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* Former Northwestern University cheerleader Alyssa Johnson…
Football program vs cheerleading program. Both coaches use phrases like “Good, clean American fun” and keeping an “all-American look” to justify this behavior pic.twitter.com/XCvG5OQAWk
— Alyssa Johnson (@amichelej) July 10, 2023
* A February 2021 article from the Daily Northwestern…
Erika Carter (SESP ’18) never imagined she would sue her alma mater.
As a Black member of Northwestern’s cheer program from 2016 to 2018, she faced unequal treatment for wearing her natural hair, was forced to split up from other Black teammates on the sidelines for “optics” and was told in writing that ethnically Black hairstyles like braids were not allowed on the team. Now in her post-graduation years, she said she plans to take legal action for the racial discrimination she experienced.[…]
Carter is one of many women to detail racist behavior and abuse from former Northwestern cheer coach Pamela Bonnevier. Bonnevier was fired in Fall 2020, but interviews with current and former cheer team members indicate consistent negligence and cover-up from other University officials. The experiences Carter and her teammates voice raise questions about reporting processes and the handling of racism in the University’s athletic and marketing departments.
In an April 2017 email, Bonnevier told Carter wearing braids would impact her eligibility for post-season events and travel to away football games.
“You have to decide for yourself how (getting braids) fits into your needs/wants,” Bonnevier added in the email. “Just throwing this out there.. A wig for events could be an option for you.”
In her second season on the team, Carter said she felt she was given less prominence and fewer opportunities to travel to away games because she chose to wear her natural hair. Carter also said she and other Black cheerleaders were also told by Bonnevier they were not allowed to stand next to each other at games and events because of “optics.”
* That wasn’t the only cheerleader lawsuit against the university that year. Tribune…
But early in her first season, the “dark side” of the program emerged, according to a federal lawsuit Richardson filed Friday against Northwestern. In the 58-page complaint, Richardson details repeated instances where she said she was groped by drunken fans and alumni during university-sanctioned events, alleging the cheer team’s head coach required female members to “mingle” with powerful donors for the school’s financial gain.
“It became clear to (Richardson) that the cheerleaders were being presented as sex objects to titillate the men that funded the majority of Northwestern’s athletics programs,” the lawsuit says. “After all, the happier these men were, the more money the university would receive from them.”
During these encounters in 2018 and 2019, Richardson alleges that older men touched her breasts and buttocks over her uniform, picked her up without her consent and made “sexually charged comments” about her appearance, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the Northern District of Illinois. Richardson recalled instances when the men offered her alcohol, though she was underage, or asked to meet up later, the lawsuit says.
Still, according to the lawsuit, head coach Pam Bonnevier continued telling the cheerleaders to socialize on their own, despite their requests to pair up during football tailgates and donor events. The female students were instructed to take photos with fans even if they behaved inappropriately, the lawsuit says.
* WBEZ in May of 2021…
Northwestern University’s athletic director admitted in a secretly-taped meeting just before his Wednesday resignation that he had not been sufficiently sympathetic about allegations of sexual harassment that were brought to him.
A day before his resignation, Mike Polisky admitted during a private meeting with Northwestern student-athletes and staff that he had regrets about how he reacted when cheerleaders came to him with allegations of sexual harassment two years ago.
“I wish that I would have been more empathetic in the moment. … I think that that might have alleviated some of the angst and frustration from some of the members of the cheer team,” Polisky said on a secretly recorded tape of the meeting, obtained exclusively by WBEZ.[…]
In the university meeting, Polisky also said he felt sickened by what he heard from the members of the cheer squad when they came to see him in his office.
“There was also alleged inappropriate touching and different things at some of the tailgates, and what I felt in my head, what I felt in my stomach … again, as a father of two daughters, this cannot happen to anybody. And by the way, our mascot, we came to learn, also had been inappropriately touched at tailgates out on the road. It’s not acceptable.”
* NYT coverage…
The lawsuit, filed in a U.S. District Court in the school’s state of Illinois, also contends that the Title IX office violated federal policy by delaying a formal investigation into these actions over a year after Richardson reported them.
In her university thesis, which details the experiences of her and other cheerleaders, Richardson wrote that in January 2019 members of her team met with Polisky to voice their concerns around tailgating. He responded, “What did you expect as cheerleaders?” She added that Polisky had accused two teammates of fabricating evidence when they sent 16 anonymously written accounts of harassment to him and Heather Obering, the associate athletic director for marketing, at the same meeting. […]
Polisky denied these allegations in an email through his attorneys to The New York Times on Friday, as did a representative for Obering. Both have moved to dismiss the case, along with the university. An attorney for Bonnevier did not respond to requests for comment.
