The NBA’s Sexual Harassment Issue is Bigger Than the Mavs
Whether they know it yet or not, this may end up being the biggest challenge of Adam Silver’s career.
We shouldn’t be surprised, in the traditional sense, by the Sports Illustrated article outlining a deep-rooted culture of misogyny and harassment inside the Dallas Mavericks. Shocked? Maybe. Appalled? Yes. Angry? Most definitely. But not surprised. Sports was always on the list of industries that a reckoning of this kind was on its way to. It just got here sooner (or maybe unfortunately, later) than some may have anticipated. After all, sports may be one of the oldest “old boys” clubs after politics and Hollywood (and possibly Wall Street). Think about it.
We’re talking about an activity that is already incredibly entertaining that still has scantily clad women dancing during breaks for the audience. To appease what tradition exactly? Cheerleaders are criminally underpaid (many work second and third jobs) and are consistently mistreated. And that’s just the easiest, most public example. Think about locker room culture (although the SI article clearly states that the locker room was actually a safe-haven in this case). Even in casual day-to-day interactions where we consistently challenge women’s love for sport with questions like “oh yeah, well name me the colour of LeBron’s right shoelace in the Finals and how high he jumped in inches precisely to block Andre Iguodala.”
As a society, we are in a middle of tectonic shift when it comes to sexual harassment, violence and gender equality. Don’t get me wrong, we’re just at the very beginning of this transition. We haven’t even started our warm-up yet. We’ve barely left the locker room. But we’re starting. We’re beginning to empower people to speak-up and more importantly, we are starting to actually listen when they do. This is an entirely new phenomenon, even though this is the way it should have been from the start.
Organizations far beyond sports have often practiced the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to issues of workplace harassment, reacting only when pushed to do so and never before that point. Which makes it even more important how the NBA chooses to handle this.
Let’s start with the easy part — everyone involved and/or complicit should immediately be fired. Earl Sneed should never be allowed again to write as much as fortune cookie copy (of course he’ll probably get a job at Barstool at some point, naturally). This should be a permanent and dark mark on everyone’s record. Think the Scarlet Letter for the sexual harassers.
When an organization operates within the confines of archaic policy, or those in leadership positions have indicated numerous times that they’re committed to this behavior — or even more, that this behavior will be protected internally — it’s extremely difficult to speak out. If you’re a junior account executive in the Mavs front office, and you‘ve seen women resign and be forced to be silent while being harassed, you know exactly how the organization is going to respond to you pointing something out as an innocent bystander. It is, however, not an excuse not to speak out. We have to start finding our voice in these situations or realize that we are complicit by staying silent. It’s a tough line to walk because it requires an institutional change where organizations treat these reports with utmost gravity and personal bravery to stand for what’s right. That’s the kind of bravery the league needs to show now.
This is why the NBA shouldn’t stop at the Mavericks, because it’s not just the Mavericks that need investigating. Even now, some employees will be afraid to speak up against their organization for the fear of being ostracized or fired, which puts the onus on the NBA to investigate that too. Just like the flood of revelations about Hollywood’s history of sexual harassment didn’t stop at Harvey Weinstein, it’s foolish to think that only the Mavs harbor people within their ranks who are guilty of this type of behavior.
There isn’t an easy response for the NBA. This may be the biggest challenge Adam Silver ever faces. The Mavericks investigation is just a start and what he does next will speak volumes to where we’ll end up with this. It would be naive and hopelessly foolish to believe that this investigation will bring an end to sexual harassment in sports and if you think that will happen, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. What this investigation has the power to do is be a catalyst for change, empower women to speak up, and indicate to all 30 teams across the league that the NBA will not tolerate this type of behaviour.
Sure, some teams may be better-off already than others. The Raptors, for example, have completely overhauled their culture and are actively championing women in leadership roles across all levels of their organization, including Teresa Resch, the VP of Basketball Operations. But the trouble is, we just don’t know. Until a few days ago, the Mavs were to most outsiders a ‘model organization’ and look how that turned out. That’s why this process needs to be thorough and all-encompassing, especially when the league has already suffered through missteps in the past. (Yes, we’re talking about you New York, and that huge sexual harassment scandal you had on your hands before you threw $11-million at it to make it disappear.)
I don’t claim to have the answers to all of this. And I don’t know how this investigation is going to end. But I do know where it needs to start — here and now. Regardless of what a league-wide investigation reveals, one thing is clear: team owners are not able to keep their houses in order. Which is why the NBA also needs to set-up an independent body as part of its head office that encourages organizational employees to report instances of sexual harassment outside of their team’s chain of command. This is the NBA’s chance to rebuild the culture from the inside out, by shifting the cultural emphasis from protecting the status quo to empowering and believing victims of sexual harassment.
And this shouldn’t stop with the NBA. This isn’t a basketball issue, this is a sports issue. We saw the same thing happen with Jerry Richardson. And how many Jerry Richardson’s are still out there? The NBA isn’t unique in a sense that it is founded on male culture. NFL. NHL. MLB. Each league has a history of this on one level or another and they shouldn’t wait for another exposé to take action of their own.
But what about Mark Cuban? That is a good question. There are already suggestions that he should sell the team, speculating how deep his knowledge was of organizational behavior. Some state a 2014 instance of him speaking out against forcing Donald Sterling out, as it would set a dangerous precedent, as an indirect admission of knowledge and therefore guilt. It’s more likely that the person who frequently and un-apologetically said some wild and crazy shit about the NBA didn’t want a precedent set for removing an owner for saying some wild and crazy shit. These two things may not be related, but the thing is, they don’t have to be.
I can’t tell you for certain whether Mark Cuban knew or didn’t know what was happening in his organization until the investigation concludes. But I can tell you that I don’t for a second believe that he didn’t know. For a man who takes pride in controlling his organization it is highly implausible that he didn’t know about the CEO and President of one of his most valued assets or a beat writer who he had personal contact with and/or at least inclinations of their behaviour. Sneed not being able to travel to Toronto is a clear red flag and something you find out about when you’re the one who hired the person.
Cuban may have heard whispers and hints and willfully chose to ignore them, much like a lot of other leaders across a variety of other enterprises in the last century when insulation from knowledge was comparable to protection from repercussions. That almost makes it worse. This kind of willful negligence, while commonplace by the “ten years ago” standards, should not be acceptable. I’m not saying that this is right, and I’m not saying this excuses anything that happened, I am saying that if an owner who prides himself on being intimately involved with every facet of the organization has managed to separate himself from this, imagine how organizations operate when ownership is more distant.
Should Cuban sell the team? Time will tell. So will the investigation. In the mean time, we should pay attention to what happens with the NBA investigation and how far they’re willing to take it, because fixing the Mavericks is just the beginning and it’s on all of us, internally and externally, to ensure that it’s not the end.
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