Blog & News

The Mediated Agreement

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:08:47 -0600

In a formal mediation that occurred on January 11th by order of the USOC, an agreement was reached between the athlete Claimants and USA Wrestling. This Settlement Agreement, if implemented correctly, will mean positive change and provide a lasting benefit to our sport and its athletes. A little about the Agreement:

USAW will be commissioning an ad-hoc independent Coach Review Committee as soon as practically possible. The Review Panel put into place by USAW in September 2009 recommended that USAW organize an independent committee to undergo a formal review of the National Team coaches. Key provisions of the Settlement Agreement ensure that members of the Coach Review Committee shall: (1) have no personal connection with USAW or the Claimants; (2) shall not be personally or professionally affiliated with the wrestling community; and (3) shall have no conflicts of interest that might stand in the way of an impartial review. The Coach Review Committee shall perform the task of formally evaluating and reviewing the National Team coaches including a review of athletes’ reasons for non-attendance at National Team Camps. In short, this review of USAW’s coaches should give harmed athletes an opportunity to be heard on their full experiences that prompted them to stand up to be heard in the first place. The Coach Review Committee will evaluate and review the National Programs for equity in coaching caliber and skill level. This Committee will report its findings, including any conclusions as to inequities, to USA Wrestling with the goal of improving the women’s wrestling program.

Another provision of the Agreement is the creation of a Wrestling Oversight Committee. This Oversight Committee will be charged with evaluation of USA Wrestling’s compliance with certain provisions of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act (“the Sports Act”), will review National Women’s Team Programs for parody with other National Team Programs, and will make determinations on the appropriateness of the women’s camp schedules (mandatory vs. non-mandatory denominations), sanctions, and High Performance Plans. This places the power to determine which camps are mandatory and which are non-mandatory in the hands of a representative committee instead of with the women’s National Coaches. This Committee will also be given access to USOC information and USAW’s own Review Panel report which does not support the current load of mandatory camps in the women’s schedule. This Oversight Committee will also be empowered to receive inquires or complaints from athletes or other USA Wrestling members concerning the Sports Act’s requirement of equitable support and encouragement for women. This Committee has the power to consider the claims of athletes who believe tour funding or team competition participation was wrongfully denied. The Oversight Committee will be composed of the chairs of USA Wrestling’s three Sport Committees (including the Women’s Sport Committee) and two elected female athletes. We are happy that this Oversight Committee will provide a proper and prompt outlet for athlete complaints regarding inequitable treatment and any sanctions against athletes imposed.

In conjunction with its operations, the Oversight Committee will seek input from USA Wrestling and the Claimants regarding the TSOASA and what USAW's policy should be regarding "prompt and equitable resolution of grievances." USAW will promulgate a definitive policy in compliance with this provision of the Sports Act.

Also agreed upon is a meeting with the USOC, USAW, and the claimants to get policy input from the USOC on mandatory camp schedules and sanction policy.

As soon as practicable, USAW will appoint the Chair of the Women’s Sport Committee and Sara McMann to the Diversity Committee. The Diversity Committee shall be directed by USAW to encourage more participation by women on the Board and its committees. Here, we did not achieve a solid assurance that there will be adequate female representation on USAW’s Board of Directors, but having reasonable representation of females on governing boards is very important. It is unlikely that many of the inequities and harms that have befallen our female athletes would have occurred or been permitted to continue to occur had there been reasonable representation of females in governance. For this reason it is important that you get involved to help make sure that there will be a strong voice for women on USAW’s future governing Boards. Please consider running yourself or helping elect other women to these posts. Sara McMann, as the new Diversity Committee member, will be your point of contact for information on the Board or Committees, or about upcoming elections. Contact information for each of us is available on the “Home” page of this website.

Also, the USAW Women’s Sports Committee shall be directed to investigate concerns of Women’s College Wrestling Association (WCWA) and make recommendations on how USAW can improve its relationship to the women's development pipeline.

The Section 10 Complaint on file with the USOC stays in effect until certain provisions of the Settlement Agreement are implemented. That is our assurance that the agreed upon actions and changes will occur. After that time, we will move to dismiss the Section 10 Complaint. Please contact us if you witness or experience any treatment that does not comport with any portion of these agreed upon changes - this includes any continued mistreatment that these changes are meant to protect from. It is important that you let us know so we can help fix things before the Section 10 is dismissed.

