I agree. No need to publicly call her anything but a pedophile defender, really. If my nieces were riders, I’d keep them away from any trainer, judge, or clinician that had that mentality. My hope is that as people google a trainer or clinician and see their name associated with wanting to tear down an organization that is finally draining the swamp of predators, they’ll think twice about where they spend their money. Knowing the equestrian world though, that’s unlikely. There was a mother defending sending kids to Navarro at some point a while back.
9 Likes
I did say her thoughts are not well articulated, but I didn’t speculate as to why that might be.
1 Like
IMO, reading between her convoluted lines, DC doesn’t see herself as a pedophile-enabler and doesn’t intend to be. Rather, she justifies her position with a different definition of what constitutes a pedophile than that held by most of the people on this thread.
Based on their own statements, DC and her followers seem to view minors as being as accountable as adults for whatever happens. Even a minor knows the score and behaves with intent, they seem to believe.
The entire focus of DC & followers’ alarm are scenarios in which a hostile former lover makes unfounded accusations that will be accepted at face value. Regardless of the relative ages of the parties - that never seems to be a factor in their scenarios. DC seems to think that this is SafeSport’s sole emphasis. That and over-reaction to youthful indiscretions when the accused was a minor themselves, or was barely beyond that age.
By seemingly holding minors fully accountable, DC et.al. relieve GM and others of any guilt. There are no predators. There are only equally accountable consenting participants, age notwithstanding.
See how that works? The victim and the accused switch places, because the victim is acting out of malice toward a former lover, and so therefore is not a really a ‘victim’. In this alternate reality the age of the accuser isn’t a factor, because everyone is emotionally accountable from … well, infancy, I guess.
So under this theory DC et. al. feel fully justified in defending the accused, who in their eyes is being unfairly punished out of pure malice by someone from their past.
This seems to me to be the context they’ve adopted for GM’s situation. They aren’t denying what he did. They are denying that the victims were victims. Their attitude implies that the victims were fully capable of making their own decisions at the time, and therefore share equal accountability. Therefore no victimization by GM ever occurred. Instead it was the youthful former lover of bad character who became hostile and vindictive toward GM. This interpretation justifies ‘standing with GM’ as right, ethical and strong.
That’s how I read DC’s resistance to SafeSport - it doesn’t allow for a context of actual victimization. It’s a wild guess on my part that, to these minds, victimization only happens if someone is attacked in a dark alley by a perfect stranger.
It’s a very dated view of sexual abuse, but once upon a time it wasn’t that uncommon to hear a lot of similar verbiage from people with these sorts of beliefs. Accusations were never merited, it was the accusers who didn’t understand ordinary human behavior and/or were of bad character. It’s a handy go-to attitude that excuses reprehensible behavior by people with high status.
Sadly there are people who view heroes as above reproach and everyone else as expendable. They have to justify it somehow, and it’s handy to put the accountability on others, no matter how ridiculous the logic seems.
23 Likes
It is very problematic that Diane Carney, a judge and official licensed by USEF , champions these beliefs.
USEF has a problem on their hands and it is a difficult one. Much more difficult to solve than the basic issue of keeping abusers out of the organization, a plan which had to be done for them by the implementation of Safe Sport.
It will be interesting to see how they decide to manage having one of their officials publicly trying to undermine a program USEF has said that they fully endorse, or if they will address the issue with her at all.
10 Likes
Yes. That right there is an example of intellectual laziness serving evil.
It would be much more complicated to ask whether or not children have the kind of power or experience or skill that makes them capable of giving consent or refusing to. It’s also a whole lot more complicated to appreciate how a victim of sexual abuse may, in turn, develop his or her own less-savory history afterwards. That might have come from the abuse, or from having been raised such that they found themselves in harm’s way (sorry, I don’t know how to put this politely without sounding as if I am blaming parents when their kids become victims). And it takes more effort to remember that you don’t have to like a victim, nor do they have to be unimpeachable characters in order for that person to still deserve protection under the law.
I don’t think Carney is interested in any of this complexity. And so it comes to pass that sexually abused children were not her target, but they are collaterally damaged in ways that does not attract her attention.
7 Likes
@OverandOnward I think most of us understand what Diane and company believe about the forceable sodomy of minors, we just find their beliefs vomitous and would like to see them drummed out of the sport rather than making a living from it.
13 Likes
Something else that comes up is moms worried about their sons being falsely accused. Here’s the scoop, Moms. If your son is involved in a sexual assault case, statistically, the mostly likely position he will hold in that case is abuser. The second most likely is victim. The third most likely is falsely accused.
It seems so crazy to me that we never heard a peep from anyone about sexual assault until someone brought up the least likely event as a cause for alarm.
5 Likes
I don’t think this is true.
The market should vote with its feet and its wallet. Carney doesn’t work for the USEF, but rather for the clinic hosts and show managers who will hire her. So long as she as not violated any USEF or SafeSport sanctions, the USEF doesn’t get to have anything to say.
