“Earlier than they had been too harsh, and now in a means, they weren’t harsh sufficient, however this was a significantly better course of and didn’t put the integrity of the commissioner and the league in query,” mentioned Bob Boland, who leads the sports activities legislation program at Seton Corridor College. “The truth that the result’s unsatisfying is unlucky.”
Whereas the brand new course of seems to have functioned as meant, leaving Goodell out of the assessment of info and the preliminary meting of a penalty, the league’s insurance policies nonetheless seem to be a piece in progress. LeRoy pointed to the opening line of Robinson’s conclusion: “The N.F.L. could also be a ‘forward-facing’ group, however it isn’t essentially a forward-looking one,” indicating that the N.F.L. is underneath quite a lot of scrutiny, however its method to self-discipline has been principally reactive.
After being criticized for its dealing with of the case involving former Baltimore Ravens operating again Ray Rice, who in 2014 was initially suspended for 2 video games after he punched his fiancé in a lodge elevator, the N.F.L. rewrote its private conduct coverage to set a baseline of a six-game unpaid suspension for first offenders of particular violations: Prison assault or battery, all types of home violence and sexual assault involving bodily pressure or dedicated towards somebody incapable of giving consent.
In Robinson’s report, she concluded that Watson’s habits towards the therapeutic massage therapists was not violent underneath the N.F.L.’s definition of the time period. Consequently, she mentioned, she was restricted within the self-discipline she might hand out. Robinson wrote that whereas it could be “fully applicable” to extra severely self-discipline gamers for what the N.F.L. outlined as nonviolent sexual conduct, she didn’t consider it was truthful to take action given the league’s present requirements.
Juan Carlos Areán, a program director for the nonprofit group Futures With out Violence, mentioned that he didn’t consider a six-game suspension, with none requirement for counseling or intervention, was enough to both deter or appropriate the behaviors of which Watson is accused. As a result of violence towards girls can take many types, Areán mentioned that insurance policies ought to be written to offer latitude to the particular person issuing self-discipline based mostly on the specifics of every case.
“We all know that you simply don’t have to make use of bodily pressure, and it’s laborious to show use of bodily pressure, when a sexual assault occurs,” he mentioned. “We additionally know that other forms of assaults, emotional abuse and people sorts of issues, can have a really adversarial impression in victims. These are very advanced points, and you can’t simply clearly quantify, ‘nicely, that is a lot worse than this.’”