Yikes, the USC Gyno sounds awful! So sad the whistleblower didn’t get her promised promotion but terminated instead. Sounds like he was allowed to keep doing his creepy questionable activities for many decades! Yuck!
There is a certain irony to it all isn’t there @TranquilMind.
The investigation is ongoing, but short answer is if they were not mandated reporters by state law, then they did not break any crimes so there is no indictment or potential punishment. If they were mandated reporters by employment policy then that is a college related policy and would be handled at that level. Regardless they have to live with themselves and whether or not they believe now what they must have believed then. That’s not for me or really anyone to “judge.” He pulled the wool over plenty of people’s eyes including parents, coaches, working partners, etc. so the list of those who “deserve” penalty would be a long, long one indeed and I would lay odds that plenty of those parents, coaches and working partners are kicking themselves pretty hard. One of the new bills that the victims promoted and is in legislature is to expand the list of mandated reporters in Michigan. If Michigan does that perhaps other states who have a short list will also. Isn’t that the point of all this - to take a close look and see if there aren’t new policies and procedures that could be applied nationally?
Don’t kid yourself, notwithstanding Michigan State’s size, $500 million is a huge financial hit. According to the NY Times, MSU’s total general fund budget is $1.37 billion, of which almost three-quarters, or $983 million, comes from tuition and fees. The state legislature chips in another $281 million, and the rest presumably comes from annual giving and payout from its $2.7 billion endowment, which at a standard payout rate of 5% would produce about $135 million per year. But it’s unlikely they can get much from the endowment which consists mostly of restricted funds for things like endowed faculty chairs, scholarships, and need-based FA. And I don’t think the legislature will be keen to rush in to the rescue with taxpayer dollars; the Michigan legislature has been very stingy toward higher education for the past several decades, and additional taxpayer money for a legal settlement isn’t something many legislators would feel they can boast about to their constituents, especially when Michigan parents are struggling with relatively high public university tuition bills and most of the state’s schools don’t have enough money to meet full need. Maybe they’ll get a few alums to up their annual giving, though that will be easier to sell if it’s packaged as money for FA or some other educational purpose, which would then allow them to reprogram other funds to help pay for the settlement—but that borders on bait-and-switch.
That leaves tuition. One way or another, MSU students are going to bear the brunt. Not all at once; they’d need to increase net tuition by roughly $10K per student to raise $500 million from roughly 50K students in a single year. Instead they’ll need to borrow, which with debt service will only add to the total cost.
This dwarfs the $109 million Penn State paid out in the Jerry Sandusky case. Not a happy time along the banks of the Red Cedar.
Absolutely, but what we don’t know is how much, if any, will be covered by insurance.
Most of this will probably be covered by insurance?
may not be: many carriers are loathe to cover felonies…
I think it was reported that only $39M will be covered by insurance.
In Engler’s statement today he said the insurance companies (so more than one) participated in the settlement negotiation and Engler implied they agreed to pay. I have also seen that 39 million number tossed out from one insurance company so hard to say how many insurers are involved. Universities are capped on how much they can raise tuition or they lose state funding so for MSU they could divert state funds to put some against the settlement agreement and maintain the tuition increase I suppose which would be more palatable than raising tuition and losing the state dollars. They can borrow some given their positive financial situation and they can belt tighten all the budgets for a year. They may find some sympathetic donors to drop some serious money.
I think it will just come from here and there and everywhere and everyone will pony up a piece of it. Frankly the victims and their lawyers probably don’t care where the money comes. They took a state public university including their students, the faculty, the state’s taxpayers and every employee of the university to court because of one doctor in the medical school who was an evil man who fooled parents, coaches, trainers, police, prosecutors , Olympic team members and others. Everyone can pontificate and try to point fingers to assuage guilt including the state legislature but it is a done deal.
Everyone can say it isn’t about the money but it absolutely is about the money or there would not have been civil suits…so if it is $50 for every taxpayer in Michigan I guess I will just suck it up and write the check. I would prefer to write it directly to litigant number 300 so they can put a face on just who is paying the settlement.
All Michigan taxpayers and MSU students will be paying for this. Tragic. Half a BILLION dollars? It’s horrible how these girls were abused, but Half a BILLION dollars?
How much should each victim get, then?
$500 Million is a scary number, but we’re talking about 332 victims, which is an even worse number. I believe $75 Million has been put aside for future litigants, so they are expecting more victims to come forward (up to 15% more…).
