The State News, February 1, MSU's Ongoing Response to Sexual Violence

Michigan State’s Independent Voice

By Alex Walters awalters@statenews.com Content warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence. The National Sexual Assault Hotline can be reached at 800-656-HOPE (4673).

Two days after she was raped, Lilley Schatz walked into Michigan State University’s police department to report it.

She was led into an interview room and asked to recount the night.

Schatz did, trying to be as clear as possible about the traumatic details she was still making sense of.

At first, it went well. She felt trusted, like the uniform division officer taking her statement cared about what she was saying.

Then, she added something: the man who raped her was a member of MSU’s football team.

Suddenly, she felt the officer’s demeanor change. She no longer felt believed.

Worried by his perceivable doubt, she asked the officer if what she was describing was a crime. She says he told her no, that it was a “gray area.”

“At first he was taking me seriously,

STUDENT WAS TOLD TO TRUST MSU WITH RAPE REPORT, THEN WAS DISBELIEVED he was like ‘yeah, this is bad,’” Schatz told The State News. “And then as soon as I mentioned he’s a football player, now it’s a ‘gray area.’”

Schatz, 22, left the police station “sobbing uncontrollably,” doubting herself, wondering if “what had happened was really as bad” as she thought.

It was only the beginning.

Over the next 16 months, Schatz would attempt to work through both the trauma of what happened to her and the additional trauma brought about by reporting it.

She utilized MSU’s two systems for governing sexual violence: the police department and Title IX office.

In both systems, she encountered individuals who supported her, who believed her and helped her heal. But, she feels the institutions themselves largely failed her.

The police seemed to eventually take her seriously, but she was discouraged from pressing charges and putting herself through a nervewracking criminal trial.

Instead, she was told to just trust MSU and go through a supposedly easier Title IX process.

That seemed so promising. Schatz, a social work senior, said she believed

the university she loved would surely protect her.

But, she would come to feel even more dismissed, disbelieved and ridiculed by the lengthy university investigation than she could have imagined.

She anxiously waited out monthslong lapses in communication from MSU ’s invest igators, receiv ing multiple extension notices from the infamously slow Title IX office.

She was retraumatized by a crude hearing process, and felt her words turned against her. And, in the end, she was deemed untrust worthy through a “credibility assessment” the nation’s leading sexual assault trauma expert calls “wrong” and “completely unscientific.”

Schatz would also face resistance from MSU’s athletic department, with the athletic director and football coach ignoring her plea for answers and action.

S h e ’s n o t a l o n e . S c h a t z ’s experience is the latest in a long list of cases where MSU discouraged and discredited survivors of reported sexual assault, especially by highprofile student-athletes.

Schatz is sharing her story and hundreds of pages of investigative

documents with The State News, hoping her experience will inspire change at MSU. She hopes to be a voice, not just for herself, but for “other victims who can’t speak up.”

A CRIMINAL CASE

When Schatz left the football player’s apartment the night of the assault, Sept. 15, 2022, she was not yet sure that she had been raped.

She met the football player on Bumble. In her messages to him, she was clear that she didn’t want to have sex when they hung out. She told him that was off the table, that she wanted to be in a relationship and “didn’t want a hookup,” according to both their interviews with investigators.

In the messages, he was okay with that. But when they got together, alone in his apartment, he didn’t take no for an answer.

Schatz drove home bawling, she said, trying to get a hold of her roommate who was in an exam, unable to respond.

When her roommate arrived at their apartment later that night, she found Schatz on the couch “obviously stressed” and “physically shaking,” according to her interview with MSU

investigators.

She could “tell by her face that something was wrong,” and asked her what happened.

Schatz told her how he kept touching her and how she kept saying no. How she felt scared by his size and comments about his firearms. How she felt “frozen” and “intimidated” and afraid to keep telling him to stop.

How all she could think about was going home and how she eventually realized that wasn’t going to happen unless she gave in. So, she told him to “just f— me” and started dissociating, hoping she would get to leave.

“That sounds like coercion,” her roommate said.

She would later tell t he investigators that she believed that was the moment Schatz realized she had been assaulted.

Schatz then called her parents, according to the MSU interviews, who said she should go to the hospital and get a rape kit, a type of medical exam used to gather and preserve the physical evidence of sexual assault.

Schatz listened and went with her roommate to Sparrow Hospital, she was “still in a lot of denial.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

NEWS

NEWS

NEWS

Rachael Denhollander blew the whistle on MSU in Nassar case

MSU’S anti-discrimination policy: What it covers and its limitations

What to expect from MSU’s RVSM and Title IX process

Now other universities seek her guidance on Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct prevention. Why doesn’t MSU?

Discrimination that doesn’t involve harassment based on sex or gender can also be reported to the Office of Institutional Equity. A lack of education on the university’s Anti-Discrimination Policy can prevent students from reporting discrimination.

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T H U R S DAY, F EB RUARY 1, 2024

@ THESNEWS

Title IX Communications Manager Christian Chapman explains the process that MSU’s Office of Institutional Equity takes to respond to Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct and Title IX cases.

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STAT E N EWS.COM

Vol. 114 | No. 9

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2024

EDITORIAL STAFF

EDITOR’S NOTE: WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR STORIES

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Morgan Womack MANAGING EDITOR Liz Nass VISUAL MANAGING EDITOR Audrey Richardson COPY CHIEF Jada Vasser CAMPUS EDITOR Amalia Medina CULTURE EDITOR Dipika Rao REGIONAL EDITOR Jaden Beard SPORTS EDITOR PJ Pfeiffer PODCAST EDITOR Anthony Brinson III SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Jacob Smith

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One copy of this newspaper is available free of charge to any member of the MSU community. Additional copies $0.75 at the business office only.

State News file photo.

There may be no issue of greater importance to the MSU community than the university’s handling of campus sexual violence. After sexual violence and misconduct f rom L a r r y Nassa r, Wi l lia m Strampel and Mel Tucker and the countless lawsuits, third-party reviews and federal investigations — it’s clear something is awry.

With that in mind, The State News, your independent student newspaper, is deeply dedicated to covering the issue.

We’ve done extensive, detailed reporting on the topic that’s based on universit y documents and outside audits we’ve obtained

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through public records requests.

We’re extremely proud of that work, but we need to do more.

We created this edition to highlight the stories of those who have dealt with violence that the university systematically ignored and emphasize what needs to be done better. However, the issue is that many times, the problems in the system remain unresolved until survivors have to speak up about the way they had been failed by those meant to protect them.

That seems to be the only thing to cut through MSU’s apathy to their pleas.

We’re not going to learn the truth

about these issues through notes in a case-file or a consultant’s report.

To truly understand the effect of sexual violence and the ways MSU has handled it, we need to talk directly to those most affected: survivors.

We’re not interested in detailed recounting of acts of sexual violence, we’re not looking to make news out of someone’s trauma. We are interested in everything that happened after the conduct — how survivors are being treated

by MSU and those affiliated with the university.

If you have a story to share, please reach out.

THU R SDAY, F EBRUARY 1, 2024

We don’t have to publish your name in anything we write. If you’d prefer, we could even not write anything at all. Just having conversations with those who have dealt with MSU’s systems for policing sexual violence can help us be better informed in our reporting.

Our reporter, A lex Walters, has reported on Title IX issues extensively, working with survivors to illuminate their stories. You can reach him by email at alex. walters@statenews.com or by phone at (248) 979-5497.

Copyright © 2023 State News Inc., East Lansing, Michigan

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FROM COVER: STUDENT WAS TOLD TO TRUST MSU “I just remember crying and crying and crying, not being able to tell them ‘hi, I’m here for a rape kit,’” Schatz said.

