Amherst Cross Country Team Suspended Following Email Chain

Barry Badrinath wrote:

Someone got a bug up their ass and ruined the team's season for nothing, and the school newspaper cheered. How sad.

"Ruined the team's season for nothing"? Are you serious? their season is over and they have no chance at affecting anything. Extending the punishment to next year hurts people who had almost no part in this. The people who did this are probably working as consultants or analysts in NY, CT or Boston making money without caring about college xc anymore. Thats why these complaints about PC culture run amok all seem blown up. The people most affected are people like their top guy, Hussein, who had to listen to privileged white s^$ use the n-word in their group message and might lose next year's season over it.

Every time I start to think I can justify Amherst's actions, I reread what they actually wrote.

There is intentional vulgarity for humor, and then there is INDIVIDUALY attacking people in a way that perpetuates societal bias against them. There is nothing funny about calling people meat slabs. Even if it was ironic, you don't do it. There is perhaps a time to push back on privacy concerns, but this is not the time. Those emails were very bad.

I know that the entire team is guilty because they were all bystanders, but the "snitches get stitches" post earlier makes me think that it was very difficult to stand up to this team, especially freshmen or people from unprivileged backgrounds.

In addition, the comments on the article suggest that their coach, Coach Ned, condoned the culture. Does anyone have more details on this?

not every single mens sports team said or says crap like amherst and harvard . I ran track and cross country for fordham 70-74, and never heard anything like this trash.

I was brought up in household and high school, where this kind of stuff did not occur, we were not angels but didnt engage in such vulgar low class behavior

I am (mostly) on your side here - this email chain was way inappropriate and without knowing in greater detail the contents of the thread it still seems that at least some of these guys probably deserve to be suspended.

I do take issue with the idea that girls do not do the same thing. A couple of points - I (male) ran track + xc for a D3 NESCAC team and I never saw anything like this either (n=1 for both of us). My gut feeling though is that a thread like this may be more common on the male side of things but I don't feel that either of us have grounds to conclude that. Second - although girls may be less likely to share sexually explicit/inappropriate comments in a more public forum such as an email chain, I have found that girls are very willing to dish to each other on their sex lives, including things I find pretty inappropriate. For example, saying this hookup or that boyfriend has a big d*ck/small d*ck/couldn't get it up/etc. I personally, and basically all my male friends, are not comfortable commenting this way about women. I have found that my ex's and female friends are generally more willing to do this. n=1 again but something to think about...

I agree completely. That guy is a L7 WEANIE. Some people are such squares that they think being a rat and throwing their own school team under the bus would be a good idea. Very sad indeed.

I think it's funny. Maybe you just don't have a sense of humor? I bet you're a hoot to be around....

I heard the Amherst coach is a dick. Tried to get a dmr team and an individual disqualified after Amherst relay went out too fast and got destroyed a few years ago. No class whatsoever.

Ned Declassified wrote:

I heard the Amherst coach is a dick. Tried to get a dmr team and an individual disqualified after Amherst relay went out too fast and got destroyed a few years ago. No class whatsoever.

That race was amazing to watch in person. Their anchor was toast anyway...the speed with which Eau Claire was able to catch them (even with a de-facto pacer) and the fact that Amherst finished almost 5 seconds back by the finish would suggest that there wasn't much chance of them hanging on for the win anyway. Didn't have a watch on the Amherst anchor but he took off after the top 3 all handed off around the same time...certainly not Eau Claire's (or Whitewater's) fault that Amherst's anchor ran stupidly.

Whitewater did get DQ-ed (didn't matter because they were lapped at least once anyway), but Miller was allowed to run the 3k.

/tangent. Now back to the political bickering. Wouldn't want a thread on a running website to be about actual running, now would we?

sdfasdfasdf wrote:

Another important distinction is that the Harvard lists did not specifically single out any women, while the Amherst lists called someone 'a walking STD'

This post kind of reminds me of this image.

sdfasdfasdf wrote:

In the cac wrote:

An important distinction that should be made between the Harvard lists and the one in the Amherst emails. The Harvard lists were maintained for several years and only abolished once they were leaked outside of the team.

The Amherst list was posted by one athlete. Other runners on the email chain voiced their displeasure, and the poster of the list apologized and admitted he had gone too far.

Now, that in no way excuses some of the other content in the emails, but we should leave room for nuance in judging this situation. This is not "no big deal", but it is also not "the worst thing ever".

Another important distinction is that the Harvard lists did not specifically single out any women, while the Amherst lists called someone 'a walking STD'

How can the Harvard list be a list of specific women, and yet not single out any women? They wrote "scouting reports" about the women and ranked them numerically.

My point was that in the case of Harvard, the list was institutionalized. The Amherst list was one person who crossed a line, and was made to apologize by the team's leadership. Those are two very different situations.

So in reality, the major part of these emails that has people upset was something that the Amherst team recognized was inappropriate and took steps to shut down over a year ago. Again, this doesn't excuse some of the other language in the emails but it's worth noting.

Actually, they share a locker room.....

Yo Amherst XC guys! Are you listening? If you want this to go away all you have to do is have the whole team "identify" as female for the upcoming track season, and proceed to destroy the field all season. What do you have to lose? Stick it to em boys!

If they want to play PC hardball, then you play PC hardball.

Honestly, it's obvious this was meant as a joke. The only thing I would consider offensive is the part about a girl being a walking STD. My college's guys team rated the girls and talked about who hooked up with who, and we(the girls team) didn't care. We'd talk about the guys too and both teams picked out who the hottest freshmen were each year. But this is coming from a school who gets comedians that make tons of p*ssy jokes, so maybe the students where I went don't get offended as easily and can tell the difference between a joke and misogyny

Exactly. Women are cool with it. No harm no foul.

BREAKING NEWS:

Donald Trump goes home DEVASTATED after being suspended from the NCAA after recent "locker room" talk.

In the cac wrote:

sdfasdfasdf wrote:

Another important distinction is that the Harvard lists did not specifically single out any women, while the Amherst lists called someone 'a walking STD'

How can the Harvard list be a list of specific women, and yet not single out any women? They wrote "scouting reports" about the women and ranked them numerically.

My point was that in the case of Harvard, the list was institutionalized. The Amherst list was one person who crossed a line, and was made to apologize by the team's leadership. Those are two very different situations.

So in reality, the major part of these emails that has people upset was something that the Amherst team recognized was inappropriate and took steps to shut down over a year ago. Again, this doesn't excuse some of the other language in the emails but it's worth noting.

You're conflating the Harvard Soccer and XC teams. Big differences here.

Who is Mark Zuckerberg, Alex?

uhm, er.. wrote:

"The children is our future."

Rarely is the question asked,

Is our children learning?

Great article by... Dan Crowley?

http://www.gazettenet.com/Amherst-College-hires-former-lawyer-former-judge-to-investigate-men-s-cross-country-team-6868151

https://www.tfrrs.org/athletes/4054860/Amherst/Dan_Crowley.html