The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps swimming and diving team was assigned "mandatory educational programming" after three senior women quit over a document produced by the men's team,
according toThe Student Life, the Claremont Colleges' student newspaper.
The document produced by the senior men on the team - "Stag Survival Guide" - is portrayed as an introduction for first-year swimmers and divers with descriptions of the team's returning athletes written by senior men. But another student newspaper -
The Scripps Voice - says the document includes "use of the n-word, explicit sexual references to the members of the women's team, and a homophobic description of another teammate."
Upset with what they characterized as inaction from head coach Charlie Griffiths, three of the senior women met with the coach individually on September 18 to quit the program. A day later,
The Scripps Voice reports, Griffiths held a meeting and temporarily suspended some of the male swimmers from practice. But at that meeting, a captain of the men’s team presented a “defensive document” detailing other sexually suggestive jokes or traditions from the team’s group chat, including traditions within the women’s team. One such example from the “defensive document” includes a Valentine’s Day tradition involving inappropriate jokes by the women’s team, and a ‘friskiest frosh’ award given by the senior women to the freshman they deem the most promiscuous.
The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic department and its associated schools concluded that behavior by members of the CMS swim and dive team justified “mandatory educational programming,” Claremont McKenna College told TSL on in mid-October, concluding an investigation into reported actions that may have violated athletic department values.
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Reality Check: Some members of the men’s team say they had not seen their descriptions until after the guide had been shared with all members of the team. Furthermore, they had not consented to being included. Both full names and photos of team members accompanied the descriptions.
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What They're Saying: A disclaimer on the first page warns, “Before progressing please understand this work is by and for stags only, and any copying, sharing, or general spreading of this guide is a crime punishable by disembowelment, dismemberment, death, or in the cases of serious infractions, an awkward, drawn-out one-on-one talk.”
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The Final Word: This happens way too often at our nation's colleges and universities. Today it's CMS. Tomorrow it could be you.
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