“Failure to Protect”

[garfield]

27 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Details matter, but some wrong things in this article don't make the rest of it--the major points--untrue.

Your posts in this thread are being read by others as claiming that Nadolny's mistakes undermine the heart of her reporting. Almost all of your comments here have questioned the article's flaws and almost none of them have acknowledged its achievements.

It's as if you're judging the article using the tick system.

This is hilarious, coming from you!  Mr. Notebook!  (I love that about you, really!)

The single statement that everyone here is taking me to task on is a direct cut and accusation at DCI, the activity, and the governing body as it stood prior to 2017, and as it now, today, represents the activity.  "...never been disciplined about a participant safety issue."  (I paraphrase only slightly.)

That makes it sound like the activity HAS NO DISCIPLINARY MECHANISM.  Which is untrue.  She might as well be saying "The Wild West", or "Sodom and Gomorrah".  These are dastardly, evil, and unforgivable crimes for which the accused and their enabler employers should be held responsible.  NOT DCI - AT THE TIME.  Today is different.

When someone can produce evidence, including this reporter, that DCI was culpable for, or didn't follow its established protocol and practices in these circumstance, I will accept a statement that the activity is rotted from the head.  Not before.  

This notion to burn down DCI is absolutely wrong-headed, a HUGE and glaring mistake, and that includes getting rid of Dan Acheson until and unless there is evidence that he failed in his job.  There is changing governance, to be sure, but Dan A's office is, until proven otherwise, not culpable in the events described in the article and should be retained largely intact for their proven abilities to organize, run, manage, and promote the tour.  IMAGINE the damage if there IS NO TOUR.  Those of you who think pulling that off is easy are just ignorant fools, IMO.

What is this deep-seated desire to unseat DCI's central office and burn it to the ground for the unforgivable acts of people teaching out in the field?

It's lack of understanding and willful ignorance of the facts on the ground at the time.  Nothing more.

Terri is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT - let's get back on track to prosecute those who are responsible both for these crimes and those who employ them.  They ALL need to go, IMO!

And what's left standing are the corps that are clean as a jiffy and a FREAKING ORGANIZATION to let them tour.

Don't be business idiots.  This need to "dismantle" DCI and hang the Executive is grossly misplaced and unnecessarily damaging.

Go hang the people who committed the crimes and those who ignored rules to enable them.

That's NOT DCI.

Words matter.

 

[garfield]

42 minutes ago, Terri Schehr said:

Any chance we can get back on point here?  

I think the most troubling aspect of this article is how easily these people could move from corps-to-corps unfettered. 

I think this is such a key solution.  Really nailed it and really nailed where, it seems to me, DCI's new "central office'' function can fit right in.

Many here have said it: ALL hires go through DCI to get fully vetted and approved before they can be employed?  Great solution. I'd bet that's in there or will be talked about next month.

Now that DCI has been empowered, the old network of willful ignorance is gone and the Executive has some teeth.

Frankly, Dan's job just got a WHOLE lot bigger and harder.  The corps have to bite the bullet and fund it, and more outside governance coming, and already on; all drastic improvements.

 

 

[garfield]

43 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:

Yes be happy you continue to word smith for an organization ####### itself daily 

What??  Lol?

What?  That's your job description, right?  Lol.

Seriously, wth?

[garfield]

34 minutes ago, Lance said:

I understand garfield's points about that paragraph.

"DCI can discipline or suspend corps for violating its policies. But until it put the Cadets on probation in April, DCI had never disciplined a corps for concerns about participant safety."

I think she meant to say that the Hop case was the first time DCI had ever put a corps on probation for violating policies regarding sexual abuse and participant safety.

It is an important distinction, and there's no reason to get angry with garfield for pointing it out.  

However, in my opinion, it certainly doesn't take away from the salient points of the article.  Namely that half of DCI world class corps have employed people with histories of inappropriate contact with minors, and that in some cases, admin in the corps knew about it and hired them anyway.  This article isn't the end of research on something that's fundamentally wrong with DCI.  It's the tip of the iceberg. 

 

Good God, I'm not losing my mind after all.  Thanks, Lance. 

And you're right, it does not take away from the central point of her article.  But it does, AND SHOULD, deflate her animous about Dan's office supposedly not participating or answering her questions.

This is NOT about DCI, Dan's office, as it was when these violations took place.

 

[garfield]

36 minutes ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Does anyone else know the answer to this? How did DCI discipline corps for other (non-sexual) safety issues?

I'm not ignoring you, I'm eating dinner.

