With the trial of Larry Nassar ending today, the attention is on how Michigan State officials ignored reports of his abuse (see update below).
Here is a personal reflection on this.
When I went to Michigan State in 1961 none of my friends knew that there were two major universities in the state, the elite University of Michigan (the “Harvard of the Midwest”) and the land-grant university, Michigan State. Michigan State, I discovered, was considered a “cow college” by the really smart kids at UofM who referred to Harvard as the University of Michigan of the east.
Then in 1965 and 1966 we won the Big Ten, Rose Bowl, and were national champion under Coach Duffy Daughterty. Everyone knew who Bubba Smith was. I could go home and brag I often saw the impossible to miss 6’ 7 ”, 265-pound football star holding court in the student union grill and that I knew a diminutive girl who dated him.
Everyone knew that MSU and UofM were different schools. On school vacations I could tell my friends about the team members I knew because they lived in my dorm. I cheered at games that were televised on national television.
In 2012 during the height of the Sandusky sex scandal, I went to have a squamous cell carcinoma removed with MOS surgery by a dermatology surgeon. Noting she was a University of Pennsylvania graduate, I asked her whether some of her patients didn’t realize that there were two major state universities in Pennsylvania and were asking her about how she felt about the Penn State scandal.
She said that indeed this happened almost every day and that she was glad her college’s reputation wasn’t being sullied by an athletic sex scandal.
Of course, my BA in psychology and MSW clinical social work degree aren’t diminished by the current scandal. However, I am still embarrassed by what is now being reported as a cover-up by university officials.
I am not about to wear my y Michigan State hat around here anytime soon.
From The State News, the student newspaper:
Wednesday, Jan 24, 2018 · 5:10:56 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Wednesday, Jan 24, 2018 · 8:14:00 PM +00:00
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HalBrown
Scroll down to read the entire section “The microscope is also on Michigan State University” on this VOX article.
Many of Nassar’s victims say Michigan State has yet to answer for the Nassar fallout. Some of the lawsuits filed against the university say coaches, staff, and other university employees knew of the allegations against Nassar, and others have told ESPN Magazine and Detroit News that they warned coaches, trainers, and other university officials about his misconduct long before he was finally fired in 2016.
ESPN Outside the Lines interviewed four women who said they told MSU coaches or trainers about Nassar as far back as the 1990s. Two of those women said that they told Kathie Klages, MSU’s longtime gymnastic coach, in 1997 about Nassar. Klages resigned in February.
Others came forward after that. Tiffany Thomas Lopez, a former MSU softball player, told ESPN she complained about Nassar to three athletic trainers in 1998:
”I felt like they thought I was a liar,” Thomas Lopez says. She eventually met with Destiny Teachnor-Hauk, an athletic training supervisor. “She brushed me off, and made it seem like I was crazy. She made me feel like I was crazy.”
A separate Detroit News investigation found that no less than 14 MSU officials or representatives were aware of allegations against Nassar in the nearly 20 years before his arrest. At least eight women and girls had made complaints, including one who contacted local police officials.
In 2014, the university launched a Title IX investigation into Nassar after a recent MSU graduate reported that she had visited his clinic for hip pain, and he had massaged her breasts and vaginal area and appeared to be sexually aroused as he did so.
The university closed the investigation after three months, in July 2014. It dismissed the woman’s claim, concluding that she hadn’t understood the “nuanced difference” between sexual assault and an appropriate medical procedure.