She was “overwhelmed and in shock.”

“It was really intense,” Schatz said. “You strip naked, they take your clothes, you put on a gown, then you lay on this like bed and they swab your whole body, and swab your mouth, and ask if they can take pictures.”

T he procedure it sel f was a “ hor r ible e x p e r ie nce,” Sc hat z said. But, she says the people she encountered “made a difference” by being supportive.

She was examined by Sparrow’s SANE nurses, who are specially trained to treat sexual assault survivors, and was introduced to a victim advocate from EVE, a local nonprofit that assists survivors of sexual violence.

At the time, Schatz was still making sense of what happened, and not sure if it was something that should be reported to law enforcement or the university.

“At this point, it had just happened, and I didn’t really know if this was sexual assault,” Schatz said. “But the nurse I had was super nice. I told her everything that happened, and she was like ‘we should call the police right now, have them come here, and I can be there to help you talk to them.’”

But Schatz wasn’t ready yet.

She says she felt supported and understood t he impor tance of reporting, but needed time to process what happened first.

Two days later, she felt ready.

She went to MSU police, with her dad for support and was interviewed by the uniformed division officer who told her it was a “gray area.”

The officer, Charles Wasson, did not return requests for comment.

Schatz thought that could be the end of it. She worried he was right, that it wasn’t a crime.

Then, she got a call from another officer, an investigator with MSU police’s special victims unit.

She says the officer – Det. Aaron Schroeder – told her the first officer was wrong, that what happened was sexual assault and that the first cop “shouldn’t have said anything about it because he’s not an investigator.”

MSU police declined to answer questions about the uniform officer’s interactions with Schatz. It did provide a statement to The State News saying “our officers, including our uniformed officers, are trained in victim-centered and trauma-informed practices.”

Sc hat z sa id Sc h roeder wa s completely di f ferent f rom t he first officer she spoke to. He was supportive, and repeatedly reached out to her and her roommate over the ensuing weeks to see how she was doing and ask if she had any questions.

Schroeder also quickly brought the player in for questioning.

The State News is not naming the player because he was not charged with a crime or found to have violated policies by the university. The player, through his attorney, declined The State News’ requests for comment.

In an interview with the detective detailed in the police report, the

Lilley Schatz, 22, of East Lansing, stands outside of the gates of Spartan Stadium on Dec. 7, 2023. Photo by Audrey Richardson.

Outside of the 1855 Place apartments, where Schatz was sexually assaulted in September of 2022. Photographed on Dec. 7, 2023.

Photo by Audrey Richardson.

player tells an alternate version of the story.

He said she initiated the encounter, that “she just started kissing me,” wh ic h led to consensua l sex, according to Schroeder’s interview notes.

The player told him “I’m not a rapist bro, I’ve never (inaudible) a woman, I have three sisters, I could never do no type of s— like that, that’s crazy,” according to the notes.

Schroeder then asked him, if she initiated the intimacy, why would Schatz say he raped her?

The player said he suspected she was mad because he didn’t want to date her, that “she wanted more of a relationship, which might be why she’s angry.”

Schroeder’s notes say he then “asked (the player) if he could think of any other reasons why he thinks Schatz would be angry, (the player) said ‘cause I sold her dream out, basically.’”

The player then started asking Schroeder if he could contact Schatz.

He advised him not to.

The player then said, “I wouldn’t even be mean to her or anything.”

He said he just wanted “to know why she’s telling the cops” he assaulted her.

Schroeder again told him not to reach out to her.

Outside of the 1855 Place apartments, where Schatz was sexually assaulted in September of 2022. Photographed on Dec. 7, 2023. Photo by Audrey Richardson.

That interview was the last time the player discussed the allegations with investigators. He would later direct all contact from MSU police to his attorney, Adam Sabree.

After the player was interviewed, Schatz emailed MSU police saying she intended to press charges. They sent her case to the Ingham County Prosecutor for review.

Schatz says she then received a call from a prosecuting attorney, Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Unit Chief Kristen Rolph.

Rolph was candid, Schatz said, telling her a criminal prosecution would be lengthy and stressful.

“She was just like, ‘rape cases are really hard for victims to go through, because you’re gonna have to do a trial,’” Schatz said.

That was an issue. Schatz didn’t want to have a public trial, or be cross-examined.

Then Rolph introduced another possibilit y: trust MSU, just go through the Title IX process.

Title IX is a federal law that mandates equalit y of access to education for men and women. Under it, sexual misconduct on campuses is not only a crime, but a violation of a student’s right to their education.

Because of that, universities a re empowered to invest igate and discipline incidents of sexual

violence. At MSU, that’s done by the Office of Institutional Equity, or OIE. “(The prosecutor) said I was 100% raped and that she thought (MSU) would 100% find him guilty,” Schatz said. The prosecutor explained that MSU’s Title IX process would have a lower burden of proof.

That assurance was enough for Schatz, who wanted to trust MSU. Schatz grew up in East Lansing and her dad worked at MSU her whole life.

“MSU was always my dream,” she said.

Schatz also t hought t he university’s recent reckoning with years of unchecked sexual abuse by disgraced doctor Larry Nassar would mean those in power were committed to doing right by survivors.

“After all the Nassar stuff, I was like ‘oh, they’re gonna take this seriously,’” she said.

So, she put her faith in MSU. She declined to press criminal charges and cooperated fully with an OIE investigation into her allegations.

Today, more than a year after she made that decision, Schatz wishes she hadn’t been so optimistic.

A TITLE IX INVESTIGATION

The OIE investigation into the reported rape had already started when Schatz decided not to press T H U R S DAY, FE BRUA RY 1 , 2024

charges.

MSU police had aler ted t he university to the allegations when she reported the assault in September.

Schatz says the early conversations with the OIE went well. They gave her lots of information and resources, and were extremely communicative.

But as time went on, that changed.

The responses to her emails got shorter or never came. Or, when she did hear from them, it was a notice that they needed an extension or a triggering, hyper-specific question, she said.

“You start out thinking ‘oh, maybe something will actually happen, they’ll believe me,’” Schatz said.

“But as time went on, it felt like they ditched me.”

She also felt the effects of constant staff turnover in the OIE, which independent consultants have called a major factor in its dysfunction.

OIE cases are conducted by an investigator and the parties involved also each have advisors, who function like lawyers would in a criminal proceeding.

“I got a new investigator once, and I had to get a new advisor through MSU a few times because they all kept quitting,” Schatz said. “It was just frustrating, I kinda ended up being like ‘yeah, nothing’s gonna happen,’ I had no faith in it.”

Each new staffer would have to catch up on the details of her case, which Schatz believes contributed to the slowness and tedium of the process.

The football player declined to participate in the OIE process.

The player’s first attorney, Sabree, didn’t represent him in the OIE process because by the time it started, he had been elected a district court judge in Wayne County.

So for the OIE, the player was represented instead by Steven Haney, a high profile sports attorney.

Ha ney recent ly represented Eastern Michigan basketball star Emoni Bates when he faced felony gun charges and NBA Agent Christian Dawkins in a felony conspiracy trial described by ESPN as “the biggest trial in the histor y of sports,” according to Haney’s professional bio.

He’s also represented numerous NBA players as an attorney and agent, including MSU alumni Earvin “Magic” Johnson, according to the bio.

Haney issued one brief statement to the OIE saying the player “denies any and all allegations which have been offered by (Schatz).”

After all the evidence – Schatz’s multiple statements, her roommate’s statements, the player’s denial, and the MSU police report summarizing the investigation – was submitted, the parties were called to a hearing where the final details would be worked out.

