Yale Men's Basketball Captain Reportedly Expelled for Sexual Misconduct
LatestFor the better part of a month, rumors have been churning through Yale’s campus on the absence of men’s basketball captain Jack Montague, whose expulsion was confirmed by his father last week. On Wednesday evening, the New York Times reported that the expulsion was in connection to a sexual misconduct case; Thursday morning, the Yale Daily News also reported that Montague was expelled for sexual misconduct following a decision by the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct (UWC).
According to the YDN, whose report includes an in-depth explanation of UWC procedures, the complaint was filed in November, and Montague was expelled in early February.
A formal complaint was filed against Montague with the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct in November of 2015, several months after an incident of alleged misconduct occurred. The decision to expel him was made on Feb. 10, 2016, and a week later the UWC chose not to hear Montague’s appeal of the decision, according to sources familiar with the facts of the case. It remains unclear if the November formal complaint was the only complaint brought before the UWC.
No other details are publicly available, but, according to Yale’s fall sexual misconduct report, which provides a summary of sexual misconduct complaints brought forward between July and December of 2015, four formal complaints were brought to the UWC against Yale college students during that time period; all were categorized under “sexual assault.”
Both the student who filed the complaint and Montague declined to comment to the YDN; Yale dean Jonathan Holloway declined to confirm the reasons for Montague’s expulsion to the YDN. Last week, Montague’s father characterized the reasons behind his son’s expulsion as “ridiculous.”
Over the past week and a half, posters have appeared on Yale’s campus accusing the men’s basketball team of “supporting a rapist”; prior to the first wave of posters, the basketball team wore t-shirts bearing Montague’s nickname “Gucci” and his number, as well as “Yale” spelled backwards (the university claims to have had no knowledge of the shirts beforehand). At the end of a high-profile game against Columbia this past weekend, members of the basketball team put up four fingers to represent Montague; guard Khaliq Ghani had “Gucci” written on his wrist tape and told Sports Illustrated that Montague is “still the captain of our team.”
More posters sprang up around campus this week, and on Wednesday the men’s basketball team released a statement:
“Yale Men’s Basketball fully supports a healthy, safe and respectful campus climate where all students can flourish. Our recent actions to show our support for one of our former teammates were not intended to suggest otherwise, but we understand that to many students they did. We apologize for the hurt we have caused and we look forward to learning and growing from these recent incidents. As student representatives of Yale we hope to use our positions on and off the court in a way that can make everyone proud.”
Also on Wednesday, prior to the release of the statement, a “chalk-in” was organized by several groups on campus to support survivors of sexual violence. Clarifying to the YDN on Thursday that the event was not specifically in response to Montague’s expulsion but rather a space to broaden the discussion into Yale’s overall sexual climate, USAY co-director Helen Price said: “Rape culture didn’t just suddenly emerge in the last month, and people have been negatively affected by Yale’s sexual climate for a long time.”
Yale, like many, many schools around the country, has in the past struggled to properly address sexual misconduct on campus.
In 2011, on the heels of the Yale chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon’s infamous “No means yes, yes means anal” chant, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched an investigation into Yale’s handling of sexual violence; the school also established the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Assault that year to better handle complaints. In 2013, the university was also fined $155,000 for failing to report all sexual violence crimes on campus between 2001 and 2002, which is a violation of the Clery Act. That same year, Jezebel reported that six Yale students were found guilty of “nonconsensual sex” and none were expelled.