Not “locker room talk” at Harvard

The rest of the men’s soccer season for this Fall (2016) at Harvard University has been cancelled after Harvard’s office of general counsel review found that the team continued to produce vulgar and explicit documents rating women on their perceived sexual appeal and physical appearance. The young men on the men’s team referred to this practice as their “scouting report.”

Harvard University President Drew Faust said the decision to cancel the rests of the men’s soccer season, “reflects Harvard’s view that both the team’s behavior and the failure to be forthcoming when initially questioned are completely unacceptable, have no place at Harvard, and run counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of our community.”

This is how four members of Harvard’s current women’s soccer team responded. Among other comments by the women are these:

We have seen the “scouting report” in its entirety. We know the fullest extent of its contents: the descriptions of our bodies, the numbers we were each assigned, and the comparison to each other and recruits in classes before us. This document attempts to pit us against one another, as if the judgment of a few men is sufficient to determine our worth. But, men, we know better than that. Eighteen years of soccer taught us that. Eighteen years—as successful, powerful, and undeniably brilliant female athletes – taught us that.

As for the men’s team that sat atop the Ivy League standings? Well, this is what a lost season looks like.

… Just in case wondered about how one of the foremost universities in the world responds to locker room talk.