User:Mliu92/sandbox/University of Michigan abuse scandal

The University of Michigan abuse scandal centered on allegations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1966 and 2003, while Robert E. Anderson was employed as a physician by the University of Michigan (U-M) in the Athletics Department and in University Health Services. An independent investigation into the allegations was announced in 2020 and conducted by the law firm WilmerHale, who published their results in 2021.

The report concluded that Anderson abused at least 177 male student-patients and that U-M was aware of the abuse as early as 1975; after the associate vice president of student affairs attempted to fire him, Anderson resigned from University Health Services and transferred to the Athletics Department, where he was no longer under the jurisdiction of student affairs and continued to abuse student-athletes until he retired in 2003. During the investigation, victims stated they contacted coaches and administrators in the Athletics Department, including wrestling coach Bill Johannesen, football coach Bo Schembechler, and Athletic Director (AD) Don Canham, to alert them of Anderson's misconduct, but no actions were taken. In May 2020, the university entered into a settlement and agreed to pay $40.9 million to the sexual abuse survivors.

Background
Robert Edward Anderson (1928–2008) was born in L'Anse, Michigan, completed his undergraduate studies at Michigan State University in 1949 and received his medical degree from U-M in 1953; he then served as an intern and resident at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan. From 1957 to 1966, he was a partner in a private practice in Flint.

In 1966, Anderson was hired by U-M and worked there until 2003. From 1966 to 1981, his primary role was with University Health Services (UHS); in addition, he began serving in a secondary role as a team physician with the athletics department in 1967, and as a tertiary role, an instructor at the medical school's Department of Internal Medicine in 1968. Almost from the start of his employment in 1966, persistent and widespread rumors were spread about Anderson's inappropriate conduct during medical examinations.

Wrestler Tad DeLuca sent a letter to his coach, Bill Johannesen, and AD Don Canham in July 1975, which read (in part) that "something is wrong with Dr. Anderson" and "regardless of what you go in there for, he always makes you drop your drawers", after being subjected to prostate and testicle examinations to treat a dislocated elbow. After he was kicked off the wrestling team, losing his athletic scholarship, DeLuca's letter was subsequently read aloud to the team and he never wrestled again.

A few years later, Vice President for Student Affairs Thomas Easthope heard complaints that Anderson was "fooling around with boys" in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and stated that he fired Anderson. However, in January 1980, records indicate Anderson resigned as UHS Director voluntarily and later left UHS entirely, after transferring to the Athletic Department starting in July 1981. Anderson continued to see patients as a doctor for U-M Athletics, where he no longer fell under Easthope's supervision.

In 1995, a lawsuit was filed against Anderson by a former patient, alleging that he had assaulted her during a pre-employment physical. The case was dismissed with prejudice in 1996 after her attorney withdrew.

Robert Anderson died in 2008. According to his obituary, he had been diagnosed with terminal pulmonary fibrosis in March 2006.

In July 2018, Tad DeLuca wrote to AD Warde Manuel, reiterating the allegations of sexual misconduct against Anderson. On August 18, 2019, a man wrote to U-M describing an appointment with Anderson to be treated for potential exposure to a sexually-transmitted infection; during the appointment, Anderson asked the patient to manually stimulate Anderson's penis to ejaculation.

Easthope stated in 2021 that he did not follow up by reporting Anderson to the police.

Strauss was hired as an assistant professor in the OSU College of Medicine in September 1978; shortly afterward, he began volunteering as a team physician at Larkins Hall, OSU's physical education building. He was appointed to a position in the Athletics Department in 1981, and to Student Health in 1994. In Athletics, Strauss served as a team physician for multiple teams, including men's wrestling, gymnastics, fencing, lacrosse, and swimming and diving; he additionally treated students on the hockey, cheerleading, volleyball, soccer, track, golf, baseball, tennis, water polo, and football teams. Strauss was not formally appointed to a position at Student Health until 1994, but was known to have started performing treatments there as early as 1978.

By 1979, Athletics Department officials knew that Strauss conducted unusually prolonged genital examinations on male athletes, and that athletics staff were not permitted to be present during these examinations. In addition, Strauss was known to shower alongside male students at Larkins Hall, a behavior which was unique to Strauss among team physicians. Between 1979 and 1996, multiple students complained about Strauss's excessive and unnecessary genital examinations, but no action was taken by OSU until January 1996, when he was placed on administrative leave in response to patient complaints.