Polisky and Obering forwarded complaints from the January 2019 meeting to the university’s Office of Equity, which investigated. Later in 2019, policies restricting hairstyles were removed and cheerleaders were no longer required to participate in tailgates, a spokeswoman for the university, Jeri B. Ward, wrote in an email to The Times on Thursday. Bonnevier’s contract was not renewed in 2020 after she was found to have violated the university’s discrimination and harassment policy, Ward said.
* Tribune in May of 2021…
That fateful meeting in January 2019 set the stage for a controversy that rocked Northwestern this month, leading to a large campus protest and Polisky’s resignation just nine days after he was promoted to the department’s top post. Students, faculty and even some powerful university trustees opposed Polisky’s appointment because he is named as a defendant in an ongoing lawsuit brought by Richardson alleging the university mishandled her repeated complaints. Polisky didn’t respond to requests for comment. […]
Even though Polisky stepped down, the difficult questions provoked by his selection are anything but settled. Many in the university community are demanding answers as to why Polisky, a white man involved in active litigation, was chosen over the other finalists, two of whom were Black and one a white woman. Some say it feels as if an old boys’ club drives hiring decisions.
“It’s always important for us to understand when things go wrong, how do we hold people accountable and who do we hold accountable…?” said Tyris Jones, a former Northwestern running back who graduated in 2012.
Jones said he reached out to the athletic department with concerns and ideas and encourages former teammates and alumni to do the same. As a “predominantly white institution,” Northwestern has an opportunity to rebuild trust in the Black and brown communities based on whom it picks for leadership roles, Jones said.
posted by Isabel Miller
Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 11:47 am
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Ted Lasso these people are not.
Comment by Victor Kingston Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 11:52 am
As an outsider, it seems that NU has some massive cultural issues that have long gone unaddressed. Also important to note the fraternity issues that bubbled up over the last few years.
Comment by NIU Grad Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 11:53 am
“As a father of two daughters”.
If it takes having two daughters to realize that the women you are being paid to look out for shouldn’t be sexually harassed at university events, you might be in the wrong line of work. And still, he did nothing to stop it.
Comment by Sox Fan Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 11:58 am
It goes far beyond Pat Fitzgerald’s phony “babe in the woods” routine.
The culture surrounding NU football… the culture surrounding NU athletics… it’s wholly toxic by the core of how that department looks at not only coaches, but the type of athletes these coaches feel they need to be successful.
Football, baseball, cheerleading, the culture in micro and also in macro is a university not dedicated to the protection of students, to student-athletes, but… it seems to be about both the protection of coaches, teams, and their cultures… almost at all costs… and I say that not lightly… as it was the student newspaper… the *STUDENT* newspaper that forced the toxic coach to face dismissal.
Think on this… the student newspaper cared more for athletes and students than the university itself, let alone the athletic department. Pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover it, “2 weeks, unpaid” is shockingly sad for a university wanting to keep a coach with a 4-20 record the past two seasons.
Why do you keep a 4-20 coach, suspending him and not firing him?
A contract and the culture that is acceptable
Awful, embarrassing, and humiliating… so then they fired him.
Time to clean house.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:02 pm
Just a lil add…
My hope is Fitzgerald does sue.
Let’s have discovery and ruin Fitzgerald as at least 11, that double digits, are going to be asked how awful Fitzgerald was in perpetrating a culture of heinous hazing of students he seemed willing to allow… as parents thought Fitzgerald as a coach had their son’s best interest always in his leadership.
Go for it, have at it… let Fitzgerald go down that road… a ruinous idea to have deposition after deposition, asked for by Fitzgerald’s own litigation, about how Pat Fitzgerald failed as a leader, coach, and lacked human decency those parents thought Fitzgerald embodied.
Bring it on.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:09 pm
Surprisingly, the NU fraternity / sorority scene has shrunk considerably from prior years when 25% - 35% of NU undergraduates were in the “Greek system”. The fraternities / sororities have had trouble remaining relevant, especially in the wake of 2020, and ongoing complaints of sexual harassment at fraternity parties. One visiting the campus today will be surprised at the number of former fraternity / sorority buildings converted by the University to small dormitiries.
Comment by Ares Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:09 pm
Several Northwestern faculty members who spearheaded a response to the cheerleader scandal have issued an excellent letter calling for review of the athletic department and delay of the Ryan Field plans.
https://wgntv.com/sports/group-of-northwestern-faculty-asks-for-delay-in-ryan-field-renovations-in-wake-of-football-hazing-scandal/
Comment by Keyrock Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:10 pm
The requirement that black cheerleaders alter their hair reminds me of US Senator Tuberville saying yesterday that another name for “white nationalist” is “American.” What is wrong with these people?
