Sexual Assault in Canadian Sport
Sexual assault by and against athletes is a pervasive and long-standing problem in Canada, but reports are commonly minimized, doubted, and dismissed by sport administrators, police, and judges. Through a detailed examination of over 300 cases appearing in news media and legal files across Canada from 1990 to 2020, Sexual Assault in Canadian Sport uncovers an enduring institutional tolerance of sexual assault in Canadian sport – and the betrayal that many victims experience by those same institutions. Curtis Fogel and Andrea Quinlan argue further that both the Canadian sport system and the criminal legal system have failed to ensure victims’ safety and often undermine sexual assault prevention and trauma-informed care.
Sexual Assault in Canadian Sport opens new avenues for critical dialogue about sport, law, masculinities, and gender-based violence. Crucially, it also offers constructive strategies to increase safety in sport.
Curtis Fogel is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sport Management at Brock University, and in 2016 was appointed a research fellow in Canadian Studies at University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Controversies in Law and Sport and Game-Day Gangsters: Crime and Deviance in Canadian Football.
Andrea Quinlan is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo. She is the author of The Technoscientific Witness of Rape: Contentious Histories of Law, Feminism, and Forensic Science and coeditor, with Elizabeth Quinlan, Curtis Fogel, and Gail Taylor, of Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities: Activism, Institutional Responses, and Strategies for Change.