CHICAGO — Attorneys Ben Crump, Steven M. Levin and Margaret Battersby Black, along with former student athlete Lloyd Yates, will be holding a press conference Monday to announce the filing of another lawsuit against Northwestern University.
This will be at least the fourth formal filing of a lawsuit against Northwestern since the hazing allegations scandal against the football team went public earlier this month.
In this lawsuit, Crump alleges they have uncovered a vast array of incidents of abuse in the Northwestern football program, and that they will use the filing of this lawsuit to expand the exposure of abusive hazing in other college athletic programs.
“This is the opportunity to eradicate hazing and abuse in college athletic programs from coast to coast,” Crump said in the press release. “That’s exactly what we intend to do, as this will undoubtedly be the MeToo movement of college athletics.”
The Northwestern hazing scandal first became public on July 7, when Northwestern released an executive summary on the findings of an independent investigation held to look into hazing allegations made against the football team.
At the time, then-head football coach Pat Fitzgerald was suspended for two weeks without pay.
The next day, The Daily Northwestern published an article that detailed the alleged hazing allegations from the eyes of two anonymous football players, one who explained the alleged hazing incidents that were going on, while another independently confirmed what the first player had said.
Two days after that, Northwestern president Michael Schill reversed course on the original two-week suspension for Fitzgerald, and fired him permanently.
Attorneys Crump, Levin, Black and Richard Banks — along with Yates — plan to hold the news conference at 12:30 p.m. in the River North neighborhood of Chicago.
