UM Settles with Anderson Survivors for 490 Million.

I am concerned one of Bo’s chief supporters is Jim and thats why the statue and the name on the hall remain

John U. Bacon wrote on this.  Worth a read...

https://johnubacon.com/2021/06/dr-andersons-abuse-and-um-athletics-what-we-know-and-dont-know/

While we cannot fix the past I believe there are positives here in that the University did not sweep this under the rug, they acknowledged it and have done their best to help. This at least tells me there are positive steps being taken to ensure this does not happen again which I believe is the best that can be done in a situation like this one. Even something as tame as the Schlissel affair (assuming it was consensual and not in any way coerced) was brought to light and dealt with immediately.  

"Nothing positive here, I hope the survivors can find some sort of peace. ." Gree4

Absolutely right. The money may be a consolation, but it doesn't erase the abuse trauma. And, every abuse survivor is challenged to find their peace, living their best lives regardless of financial compensation. The challenge is the same, money or not.

However, the financial settlement is an affirmation of the trauma. True reshaping of policy likely offers survivors best chance for finding peace. Policy change potentially and hopefully saves others from experiencing the same abuse in the future.

I highly highly doubt it comes out of tuition.

Is something like this covered by a university's insurance somehow? I thought I'd heard lawsuits like this are paid at least partially by insurers

The endowment isn't some slush fund, it almost certainly can't come out of the endowment.

Eventually some portion of it will be paid by students. The amount works out to around $11,000 per student.  Even if insurance covers some of it that will of course result in higher premiums – though this likely has the effect of spreading costs across other universities insurance cost as well.  Unless the state is going to do some type of special allocation to cover it – that works out to $49 bucks per person in Michigan, the students eventually will cover part of the cost. Side note, I’m pretty sure the state is not going to allocate additional funds to cover this.  The University could also cut spending – which again means the students, employees, vendors, someone is going to pay either in cash or loss of services.

I suppose salary cuts or at least lowering the rate of pay increases are also an option.  That works out to needing to shave around $15,000 per employee over future years.  In the end it’s a mix of all these things as the University will have $490 million less dollars than it otherwise would have in the future. The victims deserve to be compensated. It’s too bad that almost everyone involved is dead or no longer at the university and will not see a dime of their personal wealth contributed.  Current and future generations pay for the sins of the past – so pretty much how it always works.  

Honest question: you think the fees could be 15-20%?  That seems really high, but I don't know.

honest question - do we know how or if fees, legal and otherwise, are addressed?  it seems like i've seen settlements that both included and did not include legal fees.  please note:  not a lawyer, no legal knowledge whatsoever.

not sure if this was a true 'class action' which would limit the fees allowed, but in general the attorneys would get 25-33% of the settlement amount.  that can vary though with bigger cases, and sometimes the fee structure is much more client-friendly if the matter did not involve litigation - which as i understand it, this one did not. 

further, there is no way that costs of the suit were an additional 15-20% since there was basically no litigation.   no costs invested in court reporters and depostions (which could've been thousands of witnesses), no expert witness fees, no subpoenas, no re-enactments like you can have in other types of cases (not this one), no site visits, no professional photographers to document injuries, scenes, etc, no accident reconstruction and on and on.  you get the picture, this was in a relative fashion, a quick and low-cost settlement from the plaintiffs' standpoint. 

Right on.  There is no number high enough to compensate for the trauma this caused so many people. I'd hope that the lesson will be learned and this would never happen again but in another 20-30 years there will probably be many more sad and almost always preventable cases.

agree 100%.  it proves, for the 1050th time, that hagiography - in this case, the worship of a football coach (!) - is incredibly dangerous, in that it makes you think they're paragons of virtue.

this is as shameful a thing as has ever happened at the university.

I admittedly have no hard data to point to here, but it certainly seems like we as a society are somewhat better about this than we were in the relatively recent past.  People must be much more aware of these things happening.  And there is more encouragement to come forward and more proactive steps taken to avoid abuse (adults not being alone with kids, for one).  That's not to say that we're anywhere close to having everyone come forward when they should, but it seems likely that we're closer than we were.

Any job working with young people should be under extreme scrutiny. Schools, camps, church groups, sports. 

If someone wants to do terrible things, they are going to get a job that sets them up for it. 

I agree with the endemic part in general, but I think there is still progress. I coach my daughter's softball team (9 year olds) and we have to take a training on a lot of this stuff to coach. A lot of it is obvious, but it's good that it gets reinforced so that coaches know what to watch out for and know what is expected of them. Obviously don't molest kids is expected, but there are other things that help you as a coach.