Bucknell has suspended all of its upperclassmen on the men’s swimming & diving team for two meets, put both its men’s and women’s teams on probation and canceled the team’s winter training trip in response to violations of school policy.
The school announced the punishments in a press release this week, saying they were in response to “misconduct in violation of University policy and team expectations.” The school says it found that both teams were part of an event in which underage team members were supplied with alcohol, and that the men’s team has a tradition of producing an email chain the school calls “lewd, sexist and misogynistic.”
That e-mail is reminiscent of the offensive listserv that landed the Princeton men’s team suspended for all of last season.
Both programs were already on probation for the past two years, for violations the school says were “of a related nature.” Some of the new misconduct happened while the teams were still under their previous probationary restrictions. The men’s team will now serve two more years of probation and the women’s team one year. During the probationary period, the teams will have to take part in “educational programming,” all team activities must be approved by the school’s athletic department, and members of both teams must get athletic department approval before living off-campus.
In addition, the team’s 2017-2018 winter training trip to Florida has been canceled, and all upper-class men will sit out of the first two meets of the year on suspension. (Those meets are at home against UMBC and on the road against Bryant). The school said individual athletes were also subject to more punishments, including longer suspensions and “loss of leadership positions.”
…”educational programming” sounds a lot like “brain washing”. Perhaps Bucknell’s administration needs to rethink this.
The school has to react not to the drinking per se but the team members providing funds which were used to supply underage drinking. It violates school policy. And if an underage drinker suffered a health event and the access was tied back to a team event then lawsuits follow.
The tired Title IX email overreach is probably tied into the emails evidencing purchase and access to alcohol for minors. Otherwise no civil rights are violated by any reasonable persons definition and doubtful a complaint filed. Schools just overreach for fear of Obama Education Dept threat of federal funds.
I think the pendulum has swung way too far. Can we please let college kids be college kids? To think that they aren’t going to party is unrealistic. My college years were some of the best of my life – hanging with friends, laughing, joking and yes, drinking (gasp!).
Swimmers are well beyond the curve when it comes to responsibility. They juggle classes, practice, meets and travel. Much more than most college kids. They are great kids! Can we please stop killing the college experience for them!
Just curious, how many chances should they get? It doesn’t seem like someone is trying to “kill their college experience.” If that was the case, they would have been off the team with the first offense. But they weren’t. They were given a second chance. And that didn’t get through to them. So what will? It is a privilege to be on any of these teams repping your school. Many kids don’t look at it like that.
And its not just the drinking, its the pressuring of the underage kids thats the issue. Its the lewd emails that come back as a pox on the ENTIRE team. Sure, the politically correct stuff on campuses is out of control and THAT… Read more »
what is leading you to say there was pressuring for underage kids to drink? the vagueness of this press release leads to people assuming their own facts. we just dont know what went on and were not going to know. But assuming facts is dangerous.
These boys need constant supervision, make them wear mandatory camera vests. Then we can see what really goes down.
Dan Schinnerer shoulda had these boys back. Where’s he at when all these shenanigans went down. Let the boys drink. Drink with the boys and call it cross land training.
I am sorry this seems like a pretty harsh punishment for a whole team for just for having alcohol at an off campus private residence out of season. No property was damaged, no disturbing the peace, no complaints from the neighbors or any of the attendees. This was a group of kids some of legal drinking age, (some not) getting together for the first time on their first night back at college. You can not tell me that the same thing is not going on with the MAJORITY of other college student clubs/teams/ fraternities/ sororities or friend groups, returning to school after not having seen each other over the summer.. As far as the private lewd email that was allegedly… Read more »
Lewd emails of consenting adults is not ok. Lewd emails about underage female swimmers should get the boys thrown off the team and out of school. Are any of your swimmers your daughters?
I don’t think that any of the swimmers at Bucknell were underage. It is rare to have a 17 year old freshman (not unheard of, of course)
Since they were already on probation and broke the rules again, it’s not that harsh. Maybe if it were the first strike. I’m not saying I think the drinking is really that bad, (it does happen everywhere) but the team knew they had to be more careful about their behavior given their situation and they chose to ignore that.
The real loser here is Peking Garden, who will now not hit their December sales numbers.
So edgy…
How about we face the facts. Young adults drink in college. (Lowering the drinking age back to 18 is a good start.) Everyone isn’t perfect 24/7. Stop being PC and trying to control everyone all the time. This is ridiculous.
I agree with your point, but this seems to have gone beyond just drinking. It is kind of a known thing among college athletes to keep things off the internet, and the fact that there was some huge inappropriate string of emails going on is a bigger problem than the drinking.
As a college freshman swimmer at Bucknell, I have to agree with CR. Swimmers were drinking AS WAS EVERYONE ELSE ON CAMPUS. The drinking age had just been increased from 18 to 21 – stupid decision. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me used to be the rule. Now “lewd” remarks are enough to get a team put on probation? Sheesh, talk about a bunch of babies.