The chances of my daughter being tended to by a physician -- particularly a male physician -- outside of the presence of myself or her mother: Zero.
I would very much like to see an article on the parents who enabled Mr. Nassar.
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The chances of our daughter being tended by a mail physician without our presence are one hundred percent. Do not, however, take this to suggest our level of caring about her welfare is less that yours or in any way enables predators.
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@Michael-in-Vegas It is standard of care that a female nurse acts as assistant and chaperone during a pelvic
exam. Nassar worked without a chaperone, and it is probably unfair to blame parents who may not have known about this standard.
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@Michael-in-Vegas
The parents did not enable Larry Nassar. Unfortunately Nassar was doing it unbeknownst to parents while they were in the same examination room. He positioned himself so the parents couldn't see or know what was going on; and most of the gymnasts were very young at the time it happened.
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“They’re just trying to push it under the rug and hoping people forget about it when people watch the Olympics this summer,” Olympic gold medalist Raisman said Monday on the “Today” show on NBC, which will broadcast the Tokyo Games.
This is commonly called among lawyers as the "Sleeping Dog" defense.
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They are being treated like prostitutes. This is highly offensive.
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Yeah, the abuser is in jail. The US Olympic Committee offered 215 million dollars in settlement. Not enough. I guess the girls lawyer's want more money (as lawyers always do).
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@John Locke so you don't believe that they want answers more than money, and the fact that they want the bankruptcy case dismissed so they can get answers means nothing to you, correct?
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@John Locke Your comment sounds like you only read the headline.
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Every time I see Aly Raisman speak, the title "Senator" before her name keeps popping into my mind. In today's political climate, I normally wouldn't wish a career in politics on anyone, but I think she'd be amazing.
I'd vote for her.
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And once again the need for accountability is stymied by the use of our corrupt bankruptcy laws.
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It's so sad that the first (or only) reaction of every institution -- whether the Catholic Church, military, corporations, universities, and all the others -- is to try to bury the truth rather than taking responsibility for these dispicable abuses of power and trust. One would hope that we, as a society, were better than this. All power to the victims!
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We need some of these vocal leaders (Aly!) running US Gymnastics. Never again!!!
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@Ghost
There are so many ancillary issues that factor into people's actions. One wonders if, given the pressures to succeed at any cost, these women would really have acted in a more noble or ethical manner if they had been in leadership positions. It is easy from the perspective of a victim to assert that one would, but human nature is rarely so convenient.
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Nassar's abuse flourished not in total secrecy but by the complicity of the silent. People knew. Administrators, staff, people of importance, regular people turned away and wink, wink pretended not to know. It's not pretty to think that some of their actions were as harmful as Nassar's abuse because his predatory behavior was allowed to continue due to their silence. Expose them? If you want to eradicate this behavior so it never [almost never] happens again the curtains have to be drawn back and the exposure has to be complete. The survivors carry this failure of the "glorious Olympic" system to protect them with them each day, each moment of practice and competition. It haunts their moments of intimacy, times when they will question trusting someone/others. Yes, money for care, mental and physical. And money because that's what gets the establishment's attention. Retribution and the punishment of exposure for failure to protect is all there is between what happened and what will happen again. To drag it out year by year when these young girls and women need care? It is shameful and wrong.
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Keep fighting girls! It is hard, but we are proud of you!!
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It makes me sick that Simone and others who are still competing have to spend time worrying about this when they should be worried exclusively about defying gravity. It also is so upsetting that the Olympic athletes are apparently worth larger settlements than those who did not make it that far, who have the same scars but none of the glory.
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The US and International Olympic committees allegedly seen nor heard nothing while innocent athletes were criminally abused for years.
Perhaps the courage shown by Ms Biles, Ms Raisman, and others in not caving in to hush money will lead to more investigations and convictions.
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@Bill
But who exactly will further convictions or payouts benefit? Will that actually change the cultural factors that made the abuse possible in the first place? Punishment as a deterrent is rarely successful - or else the US would have no drug problems at all today!
@Keith Society. Why should those that participated in this cover up continue to do as they please? As was written in the article, if this was handled years ago how many less victims would there be?
