Two new lawsuits filed in Northwestern hazing scandal

Two new lawsuits were filed on Monday in the Northwestern hazing scandal.

One suit was filed by a Northwestern volleyball player, who became the first member of a women's team to sue the university. The other was filed by former football player Lloyd Yates, the fourth complaint by a football player.

The volleyball player, who filed the suit anonymously, said she was injured while running sprints as part of a "punishment" sanctioned by coach Shane Davis, according to an ESPN article by Dan Murphy. The suit also alleges that Davis "enabled a culture of racism, bullying, harassment, hazing and retaliation" within the Wildcat volleyball program. Davis is listed as a defendant, along with Northwestern's last two presidents and last three athletic directors.

Yates' suit was expected after he and three other former football players (Tom Carnifax, Warren Miles Long and Simba Short), along with their attorneys, held a press conference last week to air many of their complaints against the Northwestern football program and athletic department.

Yates and his attorneys, Ben Crump and Margaret Battersby Black, held a press conference Monday to outline their suit. Here is a summary of some of the key points in Yates' suit, as reported on X (formerly Twitter) by ESPN's Adam Rittenberg:

- It refers multiple times to the "Shrek squad," a group of players who allegedly conducted the hazing.

- In addition to previously disclosed hazing incidents such as "running" and the "car wash," the suit describes a new tactic called "The Dredge," where players were hazed with "excessive alcohol intoxication and drinking games."

- Associate head coach and safeties coach Matt McPherson, who has been on Northwestern's staff since 2006, is singled out and "accused of witnessing acts of hazing and not stopping them or reporting them." The suit also lists two unnamed assistant coaches who were hazed in the same manner as players.

- MacPherson is also accused of accessing the Facebook account of an anonymous player's (John Doe 2) girlfriend in a position meeting and asking about the player's sexual experience.

- Northwestern told Rittenberg that they are reviewing the claims against MacPherson.

- Strength and conditioning coach Jay Hooten pressed Yates into admitting that players were out "partying," and then told the team that Yates had "ratted them out." Yates alleged that he was "ran" the next day.

- The complaint describes in detail the "running" of a freshman in which he was held upside down in a dirty water bath naked, with his head underwater, while players "ran" him.

Crump said in the press conference that he expects to eventually file 30 or more individual lawsuits, seeking "the eradication of physical, psychological and sexual hazing in college sports."

"This will be acknowledged as college sports’ #MeToo movement," he said.