Rob Gage

[Texarkana]

@RugBug

Teachers lose jobs when they have relationships with students past the age of consent, not because it’s illegal, but because it is in the code of conduct that they signed at some point. So, if it wasn’t there, like it may not be there for USEF, what then?

But… there are teachers who have worked in the system before student/teacher relationships became explicitly forbidden. Awareness of sexual misconduct is a relatively new thing. Some of those teachers have tenure situations that muddy the situation further, because they may not be signing an annual contract. Yet that doesn’t mean those teachers can engage in sexual misconduct with their students without penalty. It also doesn’t mean that the school district couldn’t fire a teacher for sexual misconduct that occurred in the past, before it was explicitly forbidden-- a lot of old cases are coming to light now and that exact situation is happening frequently.

I don’t see how it’s different for a USEF member.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@MHM

The victim was 24? Or 14?

14 - typo!

[Dorito]

@RugBug

Teachers lose jobs when they have relationships with students past the age of consent, not because it’s illegal, but because it is in the code of conduct that they signed at some point. So, if it wasn’t there, like it may not be there for USEF, what then?

When we join USEF we agree to follow the rules of SafeSport.

The SafeSport code says “The Center assesses a Participant’s fitness to participate in sport. As past conduct informs current fitness, no criminal, civil or rules-based statutes of limitations or time bars of any kind prevent the Center from investigating, assessing, considering and adjudicating any relevant conduct regardless of when it occurred.”

I don’t have a law background, so I don’t know if there is some loophole, but I think it’s pretty clear what we agreed to in order to be a USEF member. If people don’t want to follow the rules of the club they are free to not join.

[McGurk]

@RugBug,

No, I’m capable of thinking beyond this case.

I am sure that in 2019, teachers have to sign a code of conduct. Did they, in the 70s and 80s? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. Because there are just certain behaviors so universally agreed to be egregious that they don’t have to be spelled out, and I think sex with your students is one of them. (Not just minor students, I think many college professors have damaged their careers this way.)

In 2019, employees have to sign/acknowledge they’ve read employee handbooks, but no employee handbook spells out every, single way you can be terminated for cause. For instance, my current company’s handbook doesn’t address sleeping on the job, but we still terminate people for sleeping on the job.

So to go back to your example, 17 year old riding student dating 19 year old working student or assistant trainer is still probably in a grey area. Sexual behavior with a younger teen by an instructor or coach? Never not going to be a serious breach of ethics.

@MHM,

The only info I have is what’s been reported here, and what I’ve gleaned from various social media accounts. So not reliable info; but all that’s available at the moment.

[PonyPenny]

@Dorito

When we join USEF we agree to follow the rules of SafeSport.

The SafeSport code says “The Center assesses a Participant’s fitness to participate in sport. As past conduct informs current fitness, no criminal, civil or rules-based statutes of limitations or time bars of any kind prevent the Center from investigating, assessing, considering and adjudicating any relevant conduct regardless of when it occurred.”

I don’t have a law background, so I don’t know if there is some loophole, but I think it’s pretty clear what we agreed to in order to be a USEF member. If people don’t want to follow the rules of the club they are free to not join.

Not true. Some people with life memberships were members way before SafeSport came into play.

[poltroon]

@atl_hunter

Thank you for taking the time to summarize this in layman’s terms. I think you sum up what so many understand but cannot express as eloquently.

I just keep coming back to “the law is reason free from passion” on this one. What was the USEF rule at the time is an interesting question. What other retroactive rules could be applied in the future given this precedent? Could a drug rule change happen in the future for something like Equioxx, and then applied to existing specimens in the lab? Given this precedent, any rule of today could be applied to any activity from yesteryear, and that’s an interesting conundrum.

The USEF rule is not written to be specific for a list of medications, but is a more catchall a phrasing EXACTLY so they can prosecute retrospectively if they have a sample and a new test. (Same is true for Olympic athletes/ WADA.) There are guidelines, and a prohibited substance list, but if someone starts administering a new substance for performance-enhancing reasons, USEF can start testing for it and banning it immediately without having to create a new rule. USEF usually does issue guidance when they become aware of these, because honestly, it’s a big PITA for everyone to have positive tests, and the purpose of testing is for people NOT to administer dangerous and/or performance enhancing drugs, not to catch and prosecute people.

(WADA on the other hand has retroactively stripped medals and titles.)

There is a list of allowed therapeutic substances, and when they change the rules on those, there is notice. For example, when they modified the rules to say you could have any of several NSAIDs but you couldn’t stack them, or that you couldn’t have more than what they felt was a therapeutic dose, they sent out warning letters to people who tested in excess of those before they changed the rule and began enforcing it with the Hearing Committee.

