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Howls from Michigan State graduates and others flow online Tuesday in response to remarks by the board vice-chair, who seems to minimize the urgency and institutional impact of unstopped sexual abuse of female athletes and MSU Sports Medicine Clinic patients for more than two decades by Larry Nassar.
Joel Ferguson, a trustee since 1986, on Monday told a Lansing sports radio host: "There's so many more things going on at the university than just this Nassar thing." (More of his comments are below in this post's original text.)
A three-sentence statement issued on his behalf Tuesday afternoon says:
"Joel Ferguson deeply regrets the inadvertent comment he made on a local radio program that trivialized the experience of the victims of Larry Nassar. He recognizes the suffering of these young women and had intended to refer to it as ‘the Nassar tragedy.’ Mr. Ferguson deeply regrets his comment and apologizes to those he offended."
Those pushing back on social include state House Democratic Leader Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, who tweets:
Joel Ferguson is exhibit A on what’s wrong with the MSU Board of Trustees response to the Nassar scandal. He needs to resign as well. #mileg https://t.co/v7dQUAPkUw
— Sam Singh (@singhsam94) January 23, 2018
Joel Ferguson: "None of our senior people were complicit in what this pervert did."
(MSU Photography Services)
MSU junior Amelia Clary of Southgate, a member of the varsity crew team, tweets: "How is it that now, during the impact statements -- over a year after the allegations began -- I was reached out to by a PI [private investigator] hired by MSU's attorneys to see if I knew anything?"
These are among alumni responses:
- This has been the only time since I was a student that I have been ashamed to be a Spartan. As far as I am concerned, the university is complicit and should change their leadership and do right by all these women and girls. -- Kate Fraser, Rochester
- I am an alum of MSU and I absolutely think that Joel Ferguson is out of touch and tone-deaf to the leadership concerns at MSU. -- Amy Rickett ('85), Lansing digital marketing manager
- As an alum, I do not support president Simon and have written her directly asking for her resignation. It's doubtful it will even be read but I felt it necessary. No more money to MSU until this regime is gone. -- Keith Mitchell, Cincinnati radio host
- Shocking and repulsive. I've never been more embarrassed and ashamed of Michigan State. -- Jerry Ammerman ('01), insurance field representative in Greer, S.C.
- What we need are some major donors to share their disgust with the way Simon and the Board of Trustees have done nothing. Perhaps money will speak to them in a way that nothing else apparently can. I’m ashamed of the way MSU has handled this. -- Ann Dunlop
- As someone with an MSU B.S. & M.S., you officially lost any chance I will ever donate a dime to the university. I love my alma mater but the board literally admitted that profit comes before sexual assault. -- Nolan Hughes ('13 and '17), packaging engineer, Commerce Township
- Outrageous. No excuse. I am ashamed of my old college. -- Holly Palmer, Holland, Mich.
