In addition to getting money, Lou Anna Simon will hold the honorary titles of president emeritus and faculty emeritus at Michigan State. She is accused of lying to the police about what she knew about a 2014 Title IX investigation of Larry Nassar.Mark Wilson, Getty Images
Lou Anna K. Simon, the beleagueured former president of Michigan State University who faces criminal charges related to the Larry Nassar scandal, will retire from the university at the end of August and receive a $2.45-million payout over three years.
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In addition to getting money, Lou Anna Simon will hold the honorary titles of president emeritus and faculty emeritus at Michigan State. She is accused of lying to the police about what she knew about a 2014 Title IX investigation of Larry Nassar.Mark Wilson, Getty Images
Lou Anna K. Simon, the beleagueured former president of Michigan State University who faces criminal charges related to the Larry Nassar scandal, will retire from the university at the end of August and receive a $2.45-million payout over three years.
Simon, who was forced to resign as president in January 2018 as global outrage stirred over Nassar’s sexual abuse of hundreds of girls and young women, will also hold the honorary titles of president emeritus and faculty emeritus.
For the past 18 months, Simon has formally been a tenured professor at Michigan State. After she stepped down as president, her contract gave her a faculty position, a prestigious professorship, a 12-month research leave at her presidential salary of $750,000, another year on the faculty at that salary, and then 75 percent of that amount for the following two years.
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.
But Simon has been on a voluntary unpaid leave of absence since last fall because she faces criminal charges of lying to the police. The charges concern how much she knew about a campus Title IX investigation of Nassar in 2014, which had cleared the former sports doctor. Nassar continued to work at Michigan State and abuse patients until he was fired, in 2016. He is now serving a de facto life sentence in prison.
Simon has recently been in a Michigan county court for a preliminary hearing to determine whether she should stand trial. A decision won’t be made until this fall, according to local news reports.
In addition to the big payout, Simon will continue to receive all of the other perks in her presidential contract and retirement benefits. She has been at Michigan State for 45 years, becoming provost in 1993, interim president in 2003, and president in 2005.
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.
