LETTER: Club Hockey Ban
Was there misuse of power in the Club Hockey ban?
I urge CM Life to take a deeper look at the five-year ban on the CMU Men’s Club Hockey team for allegedly hazing and providing alcohol to minors. The school has not shared their process for reaching their conclusion nor have they provided sound evidence to support the ruling.
The week following the alleged incident, the school told team members they had to go online to sign the student policies “if they want to play hockey this year.” Not only did they mislead the team, they are now trying to hold members to a policy that was signed AFTER the incident for which they are being punished. (see policies http://cmich.orgsync.com/osrr).
A school official, with whom none of the team members had met, arrived five minutes prior to the hearing to deliver the ruling. In addition, the decision-making committee only allowed one team member to represent the team at the hearing. Why would the school label these kids without proper evidence or representation? Hazing is a very serious allegation with a real stigma attached to it.
Has the school accurately defined the term hazing, and does their evidence support their definition? By the way, has anyone interviewed the rookies who were allegedly hazed? Do they feel they were hazed?
My guess is no. The team has successfully represented CMU on-ice against dozens of schools, becoming 13th in the Nation for their division last year, as well as off-ice with charitable work and weekly work with Mount Pleasant Youth Hockey. I don’t think these things were considered when the committee made their decision. In fact, I’m not sure what was considered when the committee made their decision.
Who was on the committee, and what was their process? Why would the committee only allow one team member to represent the team at the hearing? My questions for CM Life: Did these young men receive an unbiased hearing before being labeled with hazing? Was there a fair and equitable process to reach such a significant conclusion? Is the university simply exercising absolute power in a small town?
-Theresa O’Dea