Comment by Just Me 2 Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:12 pm
After reading about the horrors in state institutions for the developmentally disabled and juvenile detainees, I have no outrage left for this.
Head’s should roll, and my guess is they will. But compared to what is happening to the most vulnerable people in the care of the state, in OUR care, this is nothing.
Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:17 pm
===But compared to===
Is that a measure of tolerance, or could both be something that sees victims that shouldn’t be victims.
With respect, no animosity intended
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:23 pm
One has to wonder what this does to Maggie Hickey’s status as go-to investigator and report writer for businesses and government entities who find themselves in hot water.
Comment by Anon4 Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:29 pm
I think there is an important distinction to be made about the victims in these cases. On one hand, you have people locked up with no place to go, being tortured by the people paid and entrusted with their care. On the other hand, you have student athletes and cheer members who could walk away from their comfortable life at a prestigious institution at any time. There are a lot of colleges out there, and not all of them have athletics programs dominated by a culture of greed, harassment and abuse.
In neither case are the victims responsible for what happened to them, but you can see the difference, right?
I’m saving my outrage for the victims who won’t make the front page of the Tribune.
Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:33 pm
All you need to know is in the story of the abusive baseball coach. They ran an investigation but didn’t talk to the students. And the AD, who came into the job following the Polisky failures, refused to meet with other coaches and staff who wanted to discuss the baseball coaches abusive and injury-inducing behavior. Oh, and they hired the baseball coach despite his last university being forced to pay a $1.45 million wrongful death settlement for one of his players.
Massive cultural problems in that athletic department. Time for a house cleaning. And yea, the stadium rebuild will have to wait. Sorry Pat Ryan.
Comment by New Day Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:37 pm
you’d think that after the controversy 2 years ago they would have learned. but, yesterday we hear that in the baseball coach interviews there were 2 donors. DONORS in an interview. What????? So those guys run baseball and Pat Ryan runs football. and here we are. yes there are more important issues but sports mirror culture. and this culture is toxic male energy. which spills out all over the place, nfl, mlb, etc. it stinks.
Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:43 pm
Perhaps one reason why this is becoming a bigger and bigger story is because of a lack of an appropriate response from the University.
There should be an acknowledgement of what has happened, that its wrong, and that the University is going to take the “following” actions. The more it sits and festers the worse it gets.
The Tylenol poisonings are looked at as a “gold” standard for crisis response by a corporation. NIU is also an example of crisis management and won an award for its handling of its response to the shooting in 2008.
Comment by Jerry Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 12:52 pm
Bingo, Jerry. I recall how the CEO had (60 minutes?) sit in on a top level meeting as to how to proceed, no holds barred. Review the ‘Ugly’ and set up a new way to do business - honestly. That broke the mold.
Comment by Sayitaintso Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 1:09 pm
===On the other hand, you have student athletes and cheer members who could walk away from their comfortable life at a prestigious institution at any time.===
You mean after being hazed or victimized?
So it happening once, some things described, it’s by a “bad choice of school” their victimization is more tolerable?
===There are a lot of colleges out there, and not all of them have athletics programs dominated by a culture of greed, harassment and abuse.===
“You know, if you wouldn’t have made that choice…”
It’s the victims’ faults?
This is why I looked at your initial comment.
It’s like places, in this case NU, should have the victims take some blame, or know before they are victims?
===but you can see the difference, right?===
Do parents drop their college athlete or student off thinking that abuse, hazing or victimization is part of the culture?
Parents trust when they drop students off for college, no “one time, then leave” kind of pass should be a measure.
With respect, as always.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 1:11 pm
Jerry…..”restaurant quality”.
Comment by Sayitaintso Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 1:12 pm
Keep in mind too…
The great coaches that recruit well… they are masters in “the living room” telling families they will take care of their athletes, look after them as their own, and keep them safe.
They do that. It’s closing the deal.
Now throw in that the same coach/es are not only allowing heinous hazing, it’s part of the culture sold in those living rooms as trust.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 1:14 pm
I know this is your comment section Willy, but I don’t come here for conversations with you. In fact, I find your pedantic stylings to be quite tiresome.
If you were respectful, you wouldn’t put words in my mouth or parse them beyond all recognition. Read my comments or skip them. You have a choice.
Good day sir.
Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 1:21 pm
The broader theme here is that basically everyone should be fired; the president and everyone below him. And the entire board should probably resign. It isn’t just one sport. It isn’t a few isolated incidents. This is a massive culture of abuse, sexual assault and prejudice. Every student athlete should be allowed into a transfer portal and sports operations should cease for a year, two years, five years, maybe longer. Just wait and see what comes out once the NCAA starts investigating.
