Administrators at Michigan State University fostered a culture of “widespread denial, inaction and information suppression” regarding complaints of violence, sexual assault and gender discrimination, according to a lengthy report published Friday.
An investigation by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” found that university officials unsuccessfully sought three times in the past three years to withhold names of athletes in campus police records and — in some cases — deleted so much data from incident reports that they were almost indecipherable.
The report also details several sexual abuse allegations made against members of the university’s basketball and football teams during the tenure of its most recognizable figures: basketball coach Tom Izzo and football coach Mark Dantonio.
“In one case, a university-hired outside investigator claimed to have not even generated a written report at the conclusion of his work,” ESPN staff writer Paula Lavigne reported. “And attorneys who have represented accusers and the accused agree on this: University officials have not always been transparent, and often put the school’s reputation above the need to give fair treatment to those reporting sexual violence and to the alleged perpetrators.”
At least 16 Spartans football players have been accused of sexual assault or violence against women since Dantonio became head coach in 2007, according to the report. But as recently as June, when Dantonio was talking to reporters about four of his players who were accused of sexual assault, the coach said “this is new ground for us” when asked how Michigan State previously handled such allegations.
“We’ve been here 11 years — it has not happened previously,” Dantonio said.
On Friday night, Dantonio addressed the media saying, “I’m here tonight to say that any accusations of my handling of any complaints of sexual assault individually are completely false.
“Every incident reported in that article was documented by either police or the Michigan State Title IX office. I’ve always worked with the proper authorities when dealing with the cases of sexual assault.”
The Spartans men’s basketball team defeated Wisconsin on Friday, with the Breslin Center’s student section wearing teal T-shirts to raise awareness about sexual violence.
According to another report in The Athletic, alerting the proper authorities was futile, as NCAA president Mark Emmert was aware of 37 reports of sexual assault by Michigan State athletes back in 2010.
Lavigne also obtained previously unpublished reports of sexual or violent incidents involving members of Izzo’s basketball team, including a former student-assistant coach who kept his post despite being criminally charged for punching a female Michigan State student in the face during an incident at a bar in 2010. Months later, Travis Walton, who has been put on administrative leave as a Clippers assistant coach in the NBA’s G-League, was accused of raping a different student.
Walton was later fired, according to a letter written by a former sexual assault counselor at the university, but little action was taken against the players.
“The players got talked to, and the [assistant] coach was let go,” said Lauren Allswede, a sexual assault counselor who left Michigan State in 2015 over frustrations with how sexual assault cases were handled at the university.
Walton, for his part, said he did not “recall anything from that” when reached by ESPN and said he didn’t coach at Michigan State in 2010 because he had returned to Europe to play professional basketball.
MSU spokesman Jason Cody was informed of the story’s main findings in advance and acknowledged that the university had “sometimes fallen short” in combating sexual violence.
“We acknowledge that there have been failures at MSU, not only in our processes and operations, but in our culture, and will take all necessary steps to begin a new day and change the environment at the university,” Cody wrote in a statement to The Post on Friday. “The Board has initiated a process to bring in an independent third-party to perform a top-to-bottom review of all our processes relating to health and safety, in every area of the University, and to provide recommendations on actions that we will implement to change the culture of MSU on this important issue.”
Earlier Friday, Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis announced he was stepping down over the scandal involving sports doctor Larry Nassar, who molested young female athletes at the school. Nassar was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison after more than 150 women accused him of years-long sexual abuse. He had been previously sentenced to 60 years in prison on child pornography charges.
Michigan State’s embattled president, Lou Anna Simon, resigned hours after Nassar’s sentencing.
Hollis, in a statement released Wednesday, said his top focus during his tenure was the university’s student-athletes.
“They are at the core of our athletic department mission statement,” Hollis said. “Our first priority has always been and will always be their health and safety.”