I have teacher colleagues with children of their own. Often times, their children are friends with the students they teach. Sure, it blurs the line. Do these teachers freak out and forbid their children from having friends? No. They just follow common sense. You conduct yourself in a transparent manner. You try not put yourself behind closed doors with a minor (physical or metaphorical). If it happens, it happens and you are open about it. You don’t do stupid things that are illegal, like let underage kids drink in your house. Bottom line-- you conduct yourself like an adult instead of trying to act like the minors’ friend.
I very much agree with this, especially the following common sense part. But it does appear to me that you are agreeing that many completely safe and trustworthy people will be violating the rule against one-on-one out-of-program contacts at least occasionally and, for some, on a regular basis. Sometimes this will occur by accident, but for others (like the teachers you mention) it is because the rule does not fit the reality of the situation they are in.
Wow, good observation. Forgotten all about that but now that you mentioned it? Yeah, all sorts of “but what ifs” and every imaginable situation where seat belts were not going to work.
We survived with seat belts. Miniscule number of instances over decades where they caused more harm then good.
@OwnTooMany the issues that you bring up are not SafeSport-specific - they’re just a reality of working with minors. These rules protect all parties involved and,in my experience, they’re not nearly as difficult to implement as you’re making them out to be.
@Denali6298 This actually brings up one more point that I forgot to add to my original response to your question. In my experience, the equestrian community has shown, by far, the most resistance to the MAAP policies and procedures (which, for reasons that I may discuss later, is incredibly concerning).
I understand your frustration. I expect that I am equally frustrated. Many guilty-as-hell people are let off by our system. But innocent people are also convicted; for example, see the Innocence Project: https://www.innocenceproject.org/all-cases/#
And then there is the problem of prosecutorial discretion and plea bargaining with many accused people basically bullied into pleading guilty to lesser charges because of the fear of being wrongly convicted of more serious ones. An extremely interesting episode of This American Life on this topic can be found here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/595/deep-end-of-the-pool/act-one-0
While I think that many aspects of our justice system are seriously broken, there are also many protections in place. The investigators (the police) are independent of the prosecutors, the prosecutors are independent of the judges, in most trials the fact finder is a jury and is independent of the judges. All of these people are trained professionals (except the juries). There is discovery, the right to compel testimony from witnesses, all witnesses are subject to contempt of court if they lie, and the system is open so that the press and others can examine how it works. It is also subject to reform through the democratic process as many judges, prosecutors, etc. are elected. Oh, and I forgot, there is an elaborate appeals process.
Given that you do not trust the authorities of the justice system (and I agree with you) even with all of the protections in place, I truly do not understand why you would expect others to trust SafeSport. SafeSport is also an authority. It is a parallel justice system that can dole out significant punishment (though not the same as incarceration) and basically publishes a sex offender list. But it is opaque, has weak due process, lacks discovery, can’t compel witnesses, and has a very low standard of evidence (preponderance). None of the players in the system answers to a democratic process. SafeSport is also overloaded (and underfunded) and thus is exercising prosecutorial discretion (and I expect in a biased way). It is operating in a politically charged environment where many appear to have essentially a blood lust for getting the accused, taking accusation as proof. If our justice system is seriously broken, there is no reason to expect that similar forces will not affect SafeSport.
But apparently your distrust of the justice system together with your trust in SafeSport gives you a position of virtue. My distrust in the justice system together with my distrust of SafeSport makes me paranoid.
But talk about frustration. We are almost one month since the suicide of Rob Gage. We still have no reliable facts about what he was found to have done that allows any real assessment of the situation. (I am not ignoring the facts that you and I have agree to previously which I believe still represents the current state of what is actually known publicly.)
All I got from this was blah blah blah. Face it. You’re pissed you’re friends are getting caught. You started off wanting the criminal justice system to nail people. Now you’re saying everything is corrupt. Face it. You’re pissed your friends are getting nailed.
And yes we do have reliable facts. The victims/reporters spoke openly.
How can you understand the frustration when you are the cause of it?
@OwnTooMany There is a lot to unpack here, so I’ll respond to a couple of things.
I’ve worked with the Innocence Project. I’m very uncomfortable (and a bit perplexed) with comparing lengthy prison sentences, restrictions on living arrangements near schools, and executions to bans from private clubs.
I don’t think SafeSport is perfect by any means. My issues with it, however, are based in facts that I know about specific cases (anywhere from statements from involved parties and reviewing the evidence to performing statistical analysis with the cases that are available online).
