@Silpat, that’s a very powerful post.
Thanks for sharing.
“What about Turner’s coach at Stanford? Does a coach bear any responsibility for encouraging proper behavior by his team members? I can understand if the coach gets a free pass on the first month or so, because that is a short time to turn someone’s behavior around. But presumably the current Stanford coach recruited Turner. One suspects that the coaches care almost entirely about times in various events. They should also give serious consideration to character.”
How would he have known about BT’s poor character until this event occurred? Again, what is with this bizarre notion that bad people wave big red flags in front of themselves saying “I’m going to do a bad thing shortly!”
Well, Pizzagirl, I think it depends. Turner claimed that his mode of thinking was encouraged by the more experienced members of the swim team. I think that coach/athlete relations can give coaches a fairly good picture of a person, if they are trying to form one. In other cases, there have been plenty of signals about the person’s view of women and entitlement. It may be difficult to discern the person’s character at the point of recruitment (generally), because athletes may be shielded from the consequences of their actions, and people who knew Turner from his hometown might have been reluctant to say anything that would interfere with his chances of Stanford admission. While I don’t doubt that you are right that there are no big red flags waving, I suspect that the underlying attitudes would have been discernible . . . perhaps only once he was on the Stanford team.
And Hanna, yes, at least one poster has said more or less exactly that, about the special insights of admissions staffers.
“Turner claimed that his mode of thinking was encouraged by the more experienced members of the swim team. I think that coach/athlete relations can give coaches a fairly good picture of a person, if they are trying to form one.”
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Personally I suspect that’s a desperation play on BT’s part - to claim that “swim culture made him so.” I don’t remotely believe it’s real. Not to say that there might not be locker room towel-snapping about making out w the ladies, but that’s a far cry from being encouraged to hump an unconscious girl.
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I don’t expect a coach to know about what goes on at the parties. He’s not attending parties of 18-21 year olds. (At least hopefully not.)
The ‘olympian’ label is a bit of an overstatement. He qualified for Trials in 4 events, two of which he barely qualified in. Perhaps he had the potential to make the Olympic team in 2020, but there are a lot of swimmers with similar potential for 2020. Every scholarship swimmer for Stanford is an exceptional swimmer, nationally ranked, etc. The same can be said for swimmers in Texas, Georgia, Michigan, Florida, etc.
I find the statement from the women’s team to be so disturbing. Men and women practice together. I can’t imagine the discomfort these women felt, and the sense of violation from his comments. I don’t think the coach could necessarily have known when he recruited Turner that he did not demonstrate strong character. They don’t have much to go on aside from club coach comments. However, at a minimum, the men’s team had to have seen this at some point, and it appears some women knew. He didn’t try to hide his tendencies (based on what the women said). This wasn’t communicated to the coach, or the coach did not act on it. It reflects poorly on the team. I hope Stanford is digging in to the details of what transpired on the team.
His family friends on their fundraising site said that he had a 60% scholarship to Stanford, the implication being that it all was due to swimming. Not sure if that is tuition only or tuition + room and board. That seems high for an athletic scholarship to Stanford but I really know nothing about it.
@texaspg I absolutely agree he was an “Olympic aspirant” I just feel that those who made the horrible Facebook page and the media made it seem as if he was likely to make the Olympic team. As @VMT points out he was a Trials qualifier…Olympic Trials are a huge event with many many swimmers with zero chance of making the team. He had a long way to go to make the team this year or any year.
I also understand and agree with your explanation of the athletic admissions process, but to my mind though the coaches have slots, ultimately the admissions office issues (or rejects) the likelies and acceptances of those the coaches are targeting.
"Again, what is with this bizarre notion that bad people wave big red flags in front of themselves saying ‘I’m going to do a bad thing shortly!’ "
I believe that most of us can smell Eddie Haskell coming a mile away.
