Feminist Looking Glass

In March, the Women’s Rights section of change.org had an article about the decades-old pattern of male swim coaches molesting female swimmers.  The article said that:

A suit filed in California alleges that the the governing body of U.S. competitive swimming has failed to address widespread sexual abuse of young girls at swim clubs across the country. According to the Associated Press, the suit alleges that “more than 30 coaches nationwide have engaged in sexual misconduct with young females, and says there is a culture in competitive swimming of condoning inappropriate relationships between coaches and swimmers.”

This suit has come about in large part because of 1972 Olympic champion Deena Deardurff Schmidt, who, over a 4-year period in the 1960′s, was molested by her coach.  When Schmidt reported the abuse to the national swimming organization in the late 1980′s, she was turned aside because of the organization’s rules that a complaint must be filed by an active swimmer or the person would have to find a coach who would back up her story.  So her complaint went nowhere.  Then, in  2005, when she learned that the coach who had molested her would soon be inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame, she reported the abuse again. No investigation came of it, and the abuser is now in the Hall of Fame.

Now, the national organization, USA Swimming, has finally taken some public, belated, though far from adequate, action.  Last week, the organization “revealed” a list of 46 people who have either received lifetime bans or have permanently quit the organization.  36 of the 46 were “punished” for “sexual misconduct or inappropriate sexual behavior.”  “Revealed” is the operative word.  It is not that the organization just now banned the officials.  Rather, the oldest “suspension” took place in 1991, most occurred in the last decade, and 11 occurred since the beginning of 2009.  The biggest name revealed was Everett Uchiyama, who was the former director of the national team, and was suspended in 2006.  (The article does not say if any action has been taken against Deena Deardurff Schmidt’s coach.)

Thus, even when USA Swimming took some action, it had been trying to cover up the offenses.  It tried to keep the names under wraps.  It sounds awfully similar to the lack of responses by the Catholic church to the sexual abuses and then the cover ups.  Let’s hope that the lawsuits bring more attention to this issue and result in proper “punishment” to the swimming organization and coaches.  Let’s also hope that the organizations take actions to prevent these abuses from happening again.  At least some steps are being taken: “At its regular May board meeting, USA Swimming approved four steps to deal with the problem, which included publishing the list of banned coaches. Members also voted to authorize the startup of a hot line and counseling service, create an athlete protection committee with experts from both inside and outside the sport, and set up staff positions to focus on athlete protection.”

Filed under: Harassment, Law, Sports, Violence Tagged: | Deena Deardurff Schmidt, Everett Uchiyama, Swimming, USA Swimming