I have your answer when I can stop chewing my salad.

An opportune example.

 

[Fran Haring]

1 hour ago, garfield said:

This is hilarious, coming from you!  Mr. Notebook!  (I love that about you, really!)

The single statement that everyone here is taking me to task on is a direct cut and accusation at DCI, the activity, and the governing body as it stood prior to 2017, and as it now, today, represents the activity.  "...never been disciplined about a participant safety issue."  (I paraphrase only slightly.)

That makes it sound like the activity HAS NO DISCIPLINARY MECHANISM.  Which is untrue.  She might as well be saying "The Wild West", or "Sodom and Gomorrah".  These are dastardly, evil, and unforgivable crimes for which the accused and their enabler employers should be held responsible.  NOT DCI - AT THE TIME.  Today is different.

 

The reporter actually does a pretty good job of providing context... she certainly covers the fact that DCI has now changed its policies, and is in the process of seeing what else needs to be done. And nowhere... at least from my reading of it... does she say that DCI AS OF NOW has no disciplinary mechanism. In fact, she points out that they do... in the cases of the Cadets and Pioneer.

I can't speak for her, and none of us are mind readers, but... again, from having been in the business, I would be willing to bet that when the reporter said DCI has never disciplined a corps for member-safety issues... she meant in any matter regarding sexual impropriety/sex crimes/etc., since that is what her entire series of articles is about. She can easily correct that oversight... and that's what it is, an oversight and heck, I might even send her an email pointing that out. But it's not some mean-spirited attempt to "bring down" DCI with her words.

If she were writing about the other "member safety" issues and neglected to mention DCI indeed did intervene in several cases, then THAT would be completely wrong and misleading on her part. But she's not writing about that.

I absolutely agree that the DCI front office has taken steps to deal with this entire mess, should be given credit for that, and should not be put in front of a firing squad or any such thing for, among other things, following the rules as they were written in days past (meaning the BOD member corps made and enforced... or at least were supposed to enforce... the rules, not the front office). Those were the rules then, and DCI followed them.

But G, I gotta be honest... you have a tendency to blame the reporter in this whole situation.  For one thing, it's not her fault that Dan Acheson didn't want to answer her questions... she reached out, and again is under no obligation whatsoever to provide him with questions in advance, etc.  She is not being unfair. She's just doing her job... and in my personal and professional  opinion... she's doing a good one. 

Edited December 14, 2018 by Fran Haring

[karuna]

It boggles the mind that anyone is still defending DCI's CEO in this matter. Anyone even peripherally connected to drum corps knows that everyone knows everyone's business.  To say it's a tight-knit community is an understatement.   To suggest that a former staffer and corps director who now is at the head of the organization had no knowledge of any of this is absurd.

Furthermore to suggest that his hands were tied by the corporate structure is even more reprehensible. If Acheson truly knew nothing, it speaks to willful ignorance.   But no reasonable person can possibly believe that he knew nothing when the entire drum corps community knew at least something.  Heck many DCI fans with no official connection to drum corps knew about many of these things.  

So... did he know about any single case of sexual abuse?  Yes.

Did the board conspire to keep DCI officially powerless to act.  Probably.

Does that relieve the CEO of all responsibility.  No. 

Ultimately all of the participating members (including the victims) were his responsibility.  If the board sought to render him helpless to act,  he had a duty to act,  to report and to protect. This nonsense that he knew nothing is pure fantasy. And this ridiculous notion that he could do nothing with said knowledge is just plain sad.  

Like it or not,  he let this happen on his watch.   And that fact alone makes his removal imperative.  

Edited December 14, 2018 by karuna

[Jeff Ream]

1 hour ago, JimF-LowBari said:

And I’m 5 foot 6 so picture that one lol.

Not sure how young he was when I first met Jeff but he was awful young.. and still taller than me. (I marched with his dad one season)

5 or 6

[Jeff Ream]

1 hour ago, garfield said:

You say that as if I'm preventing it. 

Ok, how about it?  Isn't that what's happening now?  Aren't people taking a fall for it now?

 

Preventing no. Condoning yes 

[Jeff Ream]

1 hour ago, N.E. Brigand said:

Thanks for this.

So to repeat myself: could you or someone else here let us know what form DCI's previous disciplinary action against corps for safety infractions took?

Were corps fined? Were corps told to fire people? Were corps banned from a performance?

That I’m aware of the only missed performances last year were illness and an issue with housing that led to a great distance between show site and rehearsal, both the Cadets