I know those names won’t mean much to almost all of you. But each one represents about a decade and a half of hard work. Over and over when I talked to college swimmers, I heard stories of athletes who woke before dawn for years, who pushed themselves until they were crying into their goggles or vomiting, and kept going. These ladies are unbelievably fierce. They shouldn’t be forgotten.

Yet it often feels as if that’s what’s happening.

The schools’ enforced silence on the matter and the NCAA’s “hiding under its desk” style of leadership do not suggest institutions that made difficult but defensible policy decisions in a hard situation. Defensible decisions get defended. This is how people behave when their actions are driven not by due deliberation, but by fear.

However, I can’t exactly blame them, given the peculiar social dynamics of this issue. Thomas has suffered unconscionable abuse on social media, called a cheater or worse, and I can only imagine the psychological strain she must be under. Yet off social media, it’s those questioning her presence in the pool who act terrorized.