The player and his attorney did not attend the hearing. A respondent advisor – an MSU employee who functions in OIE cases like public defenders do in the criminal legal system – appeared in his place.

Schatz said the hearing was “not a great experience,” particularly because she was put through a cross-examination by the respondent advisor.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 STATEN EWS.CO M

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FROM PAGE 3: STUDENT WAS TOLD TO TRUST MSU

Lilley Schatz inside her apartment on Dec. 7, 2023. Photo by Audrey Richardson.

The respondent advisor, Ralph Johnson, started by citing a portion of her first statement where she said she felt she had to have sex with the player if she wanted to go home.

“Help us understand why you felt that?” he said, according to a transcript of the exchange.

She said “he kept touching me and I kept saying no and then it was just escalating.” She said how he “got on top of (her)” and she felt “pinned down.”

Johnson asked her what she meant by “pinned down.”

She said he was on top of her and referenced his size. The player is over a foot taller than Schatz.

Johnson then asked her why she would say “just f— me,” if she didn’t really want to have sex with him.

She said she “felt like (she) had no other choice,” that she had to “just get it over with” so she “would be able to go home.”

Johnson kept pushing, asking her if she ever vocalized her desire to leave.

She said he was already on top of her at that point and he “wasn’t respecting my other boundaries and no’s, and I didn’t want him to hurt me or anything, just because he’s so much bigger than I am.”

“I really just wanted to go home,” she said.

Later in the cross-examination, Johnson came back to the fear she said she felt. He asked her what specifically made her feel she couldn’t just leave the football player’s apartment.

She again said his size, and that he was on top of her.

She also added how after he assaulted her, the player was standing between her and the door, which is “why (she) stayed for so long afterwards on the bed crying.”

Johnson continued, asking her if something else happened that would have “caused (her) to feel fear or restricted in any way?”

She referenced a conversation they had before he assaulted her, when the player mentioned owning guns and how he could “shoot up” her ex-boyfriend’s house.

That hearing testimony would be a major factor in the decision in Schatz’s case, which found that there was not sufficient evidence to say the football player raped Schatz.

The decision was made by a resolution officer – an independent party outside the university – who reviewed the hearing and evidence.

The resolution officer in Schatz’s case, Columbus attorney Jessica Galanos, said Schatz was uncredible because of how many questions it took for her to bring up the guns.

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Schatz first described the guns in an earlier conversation with MSU police, saying it contributed to her fear of fighting back, and it was an “intimidation tactic.”

Galanos writes in her decision that because it took four questions for Schatz to bring up the guns, it undercuts the credibility of the accusation altogether.

“It is di f f ic u lt to reconc i le (Schatz’s) delay in referencing the gun conversation with the fact that she told (MSU police) that (he) used the topic as an ‘intimidation tactic,’” Galanos wrote in her decision.

Jim Hopper, a Harvard Medical School teaching associate who studies how sexual assault affects the brain, said Galanos’ conclusion is “atrocious” and that he’s “not aware of any scientific basis” for determining the truth of a statement based on how many questions it takes for someone to bring it up.

If anything, Hopper said, the specific questions posed in the crossexamination are the kinds of stimuli that could trigger further memory, and prompt someone to bring up a contextual detail like the fears about the guns.

“It ’s ridiculous to think that undermines her credibility, when what happened is actually completely in line with how memory works,” Hopper said.

The guns example is just one part of the “credibility assessment” that Galanos conducted on Schatz, looking ​​ for any differences in her statements to investigators or areas where what she describes is different from what a “reasonable person” would perceive.

Through that assessment, Galanos concluded that Schatz was not credible.

The tactics Galanos used to reach that conclusion are completely out of line with what is scientifically understood about memor y and trauma, Hopper, one of the nation’s leading experts on the subject, said.

For example, Schatz did not describe forced oral sex in her first statement to MSU police, with the officer she says told her it was a “gray area.” She did then describe it in her later statements to MSU police and the OIE. Galanos said that “undermines the reliability of both (Schatz’s) prior statements and (Schatz’s) second written statement to OIE.” Hopper said that’s “completely unscientific.”

Memories, especially traumatic ones, can be encoded in the brain but not accessible to you, Hopper said. Getting to them is a matter of context and cues.

Lilley Schatz outside of the Michigan State University side along Grand River Avenue on Dec. 7, 2023. Schatz transferred from Lansing Community College in the Fall of 2022 eager to experience the renowned East Lansing game days and football culture. After being sexually assaulted in September of 2022, she was unable to attend football games for the rest of the 2022 season and the following 2023 season. “I had to continue to go to every single class, continue to do well in school, I had to do so much,” Schatz said. “I had to get a rape kit, I had to go to the hospital, I was there all night, I had to meet with an advocate twice a week, I have to meet with a therapist once or twice a week. All he has to do is play football every weekend.” Photo by Audrey Richardson.

“Just because something is stored in memory, doesn’t mean that it’s going to be retrieved at any particular time or during any particular time period,” Hopper said.

That means Schatz could have left details out of her first interview with MSU police because, either she wasn’t in a comfortable setting to share them, or her brain had blocked them out until a context or cue triggered her to remember them, Hopper said.

Schatz said the first statement to police was the first time she had ever talked through the entirety of what happened. So it “makes sense” that the later statements – taken after she had talked about the experience with her therapist and friends – would be more complete.

Remembering more of a traumatic event as time goes on is a well studied phenomenon, Hopper said.

It even has its own scientific name: reminiscence.

“This resolution officer says ‘oh you remembered more, well you must be lying, and making it up, how convenient that you remember more,’” Hopper said. “When it could just be a totally normal, natural thing of ‘hey, you remember more later because you’re less stressed and you’re asked better questions that remind you.’”

In other places, Galanos said Schatz wasn’t believable because she flipped the order of certain events.

Hopper said that is also an unscientific conclusion, because the brain is often unable to encode the order of specific events during periods of high stress, like a sexual assault.

He said that for the first few minutes of a high-stress event, the brain’s “defense circuitry” kicks in and it may be able to encode even more information than before.

But, research has shown that ’s “unsustainable.”

The brain often eventually loses the capacity to store information like the order of events that is not necessary in the moment.

That can leave a sur vivor of something traumatic, like Schatz, w it hout a c lea r idea of what

THU R SDAY, F EBRUA RY 1, 2024

happened when.

“It’s not just about sexual assault,” Hopper said. “We see this in police, we see this in soldiers, it’s just how things work. There’s no basis for assuming that someone lacks credibility because they mix up the sequence of traumatic things.”

Galanos also faulted Schatz for saying the guns were brought up on a FaceTime call in one interview with investigators and that they were brought up in-person in another. The statements were made eight months apart.

Hopper said that, again, doesn’t seem informed by the science of how trauma can affect the brain.

Overall, Hopper said Galanos’ decision shows the MSU police and OIE using multiple interview, investigation and analysis tactics that aren’t informed by the science of trauma and memory.

“It’s the incompetence of the investigators that often create these inconsistencies, which then get weaponized against the victim,” Hopper said.

In her decision, Galanos acknowledges in multiple places that “the passage of time and fact that (Schatz) provided statements at several different points may” explain the discrepancies.

But nonet heless, Galanos concludes that Schatz’s “confusion and the fact that significant portions of (her) factual account have changed over time impacts the reliability of claimant’s recitation of the facts.”

With that in mind, Galanos writes that the allegations outlined by Schatz are “more likely than not” false.

Galanos did not return messages seeking comment. MSU declined to answer questions about the decision and tactics used, citing student privacy concerns.

Schatz said Galanos’ decision left her blaming herself. It felt less like a test of the facts of the case, she said, and more like a test of her performance with investigators and at the hearing.

