People circumcise their babies as tradition. Some day one of those babies will sue his parents for it, and then it will be over. Should his parents go to jail or pay over millions to him?
Who is going to jail in the UVA case?
Do I think the parents should go to jail in your example? No.
How many times have I read here on CC that victims should use the court system? Go to civil court?
That is what this victim is doing. He is using the court system. He is using the civil court system. )
We’ll, if it was already a crime, yeah. It isn’t cute when people are pressured into touching or allowing others to touch your personal Netherlands. Especially in the post Penn State era.
Other than animal cruelty and risk of injury, I can’t get as worked up about the goldfish, milk, or whatever. 'Course, if the kid was vegan… Then we’d have another problem.
I had a lt colonel that used to drool over a gs4 that reported to me. I didn’t tell her that boys will be boys; I made sure he never got within 3 feet of her. If he came into our office area and I wasn’t around, one of my lieutenants would hover near her area, you know, to encourage good behavior. He never did anything actionable, but had he, there would have been a witness. That’s what a coach owes his team.
RE: link in #96 - I don’t think the lawsuit is going to change anyones mind about committing to UVA for swimming or anything else. Some kids don’t mind “chewing on live goldfish”, grabbing each others private parts or being locked in a closet. Others do mind and I think the message is that those kids also need to be respected and not suffer for their choices. Certainly their athletic careers should not be put on the line because they spoke the truth when inquiries were made by a coach.
I think the lawsuit will give some notice to prospective students of what “might” lie ahead. They can then make more informed choices. Better decisions work best for everyone all the way around. Because of the manner in which this was handled the whole swim team suffered by losing so many team members. Marcantonio’s swimming career was also unnecessarily interrupted because he did what we all teach our kids to do – tell the truth and stand up to peer pressure.
I agree. But in this case, the DA declined to file charges, so it wasn’t a crime.
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But in this case, the DA declined to file charges, so it wasn’t a crime.
And this is the real problem.
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If the team can’t keep it quiet, maybe the coach can pressure the university to keep it quiet. If the university can’t keep it quiet, maybe enough people can be pressured to keep their mouths shut that the DA doesn’t believe he’ll have a prosecutable case et voila, no problem.
“Not prosecuted” is more “not yet prosecuted” and none at all of “no crime committed.”
Possibly. But at this point you have zero grounds to believe a crime was committed, other than from the language in one person’s civil complaint. We (or most of us) don’t judge anyone’s criminal guilt or innocence by that standard.
No . We just judge that the victim is the perpetrator.
Not quite. We have the parents of the accused students admitting that the acts occurred. The question becomes if it was voluntary as the parents claim, or forced/coerced. The DA declined to file charges because VA law requires injury to the victim in its hazing laws. I am surprised the DA didn’t file a sexual assault charge instead since those laws usually include language like force or coercion. It is probably a case of ‘he said/she said’ when it comes to proof.
Someone asserted that a crime had been committed. That assertion, apparently was not taken seriously by the coach or the athletic department. The accuser transferred then sued. I think that accurately distills it into three sentences.
My point: These kinds of assertions need to be taken seriously.
What I’m hearing is that this team has traditions (post 91) that may or may not corroborate the allegations.
What I’m not hearing is that allegations like these need to be taken seriously, and if found true (and criminal) prosecuted.
It may be I’ve misunderstood, and we both agree that this type of thing should be taken seriously, and that illegal things shouldn’t be covered up in the name of tradition.
I certainly didn’t advocate for covering up anything, or not taking anything seriously. So yes, you’ve misunderstood.
There are always two sides to a story. Most people on this thread seem to want to believe only the plaintiff. When my counterpoints are raised, they are called “crap.” Those are the people who seem not to be taking the situation seriously and sound like they want to shut down ideas that don’t comport with the plaintiff being a “victim.” There are five peoples’ lives and futures at stake here, so I think we ought to consider their point of view and the real facts as we know them.
What the parents say is probably irrelevant, unless there is an exception to hearsay that I’m not thinking of.
I agree. No sexual assault charge, no assault or battery charge, no false imprisonment charge, nothing. There were plenty of witnesses present, too.
@Bay Do you think the parents are going to admit that the incidents happened if their kids didn’t tell them that they did?
I’m not talking about court here. If a parent of the accused says it happened I believe them.
Maybe because those crimes usually involve the perp doing something to the victim and not a victim being forced to do something to another victim???
At the risk of invoking the sporting equivalent of “Godwin’s Law,” the lack of charges in the Penn State / Sandusky case provided the same cause for denial for about 30 years.
“No charges yet,” is probably more accurate until the statute of limitations runs out.
Re: the parents comments. It is not clear to me what the parents are stating actually happened. If they are talking about that the welcome weekend took place and the freshmen were asked to do things and treated a certain way, then okay. But that doesn’t prove anything. I don’t think the parents have said that yes, our sons assaulted and falsely imprisoned this young man. They are saying, yes, stuff went on but it was voluntary and all in fun and has always been done. That kind of information alone doesn’t provide the elements of a crime or a cause of action.
Just trying to get caught up…
@TV4caster, (post81 - honor code) I know he could have not said a word and still technically not lied. But, I was really thinking more about abiding by what I had always understand the spirit of the Honor Code to be and why I thought it was designed in the first place. Anyway, FWIW, I’m glad he (or whoever) told too. If there are no consequences for hazing that crosses the line, it likely won’t stop. And, for consequences, someone has to “tattle”. It is unfortunate that he was targeted after the fact, and if true that it WAS him, and only him who told, that THAT information somehow got out.
@Bay, re post 84 - suspensions, I think you are right.
http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/virginia-swimming-suspends-five-fall-competition/
According to the first article, there have been 15 suspensions over the past two years: 5 from this Hazing Incident for the entire fall season 2014, 8 (6 men and 2 women) for one meet in 2013, and 2 in January 2015 also for one meet. Only the fall 2014 suspensions were hazing related. The other article (from Oct 2014) names the kids suspended in 2013 and 2014. The only one of the 5 suspended in 2014 that was part of the earlier suspension was Ingraham.
And @HarvestMoon1 (post 103 - open letter), while I agree with what you are saying, honestly, if I was a kid or a parent with a swimmer in the class of 2019, I might actually feel that the UVA is a safer place now than another school! I don’t think this stuff is unique at all to UVA. But, housecleaning was done there, and the remaining kids on the team have had a front seat view to the ugly repercussions when things really cross the line. Also, selfishly, while I wouldn’t be thrilled as to why the team was no so young, I might be happier that it is a young team, figuring that I or my kid will have a better chance to grow and compete as a swimmer!
And that brings us back to “The Lottery.” Full circle in record time.
Candidly, if this is part of the light hearted fun that prospects can expect, they really need to put it on the university’s web site, with some guffaw inducing utoob videos as well. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?
Believe it or not, many young men do enjoy being part of those types of antics. Both my own son and others on the website have stated that their sons were disappointed that everything now defined as hazing (its a very broad definition) has been banned from fraternity life, because it was a lot of fun.