The time to handle it right away started in 2018, when the current administration became aware of it, but we didn't hear a thing from them until the Detroit News contacted them and told them they were running a story about it in 2020. So, the time for showing other schools the right way to handle things passed a couple years ago. Now the school can choose what to do from this point on, but their statement today tells me they aren't ready to fully account for the school's role in all of this.
I disagree. It was all conjecture and allegations back in 2018. A full investigation and associated report was completed and made public about a month ago. This is all very fresh.
The police investigation was closed in 2018, it was a detective that investigated that told a victim that he needed to take it to the media because Michigan was "burying it." So that victim took it to Kim Kozlowski in 2020 and the Detroit News ran a story, it was not until the News contacted U of M and asked to comment on a story they were running that week that Michigan issued a statement on it.
The WH investigation was commissioned by Michigan, the lawyers for the survivors are hardly accepting it at face value.
Bottom line, if the Detroit News hadn't called Michigan and told them they were running the story, we'd still be waiting to hear from Michigan on it.
I'm not disagreeing with you on that aspect, but the fact that nobody has had their day in court and nobody has been charged with anything (I get that nobody is alive to charge) means that there is a lot of moving parts that haven't been pressured tested via due process.
Doing something/anything back in 2018 without proper due process would have been way premature and could have opened yourself up to more legal issues down the road.
One of the things that I hoped we wouldn't see, but seems to be already happening, is that some of the same people in our own fanbase that had quite a bit to say about Penn State back in the day are now either silent or in severe denial now that it is known that abuse on a massive scale (but not of the same origins or dynamics, of course - they are certainly different situations) occurred here in Ann Arbor. Worse, a subset of those people - relatively small in number they may be, of course - are even being openly hostile to the victims in some rare cases, if one Facebook group in which I lurk is any indication.
You're right, of course. If this is handled in a bumbling way and in a less than transparent way, that would be unforgiveable, IMHO. If there were ever a time to figure out what "The Michigan Difference" actually is at the governance level on campus, now would be it.
Did one of Bo's coaches rape a 10 year old boy in the locker room shower, get caught by another assistant who told Bo and then Bo did nothing?
Pretty big difference.
I also get slightly troubled by this somewhat infantilizing idea that somehow a football coach is "responsible" for the players on his team. These players are all adults. They aren't "kids," just as I gave up my "kid" badge when freshman year got going. The university is ultimately responsible in the same way they're responsible for the civilians who got abused at UHS -- because one of their agents committed abuse and crimes. The reason for the culpability and responsibility isn't because of some failed "protection." Bo isn't any more inherently responsible than, say, a professor who got told of abuse by Anderson by one of his Poli Sci students.
Your professor analogy is horrible. Did the student go to the Dr because it was a prerequisite to take the class, or because of injuries sustained in class? Did the professor actively recruit the students to come to the university for the very activity that required the need for a visit to the doctor?
Bo had significantly more responsibility than a random professor. He also had significantly more power than any individual professor.
Bo had no more responsibility than any other adult at the University who heard about Anderson's abuse. That's based on nothing more than a misguided notion of the football coach's authority. If a student confided in a professor that he/she went to UHS and Anderson abused him/her, that professor is in no different position than Bo.
The "recruitment" is irrelevant. The professor has no more or less responsibility if the student was recruited academically or sent a bunch of letters saying "come to Michigan, we'll give you scholarship money."
As to power, no again. Sports has an outsized cultural presence, but in reality, Bo Schembechler had essentially zero power over the people who staffed the non-Phys Ed parts of the university. He had no authority over them and in fact, I still haven't seen any evidence and highly doubt that he could have fired Anderson himself. Most of the "adult" parts of the university condescend to people like Bo and the general idea that Bo could have gotten a member of the medical faculty fired is silly and uninformed. Bo could have and should have reported what he heard about Anderson to people who actually did have authority (or someone closer to authority, like Canham) but that's exactly the same conclusion we would draw about the hypothetical Poli Sci professor. In point of fact, it's almost certainly the case that when you take someone like Bo out of his jock comfort zone, and get him into more serious and "adult" matters like Anderson, he's entirely clueless and out of his element. He's basically an uninformed and relatively uneducated clod. He's a fantastic gym teacher, little more. (There never should have been a statue of him or a building named after him and obviously there shouldn't be now, but the moral panic over him is very unbecoming an educated message board.)
