New report comes out on Washington Football Team culture under Snyder

A new report has been presented on the Washington Football Team’s toxic culture under owner Dan Snyder, and this report more directly implicates the oft-maligned owner.

Over a month ago, a bombshell Washington Post article detailed a culture in which female employees were subjected to frequent sexual harassment. Additionally, the Washington Post article made clear that such behavior was ignored and at times condoned by officials inside the Washington Football Team‘s front office.

Now, a new report has come to light, going into further depth regarding the claims made by an increasing number of women. In this report, 25 additional women — on top of the 17 referenced in the original article — claim that they experienced sexual harassment while working for Washington, and that dehumanizing and demeaning standards set by management helped “allow abusive behavior to go unchecked”.

The article is filled with details that further establish the organization’s toxicity, but one incident brought to light more directly implicates Dan Snyder, who was not referred to as an active instigator in the previous report.

In the latest Washington Post article, former Washington Football Team cheerleader Tiffany Bacon Scourby recounts an experience where Dan Snyder, at a Washington charity event where cheerleaders were performing, prepositioned Scourby to go to his hotel suite with Snyder’s friend so they could “get to know each other better”.

“There’s a power dynamic, and Dan Snyder looked down on me,” Scourby was documented as saying in the article. “Because he‘s powerful and our employer, he thinks he somehow has the right to say these things to us, to make these requests of us, and he doesn’t. It’s disgusting.”

Other parts of the article also claim that Snyder cultivated an environment “led by fear” with codes of unwritten rules, of which included never to look him in the eyes, and never to call him anything other than “Mr. Snyder” or “Sir”. One quote claims that Snyder “denigrated people, and treated women like servants”.

In addition to the allegations against Snyder, familiar names such as Larry Michael and Alex Santos also resurfaced. Michael is alleged to have asked for inappropriate “outtakes” from cheerleader photo shoots — clips which contained inappropriate footage of cheerleaders unaware of their exposure — and requesting them to be compiled for “executive meetings”.

Santos, meanwhile, was documented to have harassed an intern, who subsequently attempted to file a complaint, only to be turned away by the team’s chief financial officer at the time.

The latest developments spawned by a Washington Post revelation further condemn Dan Snyder as a failed owner who contributed to the festering of a toxic work environment. It was clear from the previous report that whether or not Snyder was aware of the harassment taking place did not matter. If Snyder was aware, he was complicit. If not, he was contributory.

We now have specific allegations that actively paint Snyder as an agent of increased dehumanization and hostility in the Washington Football Team’s organizational culture. Whether something will happen as a result of this latest report remains to be seen, but an independent investigation could be a possibility.