axeil posted:

Here's how this happens:


Someone gets a report of some wrongdoing. They (wrongly) consider it frivolous or non-credible and do nothing. Some time passes and they get another report of the same activity from a different person. Well poo poo, now they're in a real bind. If they investigate this one then people are going to ask why they didn't look into the other one. So they again ignore it or if they're forced to investigate they find nothing bad happened.

This goes on and on until eventually the dam breaks and people go public. People were too busy covering their asses and trying not to look bad and as a result every Olympic female gymnast has been molested (along with countless others). Or kids got raped in a shower in Pennsylvania. Or women were raped and browbeaten in Texas.

It's a culture issue yes, but it's also that people are more worried about saving their own asses than doing the right thing. I've seen this in my like and work and by and large people are very, very aethical. They're not unethical but they don't go out of their way to do the right thing when its hard. Sure they do it when it's easy, but when there's a risk or might be a cost or consequence to them? That's when the mouths stay shut and the silence remains.

I have no idea how to fix it, other than celebrating those who do take the very scary and difficult action of doing the ethical thing.


edit: unironically calling sports "sportsball" is as gently caress.


That's like, the minimum required standard though. The PSU punishments were laughable: a postseason ban (the team sucked anyway) and rescinding some scholarships. Even then the PSU fans howled bloody murder and the NCAA eventually was forced to rescind the punishments.

gently caress, did Baylor even get punished? That's the insane thing to me. You have massive, horrific sexual abuse rings and the NCAA shrugs. Meanwhile Reggie Bush gets paid under the table and is forced to return his Heisman trophy. Something is seriously wrong here.