In her first public remarks since stepping down as Michigan State University’s president, Lou Anna K. Simon remained adamant on Tuesday at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing: She did not know that Larry Nassar was committing sexual abuse.
But Simon told lawmakers that the “unintended consequences” of university bureaucracy could stymie the reporting of misconduct. It’s critical, she said, to “lower the barrier for when I react with my gut.”
Simon resigned as Michigan State’s president on January 24, the same day that Nassar, the former Michigan State sports doctor who was convicted of sexually abusing 170 girls and young women, was sentenced to as long as 175 years in prison.
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In her first public remarks since stepping down as Michigan State University’s president, Lou Anna K. Simon remained adamant on Tuesday at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing: She did not know that Larry Nassar was committing sexual abuse.
But Simon told lawmakers that the “unintended consequences” of university bureaucracy could stymie the reporting of misconduct. It’s critical, she said, to “lower the barrier for when I react with my gut.”
Simon resigned as Michigan State’s president on January 24, the same day that Nassar, the former Michigan State sports doctor who was convicted of sexually abusing 170 girls and young women, was sentenced to as long as 175 years in prison.
Within a year the university lost two chief executives — Lou Anna K. Simon, sank by the scathing, heart-rending testimony of the sports doctor’s scores of victims, and John M. Engler, whose interim presidency ended amid a backlash over his bare-knuckled tactics.
She was subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security alongside Steve Penny, the former USA Gymnastics president and chief executive. The panel excused Penny on Tuesday after he refused to answer questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
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During the three-hour hearing, Simon told the subcommittee that while she was “truly horrified” that Nassar’s crimes occurred during her time as president, the “bureaucracies and regulations” posed a barrier to investigating and resolving problems.
“Every time we change something, we put in more procedures,” she said. “But it’s very hard, if I feel like something’s not right, for me to say it without evidence.”
“We’ve got to find a way to lower that barrier,” she continued, “so more people can be wrong when they report, as opposed to having to be so right when they report.” Heightened media attention tends to cause people to raise the “error bar,” not lower it, she said. “That’s one of my great concerns.”
Bureaucratic burdens, she suggested, might have hindered campus probes into abuse allegations against Nassar. A 2014 Title IX investigation cleared him of wrongdoing.
“I am not a doctor, nor am I capable of making judgments about medical procedures and their appropriateness,” Simon said. “I have through my career believed that experts should be investigators, and those of us in positions of leadership should take the results of those investigations and take them seriously.”
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“Going forward,” she said, “we have to think very seriously about how we think about the voices and how we hear them, the processes that are very bureaucratic and done for lots of reasons, including legal reasons, that may have accumulated into the wrong, unintended consequences.”
‘Darkest Hour’
Much of Simon’s testimony amounted to a rehashing of public comments she had already made about the university’s response to the ordeal. The Nassar scandal, she said, was “Michigan State’s darkest hour.” She contrasted that with her record of accomplishments during a 45-year tenure at the university, including her 13 years as its president.
Simon said that she had been notified by the university’s Title IX officer about an investigation involving an unnamed sports doctor in 2014, but that she didn’t know it was Nassar: “I do not normally see any Title IX report, particularly one with no finding,” meaning that the accused individual had been cleared.
“I don’t know why she gave me that notice,” she said. “In hindsight — I met as president with the Title IX person periodically. We went through hot-button issues, any issues of complaints that were problematic for her. But I did not read that complaint and did not see it in 2016.”
Simon acknowledged that she learned in 2004 about misconduct allegations involving William Strampel, the former dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine and Nassar’s longtime boss. Earlier this week the Detroit Free Pressreported that Simon described Strampel’s behavior as “boorish” in a recent interview with the Michigan State Police. She also said she didn’t believe there were any issues that “would rise to the concern of a ‘sexual predator.’”
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But she told lawmakers that she didn’t see later performance reviews in which officials discussed concerns about Strampel’s behavior toward female students. Those were handled by the provost, she said.
Simon also made repeated apologies to Nassar’s victims, several of whom attended Tuesday’s hearing. That stood in contrast to most of her public comments while she was president, which were widely criticized for lacking empathy.
At the end of the hearing, Simon said that university officials had “acted imperfectly,” though she didn’t specify in what way, and that she “would like to be very much a part of the conversation about the solution.”
“I do think I know a bit about how universities work,” she said.
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Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.