Sometimes it is useful to boil things down to their most basic components, in order to get some clarity.

I filed a sexual harassment complaint.
A league administrator suppressed it, and nothing was done.
The national governing body thinks this is fine.
No one has been held accountable for either instance of serious misconduct (the sexual harassment, or suppressing my complaint).

Alan O’Rafferty suppressed a complaint I submitted, and as a result it was ignored. His action denied the right of due process, to both the accused and the victims. To hold him (and others) accountable, I submitted a further complaint to the national governing body, whose investigation found nothing wrong with Alan O’Rafferty’s actions, because (according to the investigation) he acted in the interests of “those directly involved” in another complaint, not mine, and those people (apparently) wished for the incident to be handled in private, and they wished to remain anonymous.

The national governing body’s investigation used the content of some other investigation to justify the unethical action of suppressing my original complaint; yet at the same time, they state that the content of my original complaint is not in the scope of their investigation. It is the perfect, though corrupt, solution: pretend to act upon something that’s “private and confidential”, to avoid acting in a transparent and documented way.

How very nice, to cherry-pick irrelevant evidence you need, and ignore what you don’t like, to arrive at a predetermined outcome.

I have requested all files and correspondence from the investigation by the national governing body, as only the evidence I provided, which proved my allegations true, were included in the investigation report — so how they arrived at the conclusion of “nothing wrong here” remains a mystery.

Who does this protect? Keeping the identity of the accused anonymous certainly serves the accused. Having no real, public, transparent investigation at all serves the regional league body, as there’s no record of any wrongdoing. As nothing has happened, the national governing body would be satisfied that nothing bad happened either. All they needed was a reason, and they found it: “sensitivity” and “privacy”. What could sound more reassuring than that? Maintaining the privacy of “those directly involved” — this was repeated in the national governing body’s investigation report — is a nonsense phrase which has no bearing on my complaint: I was directly involved, and never asked for privacy! This is a fictional and illegitimate shield used by Alan O’Rafferty to absolve him of the incredibly serious misconduct of suppressing and halting my original complaint into verbal sexual harassment, a complaint for which I sought complete transparency, demanded a full investigation, and sought no privacy for anyone including myself.

Who is most hurt? In short: anyone who suffers abuse and files a complaint. Get abused by another player, or in this case, an umpire? “We don’t want to know” is the message the league will send.

But it also hurts the league and the national governing body. Women are running away from this sport, and with good reason. The rules are designed to favor men, for one. For another, there’s an ugly culture of misogyny, masquerading as “jokes” and banter. (If you doubt this, a search on YouTube will reveal the head of the umpires of Irish slowpitch softball making very unfunny jokes at women’s expense during a training video. Here’s the clip: https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxxFEco-IWHMDCQydfnECiTIT8FuwRqQJX )

And if you call it out and notify the league or the national governing body, you can be sure nothing will be done about it and no one will be held accountable. Someone, like Alan O’Rafferty, will likely be there to manipulate the system, controlling the procedure, making the facts and the truth irrelevant, and to keep them from ever seeing the light of day.