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My Take on CLRG's Cheating Scandal 2022-10-05

This was originally part of my technical analysis / explainer post, but I've moved it here because it's just opinion.


Trees grow up and down. The part of the tree you can see is only half of the organism: for every meter of Siberian Elm tree I can cut down, there's a meter of Siberian Elm tree I need to dig out, and digging is way more work than cutting.

I suspect that this racket is deep-rooted and widespread. I imagine the most likely outcome will be a lot of social media posts, some funny T shirts, a few resignations, maybe some people getting banned from events, and that's about it. The only adjudicator this document proves is corrupt is the whisleblower who sent in the screen shots. Even people named in these messages stand a decent chance of escaping consequences, if they play their cards right.

Don't forget that you need a lot of certified adjudicators for things to run at their current scale. They can't just fire everybody and start over: they need their current instructors to train up new ones. And if this document is representative, half of their current instructor pool is already compromised. There's no way to ensure this scheme won't be a part of the new adjudicator training.

Somebody is going to have to deliver a candid presentation to the board, or whatever they have, about the reality here. The corruption is probably so deep that they won't be able to take any significant action without destroying the whole organization. And this is just going to embolden the bad actors.

After time passes, the presure from some of these intense and monied parents I've met will resume, and everything will be back to the way it was before. Sure, there will be some casting changes, but the system that's been built up for years--possibly decades--is going to persist long after the furore dies down.

We may, however, see a renewed interest in some of the smaller Irish Dance organizations like CRN, who already seems to be making some moves.