It’s Finals Week here at The Ohio State University. I should be dashing about, finishing final projects, putting last touches on final papers, studying my brains out for exams, and beginning the process of moving out of my dorm. I should be chilling on Oval Beach and soaking in my last days as a college freshman in Columbus, the city that’s one with my own heart.

However, I am heartbroken, despondent, and trying to muster the motivation to continue on at this university.

What 60+ others and I love more than anything else in the world has been taken away. The OSU Crew Club has been suspended until December of 2014.

(Below is a picture of an OSU Crew boat rowing at sunrise on Lake Lure.)

A little over a month ago, only days before our first regatta of the spring season, the team received an email from the Club’s president stating that the team was under a temporary freeze due to allegations of hazing. As I read the email aloud to the team members seated around me, I couldn’t believe my eyes. All we had worked for was being taken from us and I felt hopeless. Only minutes before, we had been speaking excitedly about the promise of victory in our first spring season.

The email was purposely ambiguous, as we were not allowed to know any inside information about the ongoing investigation and because our President himself knew very little. The novice men and women gathered quickly from around campus to discuss what we would do, but most importantly, we gathered to offer comfort to one another. We were all so confused and wounded that we would not have been able to spend that evening on our own.

Confusion spread throughout the team as we realized the severity of what we had been accused of. The allegations stemmed from a report filed after the team’s return from Lake Lure, North Carolina – OSU Crew’s Spring Break training destination. The sickening feeling in our stomachs was not from guilt, but from bewilderment – who had been hazed? Where was the hazing? What does the Office of Student Life even mean by “hazing”? Not a single rower had been physically harmed during the trip, no illegal substances were present, and there were multiple OSU-employed adults around at all times. Not a single rower shared concerns for their physical, mental, or emotional health with any other team member or coach. Personally, and from the accounts of other rowers, that week established our team as a family and the strong organization we are today. We trained three times a day, strengthening our minds, bodies, and spirits. We laughed together, cried together, and made a boat go together.

(Below is a picture of the majority of our team after running up a mountain at Lake Lure.)

We pondered the team bonding activities that we had all taken part in over Spring Break, and their innocence was obvious, perhaps only to us. They were traditions and harmless pranks to us. For example, the Varsity women designed giant Hanes underwear for each Novice woman to wear over her workout clothes each day, adorned with teasing words such as “Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver” for me. Each and every Novice woman grinned and laughed upon receiving their underwear in a ceremony. The Novice men received shirts from the Varsity men.

The news of the allegations was so shocking to me because no one I knew of had openly refused to wear the underwear or shirts (which was an available option to anyone, and this was made clear), or had refused to take part in the skits poking fun at the Varsity members, or had blatantly declined to do any of the activities. They were all optional, and everyone knew that.

After our club’s activities were frozen and we missed our first regatta, we continued to hear sporadic word from the officials organizing the investigation. We learned that we had been charged with violations including hazing, disorderly or disruptive conduct, endangering health or safety and violation of university rules.We began to miss multiple regattas, and as we were unable to practice or row at all, we began to fall out of racing shape, having to frantically organize individual workouts. We were forbidden from using our boathouse, forbidden from gathering in large groups, and forbidden from planning events for our team. Throughout the entire month of April, every member was left in the dark regarding our fate. We were offered no explanation of what we were being accused of, what could happen to us individually, and most importantly, what could happen to our team. We began to worry as the end of school year and the major national regattas approached. Our club president was run ragged, as the administration used him as the middleman between them and the rowers. He was given the obligation to break devastating news to us. The morale of the team was at rock bottom, and individual performance in school and in daily life fell drastically.

However, throughout the torturous weeks of April, the members of the team clung together. No one outside the team could possibly understand what was happening to us, as we did not understand ourselves. We hoped our salvation and enlightenment would come through the scheduled “Big Team Meeting,” in which every member of the team, every coach, Crew Club board members and OSU administrators were to attend. All we could ask for were straightforward answers to our questions and relief from the stress that had been placed on our shoulders. What had we done wrong? What was to happen to us? When would we be rowing again?

The meeting did not provide the relief or the clarity we had all been hoping for. Instead, an official from the department running the investigation spoke sarcastically to us and threatened us with dire punishments if we lied or gave false testimony. The official spoke of knowing that we were gathering behind his back, and he claimed we were doing so to establish false stories to tell him. He offered no understanding for our situation, addressing us like guilty criminals instead of very confused and lost suspects. When the Varsity members (who were being pegged as “ringleaders”) left the room, the official suddenly became kind and urged us to blame the hazing allegations on the Varsity and to not “take the fall for those who are truly guilty.” I was bewildered.

At this meeting, we were told to write down full accounts of what occurred over Spring Break. I frantically wrote 3 entire pages, front and back, detailing every event that could be construed as hazing, including risk-free events such as a “senior jump,” a yearly tradition in which the rowing seniors jump out of the boats wearing crazy outfits. The official was not clear on what he wanted, so I was unsure as to what to write about. As I wrote down the events, I realized that activities such as skits put on to make fun of Varsity members and wearing the underwear and shirts were at most embarrassing. Is embarrassment among friends enough to be “hazing,” even when the intentions are lighthearted?

As our team found out at the meeting, OSU defines hazing as “doing, requiring or encouraging any act, whether or not the act is voluntarily agreed upon, in conjunction with initiation or continued membership or participation in any group, that causes or creates a substantial risk of causing mental or physical harm or humiliation. Such acts may include, but are not limited to, use of alcohol, creation of excessive fatigue, and paddling, punching or kicking in any form.”

At this point, it is mutually understood between the university and the members of the OSU Crew team that hazing (according only to the OSU definition of “hazing”) occurred at Spring Break. As our story reaches local media outlets and spreads throughout the Internet, it is extremely important to note that we are fighting our 3-semester suspension. This drastic punishment is what college organizations such as Florida A&M marching band, where hazing was responsible for a death, have received. Because of this severe sentence, the media has begun to violate the privacy of the OSU rowers and coaches in search of a story. Every member of the Varsity has been placed under behavioral probation, in which his or her actions are closely watched and he or she can be suspended for the smallest instance of disobedience at the university. Furthermore, the members appealing the probation are subject to a hearing, at which novice members (including myself) are summoned to testify as witnesses.

Our team has not rested since the day our rowing stopped. We have unceasingly written letters to those running our investigation filled with our passion toward our team, and reached out to OSU Crew alum and parents (who responded with undying support). We have refused to lose hope in our situation, and we have refused to stop supporting each other as each passing day expands the emptiness in our chests.

Our university has failed us so far. If they accept our appeal and lessen our sentence, they have still failed us. OSU took the subjective account of a former member of our team and used it to incriminate 60+ men and women without warning and without regard to the accounts of anyone else in OSU Crew. However, there is always forgiveness, as re-establishing our team’s name and status following the end of this investigation is more important than resenting OSU.

OSU Crew will row again.