“It was frustrating, it made me feel like if I would have ‘done better’ or

if I would have said certain things that I didn’t, this would be different,” Schatz said.

Schatz also took issue w it h Galanos concluding that she and the football player were “equally unreliable” witnesses.

Galanos said Schatz provided an “inconsistent factual account” and the player provided an “insufficiently detailed factual account.”

After reading that, Schatz felt she was punished for cooperating most fully – providing multiple statements over the months of investigation and attending the hearing where she would be cross-examined – while the football player was rewarded for refusing to participate whatsoever.

In the weeks after the decision was issued, Schatz felt the denial and doubt that had once plagued her return.

“I went into a denial, like maybe it wasn’t as bad as people were telling me,” Schatz said. “I knew it happened, but I was like, maybe it wasn’t important.”

Schatz asked her OIE advocate about appealing the decision, which would send the case to another resolut ion of f icer who wou ld determine if the findings were “arbitrary and capricious.”

Her advocate told her “appeals never win” but she was determined.

“They’re like, ‘I don’t want to deter you, but you’re never going to win an appeal,’” Schatz said. “Then I did it anyway.”

She filed an appeal arguing t hat Ga la nos ’ conc lusion wa s “ u n reasonable” because t he inconsistencies cited were due to “factors outside of (her) control” like the passage of time between her statements and the effects of trauma on the brain.

The MSU Equity Review Officer who decided the appeal concluded t h at S c h at z “ u n de r s t a n d abl y disagrees” with Galanos’ decision, but the reasons cited were “not sufficient that a finding is arbitrary or capricious.”

That final appeal decision was issued Sept. 11, 2023. That’s 361 days after she was assaulted and 359 days

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Outside of the Student Affairs and Services building, where the Center for Survivors is located, on Circle Drive in East Lansing on Dec. 8, 2023. Photo by Audrey Richardson.

after it was first reported to the OIE. The assault happened at the ver y start of her fall semester, the hearing just after finals in the spring, and ultimate decision just as classes began the next fall. The case occupied “a whole year of (her) life,” Schatz said.

That timeline made the result all the more frustrating for Schatz, who said that having to revisit the traumatic events over and over again across the long investigation “stunted her healing.”

“I definitely wouldn’t recommend it,” Schatz said. “It’s just not a great process, and it doesn’t happen very quickly.”

At the start of the investigation, she felt “taken seriously ” and supported by the OIE. She felt reporting was the right thing to do.

But that faded, and today, she’s not sure if she would encourage another survivor to report their assault to MSU. “If it would have been the way they said it would have gone, I think I would feel more ready to advocate for people to do it,” she said.

A PLEA TO ATHLETICS

MSU’s athletic director, Alan Haller, was one of the first people to know about the allegations against the player.

He was contacted by MSU police on Sept. 19, 2022, just before the player was first interviewed by police.

In that interview, the detective asked the player if he had any questions about what would happen next, according to the detective’s notes.

T he conversation quick ly addressed the player’s status on the team. The detective said he wasn’t sure how the athletic department would react to the allegations.

Then, according to the notes, “(the player) stated: ‘I’m suspended.’”

It ’s unc lea r i f he ever was suspended.

The State News could not find a record of the player being suspended at any point in the 2022 season. He played in almost every game in 2022.

Haller, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.

As the football season wore on, healing became harder for Schatz.

For the first month after the assault, she was too anxious to attend classes, her roommate told the OIE. The player knew where Schatz lived, and she was in constant fear of encountering him, her roommate said.

The anxiety worsened when she faced reminders of him.

Schatz and her friends eventually

tried going to football games, as they had done before. But she couldn’t get through the game, she had a panic attack and left.

“She was shocked to see him playing and in uniform after the athletic department was made aware of the incident,” her roommate told the OIE. “She felt like no one believed her, and she fell into a deeper depression.”

Schatz was still feeling the effects of what happened daily, all while she saw him gaining playing-time and notoriety.

“I was crying every day, I couldn’t leave my apartment, I couldn’t take my dog out, I was dealing with police officers, I was getting a rape kit where they swabbed every part of my body, and he’s just living his best life playing every weekend,” she said.

She wanted action from the athletic department, but suspected that they would say nothing could be done until the OIE and MSU police investigations were complete.

Then, in October 2022, members of MSU’s football team were suspended pending an investigation into their fight with University of Michigan football players in the tunnel after the rivalry matchup.

Schatz wondered: if they could be suspended during an investigation for physical assault, why couldn’t he be suspended during an investigation of sexual assault?

She wanted an explanation, she “really just wanted to talk to Mel Tucker” about what his player did.

Tucker was then the head football coach. He has since been fired and found by MSU to have sexually harassed a team vendor.

Schatz didn’t know how to get in touch with him, so her EVE advocate, from the hospital, “called and called and called” MSU athletics until someone gave her an email address that would supposedly go right to Tucker.

Schatz sent an email which details her allegations, then asks why the athletic department declined to take action over them.

She asked Tucker why the player couldn’t be suspended for what he did to her until a formal finding or criminal charges, when Tucker’s other players could be suspended for what they did in the tunnel before findings or charges?

“Is sexual assault not as important as physical assault?” she wrote in the email. “This event happened two months ago, two months I kept telling myself that at one point you would take it seriously, but you never did.”

She never got a response.

It’s unclear if Tucker ever saw the

email. OIE documents show it was shared and read by other high-level athletics staffers.

The address Schatz emailed was checked by an office assistant in the football department, Cynthia Mejorado.

When she saw the email, Mejorado did two things: she filed a report with the OIE, and shared the email with her boss, general manager of football operations Saeed Khalif, according to OIE documents.

Khalif then printed out a copy of the email, put a sticky-note on it saying “from Saeed Khalif” and placed it on Haller’s desk, according to OIE documents which include a photo of the printed email on Haller’s desk.

“I was crying every day, I couldn’t leave my apartment, I couldn’t take my dog out, I was dealing with police officers, I was getting a rape kit where they swabbed every part of my body, and he’s just living his best life playing every weekend.”

Lilley Schatz Haller, the athletic director, then filed an OIE report of his own.

Another staffer in the football department also filed a report with OIE based on Schatz’s email, though they left their name and title blank on the report.

When Schatz got the evidence packet for her OIE case – which included all the reports – she was shocked by how widely her email was shared and read.

She thinks the decision not to

suspend the player “is wrong.” Seeing all the people who read the email and never reached out to her with an explanation “shows (her) that they know it’s wrong too.”

A few weeks after the impassioned email, the 2022 football season ended. Schatz said things then “started getting better for (her) mentally,” without the constant reminders of what happened.

T hen, earlier this fall when football resumed and the player continued to improve his playingtime and notoriety, the anxiety and doubt returned.

A TRODDEN PATH

Schatz’s experience is strikingly similar to other stories of MSU students who reported sexual assault by high-profile student-athletes to the university.

In 2019, Bailey Kowalski, then a sports-journalism senior, publicly came forward with her story of being raped by members of MSU’s basketball team and then being disbelieved by MSU. Kowalski said in a lawsuit that when she first disclosed the assault to an MSU counselor, she was discouraged from reporting it.

“If you pursue this, you are going to be swimming with some really big fish,” the counselor told her, according to the lawsuit.

Kowalski’s case was eventually reported to the OIE, which initiated an investigation that would last over a year.

The resolution officer in Kowalski’s case did not find sufficient evidence of wrongdoing by the basketball players. That result was supported by a “credibility assessment” with an uncanny resemblance to Schatz’s case.

Both decisions deem the claimant uncredible by comparing multiple statements and interviews with the claimant taken months apart.

It would be hard to know how ma ny OI E dec ision s use t hat “credibility assessment” process.

