George Morris on the SS list

This whole situation on fb is getting out of control. Usef needs to answer questions & put the reinstatement issue of JS to rest. I feel so bad for all victims, this shaming will keep many people from ever coming forward.
What I’m not clear on, is… Can SS only ban members? So, unless someone has a lifetime band, they can rejoin if a ban is lifted. Was JS ‘s previous ban a lifetime ban?
Also, I remember when Bernie Traurig publicly stated he would terminate his usef membership. So, if your not a member, are you safe from any possible sanctions?

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yes, you are correct. MVP is confused.

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Deleted reference to a post subsequently edited/deleted.

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I take your point… so why publish that “almost” info here, on the interwebz?

Ooh… that’s bad. Mea culpa! Do you guys want me to take my post about her down and you all erase yours, too?

But I think someone else mentioned her here. I’ll have to re-read.

In any case, let me know what anyone commenting in a way that brings Hardin’s name into this mess wants to do about expunging that… as best we can if it was my mistake.

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I don’t usually post but have a lot lately because this hits so close to home for me, and I am stepping down from my soapbox after this. To anyone who still doesn’t get it… I have an image etched in my memory forever, looking over and seeing my husband standing on the platform by the in gate videoing me, as he always does, with the GM arena sign in the background… can you imagine what a horrible insult that is to him or any victim of sexual abuse?

Still zero mention on the appeal by the USHJA on their official page . I don’t know how many recall this disturbing comment from a PH magazine interview with President Mary Babick … “Two: I hear about seceding from USEF a lot. And, we have a few contingency plans in place if the Board of Directors decides that they want to go that way. It is very complicated, not undoable, but very complicated. The intricacies of our relationship with the USEF and our systems is something that I have spent ten years studying. You have to understand how all of the pieces work before you can effect change. Regulation and drug testing are big components. The jumper piece makes it very difficult because of the national/international competition conversation. Our jumper discipline requires that we be involved with the NGB and USEF is the NGB for jumpers.” The organization isn’t going to do jack to support survivors. Babick needs to go along with All other Representatives who refuse to stand up and FULLY SUPPORT Safe Sport. IMO their only strategy is EXIT.

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Fair Judy, I totally agree. It seems that even the higher ups in the organization are afraid to take a stand for fear of being victim shamed themselves.
Someone at the top needs to be the voice & let the horse world know things are changing & everyone WILL play by the rules. Enough is enough.
I believe the entire high up of industry is power & money driven. Corruption

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Hey there. Yup - mvp misinterpreted my original post bringing Kristin _ _ Hardin up.

I brought her up because she was one of only a TINY number of upper level riders who did have personal connections with both RG and GM to publicly say something in the early summer. And her public words on the issue were DEFINITELY on the right side of all of it.

Essentially, she posted as a mother, and sided with PROTECTING and CARING about minors.

She also did mention that GM had made threats, and specifically that her family had been threatened.

I was really sad sad to see that her post came down a few weeks after it went up. But I can only imagine what sort of private vitriol she got for it initially. So personally… I don’t blame her for taking a break from this months long tragic unraveling of her industry.

Anne K obviously also spoke up again in the most recent Sarah Maslin Nir article. She encouraged people NOT to victim blame. But she too, admitted to taking a step back in recent months. And who can blame her? They want her head on a PIKE out in California, and frankly there seem to be more and more nasty comments about her popping up from the summer onwards, now that some time had passed since the initial revelations of 2018. And it’s pretty obvious that a huge issue is SH… she’s mobilized a great deal of the industry AGAINST Safe Sport.

USEF needs to speak up. NOW. It’s time for LEADERSHIP.

The Op Ed in the Chronicle by Beth R was what USEF should have communicated. But didn’t. Folks need to understand that if we can’t figure out Safe Sport in Equestrian sports… we are at risk of no longer participating in the Olympics. If you are a professional, and a soulless narcissist who doesn’t care one bit about kids being abused… I can’t help you in terms of your broken humanity… but at least pause, and focus, and realize that you need to SHUT UP, take Safe Sport seriously, and stop rallying around child abusing monsters if you want to keep on doing what you do for a living with horses.

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I’ve wondered about this as well.

Bottom line though, USEF needs to lock on and sort out QUICKLY how they are going to manage folks who publicly “rescind” their memberships, but then continue to offer public clinics and coaching to active USEF members, which is often organized by other USEF members, or hosted at a USEF member’s facility.

Because that is what any of the “old guard” who is worried about being the next name on the banned list could do, and life would go on, the same as it always had.

