Larry Nassar, the doctor who abused Olympic gymnasts for years, also abused Michigan State University athletes. Complaints were swept under the rug. Now MSU's president has had to resign and MSU students are protesting the culture of indifference.
cbsnews.com
In light of what has happened at MSU and Penn State and other schools, I propose that all university athletic programs be made to pay a tax to support the victims of sexual abuse. A fair proposal?
There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of collegese have a culture of sexual abuse within their athletic programs, whether it be the staff, coaches or athletes participating in such activity. The thing is, a lot of these colleges keep hush about the whole situation because of the damage it would do to their reputation if the word gets out to the public. With how much revenue a Division I athletic program generates for a college, it is more than fair for them to pay a tax that is for the purpose of helping victims of sexual abuse.
Targeted taxes are Unconstitutional. The idea is almost as inane as the idea States can change state taxes to "donations" to avoid the new tax law. Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, but none of y'all got no say.
University athletic associations were already worried about the impact of new tax laws.
The scandal could impact MSU athletics, but I doubt it will alter the donations for other teams. Buckeyes, Wolverines, Gators, Dawgs, etc will just assume this was those damn Spartans.
I disagree regarding the need for a massive "cover up" though. People are good at ignoring warning signs, especially if they are profiting from the system.
Take Harvey Weinstein. I suspect 99% of the people outside his immediate orbit knew he was a creep. But most of them probably didn't think he was an actual rapist. It is easy to say to yourself "yes he is a creep but just being a creep isn't illegal and he has money I want access to.."
So you ignore it and rationalize it. It is only when confronted with how bad things were that you change your mind.
I suspect there were a few people close to Nasser and Sandusky and the next creep that know and actively cover up. The rest hear rumors or see indirect evidence but say "that sounds bad but it can't be that bad" and go on with life.
It isn't brilliant, but it's the way people are. :(
I appreciate the humor and irony in the suggestion which I think reflects the "morality tax" the Illinois legislature put on admission to Strip Clubs/ adult entertainment.
The sad fact of the matter is I wouldn't be surprised if this gets passed to the student body of MSU as a "user fee" of one form or another, probably as the result of the settlement from whatever civil action results now that the criminal trial is over.... just what these kids need, to be even more deeply in debt with their student loans...
(which of course will lead to a thread about the cost of education and student debt relief at taxpayer expense... and I for one see a whole line of dominoes falling behind each other )
Nope. If we applied a tax to every industry and organization that has played host to sexual assault and abuse, then we would all be paying higher taxes to assuage our "guilty consciences." I'd really rather not. The folks who should be paying are Nassar, Gymnastics USA, and MSU. In other words, there should be a legal settlement, not a tax. The people responsible should be the people who pay... not the rest of us who had nothing to do with it.
Other than that, here's a radical idea: how about no more sports at college? No gymnastics, no football, no swimming, none of this crap. A university is supposed to be a place where you study science, history, literature, and other academic subjects - not a place where you work on your quads and hope to get noticed by the NFL. I'm sure we could set up something private, off campus, for athletics, and maybe the sports leagues could pay for it instead of the taxpayers and the students. Hell, maybe those athletes who don't really belong there can finally (FINALLY) drop the charade and leave college altogether.
heck yeah.
There had been a couple of UC's which had voted to eliminate their intercollegiate football teams. I approve. But the pendulum has since swung in the opposite direction.
SJG
Fuck Nassar. He's potentially dragging my love, Izzo, down with him. I will always love Tom Izzo. Dantonio is getting heat as well.
This is BS to me. I'm not blaming any victims at all, Nassar is a sick fucko, but out of the 150+ girls, there HAD to have been at least a few whose parents did nothing while knowing something was going on. I understand some did, but we are talking about over 150 victims. I'm sure there were parents who knew and wanted to sweep their daughters' complaints under the rug, as gross as this sounds, because they wanted their daughters to be stars. None of them will speak up and say they knew but did nothing. None of them will face repercussions.
MSU is in big time trouble.
This will be much worse than Penn State. The amount of people needed to pull off a cover up of this magnatude with as many victims as there were is a major problem for MSU.
This won’t end well for MSU.