Schatz, and Kowalski through her attorney, both shared copies of OIE documents with The State News.

Those same documents could not be obtained through records requests to the university.

While MSU is subject to public records requests, the university has for years refused to release even heavily-redacted versions of OIE decisions that end in no finding of wrongdoing.

Hopper, the expert who called the assessment “unscientific,” said he wonders how many cases have wrongly ended in no-finding because T H U R S DAY, FE BRUA RY 1 , 2024

of it.

“You might want to ask MSU, what is the scientific basis for their resolution officers judging i ncon si s te nc ie s a s c r e d i bi l it y problems?” Hopper said.

MSU declined to answer any questions about the practice.

Beyond just t he “credibilit y assessment” in OIE decisions, MSU has been heavily criticized in recent years for multiple practices that are said to systematically discredit, ignore or bury reports of sexual assault by high-profile athletes.

A 2018 ESPN Outside The Lines investigation concluded that MSU had largely ignored some allegations of sexual violence by athletes, kept some away from investigators by allowing the athletic department to internally investigate them, or used practices that ensured the most common result of police or university investigations would be no finding of wrongdoing.

For Schatz, the breadth of the issue makes being a survivor all the more confusing.

She knows that she isn’t the only person to go through it – reporting, disbelief, no results – but it’s rare, she said, that someone would talk about it.

“I know this is really common,” she said. “But at the same time, it’s really isolating.”

MSU, through various spokespeople, declined to answer any of The State News’ questions about Schatz’s experience.

Laura Rugless, the university’s new Vice President for Title IX, declined to speak specifically about Schatz’s case, citing privacy concerns, but did issue a written statement to The State News.

She said stories from survivors like Schatz help her “understand the circumstances around their experience and use their feedback to continually enhance (MSU’s) processes.”

“We recognize the bravery it takes for indiv iduals to share concerns, and we want them to know their voices are not just heard but genuinely valued,” Rugless said in the statement.

Schatz said Rugless’ statement shows that survivors at MSU are “in a situation where they have to go to a newspaper to get help and have their voices heard, cause their voices aren’t going to be heard any other way.”

“My story shouldn’t have to inspire change for other people,” Schatz said.

“It’s kind of messed up that my case has to be handled so wrong for them to look at what they’re doing.”

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DENHOLLANDER: MSU IS REPEATING MISTAKES, REFUSING TO LEARN

By Alex Walters awalters@statenews.com When an allegation of sexual misconduct by Mel Tucker was made public, Michigan State University moved swiftly to distance itself from the then-football coach.

Within 24 hours, the athletic department instructed maintenance employees and outside vendors to remove images of Tucker from the walls of Spartan Stadium and the football building, emails show.

MSU IT took down web pages referencing the coach, the emails show.

A nd, MSU’s communications department enlisted the help of two crisis management PR firms, according to the emails.

These behind-the-scenes moves — revealed by emails obtained through public records request — add to a growing list of steps MSU took quickly to distance itself from Tucker in the aftermath of his misconduct coming to light.

Within hours of the news report first revealing the allegations, Tucker was suspended. Two weeks later, he was fired. That was all before the MSU investigation into his conduct concluded.

MSU has arg ued t he br isk response represents a commitment to accountability for those who break policies on sexual misconduct.

At the time of his suspension, interim president Teresa Woodruff said the response represented an improvement from the university’s troubled recent past with sexual misconduct.

“This morning’s news might sound like the MSU of old,” Woodruff said.

“It was not.”

Not everyone agrees.

Rachael Denhollander is a Kentucky based attorney who, in 2016, became the first woman to publicly accuse disgraced ex-MSU doctor Larry Nassar of sexual assault.

Her detailed account of his abuse opened the floodgates for hundreds of similar stories, prompting numerous investigations of Nassar and those who enabled him, and inspiring a broader cultural reckoning at MSU. She believes the lapse between MSU receiving information about Tucker’s conduct and the university acting on it is “sadly similar” to what she and other survivors of Nassar’s abuse saw.

“This is the exact same problem we had with our case,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking, because we’re watching others go through similar dynamics that we went through.”

The information cited in Tucker’s firing — that he admitted to a sexual relationship with a team vendor — was known to university investigators months before his employment was challenged.

MSU’s leaders won’t say what was done in the nine months between the university receiving the allegations and them becoming public.

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Rachael Denhollander sits in the courtroom on the sixth day of Ex-MSU and USA Gymnastics Dr. Larry Nassar’s sentencing on Jan. 23, 2018 at the Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing. Photo by Nic Antaya.

Denhollander believes the Tucker case was handled the same way Nassar was: “Different authority figures each had a piece of the puzzle,” but a lack of communication prevented the proper action from being taken until public pressure mounted.

MSU officials have defended the timeline, saying communication between the Title IX office staff investigating the case and university leaders empowered to take action would have caused interference and endangered survivor privacy.

Denhollander disagrees.

“The idea that the board and administration’s ‘hands are tied’ because of survivor privacy is just a complete misunderstanding of what that means,” she said.

It ’s not a n ad he r e nc e to best practices, rather a “poor communication channel that’s designed to shield leaders from responsibility,” she said.

Since coming for ward w it h her allegations against Nassar, Denhollander has been tapped to assist numerous major universities on how they can better handle sexual violence.

MSU is the one school that seems to never take her advice, she said.

For years, Denhollander has asked

MSU’s board to consider alternatives to the current model of handling reported misconduct, where investigators are largely walled off from other MSU officials.

She advocates for more communication between the MSU investigators handling the cases and the university leaders who could take action.

She’s faced years of stonewalling, and believes recent developments signal a lack of commitment to change.

In December, the board voted to release thousands of privileged doc ument s relat i ng to MSU ’s mishandling of Nassar’s abuse to investigators with Michigan’s Attorney General. The vote ended a years-long, controversial withholding of the documents.

Denhollander said that move is a “smokescreen” designed to avoid real accountability for MSU. “They say, ‘We did what we’re supposed to do, we released the documents’ and wash their hands of it,” Denhollander said. “But I think many members of the board know full well that turning them over to the AG is not by any stretch of the imagination sufficient.”

The attorney general’s jurisdiction

THU R SDAY, F EBRUA RY 1, 2024

is limited to criminal activity, but the “vast majority” of what’s going wrong at MSU isn’t criminal, Denhollander said.

“We saw the same dynamics as (Nassar) replay with the Tucker situation,” Denhollander said. “In order to fix those dynamics, we have to go beyond the question of ‘What’s criminal?’ to the question of ‘What is the best policy and practice?’”

To do that, Denhollander believes the university should allow an independent ethics and compliance firm to take a holistic look back at what’s allowing things to keep going wrong.

She’s faced years of stonewalling from MSU’s board, but hopes pressure could mount for them to change their minds.

“Change is going to take real moral courage on the part of the board, that’s really what it has to be,” she said. “It’s going to take courage to finally make a decision and say enough is enough, we are going to do whatever it takes to get this right.”

A DELICATE BALANCE

Before the Nassar scandal, MSU’s Title IX investigators actually had too much communication with those

outside their office, Liz Abdnour, a former MSU investigator, said.

During her time as a Title IX investigator from 2015-2018, Abdnour said then-president Lou Anna Simon would have monthly meetings with the Title IX office director where she “would want to know everything that was going on” with each case.

That got thorny when cases involved those close to Simon.

While interviewing staff of The Cowles House for a separate case, Abdnour said student workers told her that a relative of Simon’s was sexually harassing a staff member.

With the Title IX office director’s permission, Abdnour tried to conduct a separate investigation into the relative’s conduct.

