The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has released findings in which they declared that there was enough probable cause to believe that the New York Knicks’ organization was a hostile work environment for its employees.
At the root of the decision were claims made by Anucha Browne Sanders, in which she said that Knicks GM Isiah Thomas verbally and sexually harassed her.
The EEOC not only found that Browne might be telling the truth, but they also found that it was likely that senior management knew of these systemic problems and did nothing to address it. This speaks loudest towards owner James Dolan, whom Thomas is in direct contact with and who has his hands on everything Knicks.
As is their way with much regarding the franchise, MSG seemed to totally disregard this finding:
“We obviously disagree with the EEOC’s determination, though it is not an uncommon outcome for this type of preliminary administrative review.”
PTC’s Take
Obviously, this is bad. It’s bad for about a gazillion reasons, but there are few big ones:
1) It shows Thomas is an unprofessional lowlife
2) It shows that James Dolan is impotent when it comes to making sure his organization isn’t run like a tribe in Lord of the Flies
3) It adds to the view that the Knicks are an irrelevant franchise whose backward ways only serve to alienate their dwindling fan base
4) It clearly shows that women have no place in the business world with men because you can’t unplug the sex drive from us
(Ok, maybe not so much #4)
One thing so troubling about this episode is that it isn’t the first time MSG has had these problems. In 2004 the N.Y. Rangers faced sexual harassment issues when Courtney Prince, a founding member and captain of the Rangers’ City Skaters cheerleading squad, filed suit against Cablevision Systems, Corp., owner of Madison Square Garden, alleging she was sexually harassed by a member of the team’s public-relations staff.
Prince’s suit, brought in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, followed a determination by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (New York District Office) that supported her claim of harassment.
The EEOC ruled in Prince’s favor and recommended that MSG conduct supervised employee and management training on sexual harassment and introduce an effective anti-harassment policy. It also advised MSG to pay Prince damages of $800,000.
Yeah, well it didn’t work….or something. The most troubling aspect of that case was Prince’s belief that her complaints weren’t taken seriously and instead were taken as “a challenge to its authority to be punished, and silenced.”
What does this mean for the Knicks? Well, looking like a league laughingstock is nothing new for this team: From an unbelievably high payroll, to mediocre results irregardless of the player or coaching switches, to the idea that the team is steeped in incompetence from top to bottom.
However, now the organization appears to be something that certainly isn’t going to attract fans or positive media attention….the place looks, well, pretty damn creepy.
But at the end of the day this IS sports. A team’s fan case can be brought to vomit about their pride and joy only in as much as the team doesn’t do the one thing that can take all this way: win.
