Another nail in the coffin: USA Gymnastics introduces changes in its Bylaws for misconduct and grievances, but to what effect?
The USA Gymnastics has been actively working towards protecting the gymnasts from social ills that exist in the community.
Of late, the organisation has surfaced in the news, introducing new reforms and revising the rules to impede misconduct and closing the loopholes in its policies regarding sexual harassment.
We all remember the deterring examples made out of Don Peters and Doug Boger earlier this year, as the USA Gymnastics imposed a ban on them, stripping the two veteran coaches of the honours they had earned in their careers.
The gymnastics community was promised then, that what they were witnessing was only the beginning, and more would be done to curtail the occurrence of sexual harassment.
It seems the USA Gymnastics has kept its promise, as changes were made to the Bylaws in a recent Board of Directors’ meeting.
These changes are aimed at improving the administrative process of dealing with reports of misconduct and grievances.
Further clarifications were added to Articles 9 and 10 that are particularly pertinent to misconduct, grievances and disciplinary action.
Major alterations in the Articles were:
Additions were made to the definition of misconduct, which allow the President of the USAG to issue a termination warning to the offending member. If the member is named on any state or federal sexual offenders’ list, has been convicted or declared a s*x
offender, then the warning can be sent without carrying out further investigation.
Complaints have been divided into three types: administrative, opportunity to compete and misconduct
There is clear specification of who can file complaints i.e. current and ex-members , as well as parents (in cases of a minor complaints)
Henceforth, the ineligibility list will carry not only the name of the offender but also a description of the rules and regulations broken by their criminal act
The President has the right to defer a case to a hearing panel, and to discard any complaint which does not match criteria
The thing that has got my attention hooked on is the fact that these policies are only applicable to members of the USA Gymnastics.
Hence, the effectiveness of these Bylaws reforms is also restricted to the member circle, which lowers their instrumentality significantly.
Clubs operating outside of this scope are free to engage in misconduct as they like, without any fear of interference from the USA Gymnastics.
I believe, that as the United States’ sole national governing body for gymnastics, the USAG should impose its control more vastly.
While revising definitions and removing ambiguities is a commendable step, it is equally important that the USA Gymnastics increase the scope of its policy.
USA Gymnastics should continue its efforts to bring more clubs under its umbrella. Moreover, the policy application should be tied to all contracts that USA Gymnastics has with non-member bodies.
It should incentivise its membership such that clubs and organizations are naturally drawn towards it. The incentives can be driven by prestige value or facilitation of any kind for the members.
USA Gymnastics’ goal to eradicate sexual harassment and misdemeanour from the sport will only be achieved through policy making if the said regulations are binding on everyone.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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