University Of Minnesota Football Team Ends Boycott, Will Play Bowl Game 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Paul Battaglia/AP Paul Battaglia/AP 
 
 Ending a boycott that was sparked by the suspension of 10 players over an alleged sexual assault, the University of Minnesota's football team says they'll play in the Dec. 27 Holiday Bowl. The team relented after meeting with school administrators Friday. 
 
 In addition to promising to play in the game in San Diego later this month, the team sought to clarify its position. 
 
 "Let me first state so there is no misperception: sexual harassment and violence against women have no place on this campus, on our team, in our society, and at no time is it ever condoned," said senior wide receiver Drew Wolitarski. 
 
 The team's statement, delivered by Wolitarski, also faulted the school's leaders for not giving them any advance notice about the suspensions. 
 
 The players had earlier complained that several of the athletes had already been punished with multiple-game suspensions because of the case, and that the new suspensions — and in some cases, potential expulsions — levied by the university's Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action had come without due process. 
 
 From St. Paul, Minnesota Public Radio's Tim Nelson reports: ||||| Five of the 10 University of Minnesota football players suspended from the team in the fallout of a student’s sexual assault allegation now face expulsion from school, the players’ attorney, Lee Hutton, said Wednesday night. 
 
 Four other players face a one-year suspension and another could get probation stemming from the Sept. 2 incident. The school discipline comes weeks after a criminal investigation resulted in no arrests or charges. 
 
 A woman’s claim that she was assaulted in the early morning hours after the Gophers’ first game, documented through police reports and court testimony, ultimately led to an investigation by the school’s office for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. 
 
 Hutton said the EOAA recommended expulsion for Ray Buford, Carlton Djam, KiAnte Hardin, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson; one-year suspensions from the university for Seth Green, Kobe McCrary, Mark Williams and Antoine Winfield Jr., and probation for Antonio Shenault. 
 
 Some of the players were directly accused in the alleged sexual assault; the involvement of others is unclear. Hutton, who is representing all 10 players, said he is working on their appeals. 
 
 University President Eric Kaler wrote in a letter to donors Wednesday that football coach Tracy Claeys, with athletic director Mark Coyle’s support, decided to suspend the players from the team ahead of its Dec. 27 bowl game in San Diego. 
 
 “The need to take actions like this is incredibly disappointing. Unfortunately, these types of situations are difficult for the University because we are limited in what we can say,” Kaler wrote. “While we strive to be transparent in all that we do, the fact is that, under the law, our students have privacy rights that we value and respect.” 
 
 Hutton confirmed that all the suspensions stem from the incident in a Dinkytown apartment after the team’s season-opening victory over Oregon State. After the complaint was first reported, the Gophers suspended four players — Buford, Hardin, Dior Johnson and Tamarion Johnson — for an unspecified violation of team rules. Those players missed three games while police investigated. 
 
 They were reinstated when the Hennepin County attorney declined to press charges. The Star Tribune initially did not specify the nature of the investigation because the players were not charged. 
 
 The university’s statement said: “Due to privacy restrictions relating to student educational data, there is nothing further the University can share.” 
 
 Reporting to police 
 
 According to police reports and the student’s testimony, the student, who is part of the gameday operations at TCF Bank Stadium, drank five to six shots of vodka on the night of Sept. 1 before heading out of her apartment with her roommates toward Dinkytown. 
 
 She then went with two football players to the Radius, an off-campus apartment building. Though she said her memory was spotty, she recalled Djam in a common area asking her to go up to his apartment. She would later testify that she had no intention of having sex. 
 
 She said she felt panicked when Djam walked her into his bedroom, but later testified that he never pushed her, prevented her from leaving or said anything threatening to her. 
 
 Asked during a court hearing why she didn’t leave, she said, “I felt scared, trapped, isolated with someone I felt had power over me.” 
 
 At some point, they began having sex. The police report said “she doesn’t have a recall about how the sex acts started.” 
 
 After Djam, others followed. She told police she saw a line of men waiting to take turns. 
 
 “I was removing myself from my mind and my body to help myself from the pain and experience going on,” she testified. 
 
 She estimated there were at least a dozen men. “I was shoving people off of me,” she testified. “They kept ignoring my pleas for help. Anything I said they laughed. They tried to cheer people on.” 
 
 About an hour and a half later, she said, she was allowed to leave. She called her sister, who told her to go to the hospital immediately, where she was given a rape exam, while her mother made a report to Minneapolis police. The next day, an officer sat down with the student, who described her version of what happened. 
 
 On Sept. 8, police investigators Eric Faulconer and Matthew Wente interviewed Djam. He acknowledged having sex with the woman, but was adamant that it was consensual. As proof, he played them three separate videos, totaling about 90 seconds, taken that morning. 
 
 During an 8-second clip, the woman “appears lucid, alert, somewhat playful and fully conscious; she does not appear to be objecting to anything at this time,” Wente wrote in his report. After viewing two additional videos, he wrote “the sexual contact appears entirely consensual.” 
 
 Police later interviewed four other players, who each said the sex was consensual. 
 