“Then I got a voicemail from (Simon’s) secretary saying I needed to stop and not investigate,” Abdnour said.

Abdnour voiced concerns about the presidential interference to her director, who met with Simon to discuss the matter before telling Abdnour to “kill the investigation,” she said.

Simon would later be criminally charged for her role in allowing Nassar’s abuse to go on for so long, though the charge was eventually dismissed.

Since Nassar’s abuse became public, Abdnour said she believes the university has “overcorrected” and completely walled off the Title IX office, hampering its effectiveness.

“I think the whole situation with Nassar caused MSU to go into a tailspin too far in the other direction,” Abdnour, who left MSU in 2018 to start a civil law firm and advise other universities on Title IX compliance, said.

Some communication between Title IX investigators and other departments at MSU helped investigators more fully police conduct, Abdnour said.

For example, Abdnour said she once encountered evidence of embezzlement while investigating discrimination.

That couldn’t be handled by a Title IX investigation, but it was addressed by other parts of MSU’s administration through information-sharing.

“I think MSU actually had a good system, except for the president and general counsel having this veto power over investigations,” Abdnour said.

LACKING THE NECESSARY “TOOLS TO POLICE CONDUCT”

Bradley Dizik, an executive vice president and compliance expert with compliance firm Guidepost Solutions, said he believes MSU lacks accountability measures outside of Title IX, forcing leaders to rely solely on the slow, tedious process.

“MSU keeps running into issues because they don’t necessarily have the tools to police conduct outside of Title IX, so they try to throw everything into Title IX,” Dizik said.

N EWS Guidepost recently did an audit of policies and practices for limiting sexual misconduct at American Association of Universities schools, Dizik said. Compared to its peers, MSU lacks many of the important mechanisms for policing employee conduct, he said.

MSU is missing three important tools for curbing harassment and discrimination: broad codes of conduct, an independent compliance office, and more ways of protecting people from retaliation for reporting all manners of misconduct, he said.

Some units within MSU have codes of conduct defining prohibited behavior, but there are not universitywide policies governing conduct. That leaves supervisors helpless when there is questionable conduct outside the bounds of what’s explicitly prohibited under the Title IX statute, Dizik said.

“Title IX is very rigid, it’s a lot of very rigid statutory requirements,” Dizik said. “It doesn’t capture all sexual misconduct.”

In the Tucker case, MSU was able to fire him for cause pending the results of the Title IX office’s investigation because of morality clauses in his lengthy head-coach contract.

Without a university-wide code of conduct, similar dismissals couldn’t be executed for every employee, Dizik said.

MSU also lacks an independent office of compliance focused on making sure conduct policies are fully adhered to.

In the wake of the Nassar scandal, MSU did establish the Office of Audit, Risk, and Compliance. But, Dizik says combining the three functions defeats the purpose.

“It’s unethical for the auditor to audit any compliance program,” Dizik said. “She’s not independent if she’s also responsible for compliance.

They should be completely separate functions.”

A large portion of a code of conduct or the work of a compliance office will have little to do with sexual violence, but the act of strengthening MSU’s reponse to all manners of misconduct will improve the university’s handling of sexual misconduct, Dizik said.

For example, Dizik said MSU lacks adequate anti-retaliation policies for types of misconduct other than sexual violence or discrimination.

Retaliating against someone for filing or participating in an MSU Title IX investigation can trigger separate investigations and discipline through the Title IX office or other MSU units.

But, there aren’t similarly rigid structures for retaliation against reporters of fiscal, academic, or athletic misconduct, Dizik said.

That may seem unrelated, but Dizik believes bad experiences reporting any manner of misconduct could affect the chance of someone speaking up when they witness or hear of sexual misconduct.

“Say you report research misconduct and you’re retaliated against and have a terrible experience,” Dizik said.

“Are you likely to then report sexual misconduct when it happens?”

A DIFFERENT WAY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

For a better system, look at how things are done at the University of Michigan, Denhollander said.

The process at UM gives the university’s elected Board of Regents

frequent updates on cases involving high-profile employees, Denhollander said.

There are “boundaries in place” that keep the identities of survivors or whistle-blowers from the board, but enough information is relayed for the board to act on admitted wrongdoing or misconduct outside Title IX before the university investigation is complete, she said.

It’s unclear exactly how cases are deemed high-profile enough to warrant board oversight. UM spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen said cases are reviewed on a “case-by-case basis” but wouldn’t describe the specific criteria.

Denhollander — who advised UM’s board on the system — believes the process has enabled the university to better handle misconduct.

It does that by allowing the Title IX office to handle its statutory obligations while the board separately handles its reputational and fiduciary obligations — all without either group left in the dark on the other’s work, she said.

Simply put: Title IX investigators go about investigating, but when they turn up information that’s a clear-cut offense, the board doesn’t have to wait to act.

MSU’s board does participate in a certification process where board members review all reports of misconduct each semester, but, they aren’t given updates about the cases as they progress that could trigger action, according to a 2022 external review.

An example of the UM system in action is the recent firing of president Mark Schlissel over his inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, Denhollander said.

UM received the first anonymous tip about Schlissel’s behavior in December 2021, according to news reports. The board was quickly made aware of the allegations and the dozens of emails detailing the conduct. By Jan. 15, 2022, Schlissel was fired.

“They fired the president of the whole university in three weeks, over a holiday, because they were able to move that fast,” Denhollander said.

Had the information sharing system not been in place, UM’s board would have been in the same place that MSU’s board was with Tucker, she said. It would be in the dark during a lengthy Title IX investigation into a high-profile employee, unable to take action over what had already been found by investigators.

In another example, even more closely resembling the Tucker case, UM was able to fire its hockey coach for misconduct discovered in an ongoing Title IX case.

Information in a 2021 Title IX complaint against then-coach Mel Pearson led to a separate ethics investigation, the results of which were cited in Pearson’s eventual dismissal.

The Pearson case is “identical to the Tucker situation” because both involve a coach fired outside of Title IX for conduct discovered by a Title IX investigation, Denhollander said.

But, UM’s system enabled the university to act on the information turned up by a Title IX case as soon as the university was alerted to it, not only after it came out in the press, she said.

At MSU, “there’s not a clear communication channel so that the individuals who have fiduciary responsibility have enough knowledge to do anything about these things,”

Denhollander said.

“Those are design flaws, and we can see that they’re not necessary if we just look at how they’ve handled things 50 miles away at UM,” she said.

The MSU board’s lack of agency over misconduct recently drove one trustee to resign.

In October 2022, Pat O’Keefe said that the limited board involvement at MSU left the trustees “pregnant with the information of the sexual transgressions of the faculty without a plan to remove the excrement from this campus.”

He then resigned from the board.

Denhollander said she understands his anger.

“It’s intensely frustrating to see horrible things happening and not be able to do anything about it,” she said.

“But, that wouldn’t be the case if things were set up properly.”

A BROADER SOLUTION

The first step in making the necessary changes is allowing an unobstructed look back at what keeps going wrong, Denhollander said.

To do that, she suggests MSU’s board allow a qualified compliance firm to do a “robust assessment that would look at the structures, the policies, and the culture of the organization.”

“Change is going to take real moral courage on the part of the board, that’s really what it has to be. It’s going to take courage to finally make a decision and say enough is enough, we are going to do whatever it takes to get this right.”

Rachael Denhollander This would be different from the numerous outside investigations the board has ordered in recent years, Denhollander said.

For those investigations, the board asks firms to detail individual instances where things have gone wrong.

Dehollander’s proposed review would ask a firm to seek out the problems that allow things to go wrong in the first place, she said.

