How to protect future athletes from abuse
Jerry Moran and Richard Blumenthal
We stood in the Russell Senate Office Building last year with more than 80 courageous survivors of former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.one by one, they told us the organizations that were supposed to protect them had failed them.
Nassar’sunimaginable sexual abuse could have and should have been stopped earlier. Multiple institutions responsible for keeping amateur athletes safe, including the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), USA Gymnastics (USAG) and Michigan State University repeatedly failed to act on credible reports against Nassar. Their inaction allowed Nassar to continue assaulting his patients with impunity.
Nassar was ultimately sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. But the fight to overhaul a system that had allowed him to evade justice was far from over.
As chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over the health and safety of U.S. Olympic athletes, we have been determined to change this pattern of gross institutional failure. Today, we are releasing the findings of our investigation and introducing the Empowering Olympic and Amateur Athletes Act to ensure that an investigation like ours is never needed again.
We had two goals from the start. First, we wanted to understand the alarming and dysfunctional systems that allowed Nassar to thrive. Second, we wanted to craft legislation that would help protect and empower amateur athletes going forward.
Over the past 18 months, we reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documentary evidence, held public hearings on abuse in amateur sports, subpoenaed leaders who tried to evade accountability, uncovered damning evidence showing misconduct, and referred the former USOC CEO to the Justice Department for lying to Congress.
Our investigation concluded that coaches and powerful individuals were able to assault athletes of all ages because of a lack of oversight and trans
parency. Repeatedly, institutions failed to act aggressively to report wrongdoing to proper law enforcement agencies. Repeatedly, people in positions of power prioritized their own reputation or the reputation of a national governing body over the health and safety of the athletes. Repeatedly, USOC, USAG and other bodies took actions to conceal their negligence and failed to enact serious reforms. And, repeatedly, athletes were left in harm’s way.
We are proposing three key reforms: ❚ Create a culture in which athletes and their best interests are put first. This includes new reporting requirements for adults with knowledge of any allegation of child abuse of an amateur athlete, and increased protections for survivors from retaliation. It also mandates higher representation of amateur athletes on the boards of the USOC and other national governing bodies.
❚ Ensure greater transparency and accountability throughout amateur sports. This includes giving Congress the ability to fire the USOC Board of Directors. USOC would have to maintain a public list of all barred coaches and individuals. Most important, the legislation clarifies that USOC and the national governing bodies owe a duty of care to amateur athletes to promote a safe environment in sports.
❚ Strengthen the U.S. Center for Safesport, the body responsible for investigating allegations of sexual abuse against athletes and coaches. It would prevent anyone affiliated with USOC or the national governing bodies to work for or interfere with Safesport’s investigations, and require USOC to spend $20 million per year on its operations.
As we wrote in our report, we have been moved by the incredible courage of the survivors who have shared their stories. We draw strength and motivation from their commitment to work with Congress to prevent the abuse of any young athlete in the future, and thank them for putting their trust in us. We are one year out from the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games, and we will get this bill across the finish line — for them, and for all future athletes, so that they can participate in the sport they love without fear of abuse.
Republican Jerry Moran is a senator from Kansas. Democrat Richard Blumenthal is a senator from Connecticut.