Michigan State Was ‘Deeply Sorry’ for Abuse. Then It Wasn’t.

Under fire for allegations that he had tried in early spring to quietly pay off a sexual-abuse survivor without her lawyer present, John M. Engler, Michigan State’s interim president, scrambled behind the scenes to craft a public response.

A trove of emails, obtained by The Chronicle through a public-records request, show how on the afternoon of April 13, Engler and his team considered the possibility of offering abuse victims a plain-spoken, unambiguous apology. But they scrapped it.

More than 300 women say that they were sexually abused by Larry Nassar, a former Michigan State sports doctor, who was sentenced in January to 40 to 175 years in prison.

Among them was Kaylee Lorincz, a gymnast who made an explosive allegation during a public board meeting that Engler had callously asked her how much money she would need to drop legal claims against the university.

To Lorincz and other women, Engler had planned to say: “We are deeply sorry for all that she and the other survivors have suffered at the hands of Larry Nassar.”

That was the plan at 3:10 p.m., emails show. But by 4:43 p.m., the line had been cut. Instead, Engler would offer a more nuanced apology that was narrowly focused on Lorincz’s claims. “Our memories and interpretations of the March 28 meeting are different than hers,” Engler said in the final version. “I am sorry if anything said during the meeting was misunderstood.”

Below is a draft statement, followed by Engler’s final statement:

The emails that were provided to The Chronicle contain heavily redacted passages and offer no explanation for the changes in Engler’s statement. In a separate written statement, Emily Gerkin Guerrant, a vice president and university spokeswoman, said she did not remember the apology’s removal from an earlier draft, or why such a change would have been made.

Engler, a former Republican governor, has been criticized throughout his short tenure for displaying what some describe as a lack of sympathy for survivors, and a defensive posture. Those criticisms escalated on Wednesday, after The Chronicle published other emails in which Engler impugned the motives of an abuse victim, suggesting she was likely to get a “kickback” from her lawyer for stirring up survivors.

The emails are yet another setback for Engler, who has gotten crosswise with survivors, as the university struggles to recover from what may be higher education’s largest sexual-abuse scandal ever. Engler has consistently said that legal settlements were the surest path to healing, but survivors have criticized what they describe as the interim president’s singular focus on compensating victims who seek broader cultural and legislative changes.

In May, Michigan State announced that it would pay $500 million to Nassar’s victims. Engler’s initial draft statement, from April, suggested that the money would bring an end to survivors’ pain. “We recognize for many survivors their suffering won’t end until the litigation is concluded,” the statement read.

That line was cut, too.

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.