According to a recently published report following last April’s assault scandal, Boston University’s ice hockey team has a culture of “sex entitlement” among some of its players. University Provost Jean Morrison told The Washington Post that while at most large schools a portion of the student body treats athletes as celebrities, the university found that greater oversight is needed.
The report stated that since one-third of Boston University’s ice hockey team was already drafted into the National Hockey League, BU leaned toward “a culture and climate in which players may not be fully engaged in the academic, intellectual and extracurricular activities that are routine for the broader student body.”
Some athletes had standardized test scores and grades below the university’s admission averages.
The committee was formed after last year’s multiple sexual assault and hazing charges. Corey Trivino, one of the team’s star players who planned to attend NHL training camp, pled guilty last month to charges of assault and battery upon forcing himself, while heavily intoxicated, upon a female BU student in her dorm.
In the same year, the Boston University fraternities were charged with cruel hazing practices, including covering pledges with fish sauce and partially shaving their heads in the basement of an Alpha Epsilon Phi house. Police who came to investigate a reported party at the university-unsanctioned AEP home found the pledges standing in their underwear, taped together, covered in red welts, as well as chili sauce, coffee grounds, honey, mustard, hot sauce, flour, and empty sardine cans, according to a police report. The boys did not respond when asked by police whether or not they were OK.
The university opened its own investigation into the assaults, which violated their student conduct and responsibilities. Charges were later dropped or modified for most of the charged students. By June, only two of the nine originally charged still faced the court with charges of assault and battery, hazing and failure to report hazing.