KSU Suspends Hae-in Lee and Young You

[CrazyKittenLady]

So, if USFS rules said you cannot eat buy or grow apples to skate in our events, then I agree to do not eat buy or grow apples. Do I have the statutory and constitutional right to do that? Sure. But if I decide, darn it, I want to eat those apples, then I give up my ability to skate in USFS sanctioned events. I can eat all the apples I want.

That is what the Courts will defer to, the right of an organization to enforce its own rules. Skating is not some special right, as far as I know, that the courts would override the USFS.

So you are telling us that if USFS had all their skaters sign a contract saying that they are only allowed to compete in their events if they are not e.g. in a gay relationship, that would hold up in a court?
Sorry, I somehow can't believe that.

 

[Mathman]

A relationship between two people cannot be forbidden by some kind of contract.

My impression is that this issue is vast and tangled. Many organizations have workforce rules about "office romances" that might interfere with executives carrying out their professional duties in an even-handed way. In the case of sports regulatory bodies, there is usually a clause that provides for sanction if an athlete acts in such a way as to bring discredit to the sport. For instance in American Football an NFL player who beats up his wife or girlfriend in a "domestic dispute" case might be suspended by the league for three games for sullying the good name of football as a wholesome family entertainment, thus affecting the league's bottom line. Similarly, you can't place bets on your team to lose, then deliberately throw the game -- this harms the public image of the sport.

In figure skating a coach is not allowed to molest his underage students. Oversight organizations like the USFSA can take action even if the police never come to arrest the culprit.

 

[Karoltyna]

A law is a set of definitions and sub-definitions that explain each other to avoid ambiguity. This quote is taken from a definition but it is unclear it this is full definition or a part of definition, and how/if the terms "humiliation" and "repulsion" are defined elsewhere within the framework of the given law. We'd best need a Korean lawyer here to answer our questions

I think we need a native speaker of Korean and Korean lawyer. I don't trust machine translation and this transaltion that was presented so far doesn't make much sense - or Korean judges and law are stuck deep in XX century.

 

[Mathman]

This is what the Courts will defer to, the right of an organization to enforce its own rules. Skating is not some special right, as far as I know, that the courts would override the USFS.

I would think that a skater who was kicked out of skating for eting apples would have a pretty good court case based on the argument that a monoplistic organization cannot use whimsical and capricious rules to deny her an opportunity to make money in her chosen profession?

 

[lariko]

What I'm starting to get out of this thread is that USFS is about to ban apples based on the alleged precedent with the snake.

 

[Karoltyna]

I would think that a skater who was kicked out of skating for eting apples would have a pretty good court case based on the argument that a monoplistic organization cannot use whimsical and capricious rules to deny her an opportunity to make money in her chosen profession?

At the same time polish bar banned an attorney for eating flaki (tripes) soup with his hands during a party with gypsy orchestra and lots of alkohol - this sentence is cited in my books on ethics and during my bar exam I had (also real case) of a lawyer who offered his services during a party and while being stoned. Apples banned for being apples would make a strong case. Apples with certain context - not neccesarily.

 

[el henry]

I would think that a skater who was kicked out of skating for eting apples would have a pretty good court case based on the argument that a monoplistic organization cannot use whimsical and capricious rules to deny her an opportunity to make money in her chosen profession?

That could be difficult.

As much as I would have loved for people to have a federal "right to work", the US does not have one. The patter that a law student usually learns (and I used in practice) is that an employer can fire you for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all, as long as it's not protected by statute. Wants to hire incompetent Sally Sister-in-law for your job, and fire you? Them's the breaks.

Now if you are in a protected category, or can claim another statute applies, (that's why you hire a lawyer), you could make a claim. A good one? Who knows. But a claim. And then of course there is tenure....

Tying this back into skating and this thread, American Hae-In would have no claim to pursue skating just because it is her profession. She can date whoever she wants, but the right to skating in and of itself is not protected.

All in the US, of course, Korea may very well have some right to work statutes. I don't know.

 

[Mathman]

A little bit OT, but I am reminded of the Curt Flood v, (baseball commissioner) Bowie Kuh case over the "reserve clause" in baseball that gave the team that "owned" a player the right to trade that player to another team against the player's will, leaving the player with no other option except to give up his career as a baseball player altogther.

(Flood refused to report to the Phillies, citing, among other thnigs, the Thirteenth Amendment -- just sayin' )

The Supreme Court decided in favor of Major League Baseball, citing legislation of Congress that specifically exempted baseball (but no other sports) from anti-trust laws. There were 3 dissenting justices, including Thirgood Marshall, author of the Roe v, Wade decision.

 

[CrazyKittenLady]

Good luck to Haein in her upcoming competitions!

 

[lariko]

And let them eat cake!... apples!... eat.

 

[Remilia]

Well, Haein isn't American, so I don't think US laws have any bearing here

 

[Mathman]

So you are telling us that if USFS had all their skaters sign a contract saying that they are only allowed to compete in their events if they are not e.g. in a gay relationship, that would hold up in a court?

Hoo boy! Now we have opened up a whole 'nother can of worms in the tangled web of U.S. jurisprudence.

There are laws, varying in detail from state to state, that discourage discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation. Except in the case of a small family-owned business with only a few employees. In such cases it is considered to compromise the religious freedom of the employer, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, if the employer were forced to abandon his religious convictions and co-operate with the Devil by hiring a wicked sinner.

Similarly, on the federal level the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids employers from discriminating against women -- except in the case of a company with fewer than 15 employees. I assume that this means that the USFSA cannpt summarily dismiss all competors in the women's division -- the USFSA has more than 15 employees. Transgender athletes? This remains to be resolved.

