The University of Minnesota football team pledged on Thursday to boycott all football activities, including a coming bowl game, to protest the suspensions of 10 players in connection with a sexual assault investigation.

A woman secured a restraining order against six Minnesota players — one of whom was later dropped from it — after an episode in September in which she said she was sexually assaulted by several men, some of whom were suspended for three games by the university. The men have insisted the sex was consensual.

While the police investigated, prosecutors declined to charge the players, and the restraining order was contingently lifted as part of a settlement. The university’s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action office conducted its own investigation, as mandated by Title IX, the federal law guaranteeing equal access to higher education regardless of gender.

Burdens of proof used in such investigations are frequently lower than the criminal justice system’s. It was apparently after such an investigation that the latest disciplinary recommendations were handed down, with the father of one player telling a local newspaper that expulsion had been suggested for some of the players.