New Michigan State trustee will review some 6,000 Nassar records the college has refused to release

Megan Banta , Mark Johnson | Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING — Newly appointed Michigan State University Trustee Renee Knake said Friday she will comb through thousands of documents related to the investigation of Larry Nassar that the college has refused to release.

This comes after months of outcry and calls to the Board of Trustees to waive attorney-client privilege on some 6,000 documents related to MSU's own investigation into how the university handled complaints against former sports medicine doctor Larry Nassar, many of which came before he was charged in 2016. Nassar abused hundreds of women under the guise of medical treatment.

Her comments came after survivors of Nassar’s abuse led a renewed call Friday morning for MSU to cooperate with a state investigation and release the documents.

Knake, an attorney and ethics professor who was sworn in this week and attended her first board meeting Friday, said she asked to look at the documents herself. She was appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier this month.

She was appointed to replace Nancy Schlichting, who resigned in October over frustrations with the board, including the board’s reluctance to release the Nassar documents.

"When I see those materials with my own eyes, I will have an informed basis to make recommendations about how they should be handled," she said.

Board Chairperson Dianne Byrum, who has held firm to the board's decision to withhold the documents despite a Michigan Attorney General request, did not rule out waiving privilege if Knake comes back with such a recommendation.

"The board will have conversations," Byrum said. "I don't want to pre-judge what the board will decide. The entire issue on the privileged documents has been one that we've had legitimate disagreements on."

Trustee Brian Mosallam said he also will review the documents. After the review, he said the board will reconvene and consider what to do next. Other trustees did not return calls seeking comment.

He shared frustration that an independent review he helped organize with trustees Dan Kelly and Kelly Tebay never came to light. It would have included a special master to comb through the documents and redact any legal advice before handing the documents over to a survivor-approved firm.

But Byrum and Trustees Joel Ferguson, Brianna Scott and Melanie Foster did not support the independent investigation.

"We came up with a solution, but we were blocked," Mosallam said. "This was the next step."

It would be simple to waive privilege on those documents and emails, said Amanda Thomashow, an MSU graduate and Nassar survivor who reported him to police and MSU in 2014 for sexual assault. If Byrum, Ferguson, Scott and Foster gave their support, it would be enough to waive privilege, she said.

"And I think I know why you’re holding out," she said Friday, reading from a statement. "If you can keep these emails private until the summer of 2020, the six-year statute of limitations for criminal charges will run out."

Thomashow stressed to them that "it's not too late to do the right thing" and move to release the documents.

“And please, oh my gosh, please, please, please, after all the love and tuition that I have given this school, give me a reason to be proud to be a Spartan again,” she said.

The MSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution last month recommending the board release the documents.

Shortly after the vote, Byrum said the documents "are only the communications between the lawyers and the university," she said, and not related to the facts surrounding Nassar’s sexual abuse.

Board of trustees silent during standoff with survivor. A survivor asked the Board of Trustees if they believed Nassar sexually assaulted her. A silent standoff ensued.

"We welcome the board’s new-found interest in the documents we have been requesting for more than a year. However, as we have said before, law enforcement agencies do not rely on the subject of an investigation to determine what is relevant," said AG spokesperson Kelly Rossman-McKinney. "While we have no idea what the documents contain, not giving them to us obviously leads us to believe there is in fact something relevant to our investigation."

Anna Pegler-Gordon, a professor in the James Madison College and member of the activist group Reclaim MSU, said there could be crucial information inside the documents.

It's essential all board members comb through them to make sure no important information is missed, she said.

"If there are any areas where something really important to understanding how Larry Nassar was allowed to continue to abuse people for so long that also connect to legal advice, then I think it’s really important for trustees to be able to see that for themselves," Pegler-Gordon said.

Continued resistance from some board members has continued to add more trauma to the lives of survivors, said Alexandra Bourque, a Nassar survivor.

The board has the power to move the university on from this dark time, but their refusal to release the documents is keeping survivors in the dark, she said.

"I cannot remember a night that I do not close my eyes and (Nassar's) face is not met with mine, and now yours, each and every one of yours, have appeared in my nightmares. Your face has covered his face," Bourque said. "His actions brought us here, and every single day since, your actions are what keep us here."

A renewed call for transparency

Sterling Riethman criticized the Board of Trustees for "derailing the very investigation you'd asked for" from the Michigan Attorney General's office.

The announcement of that state investigation in January 2018 had been a source of hope for Riethman and others who wanted the university to acknowledge what went wrong and "admit those failures and hold those individuals responsible" to enable a campus culture that's safe for students.

"You took so long to turn over requested documents that search warrants had to be executed," a statement signed by Riethman, Sarah Klein and Rachael Denhollander reads. "You wrongfully claimed privilege over, and over, and over again."

Then the university community learned former Board of Trustees Chair Brian Breslin "had sent an email instructing everyone to copy attorneys on all correspondence, in an effort to invoke privilege over full documents and conceal information."

MSU has done absolutely nothing to satisfy survivors' pleas or acknowledged it made a single error, Riethman said.

And after eight months of hard work to move forward with an independent investigation, the Board of Trustees "turned on us again," she said.

The board claimed "that the forced isolated reviews done in a few select areas, without access to all information, were identical to the systemic and fully open review we’d asked for."

"You lied," the full statement to the board and university reads. "Again."

The statement describes the board's and university's actions as "despicable" and "shameful" and called on them to do better and cooperate with investigators now.

"President Stanley, we don’t need more listening sessions," the statement reads. "We have been asking for the same simple things, for years."