Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House, is under attack by the left (here’s the Vox account) because before his political career, when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State, he did not report that the team doctor had sexually fondled male student wrestlers during physical exams and that the doctor had joined wrestlers in the showers. There were also accusations that “voyeurs” had engaged in locker room sexual activity while the team trained and showered.
Jordan said he didn’t know about the inappropriate activity, which has only recently become public.
I wonder, however, if Jordan had known about and reported this alleged behavior to the authorities, whether the left would be accusing him of having promoted a homophobic witch hunt at Ohio State.
More. The New York Times reports:
One wrestler denied the allegations entirely, saying that the accusers were “seeing dollar signs.” Others wrote that they had never witnessed or heard of [the doctor] acting inappropriately.
But [a public relations firm] also sent along a statement from one wrestler who wrote that in the locker room, there were “definitely inappropriate things that in my opinion were pretty disgusting going on all around us,” and another who wrote that he had been abused by [the doctor] and never told anyone but his father.
5 Comments for “The Jim Jordan Accusations”
posted by Jorge on
Oh, so I get to learn about this today, do I? Well, I haven’t heard any new developments in the past week. Usually guilty Republicans start sinking by this point.
(Reads the USA Today article on the subject.)
“But Mike DiSabato, a former Ohio State wrestler, said Strauss’s groping of student athletes was widely known at the university. He claimed Jordan was aware. NBC News first reported the allegations from DiSabato and two other former wrestlers.
“Doc Strauss was a serial groper,” DiSabato told USA TODAY. “Everyone knew, including Jim.””
Oh, puh-leeze. Remember when the Fox News Channel scandal happened and that one female host and more than one male host defended Roger Ailes saying nothing inappropriate ever happened? If Megyn Kelly hadn’t told the investigators, “This happened to me,” Ailes still might be there. One of the things sexual predators are very good at is surrounding themselves with people who support them. The silence by the people who know feeds the support of the perpetrator by those in very close proximity him who don’t know. Why should I believe this is any different?
This one athlete talks about how in the 1990s the team doctor pulled down his pants and he objected, and he told Mr. Jordan. I find him credible.
Also in the 1990s, a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky pulled down her pants to show her thong to President Bill Clinton. The subsequent affair was fully consensual. As a result, it took Ms. Lewinsky decades to realize that President Clinton use used his power as her boss to take advantage of her. Even today, she has been ridiculed for voicing her victimhood, because what she was a victim of did not cross the line into sexual abuse or harassment.
Based on the actual accusation, I believe a reasonable person in Jordan’s situation could have been influenced by denial, viewed the accusation he was told of in terms of a solicitation for a consensual sexual relationship, and dismissed any possibility that the team doctor was a sexual predator. In sum, it’s not without good reason that people are coming to his defense. The smoke is there, but the fire isn’t igniting.
I believe that if and when the University investigation finds it credible that sex abuse occurred on the wrestling team while Jim Jordan was employed, Rep. Jordan has an obligation to offer a sincere apology for failing to protect the athletes. This is regardless of the truth of any excuses he or his allies have offered. We must expect better of university employees at all levels. Being a person “of great integrity” means doing more than your share to make up for the degenerates among us.
posted by Matthew on
The same media that stuck up for Bill Clinton also enabled Bill Cosby. They’re the last people to lecture us on sexual morality, yet their critics are often as bad or worse for different reasons.
posted by JasonS on
There are two sets of accusations being made by those seeking settlement money from Ohio State. (1) That the team doctor sexually fondled students during exams and (2) that others, possibly alumni with access to using the locker room, showers and workout areas or, in more lurid speculation, a sex ring brought in by the doctor, engaged in sexual hijinks in the locker room and showers.
The first instance could be assault that should have been reported and prosecuted; the other is all too common behavior among some gay men, who if it was flagrant might lose their gym privileges.
To prosecute the perpetrator of the first is understandable, but to prosecute those engaged in the second would be a homophobic overreaction. Not sure that those using this against Jordan care to make this distinction.
posted by MR Bill on
Breaking news: “On Tuesday, Jordan’s public-relations crisis became a legal nightmare. Attorneys filed a massive class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Ohio on behalf of an as-yet-unnamed former OSU wrestler. The law firm Sauder Schelkopf is seeking to represent all the students and athletes “treated” by Strauss in his two decades at the school, from the late ‘70s to the late ‘90s – a number they estimate will amount to “at least 1,500.”
Jordan, the jut-jawed anti-gay crusader who’s the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the House, is singled out in the suit: He’s one of only three former school officials named, including Strauss, though the action is aimed at all the coaches, administrators and others in positions of responsibility at OSU who, it claims, stood by while students and student-athletes were repeatedly “sexually abused, harassed, and molested,” and “forced” to seek treatment from a well-known predator even after they complained. (Strauss was the sole team doctor for the wrestlers; the men say they either had to choose to let injuries go untreated, as the lawsuit says some did, or subject themselves to yet another assault.)
The lead plaintiff, “John Doe,” says he was groped, assaulted and molested at least 20 times. The other wrestlers have told reporters how Strauss allegedly used any excuse to make them expose themselves and grope them, and the lawsuit adds some sickening details….” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jim-jordan-ohio-state-700578/
posted by Greg on
This is an overwhelmingly bad take on this situation.