 On Sept. 30, Wente sent the investigation to the Hennepin County Attorney’s office for possible prosecution. In it, he wrote about the videos, “at no time does she indicate that she is in distress or that the contact is unwelcome or nonconsensual.” 
 
 On Oct. 3 the attorney’s office announced there would be no charges. 
 
 Afterward, the alleged victim filed a restraining order against six of the players, asking that they be made to stay away from the stadium. After a judge granted the orders, the woman dropped a petition against one of the players. 
 
 Hutton, the players’ attorney, appealed, setting up a hearing where the woman testified for several hours. The hearing eventually ended in a settlement — the restraining order would be dropped, but the players still had to stay 20 feet away from the woman and have no contact with her. The two sides also agreed that neither would be able to file a lawsuit. 
 
 “I’m glad this is over,” the student read in a statement after the hearing. “This has never been about punishing anyone, I just wanted to feel safe. Because of this resolution that we came to, now I do.” 
 
 Claeys and Coyle briefly addressed the matter separately Wednesday. Both said they were prohibited from discussing details of the university investigation. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 The University of Minnesota's football team will hit the field for the upcoming Holiday Bowl, they said Saturday, ending a brief boycott done in protest after 10 players were indefinitely suspended from the team. 
 
 While those players remain suspended, the team said they agreed on other conditions in order for the rest of them to return. 
 
 In making their decision, the team also acknowledged the issue of sexual assault — the reason that led to the players' suspension this week — and said finishing out the year was important. 
 
 Related: University of Minnesota Football Players Boycott Activities 
 
 "So many before us have given so much to this University and this football team; so many coaches, staff, administrators, professors, alumni, fans, and our community have invested heavily in the success of our program," the team said in a prepared statement. "We recognize that we must not let these people down." 
 
 On Thursday, the uniformed Gophers players stood shoulder-to-shoulder during a news conference to say all 99 teammates would boycott practices before the Dec. 27 bowl — and would skip the sporting spectacle against Washington State University altogether — if the school did not lift the suspensions of the 10 players. 
 
 But the team said Saturday they recognized they were in a losing position. 
 
 "After many hours of discussion within our team, and after speaking with President (Eric) Kaler, it became clear that our original request of having the 10 suspensions overturned was not going to happen," their statement said. 
 
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 During a meeting Friday night with Kaler and university athletic director Mark Coyle, the students said they came to a different agreement: Allow the suspended players to get a "fair hearing" on the issue with a "diverse review panel" and have the school show greater support for the overall team. 
 
 In addition, the team said, the players would "use our status as public figures to bring more exposure to the issue of sexual harassment and violence against women." Details of the agreements would be forthcoming, the team added. 
 
 Kaler told reporters Saturday that the school does stand behind its football team. 
 
 "I think the statement by the students today around support for victims of sexual assault is important," he said. "I will continue to amplify the fact that the football team's action in support of their teammates was not in support of sexual violence." 
 
 The suspension of the 10 players stems from a Sept. 2 incident in which a female student had sexual contact with players. In a redacted police report, a police investigator said the sexual encounter with one player appeared to be consensual based on videos taken at the time and shown to police by the player, according to the Star-Tribune newspaper. 
 
 However, the Star-Tribune reported, the woman told police that sexual contact with three other players was not consensual. During the course of the night, she said, she had been drinking and had sex with one player. But she was forced to have sex with others against her will, she said in court testimony in order to obtain a restraining order against five of the players. 
 
 University of Minnesota football team members talk to reporters in Minneapolis on Dec. 15, 2016. Jeff Wheeler / AP 
 
 While six players were involved in the incident itself, police said, it's unclear why the others have been implicated. 
 
 In the end, no players were ever arrested, and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office on Oct. 3 said it declined to press charges because of "insufficient" evidence. 
 
 An attorney for the 10 players said he will appeal the suspensions. 
 
 Students opposed to the team's decision to have a boycott gathered to protest on the university's campus Saturday. The demonstration asked for the community to "#standwithsurvivors." 
 
 Nevertheless, in addressing the boycott Saturday, the team said while they still have questions about why certain players were suspended, the players don't condone violence against women. 
 
 "There is only one acceptable way to treat all women and all men, and that is with the utmost of respect at all times," the team said.
– The University of Minnesota football team has ended its boycott of all football activities—meaning the team will compete in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27. NBC News reports the team announced the boycott Thursday after 10 players were suspended for an alleged sexual assault. Players were upset they weren't notified of the suspensions ahead of time and felt the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action investigation that led to them lacked "due process," according to NPR. The team met with school administrators Friday. They said they decided to end the boycott after "it became clear" the suspended students would not be reinstated. In return, they say the university agreed to give the suspended players a "fair hearing" with a "diverse review panel." The 10 players are facing a range of punishments from expulsion to a one-year suspension for the alleged gang rape of a female student in September, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. The woman had been drinking when she went to a football player's apartment. According to police reports and her testimony, at least a dozen men got in line to have sex with her against her will. She says she "felt scared, trapped, isolated." She says the men ignored her cries for help, laughed at her, and cheered each other on. The accused players say the sex was consensual, and no criminal charges were filed. In a statement following the end of their boycott, the football team said, "There is no misperception: Sexual harassment and violence against women have no place on this campus, on our team."