Lurid Charges Against Ex-Dean Mark a Disturbing Turn in Michigan State’s Nassar Scandal

Paul Sancya/AP Images

The criminal charges filed on Tuesday against a former dean at Michigan State University signal a troubling new development in the investigation of how the institution responded to sexual abuse by Larry Nassar — and suggest that a culture of misconduct runs deeper than just the former sports doctor.

The state’s attorney general, Bill Schuette, announced on Tuesday that he had filed charges against William Strampel, who led the College of Osteopathic Medicine for 15 years. As dean, Strampel supervised Nassar, who was convicted of molesting numerous girls and young women under the guise of giving them necessary medical treatment.

Strampel faces charges of misconduct by a public official, a felony punishable by up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine; one count of criminal sexual conduct, a misdemeanor; and two counts of willful neglect by a public official, also a misdemeanor.

The Nassar Scandal and the Crisis of Michigan State’s President

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.

• With Criminal Charges Dismissed Against Michigan State’s Ex-President, Sex-Abuse Accountability Hits Skids Again
• Michigan State’s Ex-President, Who Faces Criminal Charges, Will Retire With a $2.5-Million Payout
• At Michigan State, a Disruptive Presidency That Few Could Muster the Will to End

The willful-neglect counts concern whether Strampel sufficiently monitored Nassar after he had been investigated by the university for allegedly molesting a female athlete. At the conclusion of that inquiry, Nassar was required to be closely supervised in his work.

The other counts relate to allegations that Strampel used his post as dean to sexually harass and intimidate four female students, according to the charging documents. One of the students said Strampel had suggested he would raise her grade in exchange for a “favor.” Another alleged that he had suggested she send him nude photographs of herself, and a third said he had groped her at a college dance.

In addition, investigators found on a computer in Strampel’s office approximately 50 photos of nude women, pornographic videos, and a video of Nassar “treating” a young patient, according to the charging documents.

A lawyer for Strampel said in a written statement that the former dean denied “any inappropriate touching of anyone” and “any quid pro quo for sexual favors in exchange for any type of standing within the university.” He said the video of Nassar was probably used “around the country to show his technique in treating many patients.”

Strampel stepped down as dean in December, citing medical reasons. As questions swirled around his possible role in the Nassar scandal, university officials began the process of firing him and stripping him of tenure in February. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that he told a group of students and administrators in the fall of 2016 that he did not believe Nassar’s accusers.

The charges and evidence against Strampel also suggest that he knew Nassar was acting inappropriately with patients and chose not to report it, said Karen Truszkowski, a lawyer representing a woman who has accused three football players of sexually assaulting her.

John Engler, Michigan State’s interim president and a former Michigan governor, called the new allegations “disturbing” in a written statement on Tuesday. “Today’s charges confirm our belief that he has fallen short of what is expected and required from academic leadership,” Engler said.

“While the crimes of one doctor and the misconduct of his dean do not represent our university,” he continued, “they do demand the scrutiny of everyone in order to assure individuals like these can never be in a position again to harm others.”

More Shoes to Drop?

The arrest of Strampel and charges against him are the first major actions by a special independent counsel appointed by Schuette to complete a “full and complete investigation of what happened at Michigan State University, from the president’s office on down.” They are probably not the last.

The investigation is being aided by the state police, who are “to determine if other crimes have been committed,” according to a January statement by Schuette.

The special counsel, William Forsyth, indicated his interest in Strampel in a January request to the university for his “work computer, his work cellphone, and any of his work calendars (electronic or otherwise).”

Forsyth has also sought “any and all records” concerning the former gymnastics coach Kathie Klages and Brooke Lemmen, a colleague of Nassar and one of four experts who testified in a 2014 university investigation of the sports doctor. Klages reportedly fielded complaints about Nassar from athletes as early as 1997.

The state’s investigation has also asked for email communications between Nassar and some 20 officials at Michigan State, including Klages, Strampel, and the former university president Lou Anna K. Simon, who resigned in January.

If Strampel is found guilty of the new charges, even more civil lawsuits could be filed against the university by the women who have accused him of harassing them, said Truszkowski.

The charges against Strampel also call into question the legal defense that Michigan State has offered in recent months, arguing that Nassar had led a “double life” by effectively concealing his crimes even from close friends and colleagues.

In a December letter to the attorney general, Michigan State’s outside lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, wrote that the university believed “the evidence will show that no MSU official believed that Nassar committed sexual abuse prior to newspaper reports in late 2016.” Fitzgerald is leading the legal team hired to coordinate the university’s response to and defense in several investigations and numerous lawsuits.

