By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: January 23, 2018 4:05 PM

There is a phrase in journalism called “burying the lead,” when the news organization puts the most important element of the story somewhere in the middle instead of at the top where it belongs.

This phase came to mind Friday when reading embattled Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon’s 1,415-word letter to “MSU community members” at the close of an extraordinary week that saw scores of women sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar, a former sports medicine physician on campus for several women’s teams and the public, publicly berate MSU and Ms. Simon before a national audience.

These women used their chance to deliver victim impact statements at Nassar’s sentencing proceedings to vent their fury not only at his betrayal, but also Ms. Simon and the MSU employees to whom some of them reported Nassar’s abuse only to be ignored. Scathing is not a strong enough word.

Amid widespread calls for Ms. Simon’s resignation and fury at the MSU Board of Trustees for standing steadfastly behind her, Ms. Simon sent the lengthy email describing actions MSU has taken in response to the Nassar revelations, detailing how she had watched the first two days of the victim impact statements (the first day via livestream, the second in person), apologizing for the pain suffered by Nassar’s victims and providing an update on the criminal and civil cases stemming from the scandal.

It was in this section, nine paragraphs into the 16-paragraph email, that Ms. Simon shed some light on why the university has taken the approach of issuing carefully worded denials that no university official “believed” Nassar committed crimes until he was arrested and why it is mounting an all-out defense in federal court against the more than 100 lawsuits Nassar’s victims have filed against the school.

“MSU is entitled to, and its insurers require, that we will mount an appropriate defense of these cases,” Ms. Simon wrote.

Ms. Simon then goes on to explain that motions by its attorneys for the judge to dismiss the case are “based on a number of arguments.” She doesn’t list them off, but they are claims the victims lack standing, the university has absolute immunity and that the victims failed to file their cases before the statute of limitations expired.

But let’s go back to those three words – “its insurers require.”

The fear among MSU brass appears to be that if MSU were to immediately settle in those cases instead of mounting a defense, which always includes a motion to dismiss the case, that the university’s insurers would walk away and MSU would have to rely on its own resources – its endowment, general fund, other internal sources – to pay the victims instead of its insurers.

This approach also appears to govern Ms. Simon’s refusal to resign, and the Board of Trustees’ decision not to fire her, that such a move would somehow signal an admission of guilt and provide an opening for the university’s insurers to avoid covering what could be many hundreds of millions in liability.

The Nassar victim count is up to 200 – and rising. It doesn’t take advanced math to see the liability potentially surging past $1 billion.

That type of a judgment or settlement would have massive consequences for the university if it had to pay out of its own funds. So every move MSU is making appears governed by that fear.

The problem with this approach is obvious. In its effort to stave off financial ruin, MSU is suffering reputational ruin.

Having scores of women call the university an enabler of a sexual predator will do that.

Having those women say the decision to keep Ms. Simon as president is an affront to them will do that.

Having the school fire absolutely no one in response to its handling of Nassar will do that.

Having the school’s beloved basketball coach, Tom Izzo, give an at best uninformed answer when asked about Ms. Simon and blasted as “a total moron or just a LIAR” by the mother of Olympic gold medal gymnast Aly Raisman, one of Nassar’s victims, will do that.

Having a member of the Board of Trustees, Joel Ferguson, scoff that the board is keeping Ms. Simon as president “because there’s so many more things going at university than just this Nassar thing” will do that.

Having your school excoriated as tone deaf and fomenting a culture of enabling for sexual assault in one national opinion article after another will do that.

I know of at least one family whose daughter MSU accepted for admission next fall that decided she will go elsewhere in part because of the university’s actions. And I know of other parents now rethinking whether MSU is the right place for their child.

MSU is afraid of the financial consequences if its insurers walk away.

But what if it keeps those insurance policies in place only to see large numbers of potential students, donors and alumni walk away in disgust?