Michigan Agrees to ~$500 Million Abuse Settlement

🏫 The University of Michigan will pay $490 million to more than a thousand people who had accused a doctor of sexual abuse, it was announced yesterday. This marks the third-largest collegiate abuse settlement over the past decade.

• In 2018, a man named Robert Stone sent a letter to University of Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel detailing the sexual abuse he said he suffered as a student at the hands of late athletic doctor Robert Anderson. The letter prompted an internal investigation at UM over Anderson’s abuse.
• Anderson worked at the university from 1966 until his retirement in 2003. He was director of the university's Health Service and a physician for multiple athletic teams, including football. He died in 2008.
• A law firm hired by the university to investigate the sexual abuse allegations previously found university officials were aware of the abuse as early as 1978.
• There are 1,050 former athletes and other U-M students suing the university in federal court. Many of the suits were filed anonymously, but others – like the son of legendary football coach Bo Schembechler and former running back Jon Vaughn – have made their experiences public. (Vaughn especially so. He's been camped outside the university president’s house for the past 100+ days.)

+Zoom out: Other colleges – like Penn State, Michigan State, and Ohio State – have also paid enormous sums to settle abuse cases over the past decade. The largest was a $1.1 billion combined settlement paid by USC to former patients of a campus gynecologist who say they were sexually abused.