EAST LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan State University Board of Trustees will not waive attorney client privilege on roughly 6,000 documents that have been withheld from an investigation into the university's handling of complaints regarding serial sexual molester Larry Nassar.
Trustees have withheld the documents for more than six years from an investigation launched by the attorney general's office. A circuit judge had ruled the documents need not be disclosed because of attorney-client privilege.
Trustee Rema Vassar, chairwoman for the board, said the board's general counsel will submit a letter to Attorney General Dana Nessel denying her latest request for a release of the unredacted documents. Vassar apologized to survivors, but defended the decision to reporters Friday.
"Anything that is factual is FOIA-able at this point with the exception of attorney-client privilege documents," Vassar said. "... We are still in litigation so that litigation has implications in terms of client privilege. Right at this moment, we're not prepared to waive attorney-client privilege."
She said she is not sure whether that determination will change once the university's insurance litigation is resolved.
Their decision not to release the documents Friday was criticized by victim advocates at the trustee meeting.
Valerie von Frank, of Parents of Sister Survivors Engage, said she was hoping to congratulate the board on release of remaining 6,000 Nassar docs but instead congratulated Nessel for reapplying pressure for release.
"This university is still providing cover for a pedophile," seven years after news first broke that Nassar abused dozens of girls and women as a sports medicine doctor at MSU, she said.
Sue Moore, whose daughter is among the MSU survivors, became emotional when she spoke about the effect the continued withholding of the documents was having on her daughter.
"She's had a lot of physical pain and a lot of mental pain and, hopefully, some of that mental pain would be alleviated," with the removal of one more obstacle to healing, she said.
Rachael Denhollander, an attorney and former gymnast and the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar of sexual assault in 2016, tweeted her doubts about the sincerity of the board's apology.
"No, MSU, you are not sorry. You are choosing over and over to refuse transparency and truth to the 100's of children you allowed to be assaulted by your doctor," Denhollander tweeted. "There are multiple ways we could set this up to get answers in a trauma-informed, truthful way. You simply refuse."
The pressure has been on the board to release the documents voluntarily, with Nessel calling repeatedly for the board's disclosure of the records. Nessel re-upped that request a week ago, noting that new board members and new board leadership might lead to a different vote on the issue. She requested the board provide the records by April 28, hoping for a change of heart among the new members of the board.
On Friday, Nessel said she was "disappointed" with the board's decision.
"We have made a sincere plea to every iteration of this board, and we will keep up this fight for transparency at every opportunity," Nessel said. "But the university that shielded Larry Nassar from justice and this new board who refused today to take the vote, still has something to prove to the people of Michigan, the current students they ought to protect, and the Nassar victims the school has failed for decades."
Nessel last week also asked the university for records of any internal investigations, records for former employees who worked with Nassar, and all emails related to Nassar exchanged by various MSU leaders, trustees and employees.
Nessel also requested a pledge to cooperate with the department through the conclusion of the investigation, including responding within three days to new questions and correspondence that may come up after viewing of the documents.
"In addition, no member of the board, the university administration nor any of its employees, past or present, will be in contact through any form of communication with any individual perceived to be a Nassar victim," Nessel wrote.
The board this year elected Trustee Rema Vassar as chair — the first Black woman to lead the board and one of a few trustees to have lived outside of Lansing.
Nessel officially closed the MSU investigation in March 2021 after the board refused for more than three years to release the documents.
Nassar, the former MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor, is serving an effective life sentence in prison after being charged with 10 counts of sexual assault in Ingham and Eaton counties for assaulting young women and girls under the guise of medical care over more than two decades, as well as federal child pornography charges. After his sentencing, MSU reached an unprecedented $500 million settlement with more than 500 reported victims.
