The above photo of Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos chatting with former Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon was taken on September 20, 2017. Two days later, on the 22nd, DeVos would announce that the Department of Education would be rolling back Title IX regulations dealing with the reporting of sexual assaults on campus. And, given what’s come out recently about the culture of sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual violence at MSU, many are curious as to whether or not Secretary DeVos’s personal connection to MSU, where she and her family just recently donated $10 million, perhaps influenced the decision to water down the federal rules governing a university’s responsibility in addressing accusations of sexual misconduct… The following is from Citizens for Ethics, an organization that is currently investigating “the extent to which Michigan State officials were pushing the Department of Education to drop its investigations and monitoring activities of the school.”
Michigan State University has asked the government to drop its Title IX monitoring of the school. DeVos met with the MSU president days before the Education Dept. rolled back Title IX regulations. We sent a FOIA request for documents.https://t.co/1n14EXFeXa
— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) February 10, 2018
Lou Anna Simon, as I alluded to above, is no longer the President of MSU, having been forced to resign shortly after MSU doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to serve 175 years for the sexual abuse of over 150 female gymnasts. While Simon initially had the confidence of the university’s Board of Trustees, it would appear that support started to give way with the publication of news stories about how she knew, back in 2014, that, in her words, “a sports medicine doctor was under investigation.” In spite of this, however, and the fact that at least 14 university employees knew of the multiple allegations against Nassar, he continued to see patients for a full 16 months after the investigation by university police had begun. And he may well still be seeing patients today if former gymnast Rachael Denhollander hadn’t started talking publicly about her experiences in September of 2016. [While at least six young women had filed formal complaints about Nassar over the past two decades, Denhollander was the first to go to the press, demanding to know why he was still being allowed to molest young gymnasts.]
“A monster was stopped last year, after decades of being allowed to prey on women and little girls, and he wasn’t stopped by a single person who could have, and should have stopped him at least 20 years ago,” Denhollander said the Detroit News after Nassar’s sentencing. “He was stopped by the victims, who had to fight through being silenced, being threatened, being mocked, by the officials at MSU who they appealed to for help.” And, with that, Simon’s fate was pretty much sealed.
What we still don’t know, however, is the extent to which Secretary DeVos may have aided in the coverup, helping those at MSU, like President Simon, avoid accountability as they continued to perpetuate a culture of dismissiveness when it came to the accusations of sexual abuse from female students. Here’s hoping, if DeVos did play a role, we find out soon, before she can do any more damage to public education in America.