I definitely agree with VMT #1364. Also, lol Waiting2exhale. From my recollection of Leave It to Beaver, I am confident that June Cleaver saw right through Eddie Haskell. I think Ward did also, but perhaps not as obviously.
Turner was a recruit at a top rated swim program, but that doesn’t mean he was a certain Olympian, far from it, any more than a football recruit at a division 1 FBS program is a certain NFL’er. When you deal with elite levels in sports or music, the fact someone got in means they are at a certain level but that also means those admitted are competing against similar people or even better (so the music student who gets into Juilliard or similar programs is not necessarily “a future soloist” or “future member of the NY Phil” or whatnot).
As far as the coach knowing about the culture of the swim team, that one is a bit of a stretch. Coaches have gotten into trouble, take a look at Art Briles at Baylor, but that is where the coach had direct knowledge of misbehavior of athletes, I mean serious stuff, and looked the other way or covered it up. If the Stanford men’s swim coach knew Turner was harassing the women swimmers, or if he knew Turner was otherwise harassing the women, and did nothing, then yes, he would be liable in my book, but the “partying” culture? Give me a break, coaches aren’t parents, and his blaming the swim culture is BS, it is a priviliged, whiny brat blaming others for his own transgressions. Anyone with a kid knows this situation, kid gets caught doing something with his/her friends they shouldn’t “but mom/dad, the other kids were doing it” and parental response “So that meant you had to do it,too?”.In an 8 year old that is expected behavior, or at least not a shock, in a kid Turner’s age it is ridiculous. His whole argument about the swim team culture should have been treated by the judge and everyone else as what it was, attempting to blame others for his individual choices.
As far as Stanford goes, if the women’s teams allegations are correct, that the school discouraged them from reporting this, then the school should face sanctions under Title IX, as well as other potential sanctions, like loss of research funds and the like. If in fact that covered up for this creep, if the administration and the men’s coach had anything to do with not allowing the statement to go to the court, then they are liable. It also means their statements about taking harassment and sexual assault seriously are just window dressing, supposedly Stanford has one of the highest rates of sexual assault among schools (and I put the supposedly because I don’t know if that is because women feel safer at Stanford reporting these incidents, or it is based on other data, so I won’t cite it as fact), this could say a lot about the school.
The more I read about this case, the more sick I get. People always go around talking about the US being about the rule of the law, that the law is what keeps us from descending into Chaos, but how is Turner’s sentence any different that countries like Pakistan where the woman is assumed to be the guilty party, or in India where police look the other way while women are gang raped? Someone on this thread called trying to remove the judge vigilantism in effect,and in some ways it is, but vigilantism happens when people feel that the rule of law has been violated, especially the intent of it, and that is what the judge did in this case, he made a mockery of the law by giving the kid that kind of sentence, ignoring the many things that said this wasn’t an innocent kid who made a mistake, and for what? To protect someone from a similar background and class from facing the consequences of their actions. It is a pretty amazing thing when a case like this unites the whole political spectrum, other than maybe the frat boy type of people, few people think this sentence was just or wise or fair.
“How is Turner’s sentence any different that countries like Pakistan where the woman is assumed to be the guilty party, or in India where police look the other way while women are gang raped?”
I think that publicly convicting someone of a felony, sending him to jail, and putting him on a sex offender registry is super duper different from doing nothing or punishing the woman, even when the sentence is too short. In fact, the only similarity I see is that both fall short of an ideal outcome. If we imagine that perfect justice is a million dollars, getting $600k and getting zero are on different planets as far as I’m concerned.
You are all forgetting that Stanford is a D1 school, with athletic scholarships. Athletic admissions work differently there than at Ivies. If the rapist was on a 60% scholarship, then he was one of their top swimming recruits that year. Sports like swimming may give one full ride a year, if that.
As for admissions, while recruited athletes at Stanford meet higher standards than the NCAA minimum, the top recruits have much lower standards than the general population.
