Columbia’s wrestling program on hold
‘APPALLING’: Racist, sexist texts allegedly sent by athletes ‘at odds with core values’ of Ivy League school
WASHINGTON — Columbia University has suspended its wrestling team’s season while officials investigate sexually explicit, homophobic and racist text messages allegedly sent by team members.
The New York Times reported Monday that Columbia released a statement saying the school’s 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.”
Anonymous screen shots of the messages, which spanned from 2014 to last week, were first published Thursday on Bwog.com, an independent Columbia student-run news site. Bwog publisher James Fast, a Columbia sophomore, told the New York Times that Bwog received the text messages from a source early last week.
“They were sent to us by an anonymous tipster who felt this conversation had no longer become entertainment,” Fast said.
The school responded by releasing a statement on Thursday that the messages are “appalling, at odds with the core values of the University, violate team guidelines, and have no place in our community.” Columbia cancelled its season-opening match against Binghamton over the weekend. The Lions’ next scheduled meet is Sunday, at the state championships in Ithaca, N.Y.
Earlier this month, Harvard, another Ivy League school, cancelled its men’s soccer season after the university found evidence that sexually explicit “scouting reports” written by members of the team about Harvard women’s soccer recruits continued through 2016.