Larry Nassar, the much-maligned former US Olympics doctor and darling of MSU’s sports medicine program is under review by MSU. However, as it turns out, the University has no intention of sharing the details of that review with the public. An opportunity which several people have pointed out would have been a great teaching tool when it comes to addressing how abuse gets missed.
MSU has hired a very celebrated, and very expensive team of attorneys from around the country to investigate how Nassar got away with so many years of alleged sexual assault. The investigation began last year in October. It include hundreds of interviews, detailed assessments of emails, documents and other paper-trails left by Nassar and his alleged victims along the way. But what is it that these top-notch attorneys plan to do with the information once they’ve uncovered it? Why hand it over to MSU’s Board of Trustees, of course. And that’s it. The buck stops there.
According to MSU, no one should have expected anything different. After all, the investigation was never intended to end in a formalized report that would be made publically available. In an interview with WXYZ-TV, Joel Ferguson, vice chairman of the MSU Board of Trustees, explained that MSU plans to get to the bottom of what happened. “We’ll find out. That’ll play out.” He said, but went on to point out that regardless of the findings, MSU would come out of the process looking great.
The university and the public have very different goals in this.
But the public doesn’t care how the University looks at the end. They just want to know what happened – a frustration that MSU spokesman Jason Cody says he understands. “They want accountability. They want to know, ‘Someone said this, that they told someone, is that true or not?’” However MSU is in no place to answer those questions, as the University is caught up in a huge number of lawsuits right now, dealing with the fallout from this scandal, and they can’t comment.
However, wanting to know isn’t the only reason that people are frustrated with this turn of events. As Michigan Radio pointed out recently, the Nassar scandal would be a great opportunity for MSU to lead the way in teaching the signs and red flags for abuse. In other words, take this tragedy and use it to inspire a whole new conversation about child sexual abuse and how it gets overlooked. Or missed. Or simply not accepted as truth.
Cody agrees, saying that the University has a great opportunity in the midst of all this trauma and allegations, to begin talking about how this happened. And how to keep it from happening again. “I think we have an opportunity now, I really do. If there’s a conversation we can start, if there’s a broadening of people’s minds that we can do that will help prevent that, we of course are going to take every opportunity we can to help do that. And I think that’s our responsibility.”
Whatever the outcome of this internal review, MSU has a long fight ahead of them as they wade through the allegations, accusations and lawsuits related to the Nassar case. We will keep watching as this case develops, and will keep you updated with new developments. Until then, if you or a loved one have been accused of sexually abusing a child, or harming them in any other way, call The Kronzek Firm immediately at 866 766 5245. Our experienced child abuse and neglect defense attorneys are here to help.