I won’t go into it here but the claimants in the case against Rob Gage came forward publicly and gave details on the incidents that resulted in Gage’s ban. People attended the unofficial Q&A. The women chose that format for a reason. If they wanted to give out a public release, they would have. In my opinion, SafeSport was well within their right to permanently ban Gage given the information they had. It is your right to disagree.
At this point, I feel like OwnTooMany and others of similar opinion are just flailing around tossing anything within reach at the wall and hoping that something sticks. I can’t even read the posts anymore. Too many contradictions and illogical statements.
Honestly, the longer the arguments go on and the more far-fetched they get, the more I am convinced that this sport desperately needs SafeSport.
I did not read FiSk123 as saying that he distrusted the criminal justice system; I read his post to say that given the constraints under which the criminal justice system operates (a high bar in terms of due process and a high bar in terms of there must be acquittal unless proven beyond a reasonable doubt), the constraints of the criminal justice system has a very high level of type two error (the rate at which a guilty person is not convicted.)
Any system has to balance or find a trade off between the two types of error (conviction of an innocent person vs acquittal of a guilty person). Given that the sanction in the criminal justice system is severe (years or decades of incarceration), the bars that must be passed in terms of due process and reasonable doubt are set high to achieve a really low rate of type 1 error (innocent but convicted). At the same time, these high bars leave us with relatively high rates of type two error (failure to convict people guilty of felonies).
No matter how much you trust the criminal justice system to do what it can in identifying child abusers (note that about 90% of those permanently banned by SafeSport were banned via criminal disposition), there is still an obvious need for a SafeSport mechanism that can operate under a different level of due process (yes, less protection for the accused) and a less stringent criterion for conviction in order to weed out some of the people that were type two errors in the criminal justice system. The different standards (due process and standard of guilt) may result in higher type one error (innocent but found guilty). Higher type one error seems acceptable to me, given that the nature of the sanction is so much less severe.
And what exactly is so unusual and destructive about what you describe? Nothing, IMO.
Once I was having lunch with a group of adults who included single parents. The single parents in that group had developed an informal network to support each other.
A man who was the single parent of a 16 yo son explained the following protocol that he followed religiously, with the support of the informal network single parents in that group.
He preferred that his son invite friends over to their own house for socializing after school and on weekends and holidays (concerns about drugs as well as the rest). The house had a rec room type area where the kids could have fun.
The father was always there when the kids were there.
AND, in all cases, another adult female was also there for the duration of the gathering.
The adults didn’t hover over the kids and gave them as much space as they reasonably could. But the adults were generally aware of what the kids were doing at all time.
Kids gathering at his house was for the protection of his son.
The presence of another adult of the opposite gender was for the protection of the father.
All of the single adults in their social network followed the same procedure and helped each other make it happen. Kids gather for fun at a trusted house, with two adults of different genders in the house and generally aware of what the kids were doing at all times.
This conversation occurred in 1998.
I don’t understand the people on social media who are trying to make the case that SafeSport policies are something new, unusual, and potentially harmful. Policies and procedures similar to SafeSport’s, both official in organizations and informal among parents and adult supporters of youth, have been common for over 20 years.
There is no big whoop here. There is nothing new about SafeSport’s requirements. The resistors in the equestrian community are merely demonstrating how isolated some of them have been from “the real world”. That isolation and ignorance has created opportunities for predators. I am happy that at last SafeSport is here as an objective oversight authority, outside of the bent politics and myopia of equestrian sport organizations.
I am so glad you are sharing this information about the reaction of the equestrian community, and how dependent it is on who the community likes before the accusations are flying.
In the last few years I’ve come to the conclusion that equestrian professionals are unusually out of touch with the world that so many of the rest of us live in. The only things more odd than their flat resistance to follow standard and ethical business practice is the acceptance of these oddities by their paying customers. (Everything from buying and selling horses without written contracts spelling out who gets what, to an absence of documentation supporting various charges on horse show trainer bills, to following customary protective protocols with minors,)
Up thread somewhere someone brought up the hesitance of the NFL to sanction star players when law enforcement and prosecutors fail to act, and what that must mean about the credibility of the charges. I pointed out what you point out, that the popularity of the player has everything to do with the way the individual teams as well as the NFL responds. If a player who is holding only a marginal spot on the team roster has the same problems as some of the transcendant destiny-altering players, they will quickly be gone. I can think of at least 4 star players active today with multiple, serious problems, who the league would not tolerate if their play was not the stuff that fans by the hundreds of thousands tune in to watch. (Peeps who follow the NFL: Supposedly Josh Gordon is coming back this season, y’all. Again. Seven years in the NFL and not one of those years has technically been “full time” due to suspensions.)
