(((((endlessclimb))))) I can tell you that at some point my “nightly” nightmares stopped - I pray they do for you as well.
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This is just like politics… people pick a side, dig their heels in and plug their ears.
It seems like many that know and support GM don’t want SS to go away; just want a better and fair process. And many that have been victimized or feel for all possible victims; want to be believed, listened to, heard and have a process to get help.
Looks like so many really want the same thing.
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@endlessclimb - ditto. Thank you for sharing, and I am so sorry. All of these discussions and news stories are very triggering for many people. I hope you find a way through some of what it’s dredged up and get at least one more step forward on your healing journey. I know that’s what has happened for me this summer.
Take care of yourself.
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This seems so cut and dry to me. Pedophiles and Sexual Assaulters have no place in our sport - regardless of how long ago the incident(s) is/are proven to have occurred. GM has known this was coming for some time - he had his chance to disprove the allegation(s) - and could not. He now is simply arguing the penalty is too severe - not that he did not do the egregious acts. He has no right to be around our venues/events/people/horses. These are and should be the consequences of his perverted actions. Why would we want any different outcome? So odd to me that anyone would fight against this. And yes - there will be more to follow as there should be. If not our sport will die due to the pollution of the players and the tolerance of the participants.
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I think you are exactly right. If you ask them, pretty much everyone will agree that for any type of disciplinary or adjudicative proceeding, we want it to be fair. Pretty much everyone will also agree that we don’t want sexual misconduct in horse sports or any other endeavor. So people have the same fundamental values.
Then it just becomes a technical argument over the specific procedures: Should cross-examination be permitted? Should there be any discovery? Should prior bad acts be allowed to show that it’s more likely the accused committed this particular bad act? etc. etc.
These questions have been debated in various legal and administrative contexts forever, so it’s no surprise they are being debated here. It’s a question of where you choose to draw the line on the continuum of, on the one hand, increasing the chances of punishing every offender versus, on the other hand, avoiding inadvertently punishing a few innocent people.
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Really the jumpers are the only part of this that’s an Olympic discipline. Since there seems to be so much squabbling and bitching and moaning about safe sport and due process and all these other things that people just don’t seem to understand, why don’t the jumpers just split off and they can be under safe sport and whatever else in US EF and whatever and the hunters can split off and go do their own thing since they aren’t an Olympic discipline. I think to me that would probably send the loudest statement because the hunters are not governed by the Olympics.
The Hunters will always be under SafeSport. It is not just for Olympic Sports.
I believe I posted this earlier, -
Which non-NGB sport organizations are required to comply?
Non-NGB sports organizations include those teams, leagues, camps, sports facilities, tournament hosts, churches, and schools that participate in interstate or international amateur athletic competitions, and whose membership includes any adult who is in regular contact with an amateur athlete who is a minor.
https://www.sadlersports.com/new-saf…organizations/
I would assume the show facility falls under within this definition as a sports facility.
I also saw this on a YMCA website (bolding is mine) [TABLE=“border: 0, cellpadding: 2, cellspacing: 2”]
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[TD=“width: 100%”]Safe Sport Act
The Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017 was created in reaction to the abuse found various youth sports organizations, including USA Gymnastics. This act will create new a standard of care that will affect youth-serving organizations across the country. The purpose of the law is to expand existing mandated reporting laws to all youth sport organizations that participate in international or interstate sporting events. This has the potential to affect not only national governing bodies like USA Gymnastics, USA Swimming, and other Olympic sports, [B]but the law will also impact camps, public and private schools, collegiate sports, country clubs, community organizations, and sport facilities.[/B][/TD]
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It is a complex emotional issue.
People can and do turn their life around that have had drug, alcohol, sexual abuse issues etc. The focus to offer help for all would be beneficial. Saying that, people make their own choices and some choose not to get help or better their situation and there is no forcing them. If that is the case; this is where an organization can prohibit an offender.
Establishing and enforcing well written regulations would be a good start…
except the “better and fair process” they describe is in contrast to the pretend one they are making up: mich of what they are calling for is actually how safe sport functions.
Except those who only want to adhere to findings in criminal court.
One is a strawman, the other is demonstrably insufficient.
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Except pedophiles.
I’ve sat down to dinner with psychiatrists and psychotherapists who have worked in the prison system and in private practice with sex offenders.
They will all tell you that the only pedophiles who don’t reoffend are the ones who got better at not getting caught.
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It seems to me there is more then just 2 sides to this argument.
- Those for SS
- Those that want changes to SS
- Those that stand with George.
I have had similar discussions with experts on the topic as you and support the philosophy; not to paint everyone with the same broad brush.
Stating “THEY” - point being; picking a side. It is simply my opinion as your statement is also an opinion; No true resolution will come if people cannot find a way to work together.
Ted Stevens Act. That’s what created USEF out of USET and AHSA to begin with. There can only be one NGB for an Olympic sport. Along with the above mentioned issue that would make USHJA subject to SS as well.
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Good thing GM is not a pedophile then.
A pedophile is someone who has a sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Typically under the age of 11. Someone who has sexually offended against a minor is not automatically a pedophile.
Plenty of “pedophiles” never offend against children; they may be well aware of their attraction but never seek to act on it. The same way someone may have intense fantasies about [insert a strange / illegal / immoral fetish] and never seek to actually act it out.
