Northwestern fires Fitzgerald as racism allegations surface, hazing fallout continues

Northwestern University has fired head football coach Pat Fitzgerald after new allegations of racism from former players surfaced Monday, after a well-publicized, separate report on hazing rocked the school’s reputation this month. 

Fitzgerald, who spent 17 years as the Wildcats head coach, was initially suspended for two weeks after a university-led investigation into hazing allegations from an anonymous whistleblower outlined its findings. 

Northwestern walked back that suspension over the weekend, only to fire Fitzgerald a day later.

His termination also came after the school’s student newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, published a story from three players who said the football program had a “culture of enabling racism.” 

Fitzgerald was specifically named in the story as allegedly participating in that culture.

Sources told the paper that “head coach Pat Fitzgerald would ask Black players and coaches to cut off longer hairstyles — including dreadlocks — so that they were more in line with what Fitzgerald called the ‘Wildcat Way.'”

The Hill has reached out to both Fitzgerald and Northwestern for comment.

The initial hazing allegations were published in a story from the paper citing a former student-athlete who described separate instances of hazing and sexual abuse in the football program.

It reported that Fitzgerald, a former star player for the university’s football team, “may have known that hazing took place.”

University president speaks out

The university’s president laid out his reasoning behind firing Fitzgerald in a letter to the school’s community Monday.

“This afternoon, I informed Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald that he was being relieved of his duties effective immediately,” university president Michael Schill wrote.

“The decision comes after a difficult and complex evaluation of my original discipline decision imposed last week on Coach Fitzgerald for his failure to know and prevent significant hazing in the football program.”

Schill wrote in his letter that 11 current or former football players acknowledged that hazing has been going on in the program, adding it was not a secret.

Schill said that gave Fitzgerald the opportunity to learn about the hazing, as he was responsible for the culture of the team. 

“Since Friday, I have kept going back to what we should reasonably expect from our head coaches, our faculty and our campus leaders. And that is what led me to make this decision. The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team,” Schill added.

“The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others,” he said.

Northwestern fires Fitzgerald a day after revoking suspension

University officials initially handed down a two-week ​​unpaid suspension for Fitzgerald to serve, only for Schill to walk back the initial decision while he spoke with other university leadership to discuss other ways to punish Fitzgerald and his coaching staff. 

Before that process was completed, however, the school newspaper published interviews with three former Northwestern football players outlining “multiple racist actions and remarks from both coaching staff and players.” 

Schill said Monday that he anticipated backlash to his decision to fire Fitzgerald, who had a 110-101 record during over 17 years leading the program.

“I recognize that my decision will not be universally applauded, and there will be those in our community who may vehemently disagree with it,” he wrote in his letter. “Ultimately, I am charged with acting in the best interests of the entire University, and this decision is reflective of that. The damage done to our institution is significant, as is the harm to some of our students.”

The Associated Press contributed.