This is a thoughtful view recognizing that this a complicated situation with little objective evidence and many different sides to the story, many of which we will not hear since so many people are not here to tell their side of the story. Unfortunately, this may not actually be an "educated message board" and this type of critical thinking is not typically welcome here.
Except the kids on the football team have a ton to lose by speaking out. Loss of team position, loss of scholarship, loss of academic opportunity at Michigan, tons. There is an inherent power imbalance and that may have led to people not speaking out. This day and age, if it happened, someone would have filed a lawsuit by now, went on twitter, etc. Back then? Go to your boss, who was Bo, and he let everyone down.
I'm of belief Bo was duped by Anderson and thinking it was a check for rectal and testicular cancer.... But the professor analogy is wrong because Bo had enough power to fire him and a professor probably would not have that power.
I doubt Bo did have that power and nothing in the report indicates otherwise. A word from Bo might have gotten Anderson's football detail taken away, but even that's no more than a maybe. The report would have been better if it had addressed issues like this, but it had a mandate well beyond football so you can see why it didn't bother.
I'm sure Bo had little clue about how to navigate bureaucratic things outside his tiny university niche, beyond going to Canham. And Canham would have probably had veto power even if Bo wanted Anderson out of football. Canham was hands-on, smarter, and higher than Bo on the org chart. The report says Bo did tell one player he was going to tell Canham, but both are dead and the trail runs cold. We do know that there are no football complaints during Bo's time after the time the report says Bo reacted by saying he was going to tell Canham.
Bo had plenty of responsibility and power. A professor has a student for several hours a week for a semester. Bo was with these players for many hours a week during the season, spring practice and preseason practice. If he didn’t feel more responsibility for the health and well being of his players than a university professor, he should not have been coaching.
With regards to power, he had multiple options if he reported it to Canham and he chose not to do anything.
1. He could have gone above Canham’s head
2. He could have quit and found a new job
3. He could have gone to the press.
Yes, all of these things would have been hard, but that is what a leader does. If you don’t believe me, see what Bo himself had to say:
“Every coach, every executive, every leader: They all know right from wrong. Even those Enron guys. When someone uncovers a scandal in their company, I don't think they can say, "I didn't know that was going on." They're just saying they're too dumb to do their job! And if they really are too dumb, then why are they getting paid millions of dollars to do it? They know what's going on.”
The professor could do all those things, too. Is the suggestion here that professors don't have close, mentor-type relationships with students? Instead of just a random freshman prof, make it a doctoral candidate.
You're just putting Bo in a completely different position vis-a-vis the rest of the civilian world than he was actually in.
The suggestion is, that Bo wasn’t a mere professor, or a glorified gym teacher. He was a coach of a major college football program, With that comes great responsibility. Players were required to go to a specific dr, for football specific reasons (physicals to get cleared to play and injuries). It seems eminently reasonable that if a player had an issue with that dr, they should assume that their football coach is in much more of a position of authority to address the issue than a random professor.
"Coach of a major college football program" is essentially the definition of "glorified gym teacher."
"With that comes great responsibility" is tautological and question begging. It has no real bearing on legal matters or more "adult" matters generally. He was a university employee, that's it. He didn't even run a department. He was basically a sergeant or I guess maybe NCO.
Your last sentence merely states your opinion of what the players' opinion of his authority might have been. That's not a probative data point, even if it's accurate.
Perhaps we should put them all at that pay level then.
There may be legal and practical distinctions, but for all practical purposes, a college football coach has significant authority over his players. In the adult world, with authority comes responsibility. Those players were required to see a specific doctor in order to meet requirements to be able to play for him. If those players report back to him abuse, he has both a unique authority and responsibility to address it that a random professor does not have.
While you may dismiss that as my opinion, I would suggest that you look at what many people close to the situation have said.
As I noted before, Bo himself noted the responsibilities of a leader to know right from wrong and clearly believed himself to have the authority to address important issues related to his team. Both Jim Harbaugh and Glenn Schembechler agree tgat if Bo had known, he would have both felt the responsibility and had the ability to do something. Players are quoted as saying that Bo told their parents he would take care of them. There is plenty of evidence that his contemporaries did believe that Bo had the responsibility and authority.
I would suggest that my interpretation of his role and responsibility is much more consistent with what all of those people say than your opinion that he is a mere glorified gym teacher.
