Home / General / Michigan State is apparently not going to fire anybody for enabling 20 years of sexual abuse by Larry Nassar

Michigan State is apparently not going to fire anybody for enabling 20 years of sexual abuse by Larry Nassar

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Quotes from Aly Raisman’s statement in court:

“Larry, you do realize now that we, this group of women you so heartlessly abused over such a long period of time, are now a force, and you are nothing.”

“I didn’t think I would be here today. I was scared and nervous. It wasn’t until I started watching the impact statements from the other brave survivors that I realized I, too, needed to be here.”

“Larry, you should have been locked up, a long, long time ago. The fact is, we have no idea how many people you victimized, or what was done or not done that allowed you to keep doing it, and to get away with it for so long.”

“I am here to face you, Larry, so you can see I have regained my strength, that I am no longer a victim. I am a survivor.”

“As for your letter yesterday, you are pathetic to think that anyone would have any sympathy for you. You think this is hard for you? Imagine how all of us feel.”

“Treatments with you were mandatory. You took advantage of that. … Lying on my stomach with you on my bed insisting that your inappropriate touch would help to heal my pain. The reality is you caused me a great deal of physical, mental and emotional pain. You never healed me. You took advantage of our passions and our dreams.”

“You already know you’re going away to a place where you won’t be able to hurt anybody ever again. But I am here to tell you that I will not rest until every single last trace of your influence on this sport has been destroyed, like the cancer it is.”

“I have represented the United States of America in two Olympics and have done so successfully. And both USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic Committee have been very quick to capitalize and celebrate my success. But did they reach out when I came forward? No.”

“If we are to believe in change, we must first understand the problem and everything that contributed to it. Now is not the time for false reassurances. We need an independent investigation of exactly what happened, what went wrong and how it can be avoided for the future.”

“My dream is that one day everyone will know what the words #MeToo signify. But they will be educated and able to protect themselves from predators like Larry so that they will never ever, ever have to say the words, ‘me, too.'”

Following up on Scott’s earlier posts:

Before he was fired in September 2016, Nassar was a MSU faculty member for 20 years and saw patients at the MSU Sports Medicine Clinic, where many of the victims were assaulted. Nassar also volunteered for USA Gymnastics, serving as the longtime doctor for the U.S. national team, and a half-dozen elite gymnasts are among those alleging abuse.

More than 140 victims have named MSU and/or USAG in lawsuits, saying the organizations ignored red flags and enabled Nassar’s behavior for years. Indeed, for the final two and a half years that Nassar was seeing patients, he was under investigation, first by MSU and than USAG, yet neither institution took definitive steps to end his medical career. [emphasis added]

That didn’t happen until the Indianapolis Star published a story about two Nassar victims. The doctor was fired within days.

“A simple fact is this,” Olympian McKayla Maroney said in a statement read into the court record Thursday. “Had Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee paid attention to red flags, I would never met Larry Nassar. I would never had been abused by him.”

After Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis read Maroney’s statement, Lindsey Lemke came the podium.

After blasting Nassar, Lemke spoke directly to MSU President Lou Anna K Simon and members of the gymnastics community, including John Geddert of Twistars, USA Gymnastics and former MSU gymnastics coach Kathie Klages, telling them they were just as culpable.

Lemke said when she went public, she was terrified about the potential consequences and her status on the MSU Gymnastics team, wondering if her scholarship would be taken away.

“It was the type of environment where victims were afraid to speak up,” she said.

Of Klages, she said she was “so disgusted” by her actions and said she was horrified when she and other athletes on the team were asked to sign a card for Nassar [wtf???] after the Indianapolis Star story was published.

“You deserve to lose your job, you deserve what is coming to you,” she said. “You knew what he is doing and you still chose to defend him.”

To Simon, she said: “I don’t know how you can still call yourself a president…You are no president of mine.”

The good folks on the MSU Board of Trustees are more than willing to let Lou Anna K Simon continue to call herself (the nation’s sixth-highest paid public university) president:

“Through this terrible situation, the university has been perceived as tone deaf, unresponsive and insensitive to the victims. We understand the public’s faith has been shaken. The Board has listened and heard the victims. Today, the Board acted and has asked the Attorney General’s Office to review the facts in this matter, and as information is presented, the Board will act. This can never happen again. As part of the Board’s oversight authority, we will retain independent external assistance to support our responsibilities to the university community and the public at large. We continue to believe President Simon is the right leader for the university and she has our support.”

Simon herself says she has always done her best, and that’s why pencils have erasers etc.:

“I continue to appreciate the confidence of the Board and the many people who have reached out to me, and to them, who have the best interested [sic] of MSU at heart,” Simon said in a statement following the board’s statement. “I have always done my best to lead MSU and I will continue to do so today and tomorrow.”

As far as I have been able to determine, no one at MSU has been fired as a consequence of looking the other way for years, while dozens of women and girls were sexually assaulted by a university employee. (ETA: The gymnastics coach was suspended and then allowed to “retire.” H/t commenter Bloix).

I can pretty much guarantee that some minimum wage worker got fired in East Lansing today because she showed up ten minutes late for her shift.

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