BOULDER, Colo. -- A group of University of Colorado Boulder students and their professor say the school refused to host a boxing match on campus, claiming the values of boxing don’t align with the values of CU.
CU professor Murray Cox created an amateur boxing club geared toward teaching freshman how to balance out college life.
“Amateur boxing lends itself to being academic. It’s about time management, learning from your mistakes, perseverance,” said Cox.
He says he was surprised when his students told him the university refused to allow the upcoming boxing match they organized.
“last week, students were told that CU had made a business decision and that they are going to ban access to any venues on campus, because the values of the contact sport don’t match the values of the university,” said Cox.
During an e-mail correspondence between Cox and CU, the associate vice chancellor for student affairs suggested it would be best to hold the match off campus, that way the university would not have to respond to potential concerns about holding boxing matches on campus.
“I think that the people that say 'no' to such an event aren’t, in essence, bad people. I don’t think they know what mature boxing is. I think they thought it was some sort of underground fight club,” said Cox.
CU Boulder sent Denver7 this following statement:
Mr. Cox approached Student Affairs recently about hosting a boxing match at the Recreation Center. We appreciate that watching a boxing match would have educational applications for his class, so no one objected on those grounds.
Rather, it would have taken considerable time, effort and money to put on this event in a facility that is not equipped for boxing matches. We decided it would be more time- and cost-efficient to have his class view a boxing match at a local facility that was already set up.
But Cox refutes CU’s statement, saying he offered to pay for the equipment and the costs that go into set up.