Harvard men's football team suspended over sexist comments

Harvard University has suspended its men's football team over sexually explicit comments about the women's team.

A report from the Harvard Crimson student newspaper revealed a document from 2012 showing players rating female players on their attractiveness and discussing them in lewd terms.

The current team continued to produce the "vulgar and explicit documents rating women on their perceived sexual appeal and physical appearance", says the newspaper.

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Harvard president Drew Faust said: "I was deeply distressed to learn that the appalling actions of the 2012 men's soccer team were not isolated to one year or the actions of a few individuals, but appear to have been more widespread across the team and have continued beyond 2012, including in the current season."

According to the Daily Telegraph, the document, known as the "scouting report", appears to have been an annual tradition and was circulated via the group's email list.

The six women featured in the 2012 report, who have since graduated, wrote a joint response to the men's team in the Harvard Crimson.

They were "beyond hurt to realise these individuals could encourage, silently observe, or participate in this kind of behaviour, and for more than four years have neglected to apologise until this week", they said in an article entitled Stronger Together.

An email has been sent to students announcing the forfeiture of the remaining games of the season.

The men's football team is currently ranked first in the Ivy League men's football table and only need one win enough to secure them an automatic spot in the prestigious National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament.

Team coach Pieter S Lehrer said: "We are beyond disappointed that our season has ended in this way, but we respect the decision made by our administration.

"We accept responsibility for our actions, and I know that we will use the experience of this terribly unfortunate situation to be better."