Over hazing allegations. The suspension doesn’t look like it will affect the team’s regular season, however:
Cornell University suspended its men’s lacrosse program for the semester following an alcohol-related hazing incident, two years after the death of a sophomore led the school to ban all forms of hazing.
“It’s a teamwide penalty for a teamwide incident,” John Carberry, a spokesman for the Ithaca, New York-based school, said in a telephone interview. “It involved coerced alcohol consumption by underage freshmen.”
More than half of all U.S. college students in clubs, teams and other organizations are hazed, according to a University of Maine study. Hazing was responsible for the 2011 deaths of Robert Champion, a Florida A&M University student beaten by fellow band members, and George Desdunes, a Cornell fraternity member who died after being bound with duct tape and forced to drink alcohol. Desdunes’s death prompted Cornell President David Skorton to vow to “end hazing as we know it.”
Cornell’s lacrosse suspensions began Sept. 13 and include its fall schedule and exhibition games. The players are allowed to practice during the ban. Last year’s intercollegiate season started in February, with the first Ivy League game in March. Cornell is a 26-time Ivy League champion and won three national championships in the 1970s.
The rest here.