In the charging documents, Schuette accused Strampel of failing to carry out actions “designed to protect patients and to prevent future allegations against the college.” In particular, Strampel allowed Nassar to continue seeing patients, before the university completed its own investigation.

After that investigation, Nassar was given a set of treatment protocols to follow, including having another person in the room during any possibly sensitive procedures and modifying any procedures to minimize skin-to-skin contact.

“Despite his representation of his (and the college’s) intended response to the allegations against Nassar, Strampel did not actually enforce or monitor these protocols,” said the charging documents.

Karen Y. Bitar, a lawyer who specializes in Title IX issues with the firm Seyfarth Shaw, said it’s also troubling that Strampel possessed a video of Nassar performing a questionable procedure on a patient.

Although it’s not clear when the video was filmed or put on the computer, it raises serious questions, she said. “That he has a video of a ‘treatment,’ coupled with nudity and pornography, all on his computer is not a comforting fact,” she said by email.

Broader Cultural Troubles

For some Michigan State students, professors, and alumni, Strampel’s arrest confirmed their fears about broader cultural troubles at the university.

“This coming out just shows how deeply entrenched the dark sides of the culture are — how power is distributed, how people can just do these egregious things and get away with it for so long because there aren’t systems in place to challenge those people,” said Natalie Rogers, a sophomore.

Rogers is a member of Reclaim MSU, a coalition of students, faculty and staff members, and alumni working to hold the university accountable. The group held a rally on Friday to announce a new policy proposal designed to revamp the university’s Board of Trustees, whose members are elected in statewide votes, and to improve campus governance.

The rally had a good turnout, Rogers said. But “the tone was, OK, things are calming down, people are going back to business as usual,” she said. “From here on out,” she continued, “we’re going to up the intensity and just keep saying, These problems are systemic, these aren’t just the fault of one guy.”

Justin Johnson, a 2001 Michigan State alumnus who recently announced he is running for a seat on the board, said that “someone like Nassar does not operate in a vacuum.”

Now, Johnson wonders, if Strampel was responsible for overseeing Nassar, who was responsible for overseeing Strampel? And who is next?

“There is no evidence that he ever actually monitored Nassar for compliance. There is no evidence that anyone ever monitored Strampel to see that he was complying,” Johnson said. “The fact that this was able to continue unchecked even after people were standing up and speaking out about it shows they knew that they didn’t have to.”

More questions arose after Strampel’s arrest than were answered for Nigel Paneth, a professor of epidemiology, biostatistics, and pediatrics. He wondered whether conditions in the clinics in which Nassar worked had prompted fewer objections to his behavior than they might have in clinics run by medical schools that feature more academic environments.

“The kind of academic environment we expect to see in clinics run by medical schools, with medical students, residents, and fellows participating, asking questions, seeking evidence for decisions, may have been less in evidence in the clinics in which Nassar practiced,” Paneth wrote in an email.

“And would that more-academic environment have promoted more scrutiny of procedures, more questions asked about deviations from protocols? And did the profitability of those clinics, highly valued in a corporate culture, allow some things to go either unnoticed or, if noticed, not seriously scrutinized?”

Frank Fear, a professor emeritus and former senior associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said he often worked with Strampel while he was an administrator because many faculty members had joint appointments in both colleges.

“He really built the College of Osteopathic Medicine, and by all accounts — certainly in my experience — he was an institution builder,” Fear said. “But obviously I was in a different place, a different circumstance.”

“The lesson here,” he added, “is that you never know where these investigations are going to go.”

Engler, the interim president, spoke at a Faculty Senate meeting last week, said Glenn R. Stutzky, a senior clinical instructor of social work. Engler, Stutzky said, suggested that the most important issue on his agenda was settling the lawsuits against Michigan State.

Strampel’s arrest reiterates just how flawed the thinking of both Engler and the trustees is, Stutzky said. “If they think the Nassar scandal will be ‘behind us’ and we can move forward by writing a check,” he said, “they’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

Correction (3/28/2018, 10:30 a.m.): This article originally said that a woman had sued Michigan State University for mishandling her sexual-assault claims against three football players. No lawsuit has been filed. The text has been corrected accordingly.

Clarification (4/5/2018, 11:32 a.m.): A previous version of this article implied that Paneth specifically contrasted the academic environments of clinics run by the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the College of Human Medicine, respectively. He instead contrasted the clinics in which Nassar worked with those run by medical schools, generally.

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. Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.