BTW, if you want a good example of a tautological statement, try “Coach of a major college football program" is essentially the definition of "glorified gym teacher."
Bo Knows. Hey, that's kinda catchy.
....and FUCK ohio state! Hey, that's kind of TRUE!
The following comment is not specific to the circumstances relating to Dr. Anderson. As a lawyer who has defended sexual abuse claims, I am conflicted about claims emanating from events that allegedly occurred decades ago. I one case in NY, I was confronted with a claim about a single event that allegedly occurred 60 years ago (NY enacted a “window” during which the statute of limitations was suspended) that was not witnessed by anyone (other than the alleged victim and alleged perpetrator). There were no corroborating documents. The only proof was from the alleged victim - the alleged perpetrator died 40 years ago. And lest you think me monstrous for defending persons/institutions accused of sexual abuse, please remember that everyone in our system of jurisprudence is entitled to a defense. As a compassionate human being, my heart goes out to any and all victims of abuse - sexual or otherwise. But as a lawyer who has defended such claims, I know that there are very good reasons for statutes of limitation. Memories are complicated things. “Repressed memories” are particularly problematic. But we can all agree that memories are fallible, that they are subject to change over time, and so forth. And, of course, key witnesses die. (Note: Nassar and his victims are alive. Same with Sandusky. But here, the alleged perpetrator is dead, Coach Schembechler is dead, and others implicated may be dead as well (I have not tried to study the facts in depth)). Each fact situation is inevitably nuanced. I understand that this particular situation is being tried in the court of public opinion, not in a legal proceeding, but on some basic level it troubles me that such definitive opinions are formed by our friends on this blog when fundamentally important proof is no longer available. Please, please understand that I am not for a second condoning or minimizing the distinct possibility that grievous wrongdoing occurred. But my resistance to forming definitive conclusions is based upon what I think is a reasonable, good faith concern that critical proof may never be available in situations involving claims relating to events that occurred many decades ago. Thanks for reading.
Well put, and no need to apologize. I'm a lawyer in white collar law enforcement and have been involved in a number of these institutional investigations of wrongdoing and when something goes array at a big company or institution, typically the potentially implicated living people blame either (a) a committee; or (b) the dead people.
We've been speculating about some reason Bo would be loyal to Anderson. The speculation is reasonable. It might be true. But we don't have a stitch of evidence for them and the people that would know the best whether they're true are all dead. There's the internet, there are the type of ideologies that tend to thrive on the internet ... and then there's actual evidence.
Thanks for your input. I have no problem with what you are saying. I will say, that this was pretty much the stance that Craig Ross had on the WTKA MgoBlog Roundtable that caused quite a stir. It eventually lead to the pulling down the Roundtable.
Do you seriously believe that there is even the slightest possibility that Dr. Anderson did not assault students?
There are dozens of witness accounts.
There are contemporaneous written reports including a letter from the 1970s.
UofM's Dean of Students received contemporaneous reports of the abuse in the 1970s and fired Anderson only to have his decision overridden.
The University does not deny that Dr. Anderson abused students.
An independent investigation by a credible law firm concluded that Dr. Anderson abused students.
I agree that witness testimony and memories can be false, faulty or inaccurate. But given all of the facts here, denying that there is conclusive proof of abuse is not "good faith."
This is very well said. There seems to be a strong tendency to believe any allegation, even when you don't know the accuser or the accused and have no independent objective evidence. This is a very complicated story with many sides, many of which we will not hear since so many involved are dead. And then you add in the fallibility of memory over time. The bottom line is that there is much we don't know or will ever know. The truth may be much different than we assume. It's encouraging that your wise words arguing for open minds and skepticism have received quite a few up votes. Much of the time, the opposite seems to occur.
I am struggling to see what it is you are trying to say. Are you suggesting:
1. Anderson did not do what he was alleged to do? Given the large number of independent witnesses who have come forward, it is hard to see how that is credible. If you believe that, I would ask if you have read the WilmerHale report?
2. Bo didn’t know? While there are significantly less reports that Bo was told, in 3 of the 8 examples of an athletic department employee being told cited in the report, Bo was that employee. While it is true that memories fade over time, this seems like a pretty central detail to forget. Plenty of witnesses also indicated that Anderson’s actions were widely known among student athletes and commonly joked about. Concluding that multiple witness statements related to multiple instances is credible does not suggest a lack of critical thinking.
