Week 9 EOC: Sexual Harassment In the NFL

Ray Rice is a running back for the Ravens NFL team. He has recently been indefinitely suspended from the team specifically for a personal incident that happened between him and his, then girlfriend, now wife. A few days ago a video of Ray Rice hitting Janay Rice in an elevator surfaced. It was unclear what started the altercation. All that mattered was that there was domestic violence. In the video, you can see the two before they go into the elevator. Footage shows Ray most likely spitting on Janay while she walks past him. They get onto the elevator and as Janay begins to push the buttons, Ray starts brushing up against her and this causes her to react by pushing him off. He hits her, then backs up. As she comes toward him he slaps her forcefully as she hits her head against the wall and blacks out. Ray is then seen trying to pick Janay up and drag her out of the elevator. He is seen by hotel security and over the 3 minutes span of the video, more people show up to the incident.
The NFL has gotten involved and has suspended Ray Rice, indefinitely. The problem with this is that Ray Rice is an NFL entertainer to the public. Everything he does will be automatically connected to the Ravens and therefore the Ravens will be pressured to get involved. This is why it is probably still under investigation, why he is indefinitely suspended. It is clear the Ravens do not want to get involved because of this bad press and still want to keep their player. "The league has denied that anyone in its office had seen the video before Monday, when it was posted online. When asked about the AP report, an NFL spokesman said the league will investigate the validity of the story."(cnn.com) I would tell you that what we saw in the first videotape was troubling to us, in and of itself. But what we saw yesterday was extremely clear, is extremely graphic, and it was sickening." (abcnews.com, Roger Goodell) If it seems like they aren't taking any precaution to the incident, people will outrage. In situations like these, if the incident occurs outside of the job and has no relation to the workforce, that profession should not be involved. It would be different if Ray was perhaps wearing a Ravens jersey or on NFL property. But he wasn't. It was within the privacy of a public elevator and therefore this situation should have been strictly dealt with by the hotel he was at and then the police. After the incident, just one month later Janay and Rice said their vows and were married. It seems that for whatever reason, Janay has decided to stay with Ray and that is her business. "Rice had been charged with felony aggravated assault in the case, but in May he was accepted into a pretrial intervention program that allowed him to avoid jail time and could lead to the charge being purged from his record." (abcnews.com)