Editorial: MSU must now release secret Nassar docs

John A. Hannah, the revered president of Michigan State University, was fondly remembered for saying that in administration and service, “only people are important.”

In recent years, MSU leadership has badly lost sight of that canon. Trustees now have the chance, and must have the resolve, to restore it.

Michigan State University trustees last week appointed Kevin Guskiewicz as the university's 22nd president and fifth since Lou Anna Simon resigned in the wake of the Dr. Larry Nassar scandal in 2018. Trustees will gather Friday in their first of just two public meetings before Guskiewicz assumes the presidency in March.

That makes this the right time for trustees to order the release of the 9,769 documents that they have pointedly and purposefully withheld from investigators, the public and Nassar survivors. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer should urge them to do so.

They must do so for the good of the survivors, the university’s reputation, students, staff and alumni, and to restore peace among trustees and trust with the public. They must do it to give the incoming president a chance to transcend the rancor of the past seven years.

The documents are a source of deep discontent, especially and understandably among the 546 survivors of Nassar’s attacks. They are a reminder that while MSU leaders gave lip service to understanding how Nassar escaped notice, they have not shown a sincere interest in introspection or accountability. The documents are an infection that continues to sicken the university long after the source is gone and despite efforts to demonstrate a clean bill of health.

MSU has tripped time and again in its zeal to demonstrate its renewed sensitivity to sexual misconduct. In 2017, MSU police handcuffed a football staff member for asking questions about an alleged rape by players. He lost his job, the players' charges were dismissed, and all left MSU. The staff member sued.

In 2022, then Provost Teresa Woodruff removed the dean of the business school because he failed to report alleged sexual misconduct that he did not witness and that had already been reported. The dean sued.

This year, football coach Mel Tucker was fired mid-season after MSU learned in March that he admitted to sexual misconduct with a contractor. He's expected to sue.

While MSU must be vigilant, each of these episodes demonstrates some failure to deeply consider the individual circumstances. And the agitation that has accompanied these cases is the constant concern that MSU has shown little public interest in fully reckoning with the Nassar scandal, or it would have released the secret documents.

Simon lost substantial support when MSU’s original investigation, conducted by former federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, released no findings because "there is no investigative report." The nothing-to-see-here response undermined MSU's credibility, especially considering the documents that remained hidden from view.

Whitmer, then a candidate for governor, immediately called out the lack of forthrightness.

“When you have an agency that is investigating itself, it is an inherent conflict of interest,” she said. “We’ve got MSU investigating itself here. It’s unacceptable.”

She must use her influence now, if necessary, with the same vim she used in criticizing MSU's board leadership in October, citing "too many questions and not enough answers.”

After all, the only sitting trustee to have reviewed the documents is Renee Knake Jefferson, whom Whitmer appointed to the MSU board and whose wedding Whitmer officiated at the governor's summer residence on Mackinac Island. After reading the documents, which Knake Jefferson numbered at 9,769, she called for an independent review and public report. It never happened.

Other trustees were elected based on a commitment to support release of the documents, only to recede each time the issue comes up. They have succeeded in stifling the issue by never letting it reach the agenda and a public vote. That must change, even if it only creates a record of which trustees support transparency.

The chair of the presidential search committee, Dennis Denno, in October tried to do just that, but his motion was ruled invalid. It takes three votes to put an item on the agenda. Chairperson Rema Vassar was the only supporter; Trustee Dan Kelly said he would support calling a special meeting. No special meeting was scheduled.

Rarely have trustees given a coherent reason, beyond their right to attorney-client privilege, which they are free to waive. MSU legal counsel Brian Quinn may object, but as MSU’s assistant general counsel when the Nassar case became public, trustees cannot be certain that his view is unshaded by involvement in deliberations at the time.

In the meantime, Attorney General Dana Nessel has several times, as recently as April, called for the documents' release so that her office could investigate any wrongdoing. Trustees were expected to vote on the release then, but stopped short with scant explanation, prompting yet another lawsuit.

The documents may show no wrongdoing, but without them the community will never know whether MSU has done all it can to prevent a recurrence. We do know there are statutes of limitations barring criminal prosecution after the passage of sufficient time at least some of which could expire soon.

We also know that time may be running out. Trustees say they have no access to the records. MSU’s document retention policies prevent destruction of records being considered in public disclosure proceedings, but that’s ambiguous. MSU should retain these documents.

And we know there may have been fiscally prudent reasons to withhold documents in the past, as insurance litigation continued, but those issues are largely, if not completely, resolved.

If there’s additional legal risk so be it. If there is additional culpability, exposure is overdue. To move into a new administration without the cloud of Nassar revelations would be worth almost any cost — even embarrassment. Survivors must know that MSU trustees finally care more about them than they do about secrecy.

The time for MSU to act is now. To do otherwise would be to forget, once again, Hannah’s words: Only people are important.