If Denhollander was in charge, she said she would ask the review to do three things: diagnose the systemic issues leading to mishandled misconduct, make recommendations for how to correct that, and, most importantly, create metrics to assess whether MSU is following the recommendations and making

improvements.

The firm would do so with traditional methods — interviewing officials and reviewing documents to investigate the problem — but would ideally also include a “community engagement piece” that engages students, faculty, and survivors, Denhollander said.

“It could become a collaborative process of everyone working together to say ‘We’re gonna figure out what’s wrong and work together to fix it,’” she said.

The firm’s work would culminate in a publicly-released, written report.

Denhollander said she worked with MSU’s board to make her proposed outside review a reality in 2019. The board “got close,” but it fell apart at the last minute.

The sticking point, she said, was the “retroactive historical accountability piece.”

The board was comfortable with a firm looking at current policies and practices to find imperfections and suggest changes, but it didn’t like the idea of a full look back at what went wrong with Nassar and others.

T he la rgest roadbloc k wa s Denhollander’s insistence that any outside review include a look at the thousands of privileged documents the board was then withholding from Michigan’s attorney general, she said.

The board has now begun releasing the documents to the Attorney General, but Denhollander believes the board will use that decision as “an easy way out, to not have to do a real review.”

After the board voted to stop withholding the documents, Attorney General Dana Nessel told The State News that it was “better late than never,” but stressed that her office will be limited by fading memories and fastapproaching or already-passed statutes of limitations.

Even if Nessel’s can put together criminal charges, it won’t be nearly enough to fix the problems at MSU, Denhollander said.

“The AG doesn’t have jurisdiction to look into the vast majority of what we already know went wrong, much less write any sort of extensive public report to create transparency and accountability,” Denhollander said. “So, is it necessary to investigate potential crimes? Absolutely. Is it sufficient? By no stretch of the imagination.”

NO ACTION COULD MEAN MORE COSTLY EXTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS

If the board never agrees to an allencompassing outside assessment, it’s going to have to keep ordering individual outside investigations each time something goes wrong, Denhollander said.

“What’s the alternative, more external investigations?” Denhollander said.

In the last year alone, MSU has ordered outside reviews of the board’s Title IX certifications, the ousting of a business dean over his handling of sexual misconduct, the efficiency of the Title IX office, and the leak of a Title IX claimant’s identity. Each cost hundreds of thousands of university dollars.

They add to numerous other reviews the university has ordered in the last ten years, some of which were never publicly released.

On top of the reviews the university orders for itself, MSU is also the subject of seven ongoing department of T H U R S DAY, FE BRUA RY 1 , 2024

education investigations for allegedly mishandling reports of sexual violence.

“They have poured so much money into poorly done assessments that lack transparency and accountability,” Denhollander said. “One robust assessment five years ago would have cost significantly less than they have now paid piecemeal for absolutely nothing.”

When MSU orders an outside investigation, the firm, scope and end product is chosen by the university.

The reviews give the appearance of accountability and transparency, but are largely set up to clear the university of wrongdoing, she said The problem starts with the choice of firm, she said. Rather than using ethics and compliance firms, MSU opts for law firms with robust corporate defense practices.

“They’re picking defense attorneys to try to clean up their process, that doesn’t work,” Denhollander said. “I’m an attorney. I’m telling you that doesn’t work.”

The best example, she said, is MSU’s use of Quinn Emanuel.

The board has spent millions retaining the LA-based law firm to investigate the removal of a dean, keep records of that investigation from being revealed in court, and to personally represent the board’s chair in another outside investigation MSU ordered.

Denhollander is skeptical of the board’s use of Quinn Emanuel to evaluate its practices given the firm’s history of representing institutions in disputes against sexual assault survivors.

“They’ve picked Quinn Emanuel to do some of these assessments, well Quinn Emanuel is one of the top sexual assault defense firms in the country,” she said.

Most notably, the firm was recently tapped by the University of Southern California to defend it in lawsuits by survivors of sexual abuse by one of its doctors.

MSU’s board has also been unscrupulous in evaluating potential conflicts of interest by the firms retained for outside review, she said.

In 2014, before Nassar was publicly accused of misconduct, MSU ordered an outside investigation of its handling of sexual violence from the law firm Pepper Hamilton.

After Nassar’s yearslong, unchecked abuse became publicly known, pressure mounted for MSU to release Pepper Hamilton’s report. The university did not.

Then, in the wake of the Nassar scandal, MSU agreed to years of regular outside audits of its Title IX cases by the firm Cozen O’Connor.

That had the public appearance of a new firm stepping in to conduct a neutral review of things. The truth is more complicated, Denhollander said.

Some of the lawyers who conducted the Pepper Hamilton review of MSU left that firm and were hired by Cozen O’Connor in 2017, according to a company press release and online bios. They then conducted later Cozen O’Connor reviews of MSU. “They were evaluating their own work product,” Denhollander said.

“They should have never come back to do those assessments, because they were conflicted out. They had a vested interest not to find problems, because they were the ones that had already tried to find the problems earlier.”

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THE OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL EQUITY ALSO RESPONDS TO VIOLATIONS OF THE ANTI-DISCRMINATION POLICY

Michigan State’s Office of Institutional Equity is located in Olds Hall on campus. Photo by Jillian Felton.

By Theo Scheer tscheer@statenews.com If students, faculty and staff experience discrimination at Michigan State University, reporting their experience to the Office of Civil Rights is a click away.

But misinformation and a lack of education on the university’s AntiDiscrimination Policy, or ADP, can prevent community members — often students — from doing so.

WHAT COUNTS AS DISCRIMINATION AND HARASSMENT?

Speech or conduct that is perceived as hateful or threatening doesn’t always violate university policies.

Nikki Schmidtke, director of ADP response and investigations, said that since hate speech doesn’t have a legal definition, it’s often protected under the First Amendment.

Generally speaking, “all speech and expressive conduct is protected until it reaches the threshold of how (MSU’s Anti-Discrimination Policy) defines harassment,” Schmidtke said.

The ADP defines harassment as “unwelcome conduct based on a protected category” that’s “objectively and subjectively severe, persistent or pervasive” and “creates an unreasonable interference with the individual’s work or educational experience.”

It also prohibits discrimination through “inappropriate limitation” of university resources and opportunities.

But OIE can still offer supportive measures to students who feel they’ve experienced harassment or discrimination, even when reported conduct doesn’t count as harassment in MSU’s eyes — it’s just a more complicated process.

If OIE knows the identity of the individual, offering support is one of the first things they do, even before a decision is made. For students, that 8

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often involves coordinating exam or assignment extensions with professors or changes to their housing.

Schmidtke said that conduct may be addressed by other university policies in ways the ADP can’t.

For example, if an MSU employee is accused of such misconduct, that information is sent to their department.

They can decide on appropriate measures under faculty and staff policies, even if the ADP decides they are unable to act.

“We can always support a person who’s been impacted even if we don’t make a finding, even if they don’t decide they want to pursue an investigation,” Schmidtke said.

CHANGING THE ADP

Schmidtke has been spearheading an effort to change the ADP based on community input.

A lot of feedback her workgroup has gotten revolves around clarifying the difference between hate speech and protected speech and “what’s covered and not covered,” Schmidtke said.

Lack of education about the ADP and how to use it was another problem that was identified.

“We got a lot of feedback on how we can make it more accessible and navigable for students and employees,” Schmidtke said.

The ADP prohibits harassment and discrimination based on over a dozen descriptors, such as race, gender and religion. An important area of focus for Schmidtke is making those identities more encompassing.

“We wanted our language to be more inclusive and representative of folks that we have on campus,” Schmidtke said. “And so we did a lot of work with stakeholders to revise the definitions for those identity definitions.”