Reading the report it is hard to conclude anything other than multiple university employees in both the athletic department and University Health Services failed at the most basic part of their job, to protect the college students they had a responsibility to. Will we ever know for sure that Bo was one of those who failed? You can argue no, but I think that is pretty hard to conclude (obviously not impossible because you and several others have concluded it). Either Bo knew and did not do enough, or Bo created an atmosphere in which athletes who should have been able to trust him didn’t. Either answer is pretty damming to me.
Thanks for your comment. My post was simply intended to say that definitive conclusions are difficult to reach when claims are not promptly asserted and key sources of proof are missing as a result. You are free to reach your own conclusion based on your own analysis - this is not a legal proceeding. But I also do not fault those who are reluctant to do so given the absence of key sources of proof. My post was intended to reflect reluctance, not certainty. And to make the point that it is critical to bring forward allegations as soon as possible to maximize the accuracy of conclusions. There are many steps institutions may take to create a culture of reporting and prompt analysis and thankfully many institutions in my experience have worked very hard to create the sort of environment that allows prompt reporting of concerns.
Perhaps you need to read my comments again. I'm struggling to understand your reply. I'm not suggesting anything other than a certain humility when dealing with any accusation. Period. It's not specific to this case. It might apply to some perspectives on this case which assume knowledge that just isn't there. Assuming that everything you read is accurate or that you know everything is foolish. Extremely foolish. I have been guilty of such foolishness and learned from this mistake. Perhaps you should reconsider your apparent absolute certainty before attacking others who don't foolishly share that certainty. The attorney who commented initially has experience in these matters and understands the foolishness of such certainty.
FWIW, I favor the predominant views you expressed but like the attorney, I understand the foolishness of absolute certainty.
This whole thing is sickening. Just sickening. Just always thought (until last year) my school & my team’s heritage and history was above this type of thing. To hear Kwiatkowski talk at that press conference was stomach turning. As well as other things other players have said in the past.
It will be interesting to see how the University responds and what part Bo’s “legacy” will play in it going forward. They can start by renaming The Hall, removing the statue and we can quit raising The Team banner up the student section at games. Not sure I want to hear or read “The Team, The Team, The Team” anymore.
Makes me wonder, did the doctor clear players who were hurt so Bo ignored his motives. This is all pre my time of being a fan, Mohler and Carr were my era of watching but there's something Bo had to like about him.
Bo benched plenty of stars for not going to class and for team rules too. So the idea of trying to push for injury clearing, is crap. Enough.
The freshman starting middle guard on the 1980 Rose Bowl winning team wasn't in school the next year. Some of us South Quadders asked around as to what was going on with him. (Again, pre-internet. Millennials and Z'ers have no conception of the information difference that makes. It was like the Stone Age in that regard.) The best rumor any of us got is that Bo kicked him off the team for pissing outside Dooley's. To this day, I've googled it several times and not gotten any more clarity.
There just isn't any evidence that Bo wanted injured guys to play, and that was never his reputation in the least. It's a very far-fetched theory. Anderson getting the team steroids is more likely; I'd be surprised but not entirely shocked if that was going on. That early/mid 80s time period was when they exploded in college football. But even that wouldn't explain 1969 or 1976 or the other earlier dates in the report.
Well, one of his players did write an entire book about it, so there's that. "If I don't, Six"
Just watched the presser. I believe those guys 100%. Fuck Bo. Remove statue and name from football building.
I've never been one to jump to conclusions. I've always waited for all the facts to be in and tried to be as logical as possible. This is all somewhat difficult with Bo, Millie, Anderson, and Canham being gone. When I read that Gilvanni Johnson was abused by Dr. Anderson 15 times, I wondered why he didn't refuse to go or beat the crap out of the freak. Seeing him struggle to speak was tough to watch. I felt terrible for him. When he said the upperclassmen and coaches joked about seeing Dr. Anal, I leaned toward believing him. I wouldn't be surprised if other teams have similar tales they are hiding. Just last year a Penn State (again!) player came forward with a serious hazing complaint and claims of retaliation by coaches. Football culture sounds pretty sickening to me.