Comment by Ducky LaMoore Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 1:23 pm
===I know this is your comment section===
C’mon… a victim?
===you wouldn’t put words in my mouth or parse them beyond all recognition.===
You chose here to play a victim and ask me to skip your words instead of trying to clarify or make clear where I got your own words wrong… instead leaving my thoughts to them as they are.
Funny thing is, as history has shown, your words, for me, have significant weight, and questioning your thoughts is really me trying to understand what I’ve missed, not unlike your support of Vallas this past mayoral, I just want to make sure I understand.
Be well, bud.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 2:18 pm
At this point how is the AD not in the “hot seat”?
So far no stories are focused on how they let this happen?
Derrick Gragg started July 1 2021. So he wasn’t around for the cheerleading scandal.
He was there for the football investigation.
He also had to be part of the hiring of the baseball coach who started last year.
So while his top money making program was being investigated, he went and hired a baseball coach who had previous problems at other institutions?
Comment by Frida's boss Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 2:22 pm
===wasn’t around for===
All this means is the culture these past 24 years, over three different decades, had continued.
When an AD is instructed to change culture, they fire the football coach a good amount of the time.
Auburn these past months is a glaring example of this dichotomy
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 2:27 pm
I’m glad my alma mater finally did the right thing by firing him. I always felt that the administration was making a deal with the devil following big college sports money. Back in my day NU was so bad that we had more fun throwing marshmallows than watching the wildcats get destroyed. It was a different culture when academics were more honored than sports.
Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 2:57 pm
===I always felt that the administration was making a deal with the devil following big college sports money.===
That B1G money is too lucrative, otherwise they’d leave B1G and join other conferences with less money.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 3:11 pm
This alone…
===It was a different culture when academics were more honored than sports.===
The face of Northwestern, according to Dave Eanet, the voice of NU Football was its football coach. With all the alums the school educated, the school’s image was its football, and Fitzgerald was held out as an alum who “did good” and “doing it the NU way, education first”
You may not be seeing it as even the school saw it.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 3:17 pm
Only a fool would think the problems of racism, abuse, and sexual harrassment at Northwestern University are limited to the Athletic Department.
The same fool would probably think the problems at Choate were limited to that facility or to programs for the developmentally disabled.
If either leader truly wants to change culture, they need to do more than issue press releases and emails. They need to start staring folks in the eyeballs and telling them how things are gonna be from now on, and they have to follow through.
Maggie Hickey? She is a CYA consultant now, she will have no shortage of work writing reports that say that the folks who sign her checks did nothing wrong and don’t have to make any hard choices.
You hire Maggie to tell you what you wanna hear.
Comment by Thomas Paine Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 3:25 pm
There have been enough scandals over the past few years to show that part of the university’s culture is broken. The university’s leaders seem to have lost sight of their most important roles and values.
What the university should do is appoint a group consisting of trustees, faculty, alums, and outsiders to review the culture and decision making processes of the athletic department, the administration, and the board.
I wouldn’t bet on that happening, though.
Comment by Keyrock Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 3:40 pm
When I graduated in 92 I saw 4 years of crap football. My freshman year we had an 0-11 record.
Honestly I went to 2 games during my time there.
Now it’s true I was an atypical student there but I remember sports not being a big focus anywhere. “B fest” and “Dillo day” were bigger attractions than sports. A quick read of Wikipedias Northwestern Wildcats football during the Francis Peay era confirms what I was talking about.
Gary Barnett changed the culture I think.
Regardless I’m glad administration finally did the right thing.
Comment by Honeybear Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 3:45 pm
Some people here seem to have missed the details on the baseball scandal:
“Other Northwestern baseball coaches and staffers made repeated attempts to meet with athletic director Derrick Gragg to detail the toxic culture and medical mistreatment, but they were repeatedly denied a chance to meet with him, sources said.”
This alone is a fire-able offense and Gragg should be fired. I’m amazed he still has his job.
You should read the whole story. It’s a real hum dinger.
https://www.audacy.com/670thescore/sports/sources-northwestern-baseball-accused-of-toxic-culture
Comment by New Day Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 4:23 pm
“You hire Maggie to tell you what you wanna hear.”
Not to defend her, but we didn’t see her report and have no idea what it said so this seems like a bit of a leap.
Comment by New Day Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 4:26 pm
===Gary Barnett===
Explain the relationship of Barnett and Fitzgerald… and how that could explain culture.
How did it end for Barnett at Colorado?
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 4:40 pm
== Every student athlete should be allowed into a transfer portal and sports operations should cease for a year, two years, five years, maybe longer.===
THIS.
Comment by Ann Tuesday, Jul 11, 23 @ 7:42 pm