SafeSport Center changes targeted in new bill aimed at sex abuse in sports

Four members of Congress unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday that would spark changes at the U.S. Center for SafeSport, placing a time limit on resolving cases that can sometimes take years and improving communication between the center and abuse survivors.

The Safer Sports for Athletes Act looks to address some of the bigger concerns that have opened the center to criticism since it was established in 2017 to handle sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports and their grassroots cousins.

The bill would quadruple an existing grant to the center to $10 million a year. But that wouldn't solve all the problems. As before, that grant can only be used for training and education, not investigations and enforcement, which are the focus of complaints about the center.

The center operates on a budget of around $21 million a year, most of which comes from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and its sports affiliates, known as national governing bodies, or NGBs. CEO Ju'Riese Colon said the center currently receives about 155 reports a week, which comes to more than 8,000 a year.

“We’re hoping the combination of appropriations for other activities will free up money for investigations, as well as the streamlining,” said Rep. Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina.

The other bill sponsors were Reps. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio; Don Bacon, R-Nebraska; and Kathy Castor, D-Florida.

The center's critics are skeptical about giving more resources to an agency they feel is missing the mark. Colon said even if the center receives the additional money in the form of the grant, tamping down problems addressed in the legislation won't be as simple as shifting funds around.

“We have a lot of questions,” she said. “Because some it, we just don't know how it works, practically.”

The law would mandate that investigations be concluded within 180 days after a report is made, with possibilities to extend them. Some of the most egregious complaints about the center have come from people who say it has taken years for their cases to be resolved.

“Too many other survivors have also been left waiting for years for SafeSport to investigate or have their cases closed without action,” said soccer player Mana Shim, who helped lawmakers draft the bill.

Shim's own case, involving sexual harassment and coercion by her coach, took more than two years for the center to resolve and led to investigations and reforms across American soccer.

Other reforms include a requirement for the center to provide victim advocates at no cost for those needing them — a move already underway as part of a menu of changes the center announced earlier this year — and to assign case managers who can give timely updates to victims and the accused.

“I have questions around, if the center were to hire and staff the advocates, there might be some conflict of interest with us doing this internally," Colon said.

The lawmakers positioned the bill as one that will help the Denver-based center, while making clear they are not satisfied with the results so far.

“We're going to make sure the center has the resources it needs to effectively respond to thousands of reports it handles annually,” Castor said. “It has unfortunately fallen short."

Ross conceded this bill will probably get pushed to the next Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, “but we needed to set the stage as soon as possible.”

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