OTOH. Plenty of sexual offenders who have offended against children did so, not because they were attracted to them, but because the victim was in a position to be victimised - similar to prison rape. The offender may not have a same-sex attraction, but “when in jail…”
As an actual prison psych (and now officer), we see plenty of all of the above: one time offenders, reoffenders, can’t-not-reoffenders. Blanket statements about reoffence rates has no place here.
The incorrect use of the term pedophile is rampant here. There is no evidence to suggest that GM ever offended against a prepubescent minor.
Carry on.
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Sure, he’s an ephibophile. I already gave that word earlier in the thread Old Mac Donald.
Let’s just say people like George Morris who groom and sexually assault minor children. Better??
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Great question!
IMO, the contract should specify. I’ll bet it does name and specify what security deposit is for.
And because that bit of housing law is so well-defined, I think a boarder who got ripped off might just win in court. Again, the contract should specify, precisely because language would have come from contracts that were common in other business like renting apartments versus renting stalls, with board and are.
And another thing! Housing law tells a landlord exactly how she must handle the tenant’s security deposit and what must be done and documented if she will keep some of that. Among other things, in the states whose laws I know best requires that the landlord present a written accounting of the funds kept and what they were fore (e.g. not cleaning the blinds or leaving a room needing to be repainted.)
So I think a BO might find herself on the wrong side of the law if she couldn’t prove that she had used the Security Deposit the right way. Again, I’d think (and I’d argue to a judge) that if the security deposit were to be used for unpaid board or damages, interchangeably, then the contract should have specified that since the relevant area of law does not have those so combined.
I have never been asked to leave either a Security Deposit or Last Month’s Board by any boarding contract I have signed. But you can bet I’d read that part carefully and have a conversation with the BO in order to make sure that we were on the same page about how money and moving out were going to happen.
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So, so tired of boarding being the unregulated wild west.
But take heart, and/or a note from history: Rental housing used to be this way, too. And, by and large, tenants have only won the protections they have gotten via the courts. It might be, then, that boarding will be just as crappy and one-sided until boarders stand up and refused to be mistreated by the BOs. If tenents-- usually poorer than landlords-- can do this, so can horse owners.
On that note and the proper topic of this thread: This business will only be as clean as you pay for. If you pay for bad treatment, you will get it. If you insist on better for your money, you will get better.
A secondary difference that we haven’t discussed between a criminal proceeding and an administrative one is that cases of sexual misconduct, assault, and bullying are different in a workplace, a school, or in this case, an athletic community, also come with specific rights entitling the victim to participate.
- Public schools are both semi-mandatory and entitlements.
- Colleges and workplaces have obligations to ensure people are not harassed out of a job or an education. (Colleges have the additional challenge of managing housing.)
- Athletes have protections meant to ensure their ability to participate even if their national federations find them annoying. (These come from the Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act and was a response to some specific obnoxious actions by the AAU; they are reinforced by the amendment that created SafeSport.)
One of the facts recognized by these processes is that with an accusation of sexual misconduct, there’s not really a neutral position: someone is going to lose their ability to participate, whether through action or inaction. Choosing not to act has the impact of taking rights and opportunities away from the claimant in favor of the accused.
For years, this was not acknowledged. And the effect was that a person who was abused ended up having to leave the community because action was not taken against the abuser and because being in a small community with the abuser was intolerable.
(In a criminal case, the stakes for the accused are higher, in that they can lose their freedom entirely and become a convicted felon, but also in general the accuser has more opportunities to avoid interaction with the accused regardless of outcome. Not always in practice.)
Then of course, for the most part the accused ALSO has these rights. In our sport that would be most so when it involves two athletes and not when one party is exclusively a coach.
So to take one of the harder cases, drawn from a real life example in wrestling, A credibly claims that B entered her hotel room while she was sleeping and assaulted her in her bed. Let’s say it’s credible and likely it happened that way but there’s not enough evidence to convict in a court of law.
A no longer feels safe traveling with the team if B is selected. (B may also feel unsafe traveling with A on the team.)
So, now you have to choose. You only get one of these team members going forward. Which will it be?
That is among the problems making these cases so hard.
One thing happening here is that we are seeing only the hardest cases. Situations that can be informally mediated are (that’s right in the SafeSport procedures). Situations where the offenses are less, or the accused less well-known, don’t get as much attention. Situations where a criminal conviction is obtained are simple. And we see only the name of the accused - so we are unconsciously choosing between someone we know, or know of, and an unknown number of blank slates that could be one or many.
Feel the difference when you’re talking about Jimmy Williams with some anonymous girls, versus Jimmy Williams with Carol Creamcheese, versus Jimmy Williams with Anne Kursinski. Whether we mean to or not, we’re inclined to make rather grotesque choices not based on what he did but on who he did it to and if we know or love that person. I’ve crassly said the only reason Anne could come out is because she had more Olympic medals than Jimmy and I don’t think I’m wrong. Even all of the other girls who have spoken on the record would not be enough to have swayed opinion as much as her testimony did.
What we say when we do this is that Jimmy is worth more than all those girls put together. (Ironically, there seem to be people who believe this even though he’s dead.) And that’s just ugly.
Horse and rider training is not so rarified a skill that it can only be obtained from abusers.
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Odd that this poster would have forgotten dressage and eventing, and there are several more sports regulated by the FEI for international competition. But, as Keep it Simple points out, the law is much broader in scope.
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