http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amherst-cross-country-team-suspended-over-misogynist-emails_us_58502f77e4b0bd9c3dff004d
As a former student-athlete in the NESCAC, the recent scandal involving the Amherst College cross-country team intrigues me greatly. A certain type of unity develops between sports teams as they grow close. The locker rooms in which they dwell become spaces for cultural development among teammates experiencing similar successes and failures. A set of rules develops in locker rooms and being part of football locker rooms for ten years introduced me to the social do’s and don’ts of being part of an athletic team. As Donald Trump referenced earlier this year, locker room talk exists and it can simultaneously be rewarding for the people involved and stigmatizing towards others excluded from the space inhabited by the locker room. The Amherst cross-country team displayed some pretty hurtful rhetoric involving their female peers. The email forum in which the hurtful phrases such as “a walking STD” or “meat slab” were used to describe girls exhibits a troubling extension of the locker room to the internet, and displays how locker room talk can be misogynistic and toxic to the development of adults.
Locker room talk often is not policed and can in turn cause unfiltered speech to occur. In a world where sexual activity and attitudes toward the other gender are used as status markers, the openness of locker room talked can cause damaging ideas or opinions to become aired out. The thing about locker rooms is that they have become a safe place for many athletes to be themselves. In Amherst’s case, the thread that was discovered occurred years ago and was meant to be an extension of the locker room for those involved. While not excusing the hurtfulness and damaging effects of the words stated by the Amherst cross country team, some could argue that the report of their emails infringes upon the boundaries of their safe space. This situation brings about two major questions. First, can a safe space extend to the internet? Second, is a safe space really safe if it is developing damaging ideas such as the sexist and hurtful ones introduced by the cross-country team? The verdict of the case, suspending the team from all activity, has displayed Amherst’s position on these ideas. However, the same situation may not play out at other schools. While these questions have not been answered quite yet, they deserve more consideration in title 9 litigation moving forward.