Larkins Hall, which served OSU as its physical education facility and natatorium, was perceived as a sexualized environment, and multiple witnesses reported that voyeurism and public sex acts occurred there from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. Thirty wrestlers and gymnasts reported voyeurs were routinely present at Larkins Hall in the locker room, shower, and sauna areas, ranging from college age to approximately 60 years old; the "leering" voyeurs would ogle student-athletes that were using the facilities and some would masturbate. Sources familiar with then-head coach Russ Hellickson's actions at the time said that the situation was so egregious that Hellickson would occasionally have to physically drag the voyeurs out of the building, and that he also pleaded with the university to move their athletes to a private facility. Strauss was counted among the voyeurs; former OSU students stated that Strauss would shower among athletes multiple times per day or stare into the shower while seated on a stool. In addition, peepholes were found in bathroom stalls and shower walls. The building was completed in 1932, named for retired OSU Athletic Director Dick Larkins in 1976, expanded in 1977, and demolished in 2005.

After a closed-door hearing on June 5, 1996, Strauss was terminated from his position with the Athletics Department at the end of July 1996, and terminated from Student Health on August 5, 1996. However, Strauss opened a private off-campus clinic and continued to abuse male patients there. Former employees of the off-campus Men's Clinics of America recalled Strauss placing advertisements in the student newspaper promising student discounts and prompt treatment of genital issues. He also continued as a tenured faculty member in the School of Public Health until his voluntary retirement on March 1, 1998, upon which he gained emeritus status.

Strauss died by suicide in August 2005. According to his suicide note, he had been suffering from "significant escalating medical and pain problems since January 2002".

In 2019, OSU published its annual campus safety report, which reflected that Strauss committed 1,430 instances of fondling and 47 rapes during his tenure.

Investigation
On July 18, 2018, Tad DeLuca sent a letter to AD Warde Manuel reiterating the allegations of sexual misconduct against Dr. Anderson. Manuel forwarded the letter to the U-M Office for Institutional Equity (OIE), which is responsible for Title IX enforcement, and OIE Director Pamela Heatlie contacted DeLuca on August 6, then met with him later that month. OIE referred the complaint to University Police (Division of Public Safety and Security, DPSS) on October 1, who assigned the criminal investigation to Detective Mark West. Within two weeks, Detective West had interviewed DeLuca, two University employees, and an employee with the State of Michigan's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

West completed his investigation and in accordance with standard practice in cases where DPSS believes that a crime has occurred, submitted the report to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office on April 29, 2019. West was instructed by Konrad Siller, the First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, to submit his report using email, rather than the regular online portal, because of the age of the allegations and because Anderson was already dead. The Prosecutor's Office completed its review of West's report and wrote back to DPSS on February 18, 2020, stating they had decided not to file any criminal charges.

Meanwhile, OIE Director Heatlie contacted DPSS Chief Robert Neumann on May 20, 2019, asking if the criminal investigation was still in progress; Chief Neumann notified Heatlie that OIE could proceed with its independent investigation the next day. In June, Elizabeth Seney succeeded Heatlie as the University's Title IX coordinator. The DPSS report by Detective West was forwarded to OIE in July 2019; that December, an OIE investigator suggested that an independent investigation should be conducted, based on the precedent set by similar allegations of sexual misconduct at other universities. On January 23, 2020, U-M hired Steptoe & Johnson to conduct an independent investigation, and after the Prosecutor's Office informed U-M it would not be bringing criminal charges, the University set up a hotline on February 19, asking for potential victims to come forward. More than 100 called the hotline within two weeks. WilmerHale assumed responsibility for the independent investigation on March 21, 2020.

WilmerHale published their report in May 2021. More than 600 former patients provided information on their interactions with Anderson, with more than 300 of those describing "strikingly similar patterns of misconduct" in interviews with WilmerHale. 90% of the former patients interviewed were male. Although approximately 100 patients described only appropriate and professional medical examinations and treatment, the overwhelming number of patients reporting inappropriate sensitive examinations (hernia, genital, and/or rectal examinations of male patients and breast and/or pelvic examinations of female patients) corroborated allegations that Anderson:
 * frequently performed sensitive examinations without a sound medical basis for doing so;
 * regularly conducted these sensitive examinations in a grossly inappropriate manner; and
 * repeatedly engaged in inappropriate medical practices.

Mike DiSabato was one of the first to report that Strauss had groped him during medical exams. He first requested information about Strauss in January 2018 via a letter to the university; after failing to get a timely response, he approached The Columbus Dispatch with the allegations of abuse in April. DiSabato, who wrestled at Ohio State from 1987 to 1991, added that his first examination with Strauss occurred at the age of 14, when Strauss was conducting research on the body fat of high school wrestlers; the body fat testing included an unnecessary genital exam. At the time, DiSabato did not recognize Strauss's behavior as sexual abuse and that it was considered an "open secret" amongst the wrestling team.

In response, the Ohio State University announced that an investigation had been launched into the long-term sexual abuse in April 2018, asking former students and coaches to come forward with any information that might help the investigation. At the time, the independent investigation was being led by Bricker & Eckler. After the Ohio Attorney General's office appointed Porter Wright Morris & Arthur as the university's legal counsel, Porter Wright commissioned Perkins Coie to lead the independent investigation. OSU President Michael Drake sent an email in May 2018 to more than 100,000 alumni asking them to contact Perkins Coie with any allegations of abuse. Based on the evidence uncovered, Perkins Coie expanded the scope of the investigation to include Strauss's examinations of high school students in June 2018.

