Fine. Let's leave it up to athletic departments to weed out the bad apples. That's worked really well, hasn't it, particularly if victims wait for twenty years to finally air their grievances publicly?
Matt Schembechler
- Thread starter lavuuk153
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2011
- Messages
- 9,230
- Reaction Score
- 37,317
Intense strawman here. Literally no one has said we should leave it to the athletic departments. I don't know why the concept that adults in a position of authority (whether in athletic departments, police departments, etc.) should be held accountable for protecting children and college students when they know of alleged wrongdoing is such a controversial idea with you.
Can I ask you a serious question? If an alleged victim came to you and said someone you employed was abusing them, would you just continue to allow it to happen?
Waquoit
Mr. Positive
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2011
- Messages
- 33,552
- Reaction Score
- 88,240
Stop blaming the victims
No, I wouldn't, provided I were able to determine that the allegations had merit. But would I be qualified to make a determination like that? Maybe, if there were evidence or if the incident was witnessed and documented by others. And maybe not. Accordingly, I'd also advise the accuser(s) that, if the offense were criminal, and if they had some semblence of proof, they should report the matter to the police. If the alleged transgression were not criminal but simply made the victim feel vaguely uncomfortable, then I guess either I or an impartial HR person would have to sit down with both parties and try to sort things out.
Both accusers and the accused have rights. I think we all remember the allegations made about the Duke lacrosse team a decade and a half ago. Would it be fair to say that the Duke administration's rush to judgment damaged the reputations of some falsely accused student athletes? Would it also be safe to say that the truth didn't come out until the matter was investigated by a more competent authority?
Now long retired, I was a career National Park Service ranger, and I maintained a federal law enforcement commission for twenty-seven years. I was once accused by a job applicant for a subordinate law enforcement position that I'd discriminated against him by virtue of his age (he was a former ranger and had been a casual acquaintance years earlier). At the same time he brought charges against me, he levied a similar complaint against a hiring authority in a different park where he'd also been passed over in favor of another applicant.
Unfortunately, accusations like that often carry an assumption of guilty-until-proven-innocent, so I was summoned to answer charges on short notice and at a time most inconvenient for me. My eldest son was getting married in a day or two and we had out-of-town guests, but I had to drop everything and fly to our regional office for a grilling. Once there, it was pretty easy for me to blow his case out of the water. The man I hired was a retired career Army officer and helicopter pilot who'd served two tours in Viet Nam. Following his military service, he'd earned a law degree and had been a member of the Colorado Bar, but he didn't like the practice of law, so he quit and signed on as a patrolman with a municipal police force. There, he worked his way up to the rank of lieutenant. Recently retired from the police force, he applied for the disputed job. The man was eminently qualified, but the clincher was that he was also older than my accuser. Case closed. The hiring official from the other park was also summoned to answer charges and then exonerated.
And I don't know how you think involving the police rather than college coaches and administrators in the investigation of criminal matters results in giving a free pass to sexual predators. As I stated in an earlier post, it's possible to involve both administrators and police in investiagtions, but if you must choose only one path to justice, let the cops do their thing. Do you honestly believe that being kicked out of school is a more just punishment for a sexual offender than incarceration? Get real. Read up on the trajectory of the Larry Nassar case. He got away with abusive assaults on women for years because his university and other bosses were either inept or indifferent and his young victims were too frightened or too confused to report him to the police.
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2011
- Messages
- 9,230
- Reaction Score
- 37,317
You gotta stop the straw men bud. It's not helpful to the discussion or your point.
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2013
- Messages
- 4,261
- Reaction Score
- 13,973
This guy has to be trolling. No one can have their head that far up their behind.
Waquoit
Mr. Positive
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2011
- Messages
- 33,552
- Reaction Score
- 88,240
It's the Boneyard, Jake.