Echoes from the Larry Nassar storm keep rolling through MSU.
Cheyna Roth, capitol correspondent for Michigan Radio, has the latest:
A federal department plans to oversee changes at Michigan State University for the next three years.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services started a civil rights investigation into the university soon after the sentencing of Larry Nassar, the former university sports doctor serving a de facto life sentence for child pornography and for sexually assaulting his patients.
Now, the school has agreed to multiple changes.
(Photo: D.L. Turner for MSU)
In a 19-page statement, the East Lansing university says it'll revise policies to clarify federal sex discrimination prohibitions. It also pledges to upgrade procedures for investigating and settling complaints, including by nonstudents trated at campus clinics, and to assign a compliance administrator.
An authorized medical staff member now must be present at sensitive medical exams as a "chaperone." Patients can request chaperones by gender.
“We think that this will go a long way to ensure that something like this will never happen again at MSU," Roger Severino, director of the U.S. Office of Civil Rights, says in a statement quoted by Michigan Radio.
MSU could lose federal aid for any serious violations of the consent agreement.
Last week, William Strampel, former osteopathic medicine dean at MSU, was sentenced to a year in jail for not monitoring Nassar while abusive and predatory behavior toward female students continued.