[roseymare]

I doubt you are grandfathered in though. Life members can’t claim they want to abide by the 1968 rulebook because that is when they joined.

[Texarkana]

@McGurk

@RugBug,

I am sure that in 2019, teachers have to sign a code of conduct. Did they, in the 70s and 80s? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. Because there are just certain behaviors so universally agreed to be egregious that they don’t have to be spelled out, and I think sex with your students is one of them. (Not just minor students, I think many college professors have damaged their careers this way.)

In 2019, employees have to sign/acknowledge they’ve read employee handbooks, but no employee handbook spells out every, single way you can be terminated for cause. For instance, my current company’s handbook doesn’t address sleeping on the job, but we still terminate people for sleeping on the job.

Just for the record… no school I’ve ever worked at made me sign a “code of conduct.” There is no oath of teaching or anything.

We have an employee handbook just like any other place of employment. It works more or less like the latter situation you describe. By accepting employment, you agree to follow the terms spelled out in the handbook.

Every school I have ever worked has had some sort of verbiage about sexual misconduct being grounds for immediate termination. There is also usually verbiage about situations not covered by the handbook being at the discretion of the supervisors.

Pretty much every state has at-will employment now, which makes it a lot easier to remove people for violating the terms set forth in the handbook.

[Denali6298]

@PonyPenny

Not true. Some people with life memberships were members way before SafeSport came into play.

Not necessarily related to SS but in general, if one has a lifetime membership can you not request that it be canceled?

[vxf111]

@RugBug

He is correct in that statement. It’s considered aiding and abetting. It’s Section IX.E of the Safe Sport Code: https://safesport.org/files/details/114

I don’t read it that way but I think your reading is also reasonable

[APirateLooksAtForty]

@PonyPenny

Not true. Some people with life memberships were members way before SafeSport came into play.

THIS

[atl_hunter]

@poltroon

The USEF rule is not written to be specific for a list of medications, but is a more catchall a phrasing EXACTLY so they can prosecute retrospectively if they have a sample and a new test. (Same is true for Olympic athletes/ WADA.) There are guidelines, and a prohibited substance list, but if someone starts administering a new substance for performance-enhancing reasons, USEF can start testing for it and banning it immediately without having to create a new rule. USEF usually does issue guidance when they become aware of these, because honestly, it’s a big PITA for everyone to have positive tests, and the purpose of testing is for people NOT to administer dangerous and/or performance enhancing drugs, not to catch and prosecute people.

(WADA on the other hand has retroactively stripped medals and titles.)

There is a list of allowed therapeutic substances, and when they change the rules on those, there is notice. For example, when they modified the rules to say you could have any of several NSAIDs but you couldn’t stack them, or that you couldn’t have more than what they felt was a therapeutic dose, they sent out warning letters to people who tested in excess of those before they changed the rule and began enforcing it with the Hearing Committee.

My point was that this sets a precedent that they could change a rule and then go back down memory lane into the past, dig around the stored sample sets, and apply today’s rule to an infringement of the past. I must not have explained that well enough. For example, GABA wasn’t banned in the 90’s but it is now. This sets a precedent that they could pull your sample from before that medication or drug was added to the list, and if they find it they can retroactively apply the rule. That’s all.

I am not sure I agree that the drug testing of late is as you claim, but we can agree to disagree. I am sure that was the initial purpose, but then again the initial purpose of SafeSport was to keep athletes safe today, and not 30-40 years ago.

I also don’t believe the testing is as “random” as people think. It would be best to make a rule that we just test all winners, 3rd place and 6th place. That’s how some of the breeds do it to keep it more fairly “random.” I think a lot of rules start out with good intentions, but there are a lot of loopholes that make it easy to challenge. Some drug testers admit they always test “so and so.” That’s not random.

We can agree to disagree.

[RugBug]

@Texarkana

Just for the record… no school I’ve ever worked at made me sign a “code of conduct.” There is no oath of teaching or anything.

We have an employee handbook just like any other place of employment. It works more or less like the latter situation you describe. By accepting employment, you agree to follow the terms spelled out in the handbook.

Every school I have ever worked has had some sort of verbiage about sexual misconduct being grounds for immediate termination. There is also usually verbiage about situations not covered by the handbook being at the discretion of the supervisors.

Pretty much every state has at-will employment now, which makes it a lot easier to remove people for violating the terms set forth in the handbook.

Code of Conduct is sometimes stand alone but often included in the Employee Handbook.

And yes, just about every employer, school district or otherwise has verbiage about sexual misconduct being grounds for termination. At-will clauses are well and good, but any HR professional will tell you all it does is allow you another point in your defense of a wrongful termination.

