms. Lynch and her team and facilitate her work as needed,” Peter Barris, Chairman of the Northwestern University Board of Trustees, said in a statement.

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