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the women who brought down these powerful men are telling us they believe that what happened to them can happen again to other young women. listen to them. make the institutions that harbored the criminals who assaulted these young women accountable, and make it clear who aided and abetted the crimes and the coverups, and make it clear what will be done to stop it before it starts in the future.
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I also find it extremely disturbing and troubling that the payout structure is based not on how may times or years an athlete was abused by Nassar but with the "highest tier of payouts going to gymnasts molested at the Olympics or world championships." Why is this? Can the author or someone elaborate?
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@InNJ because the Olympic team and world championship teams would be with Larry Nasser and the ATC for 3 to 6 weeks straight and he had the opportunity to molest these athletes daily under the guise of "treatment " The higher your ranking, the more molestations these young women had to endure
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@anonymous Because getting sexually abused once is not as bad getting sexually abused 10 times??? That they even tried to quantify severity is sickening.
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@anonymous, there were gymnasts at Twistars and other local gyms near Larry's home town of Lansing, Michigan who would go to his basement regularly for "treatments" - in some cases nearly every day.
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I hope these young women athletes get the answers and accountability that the need for psychological wellbeing. I'm worried that the athletes are viewed as transient only destined for cereal box fame but not lifelong leaders of Gymnastics. In the case of Ms. Biles, her fame will endure for her lifetime and she will see the bottom of the barrel of these rotten pickles.
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The Olympics has been a con job for decades. The cities pay for the venues and the Olympic Committee makes a killing financially. What a great business plan, the venues and the athletes are free. Very few athletes can make a living from a life of work to achieve the level to participate in the Olympics.
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Systematic rape of young women. There is no way the doctor acted alone. USA Gymnastics, and the U.S. Olympic committee, undoubtedly heard rumors of this behavior for years. They just didn't do anything about it.
Money isn't going to make it better. They need to clean house of anybody remotely associated with that period in history.
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You are right. He had a buddy help with the cover up.
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It seems that we still have a long way to go to train girls and women to yell instead of staying silent as if they are the ones doing wrong
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@M.M. How about we "train" men to not sexually abuse girls? It is absolutely not the victims' responsibility to stop sexual abuse. It is the perpetrators'.
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@M.M. --- I remember hearing a story on NPR at the height of the Nassar scandal. A student gymnast at Michigan State (don't remember her name) had an injury and her coach (female, don't remember her name either -- might have been the one who was recently found guilty of lying) sent her to Nassar for treatment. Nassar did his typical molestation-disguised-as-treatment. She recognized what he had done, and went and told her coach.
The coach told her that (a) he was a great doctor and would never do such a thing, (b) she must have misconstrued the treatment she was getting, which was necessarily intimate in nature, and (c) she had better be careful to whom she made these slanderous accusations.
So the athlete never told anyone else, not even her mother. I don't remember if she quit gymnastics or anything; the main point was that she did speak up, and was actively silenced by a person in authority. (And who knows how many others that coach shut down over the years?)
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These girls are warriors.
I am so impressed with their tenacity. Those responsible must be held accountable.
They are the most innocent of victims. Little girls who just wanted to be USA gymnastic champions and worked to get it.
I am thinking this must reach both high and wide encompassing the upper most echelons of USOC and US gymastics.
How would you feel discussing openly in court how an older man selfishly pleasured himself in the most vulgar way? And his enablers. All of Larry's enablers.
This is bravery like no other.
What these girls endured, are still enduring, what is lost is a death, though they will live with this legacy their whole life.
They are repatedly victimized yet again.
The look on their faces in the photo says it all.
They are disgusted with their adults, the team leaders, coaches, the whole lot sounds implicated and let these girls down.
$80,000 to 1.25 million settlement per athlete?
How is that just compensation for a child hood lost? They will never forget this violation of their persons.
No therapy will make this go away.
These girls are scarred for life.
That breaks my heart.
We should do right by our athletes. They gave it all for us to marvel at their talents, skills and athleticism.
Anything less than $10 Million per athlete is not justice served.
It's a pittance compared to lost innocence, their trust in others. Their faith in US gymnastics.
