Harvard announced on Thursday that it was canceling the rest of the season for its men’s soccer team after university officials uncovered what they described as a widespread practice of the team’s players rating the school’s female players in sexually explicit terms.

“We strongly believe that this immediate and significant action is absolutely necessary if we are to create an environment of mutual support, respect and trust among our students and our teams,” Robert L. Scalise, Harvard’s athletic director, wrote in an email to the university’s student-athletes around 6 p.m.

Lawyers for the university began investigating the men’s team after the college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, reported last week that a player created a nine-page document in 2012 with numeric ratings, photos and lengthy evaluations of the freshman recruits of the Harvard women’s team based on their physical appearance. Men on the team referred to the document as a “scouting report.”

Drew Faust, Harvard’s president, indicated in a statement on Thursday that she had learned the practice was not isolated to 2012 and had continued into this year.