In a move that was arguably long overdue, the entire board of directors of USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, has resigned. The housecleaning comes days after Dr. Larry Nassar, the disgraced USA Gymnastics team doctor, was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for serially sexually assaulting athletes.
Nassar’s abuse first came to light through a series of investigative reports published by the Indianapolis Star.
USA Gymnastics faced increasing scrutiny following Nassar’s extraordinary sentencing hearing, which lasted seven days and at which Judge Rosemarie Aquilina allowed more than 150 women to read victim impact statements detailing Nassar’s abuse. Many of the women said USA Gymnastics, as well as officials from the U.S. Olympic Committee, turned a blind eye to the abuse and did not adequately investigate early allegations against Nassar or move swiftly to safeguard the young women and girls who competed under their auspices. According to reports, USA Gymnastics, where Nassar was on staff for 19 years, waited five weeks to inform the Federal Bureau of Investigation of allegations against him.
In her riveting statement, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman scathingly criticized “adult after adult, many in positions of authority” for enabling Nassar’s crimes, adding that USA Gymnastics is “an organization that I feel is rotting from the inside.”
Following the hearing and Judge Aquilina’s sentencing, Olympic gold medalist Simon Biles tweeted:
To Judge Aquilina : THANK YOU, YOU ARE MY HERO
&
Shout out to all of the survivors for being so brave & speaking like the queens that you are while looking at that monster. He will no longer have the power to steal our happiness or joy. I stand with every one of you 💛 pic.twitter.com/b5SMmjZgeW
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) January 24, 2018
This morning on the Today Show, Biles told host Hoda Kotb “I think the judge is my hero because she gave it to him straight and didn’t let him get any power over any of the girls and letting the girls go and speak was very powerful.”
USA Gymnastics will elect interim board members before a new slate of officials can be selected later this year. The resignation en masse of the board was one of 70 recommendations that came out of the Daniels Report, a damning investigation into the organization’s failure to stop Nassar that was conducted by former federal prosecutor Deborah Daniels.
The president and athletic director of Michigan State University, where Nassar ran a sports clinic, also resigned this week. Now scrutiny is turning to the Karolyi Ranch near Houston, Texas, a facility founded by famed Olympic coach Bela Karolyi, where several women say they were assaulted by Nassar.