Northwestern University was hit with a new lawsuit Monday, this time from a fourth former football player accusing the school of negligence and giving us the most detailed information so far in the hazing allegations against NU’s football program.
Filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of Lloyd Yates — a former quarterback and wide receiver for the Wildcats — the lawsuit includes new details about the alleged hazing that took place within the football team. And this also includes claims against the coaching staff, alleging they knew about the hazing and were even subjected to it themselves.
Yates’ lawsuit alleges that players “ran” assistant coaches “on more than one occasion.” The complaint describes “running” as an incident where a non-consenting person is held down by force by a group of players while they rub “their genital areas against the teammate’s genitals, face, and buttocks while rocking back and forth without consent from the teammate.”
“During a training session during the Fall of 2015 or Spring of 2016, a strength and conditioning coach was ‘ran’ by members of the football team, on the field, in front of the entire team and coaching staff,” the lawsuit alleges.
“We were all victims, and I want to make that clear,” Yates said in a Monday news conference. “No matter what role − if you were being hazed, or on the perpetrating side − it was just a culture that you had to find a position within.”
The hazing scandal at Northwestern University has widened to include a female volleyball player and a new lawsuit by former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates. https://t.co/P5xA8Q5Ivk
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 24, 2023
A former player in Northwestern‘s volleyball program also filed a lawsuit Monday in Illinois, alleging that the university and their athletic department were negligent when it came to hazing claims in spring 2021.
Filing her lawsuit anonymously, the player claims she suffered an injury while running sprints as part of coach Shane Davis’ sanctioned “punishment,” ESPN reported. The woman also claims that Davis “enabled a culture of racism, bullying, harassment, hazing and retaliation” in NU‘s volleyball program. Davis is listed in the lawsuit as a defendant, as well as the university’s two latest presidents and their three most recent athletic directors.
“Jane Doe’s complaint outlines the institutional failures at Northwestern beyond the volleyball and football programs, shedding light of a corrupt athletic department,” her lawyer, Parker Stinar, said in a statement to ESPN.
In a Monday letter to Northwestern University’s campus community, President Michael Schill said that he’s “committed to supporting our student-athletes and to re-building any damage our athletic program may have experienced.” (RELATED: Rodney Thomas II’s Father Indicted After Allegedly Shooting And Killing Bald Eagle)
“That commitment includes creating processes and safeguards so that what happened in football can never happen again at Northwestern,” Schill wrote. “That commitment also includes celebrating, defending and caring for both students and staff who are unfairly implicated by a broad brush.”