Brock’s arrest was not a surprise to the Stanford women’s swim team members:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/members-stanford-womens-swim-team-201900047.html
Athletes have always been privileged. Some handle it very well and no one ever hears about their private life and then are others who are always noted for misogyny. Ray Rice had support from half of Baltimore despite video evidence of he did to his wife.
I hope students have had some discussion on this case as much as the parents have discussed it.
Hopefully at least a few more students will think twice about their actions or be more proactive to not put themselves in a dangerous or compromising situation. It is a long way from a worry free zone on college campuses but if at least a few students are saved from a bad situation if they are aware of their surroundings and how much they are drinking then something positive or a good lesson will have come out of this experience of this one student.
I hope parents are having heartfelt discussions with their high school graduates about to enter college in the fall as these new students are most vulnerable to these types of situations once they move on to campus. You only get one body and you have to take good care of it. Be alert and aware of your surroundings and don’t get pressured into doing anything that you are not comfortable with.
@raclut: ^^^Oh, yes. This is going to happen. This thread has introduced me to a couple of things I had not been aware of.
@hannal:
The similarity between places like India and Pakistan and the turner case is that the judge and even some posters on here put blame on the victim. In India, the cops simple ignore the rape, in Pakistan the girl is assumed to have asked for it, because she wasn’t chaste enough or other drivel, and often will be beaten up or killed. Turner’s sentence was made lighter IMO by the judge because he looked at the victim, and said “well, you also brought this on yourself by drinking and giving a good Stanford boy the chance to have sex” (the more I read about this judge, the more I think he is basically another frat boy creep, and a misogynist to boot". The sentence was made lighter because the judge, like some posts on here and in the broader world, blame victim in part and added up to the kid who did it being a privileged athlete from a privileged background, it led to a lesser sentence so blame was put on the victim, we may not have ignored the crime or beaten the girl, but the light sentence sent a message to the victim that it was light because you were to blame, too, and that is wrong.
More importantly, if the girl hadn’t been drinking, if Turner had used his size and strength to knock her out, then have sex with her, do you think judge shmucko would have given him 6 months in the can? I sincerely doubt that, he likely would be outraged and gave him 6 years as the DA asked in this case…and why? Because in the judges eyes, Turner didn’t commit a violent crime here, he did it because of alcohol and that the girl herself had been drinking, and he applied the auto accident method of assigning blame, rather than what it should have been, a crime where a victim was violated…not to mention that the evidence he had available about Turner made clear this wasn’t a 'crime of opportunity and drinking", that Turner apparently is a creepy SOB.
As far as Turner being on the sex offender list, given that anyone convicted of a sexually related crime is on it, if you get 5 years or 15 years you are on it, too, so how does that make the punishment fit the crime, if the thing you mention is true of the black kid from Compton convicted of rape who would likely get serious jail time? If all else is equal, then what he got was a slap on the wrist, not to mention that someone will likely in a few years try and get him off the list and may be likely to succeed.
On a somewhat positive note, I went by our local university yesterday and it has started a responsible bystander media campaign, the basic message being, if you see somebody who has had too much to drink, take care of that peson. If you see somebody at a party that might be in danger, intervene. Etc. It’s a start.
@mamaedefamilia that is good news! Thinking about campus sexual assault and my daughter leaving for school brought up an old college memory. We were at a big house party and my friend was being pushed around by the guy she was dating (arms being held to her side, forcefully kissing her in-between hissing angry words at her). I came-up with an excuse that I needed her for something. He didn’t buy it and got angry at me, but she did leave the party with me. The fall-out was he encouraged her to not hang-out with me which changed the whole dynamics of our friend group and on the few times he passed close enough to me on campus he would whisper, “ugly bitch.”
At the time I wished I had never gotten involved. Now, I wish I had done more.
http://www.themarysue.com/learning-consent-mandatory-in-ca/
Hopefully this starts paying off once these kids get to college.