NGBs are creating lists with the "hundreds of people who have been barred, often for sexual misconduct," as the USOC looks to "get all the names, from all the years and all the Olympic sports, in one place so that people can easily check them before joining a team or hiring a coach or a trainer," according to John Branch of the N.Y. TIMES. But the "sheer scope of the lists, and the inconsistencies within them because of differing standards among the organizations, raise plenty of questions -- not the least of which is whether an effort to collect and publish the names is even legal." There are also "questions about transparency and whether individual sports are divulging all past offenders." The USOC created the U.S. Center for SafeSport in March '17, and the idea was to have a "single agency empowered to investigate and rule on accusations of misconduct, taking those responsibilities away" from NGBs. While SafeSport does "not publish a list of all people barred," it provides links to NGB lists on its site and it "maintains a searchable online database for all the cases in which SafeSport has handed down bans or suspensions -- sometimes interim, as investigations continue." USOC Chief of Sports Operations & Paralympics Rick Adams, who oversees SafeSport, said, "What we want is an environment where, across the entire Olympic and Paralympic family, the names of individuals who have been banned are readily available." Branch notes for now, SafeSport’s public database does "not include all the people ... who were barred before it came into existence." But USOC BOD member and incoming Chair Susanne Lyons in May instructed NGBs to "provide detailed information on accusations, investigations and suspensions or bans that predated SafeSport’s launch." SafeSport "hopes to make that information available publicly by the end" of Q1 of '19 (N.Y. TIMES, 9/25).
