INTERVIEW – SALLY JENKINS — a sports columnist for The Washington Post
- Dr. Larry Nassar Sentenced to 40 to 175 Years for Sexual Abuse. In a sexual abuse scandal that has reverberated across the American sports scene, former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young gymnasts and other athletes. The punishment was handed down in a Michigan courtroom where Judge Rosemarie Aquilina had spent days listening to impassioned, angry statements from about 150 women — including Olympic champions — who had been victimized by Nassar.
- Michigan State Univ. president resigns in wake of Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon resigned Wednesday night amid widening denunciations of how the school handled the Larry Nassar sex-abuse scandal.”As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable,” Simon said in a written statement that seemed likely to only further infuriate her critics. “As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger.”
- U.S. Olympic Committee CEO calls for more resignations over Larry Nassar abuse scandal. Fallout from an Olympic sexual-abuse scandal continued to spread Wednesday, as officials called for top sports and academic leaders to resign over victims’ allegations that several institutions had enabled Dr. Larry Nassar’s abuse of gymnasts and other young athletes for decades. Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon announced she was resigning just hours after a judge imposed a prison term of 40 years to 175 years on Nassar, a former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics team doctor.
- SALLY JENKINS: USA Gymnastics allowed Larry Nassar to prey upon innocent victims. Congress must investigate. (By Sally Jenkins / Washington Post) — A national organization with the initials USA on it forced young girls to submit to pelvic exams by a child molester. Literally hundreds of them were isolated in mandatory “camps” and were repeatedly assaulted by a barehanded pedophile for years on end, while nobody cared to notice that no decent doctor would perform such an exam on young girls, much less ungloved. Where in the fresh red hell is an independent investigation into USA Gymnastics, and why isn’t Congress threatening to smash the U.S. Olympic Committee’s charter into pieces with a gavel over this? It’s only the worst sex abuse scandal in the history of sports — and maybe in the history of this country. USA Gymnastics not only allowed serial pedophile Larry Nassar unsupervised access to the scores of girls in its charge over 30 years, it required them to submit to him and his utterly unjustifiable vaginal examinations. There was no saying, “I don’t like this doctor. I want my own.” The organizations systematically deprived them of any right to say no, to ask for alternate treatment. It makes the Hollywood rapes look principled.