The investigation was estimated to have cost $6.2 million by the time the report was released in May 2019.

Strauss's son, Scott Strauss, released a statement in July 2018 expressing that the Strauss family was "shocked and saddened" by the allegations against Richard Strauss.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the United States Department of Education announced it had opened a separate investigation into the university's response in August 2018. Several advocacy groups had sent a letter to OCR earlier in August, alleging that OSU's actions violated Title IX regulations.

The Ohio State Medical Board confirmed that it had received complaints about Strauss and had turned over confidential records to OSU lawyers in December 2018. However, because the records were confidential, the investigators were not allowed to access them. The board had investigated Strauss in 1996 but never disciplined him. Details of the investigation were made public in the report by Perkins Coie; specific identifying details were redacted. In May 2019, after the redacted report was released, the State Medical Board voted to release the records of its 1996 investigation if the alleged victims agreed to waive their confidentiality. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine created a review group via executive order in May 2019. The group's charter was to review the actions that were taken by the State Medical Board in response to the complaints about Strauss.

The investigators conducted interviews with 177 students who provided evidence that Strauss had committed sexual abuse; although not all of the students felt his behavior was abusive, consultation with independent medical doctors confirmed they were not appropriate patient–doctor interactions. The majority of abuse (143 victims) was categorized as genital fondling associated with medically unnecessary genital or rectal examinations. Of the 177, 153 were student-athletes, of which a plurality (48) were members of the men's wrestling team.

Civil lawsuits and subsequent developments
Several civil lawsuits have been filed against the Ohio State University in conjunction with the abuse committed by Strauss. Three federal lawsuits had been filed by July 2018; the third lawsuit named several OSU administrators including ex-Athletic Director Andy Geiger as having knowledge of Strauss's abuse. By September 2018, the university had filed motions to dismiss the first three lawsuits based on associated statutes of limitations. Two of the suits were merged in October 2018. In total, more than 20 school officials and staff were named as knowing of complaints about Strauss's abuse but failing to stop him.

In July 2018, former members of the OSU men's wrestling team reported that then-coaches Russ Hellickson (head coach, 1986–2006) and Jim Jordan (assistant coach, 1987–1995) were aware of the abuse by Strauss but failed to put a stop to it. Jordan denied that any student-athlete had reported any abuse to him. Jordan said the timing of the allegations that he knew of the abuse were "interesting ... in light of things that are going on in Washington", referring to Jordan's role as a founder of the Freedom Caucus and his potential candidacy for Speaker of the House. Speaker Paul Ryan defended Jordan as "a man of honesty, a man of integrity" and discouraged an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, as the abuse had occurred before Jordan's election to the House of Representatives. Other ex-wrestlers defended Jordan, who was interviewed by Perkins Coie later in July.

In May 2019, DiSabato filed a Title IX lawsuit against OSU. In one count of the court papers, DiSabato claimed that a second cousin of Jordan's attempted to "intimidate and retaliate" against DiSabato. In 2019, DiSabato shared text messages with NBC News that were corroborated by another former wrestler indicating that Jim Jordan, Russ Hellickson, and high school wrestling coach Jeff Jordan (Jim Jordan's younger brother) conspired to engage in witness tampering and intimidation when they called former OSU wrestler Mark Coleman and his parents to pressure him to recant his earlier accusation that Jordan was aware of the abuse. Coleman had shared a room with Jordan while traveling to several wrestling meets.

In November 2019, a retired wrestling referee filed a lawsuit alleging that he had warned Jordan and Hellickson about Strauss's misconduct but they had dismissed his warning. Jordan dismissed the referee as "another person making a false statement".

In February 2020, Adam DiSabato – the brother of Mike DiSabato – testified under oath that Jordan called him "crying, groveling...begging me to go against my brother.... That's the kind of cover-up that's going on there", described Jordan as a "coward" and accused Hellickson of "abandon[ing]" the wrestlers who came forward with allegations about Strauss.

In February 2021, The Hollywood Reporter reported that George Clooney's film production company Smokehouse Pictures would be teaming with Sports Illustrated Studios and 101 Studios to produce a docuseries about the scandal, and that the series would be based on an October 2020 Sports Illustrated article by Jon Wertheim detailing Strauss's abuse.

2020 settlement
Following an independent 2019 investigation which found that Richard Strauss had sexually abused at least 177 students from 1979 to 1997, Ohio State University agreed to pay $40.9 million to settle the lawsuits of 162 men who alleged sexual abuse during the former university team doctor's tenure. Other lawsuits remain outstanding.