{"id":10830,"date":"2023-07-17T21:31:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T02:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/?p=10830"},"modified":"2023-07-17T21:31:51","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T02:31:51","slug":"attorney-in-northwestern-lawsuit-says-dozens-of-former-players-have-reached-out-about-hazing-incidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/attorney-in-northwestern-lawsuit-says-dozens-of-former-players-have-reached-out-about-hazing-incidents\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney in Northwestern lawsuit says \u2018dozens\u2019 of former players have reached out about hazing incidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things continue to look worse and worse for Northwestern<\/a><\/strong> in regard to several alleged incidents of hazing in the football program. On Monday, ESPN\u2019s Adam Rittenburg reported<\/a><\/strong> that eight players have hired a civil rights attorney from Chicago-based firm Levin & Perconti for a lawsuit against the university for \u201cphysical, sexual and emotional abuse.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now the number of players in the lawsuit is expected to grow substantially as more people have come forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpoke with Steve Levin, one of the players\u2019 attorneys,\u201d Rittenburg tweeted<\/a> in a second update Monday. \u201cTold me firm has received \u201cdozens\u201d of calls from former players and they expect the group to grow from original 8. Players go back about 15 years at Northwestern. Levin would not say if whistleblower is part of the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northwestern fired coach Pat Fitzgerald<\/a><\/strong> on July 11 in wake of the reports of hazing among football players. Fitzgerald had been the coach for the past 17 seasons, so was with the program throughout the entirety of the time the alleged incidents occurred. He hired attorney Dan Webb shortly after his firing and claims he had no knowledge of any hazing activities. <\/p>\n

Despite this, Levin clarified that the lawsuit it \u201cnot a case about Fitzgerald,\u201d but rather \u201cabout Northwestern as an institution.\u201d He also said there is \u201cremarkable consistency\u201d in the reports from both current and former players that has been \u201ccorroborated\u201d by the report the university conducted. <\/p>\n

\u201cNorthwestern itself based on an investigation that they commissioned, apparently felt that certain administrators at the university should have known about what happened,\u201d Levin said. \u201cWe also know that if something has occurred this long over this period of time, involving this many students, it seems reasonable to assume that someone either knew or should have known. It\u2019s distracting from the institution to try to pin this on one individual. It\u2019s a systemic problem at the university.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Levin & Perconti managing partner Margaret Battersby Black, multiple former players told the firm the \u201cabusive culture\u201d began when they were recruits aged 16 and 17. <\/p>\n

The allegations first sprouted from\u00a0\u201cThe Daily Northwestern,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the student newspaper at Northwestern University. The newspaper quoted multiple former players, claiming Fitzgerald fostered a hazing culture that included racism.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the hazing involved a practice referred to as \u201crunning,\u201d which targeted players, typically freshmen, who made a mistake on the field. When a player was designated as a running target, they would be held down by a group of 8-10 upperclassmen wearing masks and \u201cdry-humped.\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN also reported that the player who initially informed Northwestern of the hazing sent a screenshot of a whiteboard to support his claims. The board listed potential hazing activities called \u201cnaked slingshot,\u201d \u201cnaked bear crawls\u201d and \u201cnaked quarterback-center exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawsuit has not yet been filed as the firm continues to gather evidence to make its case. Levin added that he expects the full report from Northwestern to come out \u201ceventually,\u201d but did not provide a timetable. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to continue our investigation; we\u2019re going to eventually file a lawsuit; and we hope that maybe Northwestern will come to the table and say, \u2018You know what, let\u2019s see what we can do here,’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The post Attorney in Northwestern lawsuit says \u2018dozens\u2019 of former players have reached out about hazing incidents<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things continue to look worse and worse for Northwestern in regard to several alleged incidents…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}