Equestrian sport is no different, it seems.
When a big name does go down (in any sport or venue), it tends to be on the downside of a career, or in other ways at a time when they are no longer as broadly useful to the sport.
Rules sometimes need to be bent. And it’s ok. :yes: The rules are there for your protection as much as they are there for the protection of minors.
I’ve said several times on this thread, I’m a teacher. These types of policies have existed in my world for a long time; sometimes formally printed, other times unspoken.
I’ve had two close colleagues who were also personal friends lose their jobs on account of allegations of sexual misconduct.
Teacher #1 did not engage in sexual misconduct; I feel 99.9% confident in that statement. He lost his job, though. Why? Because he didn’t follow the rules. He was a good looking, young teacher. He was the “cool” teacher-- every student’s favorite. I think he was teacher of the year on more than one occasion. He was also the girls’ soccer coach. He would move heaven and earth for his students and athletes; as a result, they would do the same for him. But here was the problem: he didn’t follow cardinal rule #1-- don’t be friends with your students. He would interact with them on social media. He would text his athletes and students conversationally. He would give them rides home. He would work one-on-one with them outside of school. He did all the things teachers have repeatedly been told not to do. This was in the early 2010s, so it’s not like it was a different time. We told him to watch himself; he dismissed us as being ridiculous and paranoid. He was utterly naive. It unfortunately caught up with him when a female student developed a crush on him. She came on to him, he rejected her, and someone (her? her parents?) reported it to the police that they were in a relationship and he had dumped her. He was suspended without pay. No criminal charges were filed. But the school decided to terminate his contract because there was too much uncertainty. If he wanted to, he could have tried to fight the matter in court. He was so angry and hurt he chose to leave the profession, understandably.
Here’s the moral of Teacher #1’s story: had he just set the appropriate boundaries (like the ones suggested by SafeSport), he could have cleared the uncertainty no problem. He didn’t. He didn’t even try to set boundaries. He lost his career over the stupid little things everyone told him not to do. It became a he said/she said situation with a lot of gray areas and he had no way of proving his innocence when he was engaging in constant questionable behavior.
Doing the best you can to follow the SafeSport guidelines will protect you if heaven forbid someone tries to accuse you of sexual misconduct with a minor.
Teacher #2 was in a relationship with a female student right under my nose. This man taught across the hall from me and I would have considered him a close friend; never in a million years would I have suspected him. When they took him out of the school in handcuffs, I thought, “this has to be a mistake.” It wasn’t. I taught this man’s kids, I knew both his wife and ex-wife, I spoke to him every single day at work. I never would have suspected him. He was also the wrestling coach. He engaged in a sexual relationship with one of his female wrestlers. I don’t know the details, nor do I care to know them. But he was found guilty.
Here’s the moral of Teacher #2’s story: you have literally no idea who could be engaging in sexual misconduct in your circle of acquaintances.
Quoted for truth - this is exactly why equine professionals should be glad to have this training and these guidelines to work with to keep themselves professional, appropriate, and protected.
And if you are working with a student who needs essentially, counseling, or a good friend, maybe it’s a better call to work out other resources for that.
These guidelines are not meant to be some sort of gotcha police - they’re meant to provide a path to keep everyone safe - just like the hundreds of horsemanship rules we are used to for the safety of people and horses.
On Hilary Ridland’s public Facebook post, Bonnie Conway has left this comment…
”You are a loser and you murdered Rob Gage- if you suffered so much over the past 30+ years why didn’t you say something and why did u continue to associate with Rob and hire him to judge your shows? I hope you rot in hell”
I hope USEF and SafeSport actually MEAN IT when they say that bullying and harassment of victims will not be tolerated. It seems like taking a stand against this comment would be meaningful.
On Hilary Ridland’s public Facebook post, Bonnie Conway has left this comment…
”You are a loser and you murdered Rob Gage- if you suffered so much over the past 30+ years why didn’t you say something and why did u continue to associate with Rob and hire him to judge your shows? I hope you rot in hell”
That statement is SO wrong and horrible. I’ve had two friends in the last year tell me about abuse they never reported or told family members. One was by a trainer and the other by a brother. It is 25 or so years later. I think as women mature and have these things eating away at them, they open up to save themselves.
My heart breaks for my friends. There are so many emotions and scars left behind when a child is abused by someone, especially someone they trust. It is a total game changer for the rest of their life.