I haven't watched the video, so I can't speak to the accuser's credibility, but let me just note a couple things I've learned in 28 years as an attorney:
Everyone lies. Even people who aren't purposely lying embellish stories. Even people who don't mean to embellish their story have faulty memories of the events in question. In court cases, what you ultimately conclude is that the emails and the texts and the surveillance video is credible and the witness statements are generally not. You absolutely should NOT believe somebody just because they say it unless there is something like a contemporaneous document to corroborate.
We all want to believe vulnerable people or vulnerable groups of people, in particular people who have historically had their complaints and accusations greeted with skepticism or worse. But if you use this virtuous wish and translate it into credulity, or shaming of others who are not willing to merely accept accusations at face value, then you contribute to a culture in which truth is merely a political point of view.
Craig Ross. Is that you? :)
For people who say we should believe victims, if they saw what I see on a daily basis, I think they'd have to add some caveats on that take because they'd realize they were being well-intentioned but a wee bit naive. People lie for all sorts of reasons. Mistaken recollection, revenge, financial incentive, attention, mental illness. And after years of being exposed to this sad reality, it is quite hard to believe that one subcategory of the human race, victims of sexual abuse, would happen to be meaningfully more credible as a group.
Weird comment. If it was just these 3 guys then I would entertain your thought process. But haven’t there been more than EIGHT HUNDRED people come forward claiming the same thing? I don’t think the credibility of the victims is where the focus should be....
The 800 people are compelling evidence that Anderson engaged in misconduct. The 800 people are not compelling evidence that Bo's son was a victim and told Bo and that Bo ignored it. This press conference created a firestorm because of these alleged new facts, not because it provided further (cumulative) evidence of Anderson's misconduct.
I’ve been an attorney for 11 years. People do lie. You have a to believe some testimony, even though blanket statements like “believe all victims” are certainly false. If you literally never believed anything on the basis of testimonial evidence you’d never make it through a day, attorney or not. When the drive through guy tells you to pull ahead to pay, do you just sit in your car and tell him you’re waiting for him to produce emails detailing where payment occurs?
It’s understandable when high school kids embrace this kind of impossible cynicism presented as wisdom, but it’s much less excusable in adults. It’s a facade, since none could blindly reject all testimony anymore than they could blindly accept all of it. It’s B-movie morality, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s “Don’t Trust anybody,” masquerading as insight. Don’t trust it ;). I’m, the dude is giving you testimony to convince you to reject all testimonial evidence. Think about that for a second.
I think I understand your point. Let me clarify mine: We shouldn't accept as a credo "believe all victims." We should proceed to the payment window at the drive-thru. When people are accused of crimes at press conferences, red flags should go off that should make us reserve judgment on the credibility of the accusation. Finally: None of this is "impossible cynicism" and nor am I saying "reject all testimony." But I am saying: Be skeptical and question people's credibility, even when they belong to a group (i.e., alleged victims of sexual abuse) that you find very sympathetic.
It isn't so much that alleged victims of sexual assault are now deemed to be more credible than others, it's that for far too long, they were deemed to be less credible.
VERY well put. And I'll just add I think you're allowed to believe some of the accusers while holding out skepticism of others. Especially in cases like this one where the victims are going to recieve significant renumeration for what happened to them.
I reject the premise that an accusation automatically means guilt and i'm referring specifically about Matt's claims that he was both sexually assaulted as a 10 year old and beaten physically by Bo for telling him about it. But there are clearly quite a few people here who don't share that view.
What a tragedy.
Another example of sick football culture: In 1954, Bart Starr's Alabama teammates beat the crap out of him during an initiation into the A-Club. He was beaten with paddles so badly his back was described as looking like hamburger. He never fully recovered and kept it a secret for more than 60 years. He wed an Auburn girl, and this angered his teammates. Marriage was frowned upon for players, and marrying the enemy was a serious offense.
Football is pretty much a sick culture and movies like North Dallas Forty, now 42 years old, are still pretty much spot-on or if anything the sickness in the culture has gotten worse. You really have to compartmentalize to enjoy it and that goes double when you add on the extra baggage from colleges and universities running and getting corrupted by football teams. It's really tough to do, particularly at times like this.
It’s more than football. Male-dominated groups tend to have these issues.
Women's college sports have these same issues and corruptions. Very little difference. Less money, so maybe less temptation, but beyond that, very similar.
Nothing worse on this planet than a male human