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SEXUAL MISCONDUCT IN THE WORKPLACE: HOW AN NBA TEAM FAILED WOMEN



By Joshua Mundell

Sexual misconduct toward women is a growing problem in the United States. Celebrities such as Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, and Louis C.K have all been found guilty of sexual misconduct within the past two years. You may ask what makes these men’s stories so similar? All these sexual misconduct incidents occurred in their respective workplaces. According to Lloyd Hoffspiegel, “There has been sexual misconduct in the workplace ever since there has been a workplace” (Hoffspiegel, 2002). One of the more disturbing cases of sexual misconduct in the workplace recently occurred within the Dallas Mavericks organization, a team in the National Basketball Association.

In February of 2018, Sports Illustrated (SI) published an investigative report detailing the extensive accounts of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment that had occurred within the Dallas Mavericks organization. This report described the situation in Dallas as a “real-life Animal House” and stated that the workplace was nothing but “corrosive and harassment filled” for women (Ward-Henninger, 2018).


A lack of leadership and oversight by Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, and an intense sexual hegemony among top officials in the Mavericks organization are what led to this cesspool of misogyny and marginalization of women. Hegemony is a term used by Dustin Kidd in his book “Pop Culture Freaks”, which describes a situation in which a form of dominance is exerted based on culture or politics. In this case, sexual hegemony within the Mavericks organization describes a situation in which men are exerting their dominance on women, because that is the workplace culture that has been created.

The primary perpetrator of sexual misconduct within the Mavericks organization was former CEO Terdema Ussery. Ussery was the Mavericks CEO from 1997 to 2015. Ussery was investigated in 1998 for suspect behavior but kept his job. Multiple women that SI interviewed for their investigative report accused Ussery of unwanted sexual advances, some of these testimonies dating back years before the report was released this past winter. Ussery eventually left the Mavericks in 2015 for a job with Under Armour and was forced to resign after two months amid investigations of inappropriate behavior towards a female co-worker (Ward-Henninger, 2018). Other perpetrators include Buddy Pittman, the human resources director for the Mavericks since 1998, and “Mavericks.com” writer, Earl Sneed. Pittman was pinned as an enabler due to his unhelpfulness with reports of harassment he received from women during his time with the Mavericks. He was fired in 2018 amid the SI investigation. Sneed was known to be a performer of domestic violence as well as sexual misconduct during his eight years with the Mavericks (2010-2018) and was also fired amid the investigation. Owner Mark Cuban claimed he had no idea that these incidents were occurring, even though he has owned the Mavericks since 2000. Amid this investigation and after gathering as much information as possible, the Mavericks appointed Cynthia Marshall, a woman, as their interim CEO.

In Marshall’s first press conference as CEO of the Mavericks she told reporters, “This is going on all around the country. I want us to be a model” (Ward-Henninger, 2018). The sad truth is that sexual misconduct occurs every day. Entitled men believe they can enact their dominance on women as they please and do so with no remorse. I applaud SI, and other media outlets, such as TV, magazines, and newspapers for covering the rising severity of sexual misconduct. If the media continues shining a light on incidents involving sexual misconduct, and a change of attitude among males in the United States occurs, events like the Dallas Mavericks scandal can be put to an end quickly or even avoided. It’s time for change.

References
Hoffspiegel, L. (2002). Abuse of Power: Sexual Misconduct in the Legal Workplace. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 9(3), 113. https://doi.org/1080/1072016029006226 6

Ward-Henninger, C. (2018, February 27). Mavericks sexual misconduct scandal: Latest news, updates on investigation. Retrieved from https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/mavericks-sexual-misconduct-scandal-latest-news-updates-on-investigation/

 Word Count: 606








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Comments

  1. KHNovember 7, 2018 at 7:10 AM

    Good effort Joshua.

    Clearly this is a persistent problem, one with a long history which, at long last, is under critical scrutiny.

    Moreover, you do a good job summarizing news reports regarding a culture of sexual misconduct with the Mavericks organization.

    However, the post falls short on a few important points. First, the font size is small, it should be normal as stipulated in the guidelines. Second, your use of APA reference style is off. Please consult the OWL. Also, watch your use of punctuation around quotation marks.

    More substantively, you don't make very much or very effective use of the academic source. You do a little better when you bring our textbook into play. But then again, this short bit could be the basis of a more original discussion, rather than a rehash of news reports regarding this troubled (and troubling) organization.

    26 pts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 7, 2018 at 9:39 AM

    Joshua,
    Like professor said, you do a great job talking about this topic and really make it clear that this truly is a constant issue within our workplace and society as a whole today. The information you use is accurate because I have a lot of knowledge on this topic because I love sports, but I think you could have used more content from your academic article and related back to it a little bit more. You had a few minor errors in mechanics, font, etc. but overall I thought it was a very solid post. I know citing is kind of difficult, but I would look at Purdue Owl over again to make sure you are correctly citing your articles and quotes that you use throughout your blog. I have the same problem and it is something I need to work on as well, but I think if we just take a few moments out of our day to get more familiar with Purdue Owl and APA formatting as a whole, it will really benefit us in the future. Great job with the post and keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousNovember 8, 2018 at 7:52 AM

      Thanks for the kind feedback Gunter. I think you're right, I need to familiarize myself a bit more with APA. Thanks again.

      Delete

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