This is silly, why do we accept nonsense like this?
They don't play for or represent Hartford? That's exactly what they do. They use the facilities, they live on campus, they're enrolled in their classes. If they had such an issue with this, why not forfeit the season?
What they should have protested was their record. Their best season in the past ten years was 10 wins. If all of these sports were putting up 40 win seasons and regularly winning conference titles there wouldn't be a second thought. But when you win 25% of your events, things like relegation from the administration happens. They decided they couldn't/didn't want to be be competitive at the D1 level so they're going to stop funding losing programs. Why is that such an issue?
I see people pointing to the basketball team making their first tournament. They finished middle of the pack in their conference and struck lighting by winning the conf tournament. All that to get blown out in the first round. Not grounds for keeping a program. 1st tournament appearance is never indicative of a strong athletic dept.