NEW YORK — The U.S. Tennis Affiliation has enlisted two attorneys at a U.S.-based agency to look into its safeguarding insurance policies and procedures to guard gamers from sexual misconduct and different abuse.
Lew Sherr, the CEO and government director of the group that runs the U.S. Open and oversees the game in america, wrote concerning the assessment in an e mail despatched Thursday to the USTA board of administrators, varied workers and volunteers and obtained by The Related Press.
As a part of efforts “to forestall hurt to athletes and reply to stories of inappropriate conduct … the USTA has retained David O’Neil and Mary Beth Hogan of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP to assessment our insurance policies and procedures for stopping, reporting, and responding to stories of abuse, together with sexual misconduct,” Sherr wrote.
The topic line of the e-mail is “Reviewing Insurance policies to Guarantee Security.”
The announcement of the assessment comes practically two years after a tennis participant sued the USTA in federal court docket in Florida alleging that the governing physique failed to guard her from a coach she says sexually abused her at considered one of its coaching facilities when she was 19.
Kylie McKenzie accused coach Anibal Aranda of touching her inappropriately. The AP usually would not title alleged sexual assault victims, however McKenzie agreed to let her id be identified in information protection about her lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2022, alleges that Aranda, who was employed by the USTA for about seven years and later fired, used his place as a USTA coach to get entry to susceptible feminine athletes and commit sexual battery in opposition to them.
“To be clear, it is a assessment of USTA insurance policies, not an investigation of any particular allegations of sexual misconduct,” Sherr wrote.
Sherr stated the assessment will give attention to how the USTA retains athletes protected from abuse and the way it responds to stories of misconduct. His e mail stated the Debevoise attorneys might be given “full entry to staff concerned in any approach with these elements of our group.”
