Welcome to the Deadspin 25, a college football poll that strives to be more democratic and less useless than every other preseason poll. Leading up to the college football season kickoff, we will give you previews of the 25 teams that you, the readers, voted to be most worthy of writing about. Now, No. 16 Michigan…
Michigan State interim president John Engler wrote in an email that he believed Rachel Denhollander received a “kickback” for being the leading voice in the case built against convicted serial sex abuser Larry Nassar.
According to the Detroit Free Press and the Lansing State Journal, Michigan State has agreed to settle the lawsuits filed by hundreds of women who have said they were sexually abused by Larry Nassar for $500 million. The settlement was approved by the board of trustees this morning. The sum will be paid out to 332…
While disgraced former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar is serving prison time for what will likely be the rest of his life after sexually abusing hundreds of young girls and women, his former boss at MSU, William Strampel, is currently facing criminal sexual conduct charges of his own. And…
While speaking at a tense Michigan State University board meeting today, Kaylee Lorincz, who said she was sexually abused by former MSU doctor Larry Nassar, detailed a troubling interaction with interim president John Engler. According to Lorincz, Engler attempted to “coerce” her into settling a civil lawsuit against…
A lawsuit filed by a current Michigan State University student says that, in 2015, three MSU basketball players gang-raped her in an off-campus apartment. The student also says that employees at the university’s counseling center discouraged her from reporting the rape, either to police or the school’s Office of…
Michigan State walk-on basketball player Brock Washington, who was reportedly under investigation for criminal sexual conduct in February, has been charged with misdemeanor assault by prosecutors in Ingham County, MI., according to ESPN. The details of how that charge came about, however, remain extremely murky.
Members of the Michigan House of Representatives released a letter today that summarized the findings of an inquiry into Michigan State’s handling of Larry Nassar, who sexually abused hundreds of patients while working as a doctor for both MSU and USA Gymnastics. Their findings lay out multiple areas where Michigan…
If you’ve been following the ongoing developments in the Larry Nassar scandal and Michigan State University’s sexual-assault crisis, you’ve recently become familiar with the phrase “#SpartansWill.” If you’ve spent any time around East Lansing, you already knew about it, because it’s all over town. You see it on…
Dr. William Strampel—the former boss of convicted serial sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar and dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State—was arrested this evening on undisclosed charges.
On Wednesday, USA Gymnastics announced a new fund, administered by an unnamed third party, that will provide support for counseling services for gymnasts who have been sexually abused. It’s a small, limited step forward, and—as I noted yesterday—it’s clearly about public relations. It also, however, shows just how…
Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 125 more years in prison today by Judge Janice Cunningham for three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Eaton County, Mich. The sentence was the final of three for Nassar, following a 60-year sentence on federal pornography charges handed down in December, and a 40-175…
Larry Nassar spent another week hearing from his victims, this time in an Eaton County courthouse in separate proceedings from his high-profile Ingham County sentencing. Even before today, Nassar already was expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. A federal judge sentenced him to 60 years in prison, and last…
Randall Margraves, the father of three daughters who were all victims of disgraced former U.S. Gymnastics and Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse, attempted to attack Nassar in court Friday morning, during the second day of Nassar’s sentencing hearing in Eaton County. He was subdued and arrested by…
The Lansing State Journal, overall, has done a fantastic job covering the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, as well as Michigan State’s basketball and football teams’ problems with reporting sexual assault and violence against women. Their editorial board was calling for MSU president Lou Anna Simon to resign more…
One week after being sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison by Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, Larry Nassar appeared in an Eaton County court room today for another sentencing hearing. Nassar pleaded guilty to three counts criminal sexual conduct in November, all of which took place between Sep. 2009 and Sep.…
Former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison last week for 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Nassar was the only person sentenced, but dozens of other people have been accused of helping him perpetrate decades of child sexual abuse by…
It’s been three days since an ESPN report painted a picture of Michigan State University as a school unable or unwilling to punish sexual abusers or rapists through any kind of accountable system, particularly when the accused were part of the football and men’s basketball teams. The looming publication of that report…
The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reports tonight that NCAA president Mark Emmert was personally told in 2010 of more than three dozen reports of sexual assault committed by Michigan State athletes, but took no apparent action.
It can be hard to keep track of how many different pieces of news broke today, all of them illuminating one larger point—Michigan State really didn’t want to try too hard, if at all, to prevent or investigate sexual assault or gender violence on its campus, and they were especially reluctant to do so if that case…
