Doyel: Like Penn State with Sandusky, Michigan State failed to stop Nassar
Gregg Doyel,
gregg.doyel@indystar.comPublished 2:20 p.m. ET Jan. 22, 2018
Evil came to college, and the college said: I don’t see you. The college said: I don’t hear you. The college said: And I damn sure won’t speak of you.
This happened at Penn State. And this happened – by God, it’s still happening – at Michigan State.
Evil visited State College, Pa., and East Lansing, Mich., and evil made itself comfortable, hiding behind adults who didn’t understand what was happening, which seems reasonable, but then couldn’t be bothered to find out – which seems unforgivable.
You know the Penn State story. Evil Jerry Sandusky’s reign of terror lasted nine years after his boss – good ol’ JoePa, beloved Joe Paterno, may he not rest in peace – was made aware of the evil in 2002 in his football facility and made this decision:
I don’t understand what I’m hearing, and I don’t want to understand.
“I never heard of, of, rape and a man,”
Paterno feebly said in 2012, and because he couldn’t be bothered to figure it out, the pedophile Sandusky roamed free for nine more years.
And with that as the backdrop to the evil that was unfolding at Michigan State – evil that still might be happening to this day, if it weren’t for
the work of IndyStar reporters Tim Evans, Marisa Kwiatkowski and Mark Alesia – evil Dr. Larry Nassar abused girls under the guise of “treatment” because his bosses didn’t understand what they were hearing. And didn’t bother to figure it out.
In 1997, a high school gymnast injured at a Michigan State youth gymnastics program told Spartans gymnastics coach Kathie Klages that she was abused by Nassar when she went to him for treatment. Klages’ response, according to the gymnast?
“She just couldn’t believe that was happening,” Larissa Boyce, now 37,
told The Detroit News. “She said I must be misunderstanding what was going on.”
In 1999 a runner on the Michigan State cross country team says she told a staff member and multiple team trainers that Nassar abused her during “treatment” for a sore hamstring. The adults at Michigan State told her she was wrong. More than that, they suggested she was lucky to be treated by the great Larry Nassar. He’s an Olympic doctor, the adults told the college athlete,
identified in court documents as Jane X Doe. He knows what he’s doing, they told her.
About the same time, Michigan State softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez told three different MSU athletic trainers that Nassar had abused her during treatment. Their response,
according to a lawsuit filed by Lopez and 15 other alleged victims? Lopez was “fortunate to receive the best medical care possible from a world-renowned doctor.”
Now here, let’s jump to 2014. Nassar was evil in the meantime, make no mistake about that, terrorizing girls under the guise of treatment for USA Gymnastics. All told, more than 140 girls and women have said Nassar abused them. In 2014 several adults at Michigan State had a chance – sorry, they had yet another chance – to stop him.
And they couldn’t be bothered.
Starting with the president of the university, Lou Anna K. Simon.
Simon was told in 2014 that a police report and a Title IX investigation had been filed against an unnamed doctor on campus, and in Simon’s own words, paraphrased by me, she didn’t care enough to learn more. The doctor was Nassar, of course. Nassar pleaded guilty in November to molesting 10 girls. Here’s what Simon told reporters last week when she attended Nassar’s sentencing hearing, which is continuing:
“I was informed that a sports medicine doctor was under investigation,” Simon said. “I told people to play it straight up, and I did not receive a copy of the report. That’s the truth.”
That’s the truth? No, that’s abominable. The president of Michigan State isn’t absolved from blame because “I did not receive a copy of the report.”
No, you go
get the report.
Alas, Nassar continued to see patients for 16 more months. When asked about that, and about alleged reports of sexual misconduct against Nassar going back 20 years and reportedly reaching more than a dozen Michigan State employees, Simon countered:
“Those issues are points of dispute and part of civil litigation and I am not going to comment on,” said Simon, Michigan State's president since 2003. “What I can tell you is what I knew, straight up. My standard response is to tell people to play things straight up and I did not receive a copy of the report.”
In February 2017, Simon issued a
“letter to the Spartan community” in which she wrote, and I quote:
“MSU has taken a proactive approach to responding to this situation.”
Here’s how proactive that approach has been:
To this day, Michigan State’s sports medicine clinic is still trying to collect payment for “treatment” performed by evil Dr. Larry Nassar, treatment we now know was sexual abuse.
That fact was made public Monday by Emma Ann Miller, 15, the 95th survivor to make a statement at Nassar’s sentencing hearing.
“My mom is still getting billed for appointments where I was sexually assaulted,” Miller said in her statement.
What happened at Michigan State is unspeakable. And it is unspeakable still. Evil came to college, and too many adults said: Make yourself at home.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.