But I think the point that I am trying to get it is this - we’ve been talking about how sex with a minor, mostly defined as under 18 on this thread, is abhorrent and that the power differential makes it wrong, even if it is a consensual relationship. Ethically/morally wrong and illegal are different. So, before Safe Sport, in states that had lower ages of consent, an instructor pursuing a relationship with an of age student may have been morally repugnant, was it grounds for any type of action, legal or by an association?

[IPEsq]

Ok, I have to ask… do we really think the complainants by and large had engaged in truly consensual and not forced or coerced conduct?

Yes, a third party can report something they saw, but doesn’t it have to be corroborated by the victim?

[ladyj79]

Pretty much every place I’ve taught in a decade has made me take nearly identical to safe sport training modules.

This is not new, it is not onerous, it is very much a part of many, many workplaces these days. And since the people complaining are almost without exception pros, it seems like they should pretty easily get on board with totally normal workplace policies.

[ladyj79]

Also, wtf, teacher/trainer/rando creep, leave those kids alone!

[Denali6298]

@RugBug I don’t think an of age student, 17 for example for the states that set the age at 16, entering in a consensual relationship would randomly report it to Safe Sport. I also think despite, the different ages of consent set by the states, safe Sport can set the age at 17.

[OwnTooMany]

@McGurk

@OwnTooMany,

I find one big flaw in your reasoning here.

(2) Consensual sex between an adult and a 17 year old minor is not illegal in most states.

That isn’t what happened and that’s not why SafeSport sanctioned Rob Gage.

What was and wasn’t legal at the time is a red herring.

An adult instructor or coach in a position of power over the teen-aged athlete engaged in a sexual relationship with that teen. That’s an entirely different problem than what you’ve described.

Would a high school teacher or coach in the same situation lost their job over a relationship with a student in the 70s and 80s? YES, THEY WOULD HAVE. And they might have lost their teaching license as well had a parent or school system been willing to push it that far. Mostly they just had to find a new job in a different school district.

Safe Sport isn’t concerned with a high school senior dating a high school junior, or even a college kid still dating his underage high school girlfriend. The age difference is slight and there’s no imbalance of power.

What happened here was about the power and influence a prominent, well known rider and coach had over his horse and riding crazy teen students. That’s what makes this different, and worthy of serious sanction.

I agree with you that imbalance of power is important and it is appropriate in the code and going forward.

But with respect to retrospective application, my understanding is that SafeSport relies on the rules in place at the time. My understanding is also that USEF had no applicable rules, so SafeSport then turns to the law in place at the time. This is why age of the victim 30 years ago matters. If the victim was 15 or under, then there is no ambiguity that a crime occurred. If the victim is older than 15, then whether or not a crime occurred depends on the state. This leads to the situation that the same behavior might lead to sanction if you lived in one state and no sanction if you lived in another. I think many people would view this as strange and somewhat unfair.

While power imbalance is important, it was not in the USEF rules and not in the law 30 years ago. Many things are complicated by retrospective application of rules developed now.

[roseymare]

@vxf111

I don’t read it that way but I think your reading is also reasonable

I read it as someone being a trainer as a figurehead only as aiding and abetting. Not having a barn on ones own and having paying customers who may be USEF members. But I also see where that point could be made especially in instances of multiple trainers at a barn.

[vxf111]

@roseymare

I read it as someone being a trainer as a figurehead only as aiding and abetting. Not having a barn on ones own and having paying customers who may be USEF members. But I also see where that point could be made especially in instances of multiple trainers at a barn.

This is also how I read it. You cannot circumvent the process by having someone else pretend to be a trainer at a USEF show when truly you are the trainer in all but name. I am pretty sure that is for situations like when banned-horse-killer-trainer puts on a wig and go watch his son show at USEF shows. He doesn’t sign the entry blank but he is essentially acting as coach at the show. In terms of what the entry blank says, the trainer is “Random Patsy” but “Random Patsy” knows he’s not the trainer, Horse Killer is. Under that circumstances, Random Patsy could be sanctioned for aiding and abetting.

I do not read it as preventing a banned person from running a barn and training clients who go meet up with a non-banned trainer for USEF shows. That being said, I don’t think RugBug’s reading is illogical and I can see where she is coming from in having that interpretation. I don’t think it’s what USEF expressly said or meant but I absolutely think it’s a reasonable reading. I don’t believe, so far, any USEF member has been sanctioned for aiding and abetting and I have a hard time believing it would be used against a CLIENT who boards/trains at home with a banned person (or buys a horse from a banned person, or takes a clinic from a banned person, or buys Avon products from a banned person, etc.) but who has a separate trainer (or goes alone) to USEF shows and USEF activities. I read it as applying to someone who actively helps a banned person circumvent the rules preventing the banned person from participating in USEF events.

Running a barn at home is not a USEF event. Sneakily finding a way to coach at a USEF show is different.