Did we get everything we wanted? No. Did we finally get an objective review of the women’s coaches? Yes. Did we get some sort of structure in place so that future harms can be addressed quickly? Yes. Is our job done? No. There are going to be some very important steps to be taken in the near future to ensure that the positive measures we have all fought for in these last years take hold and grow. We hope that you will be willing to stay joined together for positive change for a little while longer to help us in this implementation. We will contact you with progress and also with ways in which you can help actualize results in this fight for the freedom, opportunities, and respect that you all and the next generation dearly deserve.

Thank you for your support through the Grievance and Section 10 process – we know it was not easy. We have always believed that a mediated settlement that establishes safeguards and reforms for our female athletes would be the best outcome for the sport. You have made a big difference in this battle for equitable support and encouragement and we thanks you sincerely.

Mediation

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:52:08 -0700

In the process to try and find a resolution for the Grievance we filed in July, we have tried to utilize many resources and tried to access expertise where we could. Very early in the process, we approached USOC Ombudsman John Rugar to seek advice on how we could promote resolution for the sake of all USA Wrestling members. Consistently from as far back as August, John Rugar has told us that mediation has shown promising results in resolving these kinds of disputes in the past and that he had great faith that this attempt might work in this case. On September 16, September 23, and again on October 2, 2009, we asked USA Wrestling leadership for a mediation attempt in the hopes that we could find a resolution that made USA Wrestling a stronger organization while putting the Grievance behind us all. On all three of these occasions, we were answered by USA Wrestling Legal Counsel that the dispute would not proceed to mediation.
Even now that we are at the USOC level under Section 10 of the USOC Bylaws, we remain hopeful that mediation might still solve the compliance problems that we identify in our Complaint, and that mediation might do this quickly and effectively.

Our Original Remedies

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:37:14 -0700

The remedies we asked for in the Section 10 Complaint filed with the USOC do not match perfectly with those remedies that were originally filed with USA Wrestling as part of the Grievance on July 15, 2009. Why is there a difference?
The original remedies we asked USA Wrestling for on July 15, 2009 were the smallest set of potential remedies that we could think of that would help USA Wrestling come into compliance with the federal mandates. We thought long and hard to develop remedies that would solve the compliance problems in a way that would ensure that these problems did not come up again 10 years from now while also being sensitive to create as little friction and difficulty in the implementation of a fair and livable solution as quickly as possible.
We did anticipate the resistance to change that USA Wrestling exhibited in these early stages regardless of the fair and obvious a remedies we proposed. Unfortunately, USA Wrestling’s persistence in its path contrary to the Sport Act has caused more harms to come to light. Thus, the later remedies requested in the Section 10 Complaint have been updated to reflect more recent activities and developments. The Section 10 process, as you can read about in our F.A.Q. page, explains that the remedies that ultimately bring and NGB into compliance with the Sports Act will be reviewed and approved by the USOC Hearing Panel and they will be the ones to determine whether an NGB has corrected its compliance deficiencies.
Our original Grievance remedies, as it was filed with USA Wrestling in July, can be enlightening to illustrate the aims of the Grievance when it was first filed. We asked for only five remedies that would help USA Wrestling come into compliance with the Sports Act and assure that these same non-compliance issues would not occur again.
These remedies were:
1. Creation of a permanent, internal oversight committee to monitor gender equity issues within USA Wrestling. A permanent committee to oversee the sanctions, funding, and support and encouragement for all programs—Greco-Roman, Men’s Freestyle, and Women’s Freestyle—would assure compliance with federal law.
2. Review to assure equal caliber coaches. This remedy would assure that the women are being provided the same quality leadership and support that their male counterparts receive.
3. Compensation for past illegal sanctions. Athletes that have been unjustly sanctioned or deprived of due process by USA Wrestling would be compensated for their loss. This compensation, though a small financial sum, would be symbolic of USA Wrestling’s commitment to change.
4. Letter of apology to the women’s wrestling community. This remedy is designed to rectify a history of denial and discounting of legitimate concerns by USA Wrestling.
5. To the extent that USA Wrestling provides support and encouragement for male high school and college wrestling participation, they are to provide equitable support and encouragement for female wrestlers at these development stages.
We are as hopeful now as we were when we submitted these remedies that USA Wrestling will see these measures, or ones similar, as an effective and simple path through which to come into compliance with Olympic governing law.