In September 2017, the University of Kansas placed its Cheerleading squad on probation for one year after the University acknowledge that it was investigating the team for hazing.
Two Kansas Cheerleaders reached out to the Collegian, Kansas’s college newspaper, and detailed the way that the Cheerleading team was hazing the six first-year Cheerleaders.
The two sources chose to remain anonymous:
[A] group message to the team’s new members, asking them to meet at the hill by the David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium with running shoes. When they arrived, only KU alumni were at the stadium.
We ran the hill up and down twice…We got to the bottom and they told us to lay on the ground. They blindfolded us and took us one by one into different cars.
Later, both sources said they were taken to a room where they were asked a series of questions, and if they answered a question incorrectly, they were told to remove an article of clothing.
They questioned me, took off my clothes and put my blindfold back on
Then, all six of the team’s new members were led, naked, into another room, one of the sources said.
I remember getting put into a big laundry basket,” one said. “I was shaken around and stuff.
Later, the source said she was moved to another room in the house.
I had taken my blindfold off along with another girl sitting next to me…and two alumni guys walked in and saw us naked.
The girls were eventually separated into two groups.
After that, they took two girls downstairs, they had been initiated…
And then they took me and two other girls, put us in a room together and told us we are ugly, we don’t deserve to be on the team and our skills weren’t good enough. They sat us down with all the alumni and all returning cheerleaders.
Yikes.
Flip the page to see some pictures of the KU Cheerleaders.