The Men’s Ice Hockey Task Force assembled by Boston University President Robert Brown in March has released its assessment on the culture of the team. The body of that report was made available on the president’s website Wednesday afternoon.
The task force, which is composed of BU faculty, staff, trustees and overseers, was formed after sexual assault allegations were brought up against two BU hockey players in the 2012-13 academic year. One of the athletes has since been put on probation, and the other player’s charges were dropped.
Findings discussed in the report were that BU hockey players are held in the limelight and how that could lead to inappropriate, elitist behavior. Their enrollment in non-traditional schools such as Metropolitan College further isolates the hockey players from the student body, possibly contributing to that behavior.
But didn’t we already know that? Did the task force really take six months to declare something so obvious? Perhaps it would have been better if the obvious were stated sooner and the athletes had the entire summer to begin adjusting to the new policies.
Then again, what is obvious to one person may not be obvious to another. It’s understandable that the task force did not want the reputation of being a group that “assumed the obvious.”
In the end, the group’s observations of the BU hockey climate were realistic, and their 14 recommendations are legitimate, especially the one prohibiting student-athletes from enrolling in MET.
Putting athletes in a different academic setting allows for flexibilities. If we are really going to take this behavior seriously, they should not be allowed those flexibilities. However, any undergraduate could have committed those infractions. Why do we have a task force that singles out the hockey players?
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