Photo: Scott Olson/ Getty

Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon will finally resign tomorrow, less than a week after MSU’s board of trustees voted to stand behind her. Trustees attempted to downplay Simon’s role in the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal and vouched for her fundraising chops, but the State News and Detroit Free Press both report that Simon will step down on Thursday.


Many of Nassar’s victims who spoke at his sentencing hearing this week called for those who played any role in Nassar escaping justice for so long to be punished. Clasina Syrovy was among the survivors who specifically called out Simon “for her cowardly behavior.” Simon is among at least 14 MSU employees who were made aware of allegations against Nassar years before he was initially arrested, and Simon apparently knew of parallel Title IX and MSU police investigations against Nassar in 2014, though she denies she knew they were about him.

MSU allowed Nassar to continue treating patients for 18 months after the school was made aware of allegations against him. As Rachael Denhollander put it, Simon’s MSU attempted to silence victims instead of reckoning with the sexual abuse it had enabled.

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 now the very people who should have been protecting us all along ... have thumbed their nose at any semblance of accountability.


Update (8:49 E.T.): Simon has announced her resignation. Here’s the letter she sent to MSU’s board of trustees.