Another scandal has struck the college athletics landscape.
Columbia University has suspended its wrestling program, while officials investigate “racist, misogynistic and homophobic” text messages sent by team members, according to The New York Times.
The school reportedly issued a statement Monday, saying its athletic department “has decided that Columbia wrestlers will not compete until we have a full understanding of the facts on which to base the official response to this disturbing matter.”
Columbia’s wrestling team still is practicing, a university official confirmed to The New York Times, so it’s possible its season will resume once the investigation is completed. The school reportedly described the text messages in question as “appalling,” though, and it’s clear Columbia is taking the matter very seriously.
According to The New York Times, screengrabs of the text messages were first published Thursday by Bwog, an independent, student-run Columbia news website. The controversial texts date back to 2014.
This news comes less than two weeks after Harvard cancelled its men’s soccer season following a report that members of that team created sexually explicit “scouting reports” about members of the school’s women’s soccer team.
Thumbnail photo via Wikipedia/Columbia University
