The University of Michigan has reached a $490 million settlement with former athletes and other U-M students who sued the school saying they had been sexually assaulted by the late Dr. Robert Anderson, a former football team doctor, attorneys for the survivors and the university announced.
There are 1,050 former athletes and other U-M students suing the university in federal court. Many of the suits, including the first filed, were filed anonymously. The suits claim the university failed to act when it knew Anderson was sexually assaulting students.
“The University of Michigan has accepted responsibility financially and otherwise for harm that was caused by Anderson to so many young people that could have been avoided,” attorney Jamie White said in a statement. “The university should be commended and not condemned. Most of our clients had a strong love for the university and did not want to see permanent damage, but wanted accountability. I believe we accomplished those goals yesterday,” he said, referring to reaching the agreement late Tuesday.
“It is time for the Michigan legislators to look at why two of the largest scandals in the history of the country — Larry Nassar and Robert Anderson — happened at Michigan’s two largest universities. Other states have addressed this issue. It is time for Michigan leadership to do the same.”
Anderson, worked at U-M from 1968-2003 and died in 2008.
Of the $490 million total settlement, $460 million will be available to the approximately 1,050 claimants, and $30 million would be reserved for future claimants who choose to participate in the settlement before July 31, 2023, U-M said. The claimants and their attorneys will determine how the money is split. A U-M statement said U-M will have no role in that.
“We hope this settlement will begin the healing process for survivors,” said Jordan Acker, chairman of the university’s Board of Regents. “At the same time, the work that began two years ago, when the first brave survivors came forward, will continue.”
U-M will pay the $490 million settlement with Anderson victims from university reserves and insurance proceeds, a university spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said.
“Over the years the university has built up reserves from a variety of funding sources. The university will use these funds – excluding tuition and student fee receipt, gift receipts and state appropriation receipts – to supplement insurance proceeds to cover the costs of this settlement.”
The settlement can help the survivors heal, their attorneys said.
“It’s often difficult to fully comprehend how this type of abuse—by both the abuser and enablers—affects people,” said Stephen R. Drew, who served as co-lead counsel. “The effects are long-lasting, and recovery can truly take a lifetime. Settlements like these can provide resources to allow survivors the means to access therapy and counseling that aid the healing process. These brave men and women stood strong and they stood together: athletes, students, pilots, military, and community members. Their efforts will help make healthcare, sports, and our community as a whole a safer place.”
The settlement is about $10 million less than the settlement reached between Michigan State University and the hundreds of survivors of Larry Nassar’s sexual assaults.
Anderson’s sexual assaults were so well known among Michigan athletes, accusers have said, that he earned nicknames — “Dr. Drop Your Drawers” and “Dr. Glove.” Anderson was known to give unnecessary rectal and testicular exams to students. He also allegedly traded sexual favors for letters to send to Vietnam-era draft boards establishing men as homosexual and thus making them eligible for a draft deferment.
“This historic settlement was achieved because over a thousand brave survivors refused to be silenced and demanded accountability from their abuser and the institution which enabled him,” said attorney Parker Stinar who represents hundreds of victims.
More:U-M doctor helped men avoid Vietnam War in exchange for sexual favors, ex-students say
More:Report: U-M could have stopped Anderson sexual assaults on athletes
Many have said Anderson’s assaults were well known to university officials.
A former U-M wrestler named Tad Deluca said he raised concerns about Anderson in 1975. Deluca went to Anderson for a shoulder that was giving him problems and received unnecessary rectal and testicular exams.
Deluca wrote a nine-page letter to then-Athletic Director Don Canham and then-wrestling coach Bill Johannesen outlining the abuse. In response, the two threw Deluca off the wrestling team, Deluca said in a news conference in February 2020.
In 2018, inspired by women coming forward about being sexually assaulted by Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar, Deluca wrote to current U-M Athletic Director Warde Manuel. That led to a criminal investigation. The Washtenaw County prosecutor declined to pursue charges, largely because Anderson was dead.
Several people, including the adopted son of the late famed football coach Bo Schembechler, have said in recent months they told Schembechler about the ongoing abuse. Anderson was the football team doctor under Schembechler. Records reviewed by the Free Press in the university’s archives show Anderson regularly traveled with the team and consulted with Schembechler on such issues as setting up annual physical for players, for years, starting the late 1960s.
The university commissioned an independent investigation of Anderson and the firm conducting the investigation released a report in May that was critical of the university.
“A senior university administrator was told about Dr. Anderson’s misconduct several times between 1978 or 1979 and 1981 but did not take appropriate action,” the law firm WilmerHale wrote. “Concerning information was also shared with other university personnel. Although the information these individuals received varied in directness and specificity, Dr. Anderson’s misconduct may have been detected earlier and brought to an end if they had considered, understood, investigated or elevated what they heard.”
“The trauma that Dr. Anderson’s misconduct caused persists to this day,” the firm’s report continued. “The experiences that many of Dr. Anderson’s patients relayed to us were widely consistent, containing similar details and key elements. We have no doubt, based on the evidence available to us including the first-hand accounts of his patients, that Dr. Anderson engaged in a pervasive, decades-long, destructive pattern of sexual misconduct.”
David Jesse was a 2020-21 Spencer Education Reporting Fellow at Columbia University and the 2018 Education Writer Association’s best education reporter. Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.
