What Accountability?

Lou Anna Simon, the president of Michigan State University, has stepped down in the wake of the Larry Nassar’s receiving a sentence of 175 years in prison on charges of sexual abuse of those in his care. USA Today reports:

Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon will step down as leader of MSU, the school announced late Wednesday.

“As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable,” she said in statement. “As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger. I understand, and that is why I have limited my personal statements. Throughout my career, I have worked very hard to put Team MSU first. Throughout my career, I have consistently and persistently spoken and worked on behalf of Team MSU. I have tried to make it not about me. I urge those who have supported my work to understand that I cannot make it about me now. Therefore, I am tendering my resignation as president according to the terms of my employment agreement.”

She made the announcement hours after a judge sentenced Larry Nassar to 40 to 175 years in prison as part of a plea deal on seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving more than 156 girls and women over more than two decades.

Note the careful wording. Whatever happened to “the buck stops here”? She’s not taking personal responsibility. She’s portraying herself as a victim.

At SI.com Charles Pearce temperately declaims:

Burn it all down. That is the calm and reasoned conclusion to which I have come as one horror story after another unspooled in the courtroom. Nobody employed in the upper echelons at USA Gymnastics, or at the United States Olympic Committee, or at Michigan State University should still have a job. If accessorial or conspiracy charges plausibly can be lodged against those people, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Those people should come out of civil courts wearing barrels. Their descendants should be answering motions in the 22nd Century. In fact, I can argue convincingly that none of those three institutions should continue to exist in its current form. USA Gymnastics and the USOC should lose their non-profit status forthwith. Michigan State should lose its status within the NCAA for at least five years. American gymnastics is no longer a sport. It’s a conspiracy of pedophiles and their enablers.

Ms. Simon’s base pay is $750,000 per year. She recently received a raise after Nassar had already been sentenced to 60 years for possession of child pornography some months ago. The Detroit News reported one dissenter’s reaction:

“What kind of institution gives a raise to someone who presided over the molestation of hundreds of little girls?” said John Manly, a California-based attorney representing 106 young women in civil lawsuits against Nassar, MSU, USA Gymnastics, Gedderts’ Twistars USA Gymnastics Club and, in some cases, the U.S. Olympic Committee. “The short answer: One that is run by people who are morally depraved.”

Michigan State’s Athletic Director Mark Hollis’s base pay is $688,000 per year. What their pensions must be I can only imagine.

If we dug into all of this more intensively, I believe what we would discover is that Ms. Simon and Mr. Hollis are primarily fund raisers and all of the coaches and other officials at Michigan State have little fiefdoms with practically no scrutiny. As long as the money keeps pouring in.

And what I believe this tells us is that not just Michigan State but higher education more generally not to mention higher level athletics are thoroughly corrupt. The very least we could expect from the very high wages those at the top are receiving is some level of accountability.

With great power goes no responsibility. But the pay and benefits are great.

Update

The editors of the New York Times jump into the scrum:

The resignation on Wednesday of Lou Anna Simon, the president of Michigan State, where Dr. Nassar’s medical practice was based, was overdue. Though Michigan State has denied covering up Dr. Nassar’s crimes, reporting by The Detroit News found that 14 university officials were told of Dr. Nassar’s sexual misconduct in the two decades before he was arrested, and that at least eight women had reported his actions. Michigan State continued to allow Dr. Nassar to see patients for 16 months while he was under criminal investigation after a 2014 allegation of sexual assault by a patient.

The money kept pouring in. Everybody continue to get paid. Nobody cared.

They continue:

The athletic trainers, assistant coaches, university police officers and other school officials who let Dr. Nassar’s abuse go on should also step down. The N.C.A.A., which is investigating the matter, should consider sanctions against Michigan State, including banning it from postseason play for some period, as it did Penn State’s football program after the former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted of molesting children over a period of 15 years.

People in positions of responsibility need to be held accountable for what happens in the areas for which they are responsible, not just when atrocities are revealed but 365 days a year every year.