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Harvard, another
Ivy League university, canceled its men's soccer season on Nov.
4 when officials found out that players had been making lewd
rankings of women players for years.
Columbia made its decision after BWOG, a student news website,
published several text messages last week dating back to 2014
between teammates that contained jokes about rape and the use of
homophobic, racist and sexist slurs and comments.
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," Columbia told the New York Times.
The team withdrew from a meet on Sunday but practiced on Monday,
Columbia said, according to the Times. It is scheduled to
compete at the York State championships at Cornell on Sunday.
School officials were not immediately available for comment.
More than 900 people had signed an online petition by early on
Tuesday calling for wrestling team members to be expelled and
protests were held at the weekend outside the Kappa Delta Rho
fraternity house, where wrestlers are members, the NYT said.
In March, the university won the dismissal of a lawsuit by a
graduate over the school's decision to allow a student who
accused him of rape to carry a mattress around campus in
protest, even though Columbia had cleared him of the allegation.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Louise
Ireland)
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