Northwestern Hazing Investigation Leads To Suspension For Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald

EVANSTON, IL — Northwestern University officials suspended football coach Pat Fitzgerald as a result of an investigation into hazing.

Fitzgerald, who became head coach of the Wildcats in 2006, began serving a two-week, unpaid suspension Friday after the investigation found and his staff could have learned about and reported the hazing, officials announced.

“I was very disappointed when I heard about the allegations of hazing on our football team,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “Although I was not aware of the alleged incidents, I have spoken to University officials, and they informed me of a two-week suspension, effective immediately."

Administrators at the Big Ten's only private school also pledged to implement various policy changes in response to the hazing investigation — including independent monitoring of the locker room, mandatory anti-hazing training and better anonymous reporting.

“Our athletics programs are held to the highest standards, and in this case, we failed to meet them," University President Michael Schill said in a statement. "I expect that today’s actions will prevent this from ever happening again.”

The probe began late last year following the Wildcats' 1-11 season, when university staff got an anonymous email with allegations about hazing on the football team. University officials hired attorney Maggie Hickey, a former federal prosecutor and state inspector general, to lead a confidential investigation into the allegations and suggest improvements.

According to a public executive summary of Hickey's report, investigators from Hickey's law firm, ArentFox Schiff, interviewed more than 50 people and reviewed "hundreds of thousands of emails and player survey data," though their specific findings were kept confidential.

Derrick Gragg, who took over as athletic director in 2021, said in a statement that the school's sports programs pride themselves on offering a safe and respectful environment for students.

“We respect the courage of the individuals who came forward to make us aware of the issue, and we vow to do our part to create a more positive environment moving forward," Gragg said.

The nature of the hazing has not been publicly disclosed. But the whistleblower who prompted Hickey's probe described "football players pressuring team members into participating in hazing activities," according to the executive summary. "The complainant alleged that these activities often occurred in the locker room and may have started at 'Camp Kenosha' in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the team used to hold training camp."

University staff announced the permanent suspension of Kenosha training camps Friday.

Hickey's investigation did not find evidence of any particular hazing incident, it left little doubt that it had taken place.

"Current and former players varied on their perspective of the conduct; however, the investigation team determined that the complainant’s claims were largely supported by the evidence gathered during the investigation, including separate and consistent first-person accounts from current and former players. While the investigation did not uncover evidence pointing to specific misconduct by any individual football player or coach, participation in or knowledge of the hazing activities was widespread across football players," the summary said.

"The investigation team did not discover sufficient evidence to believe that coaching staff knew about the ongoing hazing conduct," it said. "They determined, however, that there had been significant opportunities to discover and report the hazing conduct."

With an annual salary of about $5.37 million, Fitzgerald could lose out on more than $200,000 in pre-tax income by missing two weeks of pay — though his suspension will be complete before the team begins training next month and is being served during a NCAA recruiting "dead period."

Among the actions that university officials pledged to take based on the report:

• Establishing an "internal working group comprising Northwestern leaders across various disciplines to create a report on policy development, organizational culture, communication, training and enforcement."
• Making athletic department staff " better utilize the annual student-athlete-survey process to ensure coaches are aware of and act on student concerns."
• Creating a new way for students to anonymously report "incidents of potential hazing or hazing-related concerns" using an online tool.
• Plus: "Northwestern Athletics will work with the NCAA and Big Ten Conference to ensure all processes and rules are followed."

It is not only players who have made allegations of misconduct associated with the Northwestern athletics department.

For more than two years, Northwestern's attorneys have been fending off a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging athletic department officials forced female cheerleaders into "commercial sex acts" with wealthy donors and fans at football games.

A former cheerleader alleged university officials and staff violated prohibitions on "trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor," "sex trafficking of children or by force, fraud, or coercion" and "forced labor" contained in the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, or TVPRA.

According to court records, a motion to dismiss her claims remains pending.

Earlier: Northwestern Launches Probe Into Hazing Claims In Football Program