Michigan’s dismissal of coach isn’t that simple
Whose voice counts?
It’s a question that should have been asked the many times girls and young women expressed concerns about Larry Nassar and his “treatments,” only to be ignored, chastised or told, patronizingly, that they must be mistaken.
And it’s a question that should be asked now, as the gymnastics community tries to put itself back together and find a way forward.
The University of Michigan announced Sunday night that it was canceling its contract with Rhonda Faehn, whom it had hired three days earlier as a consultant for its women’s gymnastics team. In her previous job, as women’s program director at USA Gymnastics, Faehn was the federation’s first top-level official to learn of gymnasts’ complaints about Nassar.
The hiring infuriated some Nassar survivors, who say Faehn didn’t do enough to protect gymnasts. Faehn said during congressional testimony that she’d been told three gymnasts were “uncomfortable” with Nassar and his treatments. Though she immediately forwarded the concerns to her boss, then-CEO and president Steve Penny, who told her repeatedly that he had alerted authorities, she did not go to law enforcement herself.
But the hiring had also been cleared, and cheered, by other survivors.
“Please remember that a few of us on this team were affected by Nassar and if we can stand up and say we are happy to have Rhonda with us, then you can be happy for us. It’s a shame social media has such power and nobody is listening to the athletes yet again. Please reconsider!” Polina Shchennikova, now a student assistant coach at Michigan after an injury forced her to retire last fall, said on Twitter.
The tweet was retweeted by several Michigan gymnasts, as were other tweets asking why the wishes of the athletes — survivors — were being ignored.
There was a similar outcry from athletes when Faehn was suddenly fired by USA Gymnastics in May.
“If we are the ones that you are ‘protecting’ then why are you getting rid of the people who actually care about us?” Margzetta Frazier said in a text message to then-CEO Kerry Perry, a screenshot of which she briefly posted on social media.
So, again, whose voice counts? Are we to somehow parcel out who suffered more and judge their opinions accordingly? Are we going to proudly stand in support of some women while telling others that their feelings and concerns are unimportant and not worthy of being heard? Again?
There is no shortage of blame to go around for Nassar being allowed to prey on girls and young women for 20-plus years. But some are more culpable than others.
The coaches and administrators at Michigan State who ignored athletes’ complaints, for example. The police and prosecutors who did not thoroughly investigate multiple allegations over the years. The medical professionals who did not raise alarms after hearing, and in some cases seeing, that Nassar was performing “treatments” that no teenager or early-20 something could possibly need and that obviously constituted abuse.
What, however, do we do with the rest? The others who, in hindsight, it’s obvious could and should have done more.
Though Faehn told Penny about the athletes’ concerns in June 2015, USA Gymnastics waited five weeks while it did its own investigation. It then told the FBI, which, for reasons that are still unexplained, did nothing with the report for almost a year. No one alerted Michigan State, where Nassar was still working, or the Michigan gyms where he saw individual athletes.
Only after Rachael Denhollander and another athlete, later identified as 2000 Olympian Jamie Dantzscher, told their stories to The Indianapolis Star in September 2016 did Nassar’s horrors become public.
The New York Times reported last year that it had identified at least 40 girls and women who were abused between June 2015 and September 2016. That’s as heartbreaking as it is enraging.
But if Faehn is to be ostracized for her inaction, how far does the moral outrage extend? To the personal coaches, who also knew and didn’t go to authorities? To the parents, who, either out of trust that something was being done, concern for their daughters or a combination of both, did not report Nassar either?
Attorney John Manly and some survivors have made the case that the culpability is Faehn’s because she was a mandatory reporter under Indiana law. But when a child’s life and well-being are at stake, shouldn’t we all be mandatory reporters?
At least Faehn has cooperated with investigations by Congress and Ropes & Gray, and it was her testimony at a June hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee that revealed Penny had had medical records removed from the Karolyi ranch.
There is no way to undo the vast damage Nassar did. But there are lessons to be learned, foremost being that groupthink is toxic and when people speak out, they must be heard. Whose voice counts?
They all should.