Ten Saint Mary’s University (SMU) football players have been suspended from the team for the remainder of the academic year after they posted tweets with messages of hate, racism, and sexism.
In September 2013, Canadian media reported extensively on chants sung by SMU students during their frosh week that promoted non-consensual sex with minors. Following the frosh chants, SMU made sexual assault education a priority for their students.
Consequently, a president’s council was created and they released a 110-page report in December 2013 giving 20 recommendations regarding changing sexual culture. This included revising the school’s sexual assault policy and increasing the understanding of consent.
It’s disappointing that student leaders still haven’t gotten the message.
Varsity sports teams are followed by the student body, alumni, faculty, and the community. Athletes are representatives of the school to the outside community and players need to keep this in mind when posting their views in a public forum.
There is no way these athletes missed controversy that shrouded their university, and the pubic education initiatives that followed, meaning they chose to ignore it when posting these tweets.
These students are meant to be role models for their school and they should have known better than to post these inappropriate tweets that perpetuate the same hateful messages SMU is trying to combat.