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Feel free to edit the first part of your post, that was in response to me bringing her up. I get it… it’s hard to remember who has said what over the course of the last year. I remember her post from the summer clearly because it was beautifully written, and she spoke like a caring person, and a mother… not only as a BNT and rider. It disturbed me that after the outcry and the frenzy on the part of the ISWG people got rolling along, EVEN Kristin felt the need to step back from the fray (I won’t blame her for self preservation - it’s necessary sometimes).

But the rest of your comment in was great - so I think you should edit a bit, but leave the rest :slight_smile:

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Yup. I went back and edited that post right away. I stand by the criticism of Moroney’s phoned-in assent to the ruling. That’s recent and, y’all can tell, quoted with a source.

If you want to take down the incorrect interpretation of the facts I had that are kept in your post that quoted me, I think that would be nice to Hardin (whose name Google searches will bring up, even when mistakes like mine were the cause). But you don’t have to do that for my sake.

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I agree on Moroney - you nailed it.

@McGurk was actually the poster who quoted your initial take on Kristin. I went back and checked, as I didn’t think I quoted you, because I figured you must have gotten confused about what my reference was. Maybe they’ll edit their post just to remove that bit :slight_smile:

FWIW - I REALLY appreciate the long running discussion so many have engaged in on these boards over the last several months. These are intense and challenging issues. A silver lining of this dark time is feeling like there is a place to come to where it’s possible to discuss things like this FREELY, with some pretty perceptive and smart folks. It’s MARKEDLY different than the parallel discussions happening on FB. Sort of interesting.

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Who is SH?

Could everyone please use names instead of initials? After almost 3,800 posts, it’s not easy to keep track.

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Safesport can sanction people who are not members. There are people who have been sanctioned that gave up their membership to USEF thinking that it would protect them.

If you are involved in the sport - with anyone who is a member of USEF, or working, volunteering, etc with organizations that are affiliated with USEF, and violate Safesport legislation you can be sanctioned.

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Suzie Hutchison?

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It isn’t always minors that are involved in SafeSport investigations although that is their primary focus. [INDENT][I]The U.S. Congress designated the U.S. Center for SafeSport with the authority to respond to reports of sexual misconduct within the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee by passing the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017. This legislation also known as S.534, designates the Center to serve as the independent national safe sport organization, with the additional responsibility for the Center to develop national policies and procedures to prevent the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of amateur athletes.

Through this legislation, the Center has the exclusive authority to respond to allegations of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct within the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. It also allows the Center to have discretionary jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis over any other forms of misconduct, including bullying, harassment, and physical and emotional abuse. [/I][/INDENT]

Does anyone else wonder how many people are reported on that are under investigation and have not yet been sanctioned?

It is my understanding that temporary sanctions are only placed on individuals when it is extremely clear that they pose an extreme risk to minors and that there are thousands of investigations happening with Safesport that no one will even know about until they have completed the process and a decision is made to sanction. The timeline for the investigations is not a quick process and are extremely thorough. It is quite possible that said “husband” has been reported and is under investigation, as the public is not informed while they are working their way through the system.

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Slightly off topic but I am very curious as to why there are hundreds and hundreds of USEF members that have not taken SS for this past year of 2019, yet still allowed on show grounds.

Status of individual who has not taken the training reads “SafeSport Training Overdue - allowed on competition grounds”

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I did not get the impression that Babick favored an exit, rather that she was giving the background of how the organizations are intertwined. There’s a group that talks about this all the time, mad because there’s drug testing, mad because USEF costs money, mad because whatever bad thing happened to them personally is USEF’s fault. In that context, and no doubt based on the wishes of part of their board, it doesn’t surprise me that they’ve written up a little bit about how they could separate.

It’s based on a false premise anyway, because most of the SafeSport legislation applies to any amateur athletic organization that includes minors and crosses state lines. NGBs have special responsibilities which can be enforced because of their size and relationship to the USOC, but Congress did not limit the Act to them. In addition, as one of the only substantive bipartisan pieces of legislation to pass since 2016, I think anyone who believes that there’s legislative appetite to make it more friendly to people accused of inappropriate sexual contact with children is fooling themselves.

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@poltroon … you seem to be unaware that a certain VERY important person has written something like 15 letters to Congress and President Trump about the need to reform Safe Sport because of this URGENT URGENT need to create more “equity” in the law. Equity for people who are being investigated for sexual abuse of children.

I’m sure our political leaders on both sides of the aisle will pause with impeachment hearings and investigations, and preparations for the 2020 election cycle, and for preparations for the upcoming testimony of DOJ IG Michael Horowitz with respect to his report regarding possible FISA Abuse (I think that he’s scheduled to testify about that on December 11th)…

I’m sure all of these issues will be put on hold by the political class because one of the only pieces of legislation passed since 2016 that amounted to good PR for all of these people is not “equitable” enough to child abusers… according to a number of George Morris fans.

:lol::cool:

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