Columbia's wrestling team has been suspended over lewd texts that mock women’s appearances, poke fun at rape, and include homophobic and racist language.
Columbia University withdrew from a competition on Sunday at Binghamton saying it has “zero tolerance in its athletics programs for the group messaging and texts sent by several members of the men’s varsity wrestling team,” reported The New York Times noted.
Columbia was investigating the messages and said the team will not return to competition until the probe is complete.
The 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,” UPI noted.
Screenshots of the messages were published on Bwog, a student-run blog. The texts reportedly been sent over a three-year span between members of the wrestling team using GroupMe, a messaging app, the blog noted.
James Fast, a Columbia student and Bwog publisher, said the messages were sent “by an anonymous tipster who felt this conversation had no longer become entertainment,” the Times noted.
Some students posted a pic on Twitter showing some of the texts:
“Seeing that dialogue happening behind closed doors with our classmates and our peers was very, very shocking,” said Claire Fry, a Columbia sophomore.
She added that she hoped the school’s decision to cancel the team’s season-opener was “a first step and not the end of the discussion.”
The university has not said how long the investigation will last, but a university spokesman said that depending on how the investigation goes, Columbia’s wrestling team could be back in competition by the weekend, USA Today noted.
The team’s next meet was scheduled for Sunday at the New York State championships at Cornell, and according to a university official, the team has continued practicing as the investigation continues.
The Columbia investigation comes days after the Harvard University men’s soccer team was suspended for sexual comments made about the school’s women’s soccer team.
A 2012 document rating whether women’s soccer recruits were attractive surfaced in October. Members of the men’s team referred to the document as their “scouting report.”
Columbia’s wrestling program is the nation’s oldest intercollegiate program to date, having started in 1903.
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