Reply to Whitman Teacher and Crew Coach Arrested

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Whitman has suspended crew team for fall season. 
https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/police-fire/whitman-crew-team-suspends-fall-program-following-coachs-sexual-abuse-arrest/[/quote]

Just to be clear - Whitman (the school) did not suspend the team. Whitman (the crew club) voluntarily suspended its own operations this fall to focus on  “on providing resources to our athletes, healing our community, and cooperating with the investigation.”

In addition to CPS and MCPS, the Whitman board reported the allegations to SafeSport, which reportedly did an “investigation” of the rumor of a sexual relationship between the team member and Shipley but failed to find any physical or sexual abuse.  Parents (and journalists) should be asking a LOT of questions about exactly what was done during the investigation.  Safesport is a major non-profit that purports to represents thousands of local state and national teams all the way up to the Paralympic and Olympic level. The fact that Safesport cleared the guy should make every local team (including many other HS crews) rethink their relationship with Safesport and their rules on reporting abuse (for example, any rumors or allegations of physical or sexual abuse should be immediately reported to police).

Parents should also note that the one organization to whom the allegations appear NOT to have been reported was the Police.  This speaks volumes about how the team and the broader community value girls’ safety - sexual abuse is still not thought of as criminal behavior. This is how perpetrators are shielded from consequences.  By not reporting to the police, there are many tools that would have been missing in an investigation - the ability to interview girls and parents, the ability to seize devices like phones or cars, the ability to follow or stake out someone, etc.

Finally, it should have been a major red flag that the team feedback on Shipley was so negative.  Sexual abuse is at its core an abuse of power, so it should be no surprise that abusers engage in other abuses of power.  In this context, arbitrary, abusive and punitive coaching decisions, yelling, name-calling, excluding or making fun of teammates, commenting on body parts, etc. should all be regarded with suspicion.  These abusive coaching tactics are a form of grooming - when the girls can’t be successful on the merits, they become. vulnerable to the inappropriate personal relationship that are needed to succeed.  That means that they don’t feel comfortable drawing strong boundaries against abuse, and then reluctant to report it afterwards because it will damage their opportunities as an athlete.

It’s really no different than the choices we face when sexually harassed at work, but there’s no HR to report to, and girls believe that going to police or trusted parents is useless (because they have witnessed a cycle of failed reporting).[/quote]

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