Update on “Safer Sports for Athletes Act of 2024"
Last Friday, The Associated Press ran the article, "SafeSport Center changes targeted in the new bill aimed at sex abuse in sports."
Today, The Sports Examiners published, “U.S. CENTER FOR SAFESPORT: Added funding of $10 million and faster decisions proposed in reform bill introduced in U.S. House. “
Sponsored by Rep. Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina, the H.R. 10326, “Safer Sports for Athletes Act of 2024,” is the first congressional bill that is the outcome of the Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics & Paralympics works. Its 277-page Final Report was released on March 1, 2024. It was one of the Commission’s ten recommendations.
I first mentioned this proposed bill in my newsletter issue on March 11 (NINE MONTHS AGO). Read “Safer Sports for Athletes Act of 2024."
There are no congressional actions on the CSUSOP’s other nine recommendations. See page 5 of the Final Report.
Naturally, no federal legislator picked up the CSUSOP’s suggestion for athletes who are deaf and hard of hearing:
Congress should also study further the challenges faced by deaf and hard-of-hearing athletes and proposals to integrate deaf sports into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movement; in the meantime, USOPC [US Olympic and Paralympic Committee] should work with the U.S.A. Deaf Sports Federation to remove impediments to its full use of Deaflympic trademarks and access to sponsorships.
The Sports Examiner exclaimed:
Maybe this could actually work? SafeSport CEO Ju’Riese Colon told The Associated Press there are still problems:
“It’s really unclear, and I don’t think that some parts of the bill jibe with other parts of the bill. We’re going to need some more conversation to suss out some of this stuff. Right now, it just doesn’t really add up for us.”
With so little time less in this Congress, this bill will likely have to be re-introduced in January, which Ross said she would do.