- What planet is Joel Ferguson living on? Certainly ain't East Lansing, USA, Earth. Senior people were complicit. They were told and didn't do anything to stop it. Dean [William] Strampel failed to follow up [at the College of Osteopathic Medicine]. Simon failed to follow up. A dozen others failed to listen to the girls and women and protect them. These are indisputable facts. My alma mater needs to clean house, but who will do it? That's why an independent investigation is needed. . . . a real, criminal investigation. -- Jen Eyer ('97), Lansing communications executive
- As a graduate of the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine, this scandal makes me extremely angry and almost physically sick. Angry at Nassar for betraying the trust of the patients for whom he was privileged to care, further angry at him for staining our profession, and literally speechless at the reprehensible response to this scandal by everyone I've heard from who represents Michigan State University -- from Tom Izzo all the way up to [medical] Dean [William] Strampel, [President] Simon, Mr. Ferguson and [board chair Brian] Breslin. -- Dr. Christopher Stoddard, radiologist at McClaren Macomb Hospital
Others post these reactions Tuesday and Wednesday:
- If she's the best, how many people were molested by staff under the previous president's watch? -- David Davis
- The fool is truly delusional and tone-deaf. -- Eric Brown
- They will never see one dollar from me – a parent of a recently graduated daughter from MSU – who cannot fathom what might have been if she had been an athlete there. -- Don Tanner, Farmington Hills communication agency co-founder
- From a simple persons point of view there doesn’t seem to be many more “things” more important than Nassar for MSU to address. -- Tom Hazen, global marketing manager, Grand Rapids
- Sounds like Joel Ferguson needs to go as well. -- Rachel Francisco, Ann Arbor
- "This Nassar thing" is the biggest serial rapist crime in American history. . . . And it's not a "sex abuse scandal,",it's a decades-long sexual assault crime. Joel Ferguson needs to go. -- Chris Savage, Dexter blogger (Eclectablog)
- Don't be surprised the MSU PR situation keeps getting worse. The president and board are complacent. There's no one putting a foot down. -- Matt Friedman, Farmington Hills communication agency co-founder
- [He] dismissed 'this Nassar thing' as though it was a nuisance lawsuit brought by a crackpot and not an occasion of shame upon all who came close to it over the years it went on.' -- Nancy Derringer, Grosse Pointe Woods blogger
- Victims don’t refer to the trial of this monster as 'this Nassar thing.' . . . The tone of the leadership at MSU needs to reflect the severity of what’s happening. This is not the time to deflect attention from the horrors being exposed to talk instead about the wonderful programs built at MSU. Could you imagine a CEO reflecting on profits and the accomplishments of a corporation in which evil and grave allegations proved to be true? It’s not the time for that and board members should know that. -- Roop Raj, Fox 2 News reporter
- The recent statements by Joel Ferguson show he is uninterested in accountability for those at MSU who allowed Nassar to continue abusing girls and women for decades. Any MSU trustee who doesn’t take accountability seriously is not serving the public and should resign. -- Pat Miles, former federal prosecutor in Grand Rapids (2012-17) now a Democratic candidate running for state attorney general
Original article, Tuesday afternoon:
Michigan State's image is undermined so severely by its mishandling of Larry Nassar abuse complaints that it seems hard to make things worse.
But that's what the university board's vice-chairman does. Joel Ferguson indicates that "this Nassar thing" isn't a top-priority issue.
Joel Ferguson: "She by far is the best president we’ve ever had." (MSU Photography Services)
"There's so many more things going on at the university than just this," he tells a Lansing radio station. In fact, discussion among eight trustees last Friday of whether to let MSU's president stay was relatively brief.
"The meeting we had the other day was five hours," he said Monday on WVFN-AM, Detroit Free Press reporter David Jesse posts. "And talking [about] Lou Anna [Simon] was 10 minutes. . . . We unanimously decided in that meeting right away . . . we were going to support her staying as president."
So, to be clear: The question viewed as Topic A by Nassar abuse survivors, many MSU students, alumni and others took up just 3 percent of the trustees' latest meeting.
We file that under "Adding insult to injury."
Ferguson, whose fourth term runs through 2020, spoke with weekday sports show host Tim Staudt. The trustee, first elected in 1986, is a 1965 MSU graduate who co-founded a developer of multifamily housing.
Speaking of Nassar, fired as a sports medicine osteopath in 2016, Ferguson says:
"When people find out that this person was on an island by himself, I think they’ll move on. . . . None of our senior people were complicit in what this pervert did. . . .
"We'll keep the university moving and, I think, with the president, we have. She'll continue to do a great job. . . . She's a fighter. She's not going to get run out of there by what someone else did. . . .
"I've been on the board for 30 years and she by far is the best president we’ve ever had. . . . For Lou Anna not to be president when we have so much going on, the collateral damage would be tremendous.
"The board is committed to what's best for the university and what's best for the university is strongly supporting our president, who has strong leadership and so many other things people take for granted. This is not about Lou Anna."
In other words: Heck of a job, Lou Anna.