(Sorry for the OT. This has nothing to do with the Hae-in Lee case, but since these topics came up in the discussion,...)

 

[Skating91]

Even WADA only punish athletes with a 3 month suspension (I believe please correct if wrong) for testing positive to illicit recreational drugs, but here is a recently turned 19 girl and her 15 year old boyfriend (who threw her under the bus) likely drinking some soju while away from their parents at camp. Big deal. It's not like something predatory where she has a predilection for targeting younger males it's something where they have skated together and developed an organic friendship/relationship where the most scandalous thing she's done is give a hickey and as an athlete never drinks alcohol so made her act a little silly.

At worst the punishment should have been taking a GP stage from her. Maybe send her to counselling if she used alcohol to cope with something stressful.

I'm surprised the IOC hasn't got involved along with the ISU. This punishment seems in violation of the Olympic Charter and values.

The Korean fed had their chance to reverse their decision or downgrade it, but doubled down. What if Haein Lee or her parents didn't have the resources to fight this in court? What if she wasn't assertive and didn't fight this publicly, releasing the screenshots showing this is just an innocent teenage romance? She would be condemned as a rapist for life.

 

[CoyoteChris]

I think two things can be true: there is a lot to unpack about what Haein did, both leading up to the training camp, at the training camp, and after the news broke out, and not all of them are positive and defensible. It's also true that KFed was forced to do something about what she did and may have chosen the harshest possible punishment for reasons we are not privy to.

All I think is that this case got exposed because Haein was dumb enough to do what she did: got drunk at a federation-paid overseas training camp to the point that she thinks there's no issue in leaving a visible hickey on a boy she likes (and likes her back) but is still underaged, when they all still have to train in front of the coaches the next day where they likely can see the hickey. Regardless of their relationship background and history, doing these things have consequences!

But I also can't help but think that if the older skater in the relationship was older and smarter than Haein, knew better to "hide" the relationship with the minor, knew better to not get drunk at a fed-paid training camp, knew better to not leave marks..... we probably wouldn't know anything about it. It's why there's no point in getting too involved in any sides here: we just don't know people.

Just curious. Did she say or did anyone say she was drunk? Or drinking?

 

[Mathman]

At worst the punishment should have been taking a GP stage from her.

That would be the common sense solution. Unfortunately, this has spiralled far form the orbit of common sense.

 

[Joekaz]

My take on this is that the two skaters are only 3 years apart. Certainly not an outrageous age gap (basically the same as Marin and Shoma), and they were both minors when they started dating. There was nothing illegal about their relationship at the time, and I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect two teenagers to completely halt their relationship just because Haein had turned 19. If she HAD actually done something he was uncomfortable with, then yes, she'd be in the wrong, but by all means, it seems the relationship and everything that happened in it was completely consensual, so why should she be labeled a predator and wrongly punished for it? Punish her for breaking the rules drinking and having a boy in her dorm, but not for something she didn't do.

And while I do think she shouldn't have blasted their private messages like that, if she hadn't, people would still be calling her a pedophile and rapist, so I don't fault her for it. Besides, I don't doubt many of would be thinking completely rationally if we were in her shoes.

100% right!

 

[Anna K.]

Regardless of how it will end, it is a major relief that general public seems taking Haein's side now.

Figure skating has a certain trait regarding that. For comparison, in football (I mean soccer) there are chants that imply killing a referee or a certain player but, at the same time, everybody knows that no one will kill anyone. It’s just people letting their hair down. If an incident happens in real life, everybody’s shocked because it breaks the game. In figure skating though, the words “destroy Tonya Harding’s career” imply that Tonya Harding’s career will be destroyed in real life in the most realistic way possible. Those saying these words know it and relish it. Apparently, this is also a way to let their hair down but with entirely different taste for blood. Call it toxic heritage or whatever, but figure skating fandom has to deal with it up to this day. So, I’m glad that Haein is no more a matter of interest of this, huh... specific part of the figure skating public.

 

[Skating91]

Regardless of how it will end, it is a major relief that general public seems taking Haein's side now.

Figure skating has a certain trait regarding that. For comparison, in football (I mean soccer) there are chants that imply killing a referee or a certain player but, at the same time, everybody knows that no one will kill anyone. It’s just people letting their hair down. If an incident happens in real life, everybody’s shocked because it breaks the game. In figure skating though, the words “destroy Tonya Harding’s career” imply that Tonya Harding’s career will be destroyed in real life in the most realistic way possible. Those saying these words know it and relish it. Apparently, this is also a way to let their hair down but with entirely different taste for blood. Call it toxic heritage or whatever, but figure skating fandom has to deal with it up to this day. So, I’m glad that Haein is no more a matter of interest of this, huh... specific part of the figure skating public.

Agreed there are some scary figure skating fans out there.

 

[moonvine]

I'm confused....Hae-in is skating somewhere? There is some sort of stay of execution by the court while she appeals?

 

[throw_triple_flip]

and IMO, dismissing a hickey as nothing more than the result of two "teenagers" in a consensual relationship trivializes what happened as well.

I'm just very skeptical of poor little Hae-In, done wrong by the KSF for canoodling with her boyfriend. I'm sorry, I do think if the gender roles were reversed, the outcry would be less, But that's just a subjective feeling

Would it have even been considered an issue if the genders were reversed?

A Korean male coach got jailed last year for sexually assaulting a female student
(attempted rape). That caused far less of an outcry and that was way more serious.