As far as vacuuming the industry of bad characters, I think you have to see the USEF has being the last line of defense (and a narrow one at that), and not the first line of defense. The first line of defense is employers not hiring her. The second one (and a broad line of defense which is comprised by all of us) is our unwillingness to patronize the events that include her on the payroll. Anyone can decide to turn their feet and their wallet away from Carney.
9 Likes
[QUOTE=mvp;n10577376]
I don’t think this is true.
The market should vote with its feet and its wallet. Carney doesn’t work for the USEF, but rather for the clinic hosts and show managers who will hire her. So long as she as not violated any USEF or SafeSport sanctions, the USEF doesn’t get to have anything to say.
As far as vacuuming the industry of bad characters, I think you have to see the USEF has being the last line of defense (and a narrow one at that), and not the first line of defense. The first line of defense is employers not hiring her. The second one (and a broad line of defense which is comprised by all of us) is our unwillingness to patronize the events that include her on the payroll. Anyone can decide to turn their feet and their wallet away from Carney.
I don’t think is should just be parents who, in some kind of protection for their kid, don’t send the kid to a Carney clinic. Rather, I think it should be all adults who insist that their money line up with their values.
so third most likely is less than six percent.
So if your son is accused, it’s statistically very, very likely he committed an assault.
false accusations are definitely not the problem
This red herring is not ok.
10 Likes
I understand your point and agree, to an extent.
Carney is licensed by USEF and in that respect is an official credentialed by the organization. USEF has rules that govern the behavior of their officials.
Whether any of those rules are applicable in this case, and if they feel the need to speak with her regarding her representation of USEF, is obviously up to them. https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/3wwM…l-media-policy I agree that they will most likely be the last line of defense. https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/0T1b…code-of-ethics.
1 Like
And this is what they will not answer. Would be keenly interested if anyone can get them to publicly express their own views on the role of the minor in such a relationship, on a Q&A video or in writing. The seem to be just canny enough to know that doing this would push them into an endless social media rabbit hole from which they won’t emerge.
What they imply is that the minor is at least 50% of the issue, and maybe even far more accountable than that.
It’s like they have been asleep for the last 50 years of psychological study, understanding and progress.
Exactly, IMO.
And they seem to think that the public will follow them back to an unenlightened past. I don’t know if DC & her followers truly believe that the public can be encouraged to adopt her views. I suspect they are just trying to gather in the small number of people who agree with them that have enough influence in the USEF to sway the future of SafeSport. If those people even exist, as some of her followers probably don’t have the influence that they may have had at an earlier point in time.
But nothing anyone says on social media or anywhere else is likely to change AfE’s trajectory.
Anything that can be done to cause them to spend more money will help them exhaust their financial backing and peter out that much faster. I suspect that running out of money is the only thing that will quiet them.
4 Likes
I personally think, they feel they have enough sway as BNTs, and people connected to the top that people will think it’s in their best interest to follow along. I personally think they are delusional and like you said need to run out of money. I don’t think people like DC live in the real world and therefore misjudge the AVERAGE horse owner.
9 Likes
Another letter to SafeSport requesting information “for statistical purposes”.
[I]February 12, 2020
Ju’Riese Colon
Chief Executive Officer U. S. Center for Safe Sport
1385 S Colorado Blvd. Ste A-706
Denver, CO 80222
Ms. Colon:
My name is Diane Carney. I am the President of Athletes for Equity in Sport, Inc., a non-profit organization advocating on behalf of athletes, coaches, trainers and others impacted by your organization. This is letter twelve I have sent and we have not received the courtesy of a response.
Please provide me with the following information for statistical purposes:
[/I] [LIST=1]
I look forward to receiving this information. Your prompt attention to my request will be appreciated. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Diane Carney
President of Athletes for Equity in Sport
Kelly K. Cormaci, Master in Behavior Forensic Science,c
Vice President, Athletes for Equity in Sport[/I]
1 Like
How long do you think it will take until it sinks in that she will not be getting that information?
12 Likes
A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
9 Likes
Indeed!
1 Like
I agree that it will be interesting to see exactly what USEF does going forward. I noticed that, at the USEF Convention, Bill Moroney did make a strong statement in support of Safesport, for our athletes right to be safe and saying that there is no room in our sport for any kind of abuse. I also noted that Murray Kessler never made a strong statement. When I saw his resignation, part of me wondered if this issue is something he just doesn’t want to take on, (To be clear, I am not saying Kessler has done anything wrong, just that dealing with this highly charged issue may not be what he signed up for.)
MK is walking away. Because of his new wife (and his daughter’s hatred of her) and return to CEO, he probably feels that he has more important things to deal with than cleaning up a mess than has been under the tables for decades and wants to distance himself from the tilted ship he was asked to steer for a bit, to enjoy his new life.
3 Likes
Kelly’s signature, though. “I have a Master’s Degree! In SCIENCE!!”
1 Like
