Other side of the coin in Nassar´s case
An old legend of the Ancient Greeks tells about a woman that finds a box and despites being warned about not to open it, she did quite the opposite releasing all evils to the world. Similar to Pandora’s myth, a woman of the show business opened the darkness and dirty world of celebrities and sexual harassments of Hollywood and other industries. Harvey Weinstein’s lawsuit opened the door to many women who united their voices in #Metoo, a social movement they created in Twitter where every woman or man harassed by their superiors can denounced the case, and the result has been the releasing of events from many years ago.
One of the cases that generated more consternation was Larry Nassar´s scandal. Nassar, who worked at the East Lansing school, raped athletes of the US National Gymnastics team. Despite he denied any guilty, he was sentenced by two separate audiences, the first one from 40 to 175 years of prison, and the second one from 40 to 125 years in prison. He disguised the female athletes’ abuse under medical treatment.
After years of working with the National US gymnastic team Larry Nassar made, in addition, a lot of sexual proposals or comments. Nassar was condemned but how many people were involved or at least knew about it? The scandal is still being investigated. Actually, US Education Department is trying to find out how Michigan State University handled reports. According to the Department of Education it is possible that Michigan State knew federal rules that were violated and dismissed reports about Larry’s sexual behavior in the campus.
John Engler Michigan State’s interim president encouraged the university employees to collaborate with the current investigations. After Larry Nassar´s scandal, more officials will be investigated at Michigan State University. Michigan State's Judge Rosemarie Aquilina called for "a massive investigation asking why there was inaction, why there was silence. Jennifer Paine, another Michigan lawyer who specializes in child protection, said there are some possible reasons for charging some Michigan State staff members for remaining silent and do not present charges about what victims were saying.
Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber pronounced testimonies during the judicial process. Besides thegold-medal winning gymnasts, around 200 women testified against Nassar, which provoked Michigan State’s president and athletic director’s resignation. No one knows already why it wasn´t stopped years ago. Actually, a school's principal was sentenced to jail last year for not telling the authorities about a sexual abuse allegation.
Despite the process and the Nassar’s felony there are a lot of questions unanswered. First of all, did the students know the law and regulations that protect them? Do they have a place or a center to denounce these violations? Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, said that a civil rights team would soon arrive to the campus and that she was committed to ensure all students were secured from sexual misconduct. Also, she considers the institutions where these sad events happen, are responsible of violating federal laws. In the case of Michigan, De Vos said Michigan State has a federal law that bars sexual discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.
As part of the US fight against sexual harassment and violence, a Republican state Senator Margaret O‘Brien said a bipartisan group of lawmakers plan to introduce a legislative package to fight sexual assaults and increase protections for the victims.
O'Brien added that members of Nassar´s staff and colleges should be added to Michigan's list of mandatory reports, which includes therapists and medical professionals. In Washington, US senators from both parties are calling for the creation of a select commission to investigate the US Olympic Committee.
It is well known that the cases of Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar were an alert and society, in particular women, is aware of the issue in the professional context. Besides, it’s still a main subject in educational institutions where sometimes students could fear professors or simple they could think that some kind of sexual games or flirting could help with scores. Another point of view it’s sometimes persons involved are frighten of beingbullied by colleague at school through intimidation or shame.
So the legend of Pandora is no so far of nowdays. The dirty world of celebrities and sexual harassments of Hollywood and other industries out after Harvey Weinstein’s lawsuit and #Metoo become in one of the huge social movement on the latest time.