Northwestern football has fired head coach Pat Fitzgerald after disturbing details emerged on the hazing incidents and racism that allegedly occurred under his watch, sources told Matt Fortuna of The Athletic.

Fitzgerald, the second-longest tenured head coach in the Big Ten, was initially suspended without pay for two weeks after attorney Maggie Hickey of the firm ArentFox Schiff found that there was not “sufficient” evidence that the coaching staff knew about the hazing incidents, but that there were “significant opportunities” to find out.

Just a day after Fitzgerald was suspended by the university, the school's newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, published a piece in which a former Wildcats football player revealed the “inhumane” details of the hazing incidents, which involved forced sexual acts.

Undoubtedly feeling the pressure and outcry from the public, Northwestern University president Michael Schill said he “may have erred” in handing down the two-week suspension. Schill also said the school would reassess the punishment to the head coach.

While Northwestern may have been considering a harsher penalty- and not a firing- Monday's story in The Daily Northwestern forced their hand.

More former Northwestern football players spoke out against the program, saying that Fitzgerald and other coaches would ask black players to cut their dreadlocks off, while white players with long hair were not asked to change their appearance.

Fitzgerald encouraged players to follow “the Wildcat Way”, a culture that former Northwestern football players said was one that “enabled racism.”

Fitzgerald, 48, is a Northwestern lifer, having spent three seasons as a player and another five seasons as an assistant coach before being named the head coach in 2006.

ESPN's Adam Rittenberg reports that current Northwestern football players, who had released a statement defending Fitzgerald, have a team meeting scheduled for Monday night.