Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber, Kyle Stephens and Jamie Dantzscher are just a few of the more than 100 women who were sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar that valiantly shared their stories at a four-day sentencing hearing in court last week.
Unless you have been closely following this case since its inception around the end of 2016, it is highly unlikely that you are aware of the sentence hearing that took place. That is because cable news channels provided the hearing with an amount of coverage that likely fared equivalent to closing credits.
According to Media Matters for America, from 4 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 15 to 9 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 19, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC devoted a meager 19 minutes and 47 seconds of coverage to the hearing and the women’s statements. CNN spent 11 minutes and 49 seconds on the topic. MSNBC spent 4 minutes and 9 seconds covering the topic and Fox News spent just 3 minutes and 49 seconds. MMFA stated CNN only spent around 4 minutes on the topic before interviewing Dantzscher on Friday on the early morning show “New Day.”
On July 11, Nassar, who spent nearly 20 years on staff at Michigan State University’s athletic department, pleaded guilty to three counts of child pornography in federal court. As time progressed and more women began to share their allegations against Nassar, he eventually pleaded guilty to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual assault in Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing, Michigan. According to the Lansing State Journal, “more than 140 women and girls have filed lawsuits against Nassar, MSU or USA Gymnastics and said that Nassar sexually abused them. The allegations date to as early as 1994.”
Nassar was quietly fired by USA Gymnastics in the summer of 2015 after allegations surfaced, but stayed on staff with MSU until reports of allegations appeared in the Indianapolis Star led to his firing from the university in September 2016.
This is the most horrific case of sexual abuse in the history of sports, and it has been repeatedly brushed over as if it bears no importance. This blatant disregard for the protection of young female athletes is disgusting, and the silence does nothing but create an environment where actions like Nassar’s remain feasible.
Nothing else proves this to be true more than the $1.25 million settlement agreement Maroney, an Olympic gold-medalist, signed in 2016 in exchange to remain silent about Nassar’s abuse.
It’s simple: Nassar’s crimes would not have been possible without the complicity of the enablers in USA Gymnastics and at MSU.
The uncomfortable dialogue must continue in order to enact change, but there is also a single objective that must take place within both institutions in order to create a just path for the future of the sport.
First, President Lou Anna Simon of MSU must resign; which she did on Thursday, Jan. 24. The Detroit News reported last Simon “was informed in 2014 that a Title IX complaint and a police report had been filed against an unnamed physician.” Larissa Boyce is the first person who is believed to have told someone at MSU about Nassar in 1997, nearly 20 years before he was fired and prosecuted. Simon appeared in the courtroom briefly last Wednesday. When Boyce prepared to give her statement, she asked Simon to return to hear what she had to say. Boyce told the courtroom Simon told her she couldn’t fit it into her schedule, but would watch the live stream.
I remain puzzled by this display of arrogance and apathy by Simon. It is this type of action that alludes to the issue of silence. The level of disinterest that has been shown in this case is what ignited all of this in the first place. In order to answer the question of “How does this happen?” we have to be willing to listen and raise the voices of those have been affected firsthand.
Second, the United States Olympic Committee must decertify USA Gymnastics as the governing body for the sport because of its failure to protect its young athletes from a predator like Nassar. This is a move that would place the blame for this failure on the entire USA Gymnastics leadership and essentially begin a clean slate within the sport until a new governing body can be established.
“For this sport to go on, we need to demand real change, and we need to be willing to fight for it,” said Raisman in her statement last Friday. “It’s clear now that if we leave it up to these organizations, history is likely to repeat itself.”
On Jan. 24, Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for his sex crimes.
Seth Nieman is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from McComb, Mississippi.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this column was published on Wednesday, Jan. 24, in The Daily Reveille. It has since been updated to reflect changes regarding Nassar’s sentencing and Simon’s resignation.
