From the USEF website: https://www.usef.org/compete/resources-forms/rules-regulations/safe-sport-sanctions
"Interim
The following individuals have been placed on an interim suspension by the U.S. Center for SafeSport pending the outcome of a formal investigation and final decision."
This is a good point. I actually conduct investigations about whether to remove members from an association. It is kept confidential until the investigation is done and they are removed. We can ban temporarily but we do not make that public until our procedure is complete. And when there are actually criminal or licensing investigations ongoing, we suspend our inquiry until we have the official court results for the file. I think that is a much fairer process. But if course I would, since I created it!
Are you familiar with our judicial system? With enough evidence anyone can be arrested and have their mug shot splashed across the front page. It doesn’t mean he / she is guilty. We have trials to prove guilt or innocence. Those can take years. In the interim, the person can either sit behind bars or post bail and watch public opinion rip them to shreds.
So what happened? There is no actual evidence. Facts. There are quasi-legal conclusions only.
This is logical to me. If you look at what falls under Safesport, it’s stuff that SHOULD be handled by law enforcement. Now, if Safesport is helping victims navigate that route and advocating for the victims within the legal system? I would be praising it like crazy.
Tiramit, you do have a valid point.
How do you know?
Really, Fordtraktor? He had notice and an opportunity to be heard and lost. The decision was 2/1/19. Apparently he appealed. There was obviously more than some wild accusation.
ETA His was not an interim suspension.
There is no actual evidence that WE CAN SEE obviously. We DON’T KNOW. I guess you are happy to take USEF’s word. The same word that when their attorney answered questions about SafeSport, some of the same people pushing his guilt said was “just some lawyer’s interpretation” and not really in the Policy which was clearly wrong and would never be enforced. It’s just so weird. I am stopping now for the night so don’t expect any further responses from me.
I have mixed feelings about Safesport, but the fact of the matter is, is they could clear up a lot of this backlash by simply providing documentation of investigations once the sentence is handed down. The US legal system requires clear, valid reason to have a court case sealed or kept private, right? Usually when involving a minor or a significant concern for someone’s safety. It’s for this exact reason. People are going to speculate and speculate and speculate, always, and it’s a million times worse when they have no actual facts. I mean, people still speculate about OJ over 25 years later, and that was a very publicly available case.
I’m fine with keeping it all under wraps until a decision is made. But once that decision is made, and lifetime (or temporary) ban handed out, why are they not publishing the findings? The people should have the right to review their governing body’s procedure, findings, and conclusions, to ensure the conclusion and sentence is correct, just, and unbiased.
I actually think they should release but redact any names of victims.
Bernie Traurig just posted on FB that a second person came forward to Safe Sport with allegations against Gage on June 11th and Safe Sport asked for a continuance to Gage’s appeal. Gage was apparently informed who the person was.
I don’t think any of us have enough information to know what really happened. But we can’t have it both ways; we must somehow create a culture where survivors can come forward and be supported, trusted, believed, but also have thorough investigations and punishments that corresponds to the level of offense.
The lack of public information is necessary to protect the victim and the alleged perpetrator; but on social media, vagueness is kindling to a wildfire. At the end of the day, we don’t know what happened. We know there was enough found during the Safe Sport investigation to result in a ban. We know there was apparently a second person who came forward. And we can only hope that Safe Sport is fair and thorough and that those reporting offenses to Safe Sport are doing so honestly.
The USEF is not to blame for any of this. Safe Sport is government-mandated and the USEF is required to uphold its rulings. The USEF isn’t the bad guy here.
The reality is that most offenders are not creepy men in white vans (though they certainly exist) but normal, nice, charming, affable, skilled people living in every day lives. It’s always challenging to reconcile that oftentimes the hidden persona is very different than the external one, particularly when involving people of fame and presence within a community.
It’s a deeply sad situation and I wish we had more information to do more than guess and speculate.
This. It feels like the balance is missing. How do we believe, support and trust while still proceeding with an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ mindset? Is it even possible? Do we even care about that anymore?
That is true. However, the age of consent in California was 18 back then (don’t know about today). And, by the way, the victims were not all 17.
Not true. Absolute BS.
I don’t know that we don’t care about it; I think this has always been a hard concept. If your neighbor is arrested for murdering his wife, it’s hard not to think the worst (and always wonder even if he’s acquitted) in spite of the innocent until proven guilty concept. I find that concept to largely be legal, where socially, the person is often vilified past the point of no return even when innocent.
In the nature of sexual assault or misconduct, it’s incredibly difficult because victims statistically aren’t believed AND statistically don’t lie. Sexual assault or misconduct in a setting that involves children makes it even more sensitive and critical to respond in a way that keeps everyone safe until the investigation concludes. Can you imagine the outcry if an alleged offender was left un-suspended and it turned out he abused more people or children during the investigation? I’d be furious if my child was abused and later learned that the perpetrator was being investigated for the same offense.
We have an obligation to believe the victim; we also have an obligation to ensure enough evidence exists to proceed with an investigation that can ruin someone’s life.
Truly I think it’s a case where the public and social media at large will never be happy. Jimmy Williams has been (mostly) appropriately tarnished, yet what if the proceedings against him were via a Safe Sport complaint lodged by a single person about a 30 year-old incident? We accepted the Jimmy Williams story because it was researched and brought forth in a thorough and well-documented and corroborated manner. I would guess if it had been handled like this Safe Sport incident, it may have been an entirely different public outcome.
Does a thoroughly corroborated and documented and NY Times published story hold any more truth than a single person (and now a second) coming forward about a (theoretically) 30 year old incident of undetermined severity? Not necessarily, but publicly, it sure seems to.
Does a woman who looks back and after maturity and therapy now realizes that a 30 year old relationship that she accepted at the time (and that was perhaps “culturally acceptable” at the time) was actually highly inappropriate and an abuse of power somehow lose her right to speak up and make sure the same isn’t happening to others by the same person because it was “30 years ago and culturally acceptable?”
Remember, Larry Nassar molested girls in front of their parents and in most cases, neither the parent or athlete realized it was abuse until later. Does that invalidate it? I believe it was Ally Raisman who said one of the hardest things about it was actually realizing she was abused when she thought she was getting medical help.
I believe some (or most) of the blame resides in each of us participating in social media. Somehow in 2019 we all think our opinions deserve a Nobel prize; we think we have the right to know everything; we think that we DO know everything, and we’re quick to share and speculate and spread ideas and rumors prior to the facts being found. Look at how much proof Woodward and Bernstein had to have to publish Watergate. This day in age, it would have been up 10 minutes after the initial speculation, and who the hell cares if it’s true.
For all who are calling for transparency…are you willing to WAIT to get all up in feathers on social media until due process has occurred and transparency can be given? For those calling for innocence prior to proven guilt, did you dig in to the gossip and participate in the speculations? Can we let go of the rumor mill and the googling and the digging as if we have some right to know all the gritty details? Can we come up with a process that is trustworthy to get accurate results - and then actually trust the process?
Correct. They were in the appeal part of the process.
They don’t know.
No evidence? How could you possibly say that? Were you involved?
Once again, it’s not USEF’s word or the word of USEF’s attorney. USEF does not investigate or hand down this ban. It is the word of the U.S. Center for SafeSport. The steps involved in a full investigation are listed in the center’s policies and procedures that are readily available online.
Your information is incomplete. While I agree with much of what you say, it wasn’t just 2 people.
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