Questions have been raised about the independency of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, as an ESPN and ABC report showed failures within its sexual misconduct probes and trust from within wavering.
The center is essentially a watchdog program, created to investigate sexual misconduct allegations within the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s jurisdiction. According to ESPN and ABC, the organization takes the claims from USOPC and its national governing bodies and “handle[s] them free from the influence of money and medals, and maintain[s] a public database of sanctioned individuals.” It was created in 2017, the same year as Larry Nassar’s sentencing.