On Aug. 12, Northwestern unveiled Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium and what had formerly been a practice field was officially transformed into what will be the team's home field for 2024 and 2025.

But while the Wildcat program showed off its future, a remnant of its recent past reared its ugly head: a “Cats Against the World 51” t-shirt, worn by student assistant Jack Fitzgerald.

The shirt originally made headlines last August, when offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian and other staffers were photographed by InsideNU's Bradley Locker wearing the shirt at Northwestern's first open practice since Pat Fitzgerald's firing. The shirt was an open show of support for Fitzgerald, and it set off a tsunami of criticism in the media.

In a statement last fall, athletic director Dr. Derrick Gragg directly tied the staffers' choice to wear the shirt to the hazing scandal that cost Fitzgerald his job, calling the shirt's message "inappropriate, offensive and tone deaf".

Yet, more than a year later, the shirt could be seen at a Northwestern football practice, worn by a representative of the program.

The shirt still divides Northwestern fans over the legacy of one of its legends. Many fans bought and wore one last season. The controversy is pushed even further this time by its wearer: Jack Fitzgerald is Pat Fitzgerald's son and a Northwestern sophomore.

Jack Fitzgerald was set to be a walkon tight end on the 2023 roster but, after his father's firing, he transitioned to a role assisting the coaching staff that has continued into 2024. The shirt's controversy faded from the public eye last season as Northwestern closed most of its practices and mounted a surprising 8-5 campaign.

But Jack Fitzgerald has continued to wear the shirt at team events. His profile picture on X shows that he wore the shirt during postgame celebrations at the Las Vegas Bowl last December.

That may have been inadvertent, a decision by Fitzgerald that slipped past the coaching staff. That wasn’t the case at last Monday's practice, however, when he wore the shirt in his official capacity at practice in front of Northwestern's staff, several administrators and media members in attendance for a post-practice press conference and a tour of the temporary stadium.

WildcatReport asked the athletic department for a statement, asking if Gragg's comments last summer still stand, whether Fitzgerald and the team have been asked to stop wearing the shirt, if any disciplinary action has been taken, or if the shirt is in violation of the team's dress code. If the shirt was “inappropriate, offensive and tone deaf” last summer, it would figure to still be now.

Northwestern Athletics declined to comment at this time, across the board. A request to interview Jack Fitzgerald at a media availability this week was also declined, and Fitzgerald will not be made available for comment this season.

Last fall, when asked about whether the shirt was indeed, as Gragg said, inappropriate, Braun replied, "It's not my job to censor anyone's free speech." Whether Braun truly believes that, or whether those were the words of an interim coach scrambling to maintain team unity during a turbulent time, a year has now passed. That turbulence has subsided, the interim tag is gone and Braun is now the full-time head coach.

Jack Fitzgerald is at a personal crossroads that many of us cannot fathom. He was set to join the program that his father built and practically raised him in when, as a freshman walkon, his father was suddenly fired and he had to chart a new course.

A son advocating for his father is certainly understandable. In a vacuum, he has full license to express his potential frustrations.

But Jack Fitzgerald isn't in a vacuum. He is working for Northwestern in an official capacity as a student assistant, and he is subject to the restrictions that come with that. His exact role, and who he reports to, is ambiguous. But he represents a football program at a private university in an at-will employment state. He has limited freedom of expression, assuming he's under a standard student contract, and can be disciplined or dismissed if he is in violation of team or athletic department rules.

Braun may not want to censor speech, but he is well within his rights to set a dress code for his staff and representatives of the program at his practices. A memo from him at any time in the last year directing them to wear only Northwestern-licensed apparel -- a standard held at plenty of other programs -- and this issue would never have resurfaced.

If Fitzgerald is employed by the department, rather than the team, then he falls under Gragg's purview and the same reasoning applies.

Per Northwestern University president Dr. Michael Schill's July 10, 2023 statement relieving Pat Fitzgerald of his duties as head coach, "[eleven] current or former football student-athletes acknowledged that hazing has been ongoing within the football program" that “included forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature, in clear violation of Northwestern's policies and values."

Jack Fitzgerald’s shirt, whether this was his original intention or not, is connected to those practices, a symbol of the program's past the university says it's taken the proper steps to put behind them. There still may be players on the roster who endured hazing, and that shirt could be painful or intimidating for them to see at practice more than a year after the scandal broke and discipline had been handed down.

The shirt also tacitly supports Pat Fitzgerald and opposes the university that is employing him in a legal action. Pat Fitzgerald is suing the school, seeking $130 million in damages, for wrongful termination.

Northwestern has taken several measures in the aftermath of the scandal, like anti-hazing training and a new reporting tool for complaints. They even went as far as monitoring the locker room. Somehow, this t-shirt has slipped through the cracks and evaded university intervention.

A year after Gragg and Schill's comments and Pat Fitzgerald’s firing, it looks more and more like Jack Fitzgerald's shirt isn't the result of an omission by oversight from his superiors on the team and in the athletic department. It seems like permission.