(CN) — Women who survived abuse from former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar are now suing Michigan State University for allegedly withholding documents related to the case.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Ingham County, Michigan, claims that MSU’s Board of Trustees held “illegal secret votes” regarding whether to release a trove of documents related to Nassar and sexual abuse at the university.
“We contend that board members made a behind-closed-doors, secret decision not to release the records in blatant violation of the Open Meetings Act,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney Azzam Elder. “They followed that up with violations of the Freedom of Information Act when we requested emails that might show they discussed and made a closed-door decision on the matter in violation of law.”
In 2018, Nassar was sentenced to up to 125 years in prison after admitting to molesting victims while working as a doctor for USA Gymnastics and MSU. Nassar has been accused of abusing hundreds of victims in total.
In the fallout of the Nassar scandal, MSU agreed to a $500 million settlement with abuse survivors, and as part of their bankruptcy USA Gymnastics reached a settlement of $380 million.
This current lawsuit comes after MSU announced in April that it planned to retain attorney-client privilege on documents related to Nassar which had been requested by the state’s attorney general’s office.
“I must share that in response to the Attorney General’s most recent request to waive attorney-client privilege, MSU’s general counsel will inform the AG’s office that we will not take any new action. Therefore, we will continue to maintain attorney-client privilege,” said Rema Vassar, chair of MSU’s board of trustees. “We understand that for those who continue to push for this transparency, this is not what you want to hear.”
However, the lawsuit claims that MSU had already waived its attorney-client to the privilege of the documents by previously announcing that they would release documents related to sexual violence at the university.
“This is about who knew what, when at the university,” said survivor Melissa Brown Hudecz in a statement. “We can’t heal as a community until we know that everyone who enabled a predator is accountable. By protecting the 6,000 secret documents and anyone named in them, the board is adding to survivors’ trauma with their lack of institutional accountability.”
The survivors are asking the court to force the university to disclose emails and communications regarding their decision to keep the requested documents hidden and for the holding of a public vote on the matter.
“Survivors deserve to know what MSU is hiding and the community does, also,” said Clasina Syrovy, who gave an impact statement in 2018 in Ingham County Court. “Aside from MSU violating the Freedom of Information Act and blatantly hiding 6,000 documents relevant to the case from us for five-and-a-half years, we have had our integrity questioned and character targeted by MSU, the board of trustees and even the interim president.”
Nassar, who is being held in a Florida federal prison, was recently stabbed multiple times by a fellow inmate after allegedly making a lewd comment while watching a Wimbledon tennis match.
MSU has not responded to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
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