Penn Cancels Remainder of Women's Volleyball Season Over 'Vulgar, Offensive' Locker Room Signs
The season is officially over for the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s volleyball team following the recent discovery of offensive signs in the school’s locker room, PEOPLE can confirm.
Penn Athletics announced the news on Wednesday, explaining that the decision comes as the “vulgar, offensive, and disrespectful posters” were found in the women’s volleyball locker room earlier this week.
Information regarding the signs’ content has yet to be released, according to Director of Athletic Communications Mike Mahoney.
As the actions are in violation of the school’s team and divisional policy, the press release stated, the situation will further be reviewed by the university’s administration to reevaluate under university policy.
The termination of the women’s season comes as the team had only two games left to play — one scheduled for Friday at Yale University, and the last on Saturday at Brown University, the release confirmed.
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“The behavior exhibited by our women’s volleyball student-athletes is simply unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” the Director of Athletics and Recreation Dr. M. Grace Calhoun said in the statement.
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“We expect our student-athletes to represent the University of Pennsylvania in a first-class and respectful manner at all times, and in this case, our volleyball student-athletes did not meet that standard. We have reviewed the matter with the appropriate University partners and will determine additional steps in the coming days and weeks,” she continued.
According to the University’s newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, this incident continues a series of issues the women’s volleyball team has faced over the past year.
Since the current coach, Iain Braddak was brought on in April 2018, eight players have filed formal grievances against him over his conduct relating to the team’s mental health.
However, the Pennsylvanian reported that the university has continued to stand by the coach. Additionally, in a comment given to the newspaper about the grievances, Senior Associate Athletic Director Rudy Fuller said, “Each grievance was thoroughly vetted and reviewed by the internal Penn Athletics Grievance Committee as well as the external, independent Student-Athlete Grievance Review Committee consisting of campus partners from the University faculty, the Division of Human Resources, and VPUL.”