Schmidtke expects a revised ADP to be finalized in the spring semester.

What’s stopping students from THU R SDAY, F EBRUARY 1, 2024

reporting?

Schmidtke and Kelly Schweda, executive director at Prevention, Outreach and Education, gave a presentation on changes to the ADP at a Nov. 20 ASMSU meeting. But an opportunity for participant questions afterwards emphasized misinformation surrounding the policy.

“We can always support a person who’s been impacted even if we don’t make a finding, even if they don’t decide they want to pursue an investigation.”

Nikki Schmidtke Director of ADP response and investigations

One student asked how the antidiscrimination policy could protect Arab students when the university and federal government label them as white.

It’s true that because the federal

government does not have a category for Middle Eastern and North African people, instead labeling them as white, the MSU Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report does the same. However, MSU does not categorize these students as white, Title IX Communications Manager Christian Chapman said.

“It’s true that MSU’s DEI Report uses the race/ethnicity categories provided by the federal government, which are limited, but this is one report and not an accurate reflection of the many different identities and intersectional identities that we have on campus,” Chapman said in an email to The State News. “This is explained in the DEI Report.”

Chapman said that the “ADP is not limited to these race/ethnicity categories, even in its current form, and Arab and other Middle-Eastern identifying students are protected by the ADP.” The ADP reporting form for discrimination and harassment does not have a list of races and ethnicities for users to choose from. Instead, reporters can choose to self-identify elsewhere in the form.

“If a Palestinian student says, ‘I’m being discriminated against based on my race,’ then it’s race,” Schmidtke said. “We mark it as race.”

She added that if a Palestinian student instead reports discrimination based on their religion or ethnicity, then OIE would investigate it as such.

“They’re all protected under this policy,” Schmidtke said. “However a claimant identifies themselves to us, that is the category.”

Schmidtke said the student’s question illustrates the work that still needs to be done on educating students about MSU’s policies.

“If someone doesn’t see themselves in a policy, then they may not ever come to make a report because they may not think that the policy applies to them,” Schmidtke said. “These

students have always been covered, but the fact that they don’t know that they’re covered or don’t think that they’re covered, that’s a problem we’ve got to fix.”

Students also sometimes try to mitigate confusion about the process by having peers report discrimination on their behalf, Chapman said.

Following several recent instances of racism on campus, for example, leaders of the Black Students’ Alliance have reported instances of racial discrimination for students who “don’t feel comfortable or don’t know how to report through MSU themselves,” Chapman said.

“That is something that we are continuing to work to educate the campus community on, that, you know, here are the options,” Chapman said.

“This is a safe space to come and report your concerns.”

THE REPORTING PROCESS

When the OIE receives a complaint of discrimination, it first offers supportive measures to the person impacted. Then, it conducts an initial assessment into whether the reported conduct violates the ADP and should be pursued further.

If it does, OIE conducts an investigation where both parties – the claimant and the respondent – have the opportunity to present information to an investigator. A decision is typically made around 90 days later. If investigators decide the conduct violates the ADP, appropriate discipline is decided by MSU. After a decision is made, both parties have 10 days to submit an appeal. An Equity Review Officer has 18 days to respond before the decision is final.

OIE is currently taking feedback on the ADP online. Schmidtke encouraged the community to offer input.

N EWS

What to expect from MSU’s RVSM and Title IX process

By Theo Scheer tscheer@statenews.com M ic h i g a n St at e Un i v e r s it y encourages students, faculty, staff and guests that have experienced re lat ion sh ip v iole nce, se x ua l misconduct, or sexual harassment to report it to the university.

But where can they go to do so, and what happens afterwards? Title IX Communications Manager Christian Chapman explained the process that MSU’s Office of Institutional Equity, or OIE, takes to respond to Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct, or RVSM, and Title IX cases.

that’s talking them through every step,” Chapman said. “They can be that person that they can ask questions to … and confide in.”

THE HEARING

WHAT THE POLICY COVERS

MSU’s RVSM and Title IX policy broadly covers domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation and stalking. That includes, but isn’t limited to, unwelcome sexual advances and comments, rape, and retaliation for participating in the OIE process, according to the policy.

Discrimination that doesn’t involve harassment based on sex or gender — such as racial discrimination and harassment — is covered under the university’s Anti-Discrimination Policy, Betsy Riley of Reclaim MSU passes out teal ribbons at the Kellogg Conference Center on Oct. 11, 2018. Teal ribbons are the symbol of support for sexual assault survivors. Photo by Anntaninna Biondo. or ADP.

WHERE TO REPORT

Reports that fall under the RVSM and Title IX policy or ADP policy can all be filed through MSU’s public incident report form, by calling OIE at (517) 353-3922 during office hours, or by emailing the office at oie@msu.edu.

Supportive measures After OIE receives the report, a member of its Support and Intake team reaches out via email or phone to the individual — known as the claimant — that filed it.

“If there are not a lot of details or information, they may ask them for additional information to fill in the blanks,” Chapman said.

The team then offers supportive measures to the claimant, like moving classes or no-contact directives. These

measures are offered whether or not the claimant decides to begin an investigation and are available at any point in the process, Chapman said.

The team member also gives information to the claimant about the RVSM and Title IX process, and asks how they would like to move forward.

At this point it’s in the claimant’s ha nd s whet he r to b eg i n a n investigation, or to continue being involved in the process.

“They can make that decision whenever they’re ready to make that decision,” Chapman said. “A lot of times that decision is personal to the person, depending on the harm that has happened to them. They may not be in a place to go forward with this process.”

OIE checks in a few times with the claimant as they decide whether they’ll pursue an investigation. If the answer is no, or they get no response, OIE closes the case. But the claimant can ask for it to be reopened later.

THE INVESTIGATION

If the claimant decides to go forward with an investigation, the report is referred to an investigator.

The investigator then reaches out to the claimant to piece together what happened.

T he i nve s t ig ator u s e s t he information to compile and file a formal complaint. Once the claimant rev iews and signs the formal complaint, the investigation officially begins.

The respondent is presented with the formal complaint, and has “an opportunity to share their account with the investigator,” Chapman said.

Once investigators interview all the parties involved — the claimant, the respondent and any witnesses — the investigator submits a report to the parties and a Resolution Officer, or RO, who then conducts a hearing.

Claimants can bring a supportperson of their choosing to accompany them throughout the investigation process. The Center for Survivors also offers free university-appointed advocates to guide claimants through contact with OIE. “These folks are trained in the process, have full knowledge of it, and can just be that supportive person

The claimant and respondent are both allowed a support person and an advisor during the hearing.

The support person is not allowed to participate in the hearing. The advisor, who can be an attorney, conducts questioning on behalf of their party. The RO moderates this cross-examination.

Within 20 days of the hearing’s conclusion, the RO releases a written decision on whether the respondent violated the RVSM or Title IX policy.

This is only final if no one appeals the decision. Both parties have ten days to submit an appeal to the Equity Review Officer, or ERO, and the RO and other party then has another ten days to respond to the appeal.

Within 18 days of receiving the response to the appeal, the ERO makes the final decision.

If t he respondent is found responsible for violating MSU’s policies, the appropriate group decides what measures and sanctions to place on the individual — the university’s Student Conduct department for students, and Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs for MSU employees.

TIMING

An outside audit of MSU OIE from last year found that on average, MSU takes about one calendar year to take a case from a report to a final resolution due to understaffing and inadequate software.

Officially, “the RVSM and Title IX Policy provides 90 days to complete the investigation, 60 days to complete the hearing, and 38 days to resolve the appeal process,” according to OIE’s website. However, each time frame can be extended “for good cause.”

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