It looks like no one has that compassion and capacity.
What a shame.
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Of course they're offered money, because lots of women have accepted. But now there's a lucrative market for telling your #Metoo story, so no need to sign on the NDA line to get that check.
Just today they NYT had an Op-Ed about restorative justice for #Metoo. Which really just means more money...but with men villified for life as well. But #Metoo feminists have said only prison will suffice. We'll you can't have it both ways feminists-taking the money and then taking your word back.
By the way NYT, there are lots of male victims to this story as well, or do they just not matter?
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@Chris M Believe there is only 1 male victim (which is 1 too many) vs over 500 females (500 too many). Nasser wanted to work with female athletes primarily. How do they pay for needed psychological therapy that is needed for years when many health insurance plans have a limit on therapy dollars?
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Shouldn’t one of the answers why none of the gymnasts or their family or friends not for go to any law enforcement or to the press for so long therefore resulting in more harm to more gymnasts. Any journalist would have gone after this story. The Indianapolis Star had no problem running this story but it was many years too late because no one came forward.
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@Shamrock
Please educate yourself on the details of this case and how sexual assault allegations are handled in general. Athletes have been reporting Nassar since the mid-90s.
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These women are rightfully demanding that all of those in positions of responsibility DO THE HARD WORK to figure out how all of these incidents occurred and continued in spite of so many speaking up for years and years. What is it about each of them and their system that incubated this predator and let him flourish?
Why do the victims have to repeatedly ask for everyone else to do their jobs? Don't all of the adults feel some sense of responsibility?
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As a physician, I would say it is easy to explain how Nassar could have abused these women for so long without anyone being aware: He was doing pelvic exams without a female chaperone. It is standard of care to have such a chaperone present. She can provide assistance and also witnesses the intimate parts of the exam as she normally stands within the curtain where the exam is done. This protects both the female patient from abuse and the male doctor from false accusations of abuse.
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Someone did. She was blown off. Except sometimes their parents were there.
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Ms. Raisman and Ms. Biles are right to fight for information. This is about answers and accountability for all the adults who turned a blind eye to (or worse, actively concealed) abuse - without those answers, without full disclosure, truth and reconciliation, it could happen again and the survivors will never have justice. USAG and the USOC still don’t get it - it’s not about money, it’s about accountability.
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@Marci
Well, the gymnasts don’t have to ask for more than one dollar and don’t have to enter into a settlement and can have a trial and call witnesses and ask them relevant questions under oath. Nobody has to enter into a settlement.
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It is so very sad for the athletes after all they have been through. The only solution I can think of is for them to organize a boycott of the Olympics until they receive justice. Yet more sacrifice and disappointment but ....
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They should never have had to sacrifice a single thing, let alone a single thing more. Their lives are unalterably changed. Let’s just ask them to sacrifice more? No.
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The Olympics, like college football, is all about money and entertainment. The athletes are simply disposable means to keep the money flowing.
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@Kent Hoit
Problems are simple to resolve. You simply ignore the complaints as if they had not been made.
Kudos to these brave, exemplary athletes and activists who are fighting for what is right, at great personal cost, no doubt.
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The payments by national governing bodies of youth sports are ultimately paid for out of the pockets of the next generation of prospective athletes, youth coaches and parents. The fundamental flaw with these governing bodies is their monopolistic nature, which in turn means there is no competition, no choice, within a sport, only the choice of a particular sport. The cost of membership in USGA, US Swimming, etc. simply go up a few dollars here, and a few dollars there. The organizations themselves don't feel the pain in the pocket book because the crop of current athletes has already gone "all in". But the next crop of athletes, particularly ones whose parents fall on that middle class event horizon where their income should be enough to save pay for college, but will not be enough if every year of their child's school-age life, $2000-$5000 of dues, fees, and participation expenses pile up. Even worse, to the extent that these entities can run up settlement amounts where third party insurance kicks in (vs. self-insurance for lower key settlements), they will be able to completely offset the gradual burden of higher insurance costs as they charge more money next year.
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@Gene Additionally, lawyers will get their cut on both sides.
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