An arbitrating judge will figure how much each patient of Dr. Nasser will get individually but apparently some media outlet did some simplistic math and it came out to $55 from every Michigan taxpayer. But even something more easy to grasp like loss of limb will vary from state to state and court to court as an example. Insurance companies have their own formulas for pain and suffering in medical malpractice suits so difficult to quantify pain and suffering. I think that was the key to the victims winning the suit—Michigan has laws against suing governmental bodies except for medical malpractice.
It’s pathetic that we need a law requiring people like coaches to report sexual abuse.
It’s repulsive that people are - again - blaming the victims for the large settlement.
If you don’t want to pay tax or tuition money for settlements and lawsuits then focus instead on insisting that your politicians and institutions create and operate within cultures that do not tolerate sexual assault. The current culture is so broken that it will take everybody working together to change. When you get sick of the broken culture costing you money, perhaps you’ll be more inclined to focus on the change that needs to happen. And that change doesn’t include victims shutting up and putting up with it any longer.
A half a billion dollars sends a thunderous message so in that respect it is all about the $. A few people will put their fingers in their ears but I think it is clear as day that institutions around the country hear that message loud and clear. No one wants to be in MSU’s shoes.
I haven’t done a state by state comparison but if Rachael Denhollander is correct, Michigan has the worst sexual assault laws in the country. Laws that give the least protections to victims and are instead focused on immunity and protection for institutions. If they are smart they will push forward with the reforms that were proposed earlier this year. Otherwise we likely will see a repeat at some point in the future.
Well it is icky to attach $$ to personal injury but we as a country do… so it is false to pretend it is anything else other than payment for personal injury and/or malpractice. I am quite pragmatic in that regard. Any individual who has been harmed in a car accident or by a doctor or in an industrial accident has a right to ask for monetary compensation and each of the 300 some victims made that decision as they have a right to make a decision. I would imagine private universities like USC are freaking out because they won’t have taxpayers to assist in civil litigation. I can imagine there are Michiganders sticking their fingers in their ears thinking it isn’t their financial problem and it won’t be if MSU returns the 10 million in the fund set up for the victim’s health support to the restitution, cut departmental budget a tad, raise tuition for international and out of state kids, utilize unrestricted funds and collect their insurance compensations from the various insurers etc. I’m not terribly concerned about where the money is coming from. I think the bundle of bills will come through the house with the very real legal issues resolved (like record retention and the retroactive clauses) relatively intact and I don’t disagree in principle with any of them. It’s an election cycle so there will be political posturing but ultimately it will get done.
No, what’s icky is that we have ignored this issue for decades and the only thing that appears to be important enough to get people’s attention is $$.
For decades, these female athletes have told more than a dozen different adults - from coaches to parents to other MSU employees - that there is a problem. Nobody cared. For decades, this organization fostered a culture that forced these women and girls to submit to repeated sexual abuse. Nobody cared. I am quite pragmatic as well and think it’s reasonable that if the only way to make people care enough to fix the underlying problem (and hint, it isn’t any one person no matter how horrible that person is) is to make this a big $$ issue, then that is absolutely the right thing to do.
You are free to pretend the settlement is anything you want it to be, but of course that does not make it reality. There was no malpractice claim included in the civil suits against MSU.
The lawsuits that were just settled for a half billion dollars were grounded in the following allegations against MSU just to name a few: statutory and common law claims for gross negligence in the retention and supervision of an employee, negligent failure to warn or protect, negligent failure to train or educate staff, various agency liability allegations for Nassar’s assaults on the victims and of course Title lX allegations.
Meanwhile, waiting for the NCAA to weigh in. https://theathletic.com/341996/2018/05/04/the-ncaas-conundrum-with-michigan-state-and-the-larry-nassar-case/
The NCAA is a weak organization that serves its constituents, which is the universities themselves. It’s bylaws only provide a framework to enforce its own rules with administrative punishment for those who break them. Nothing will come from the NCAA.
Nothing will come from the NCAA because the victims were women and what happened isn’t generally viewed by our society as a big deal. Seriously, that’s the bottom line. Most people view it as a minor violation that these women should just move on from rather than risk costing taxpayers or innocent MSU students more tuition.
I would be willing to bet my first born son that if a team doctor sexually assaulted over 300 male athletes, the NCAA would be involved. No question about it.