If you see something, say something. If you hear something, reach out. If you know something, take the time to do the right thing.
Athletic departments across the nation — including the University of Idaho’s — have a hard time understanding these ideals.
“University officials and employees, who are required to report when they learn of sexual assault allegations, failed to act in this instance.” It’s a common description that sums up the legacy many athletic departments and athletic officials will leave behind.
The ongoing news cycle of sexual misconduct arising out of athletic departments everywhere from small private schools to major universities, is no shock to us anymore.
The UI’s reputation in terms of athletics and administration rightly took a hit this past school year, when reports surfaced the university’s athletic department mishandled a sexual assault complaint from 2013. A large portion of the blame fell to former Athletic Director Rob Spear. Still, the uni- versity’s supportive culture toward athletes and all students meant the UI administra- tion was to blame, as well.
Utah State University made similar headlines when the university’s offices were confused as to who and how to report sexual misconduct allegations involving several female athletes and the same foot- ball player.
Sound familiar?
Female athletes from Baylor University’s equestrian team filed sexual assault reports with the police in November 2017. Finally, in March, several Baylor football players were only suspended because of similar ongoing sexual assault investigations.
Notice a theme?
University responses to these situations usually go like this: release a statement about the wrongdoing, find small aspects of university policies to update and hope officials and employees will be more helpful next time.
According to a “Sports and Sexual As- sault” article published by CQ Press, sex and status go hand-in-hand on college campuses. Lisa Wade, a sociology professor at Occidental College, found college athletes, those who most often hold a higher status than other students at their university, struggle more with hyper masculinity — one of the leading traits in misunderstanding consent and brushing off sexual assault as a miscommunication.
These are the issues we can talk about before any sort of sexual misconduct
begins. These are the issues universities and university students can reflect on purely because this sort of education should be integral to a university experience, athlete or not.
After hundreds of sexual misconduct cases have surfaced around the U.S., we now know the bulk of those affected are women and often female student athletes. We also know the harassment is also derived from other athletes or employees belonging to the leading team at the school. Because of this, it often takes years for the female athletes to voice what happened — to reconcile with how they were wronged.
The same happened for Mairin Jame- son, the female athlete harassed in the 2013 UI misconduct. Her story unfolded through a Tumblr post in January. In that post, she wrote how she came out with the information in an effort to show other women like her that she believes them — that she wants to fight with them.
I’ve never been a college student athlete. I’ve only ever watched their lives, practices and games from the sidelines as both a spectator and journalist. But, I’ve read the statistics and headlines. I’ve seen this play out at our university.
This isn’t just about safety for female athletes, it’s about safety for all females.
While a culture of sexual miscon- duct and covering up that misconduct largely surfaces because the prominence of athletic programs, it begins with each university. The more we begin to educate ourselves — not just athletes — about the sources of these issues, the more we can begin stopping sexual misconduct before it happens.
Hopefully, when we see something, we’ll say something. When we hear something, we’ll reach out. And when we know something, we’ll do the right thing.
Hailey Stewart can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @Hailey_ann97