Document Type
Student Paper
Publication Date
2025
Recommended Citation
Rounis, Matthew, "Unsafe in Any Sport: The Constitutional and Structural Failure of the U.S. Center for SafeSport" (2025). Colorado Law Student Scholars. 4.
https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/colorado-law-student-scholars/4
COinS
Comments
This article critically examines the structural flaws of the U.S. Center for SafeSport and their implications for athletes’ due process rights and civil liberties. Although Congress designated and empowered SafeSport in 2017 to protect athletes from abuse in Olympic sports, the Center now wields quasi-judicial authority with minimal accountability. Drawing on interviews with affected athletes, coaches, and parents, as well as media-driven case studies, the paper argues that SafeSport’s framework lacks the procedural safeguards necessary for legitimate governance, undermining both fairness and public trust. Central concerns include the imposition of “temporary measures” without notice or hearing, immediate public posting of sanctions, and a presumption of guilt in arbitration proceedings. While SafeSport and its supporters present the Center’s insulation as essential to protecting athletes, this Article demonstrates that its structural isolation has instead enabled opacity, procedural abuse, and reputational incentives inconsistent with fairness. These practices invert traditional due process protections by forcing accused individuals to prove their innocence, often at great financial and reputational cost. Further, SafeSport consolidates investigative, prosecutorial, and adjudicative functions within a single entity, eroding neutrality and enabling arbitrary or retaliatory enforcement. The absence of statutory interpretation or transparent evidentiary rules exacerbates this problem, enabling inconsistent outcomes and subjective application of the SafeSport Code. Compounding these deficiencies is a funding model tied to case volume, incentivizing intake over fair resolution, and statutory immunity that shields the Center from judicial review or private legal claims. The result is a system that deprives victims and accused of reputation, livelihood, and community standing without affording them the procedural dignity or oversight required under constitutional law. By analyzing these structural flaws through the lens of state-action doctrine, administrative due process, and qualitative interviews, the article contends that SafeSport’s authority is governmental in nature and therefore subject to constitutional limits. Absent such recognition, the organization risks continuing to infringe upon fundamental civil liberties while failing to provide athletes with the protections it was designed to secure.