A University of Windsor professor who specializes in sport, law and ethics disagrees with the way a Toronto private school has handled a hazing incident.
St. Michael's School has shut down its basketball program for the rest of this year and two football programs next year and Toronto Police Service now say it is investigating a total of eight incidents involving students at the school.
It comes after six students were charged with sex assault in connection with an incident that involved several members of a school sports team and was captured on video.
Marge Holman has studied hazing and its impact and believes the situation could have been handled differently.
Speaking on AM800's The Lynn Martin Show, Holman says cancelling the programs is too broad a brush to use.
"I think there are a lot of innocent victims who are then touched by the cancellation. The other side is the people involved, we lose an audience. I understand they're building education into the curriculum but we talk about the values of sport but we don't live the values of sport"
Professor of Kinesiology Dr. Marge Holman at the University of Windsor (Photo courtesy of UWindsor)
Holman points out this is not just an isolated incident.
"This is a much bigger problem than St. Michael's College and one incident. I hope that in their action plan they're working with other schools, they're working with the organizing bodies because there's an educational opportunity that goes much beyond St. Michael's College"
She says her research has found terminating sports programs often has an opposite effect to what's desired.
"They were so angry that they lost their opportunity to play, particularly those who had not been involved, directly involved. They were so angry that they've now shut themselves off from the message and the education that's involve. That's not what we want to do. We want to be more open we want to talk about this we want to come together"
Holman adds she isn't criticizing the school for it's response because they may have felt that's what had to be done.
Police say they are investigating a total of six incidents involving students at the school, including one that police sources say involved members of a different team.
The all-boys Catholic school says students involved in competitive sports will participate in workshops about bullying, harassment and abuse.