In the painful years that followed the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal, Michigan State University's trustees repeatedly used attorney-client privilege to justify their refusal to release thousands of potentially embarrassing documents -- an information blockade foisted on survivors, taxpayers, the university and its already sullied reputation.
"A significant number of the documents did not appear to be covered by privilege at all, which raised questions as to why MSU withheld these documents for so long," Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Wednesday following her office's review of the papers. "Unfortunately, from the remaining documents, we have learned not all of the communications were preserved and that the university wrongly applied attorney-client privilege to many, if not most, of the remaining documents."
Equally surprising: The AG's office expected to find incriminating documents in the MSU trove its investigator reviewed, if only to help explain the university's years-long effort to block the release of the Nassar documents. But they found none, Nessel said, a conclusion as confounding as it is outrageous.
Meaning MSU's legal eagles "wrongly" counseled their boardroom clients to hide behind what Nessel appears to describe as a manufactured privilege -- a conclusion MSU disputes. Second, the legal sharpies presided over the loss, maybe even destruction, of documents. How else to read "not all of the communications were preserved?" And, third, how is the public interest served, or accountability achieved, by years of stonewalling?
It isn't. The blunt assessment by Michigan's chief legal officer is a damning coda to a years-long scandal that claimed the jobs of three MSU presidents, perpetuated an internecine war inside the trustees' board room, internalized institutional secrecy and prolonged the pain suffered by Nassar's victims seeking closure.
Dithering for what -- to protect "the club," its tentacles stretching from campus to the Capitol? So much of the turmoil could have been avoided, so much healing begun long ago, instead of being justified by claims of pending litigation from survivors and insurance companies, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
Yet that's the rationale given to trustees after the Nassar scandal erupted: toe the green-and-white line, however damaging the years of faux kumbaya turned out to be. That, too, is vintage MSU, where you can usually count on a majority of its trustees to follow the wrong instincts, make poor decisions, and sow mistrust.
The trustees prolonged the trauma in an epic case of good ol' East Lansing butt-covering. Instead of insisting on transparency that can speed institutional reform and quicken individual healing, trustees cowered behind a concocted legal protection mostly intended to safeguard their club and its members.
"Unfortunately, Michigan State University once again has shown it was never interested in helping the survivors of Larry Nassar to heal," Sister Survivors and POSSE, a parent organization supporting survivors of child sexual abuse, said in a statement. "It's a stain on the university that should leave all of us in the state asking for greater accountability from a public institution that exists to serve Michigan's people by educating the youth of the state. And part of education is having adults model our expectations."
Or not. You want an example of what's rotten at MSU? DocumentGate is a great place to start, followed by the ignominious (and grossly unfair) dismissal of former Broad College of Business Dean Sanjay Gupta, the push to oust trustees Dennis Denno and Rema Vassar because of their insufficient fealty to the club, the botched presidential search that somehow managed to culminate in a solid choice, Kevin Guskiewicz.
Welcome, Mr. President, to vintage MSU -- duplicitous politicking far removed from the human imperatives of candor, compassion and transparency. Welcome, too, to opportunity: here's a perfect chance to finally muck out MSU's Office of General Counsel, starting with General Counsel Brian Quinn.
This has been going on for nearly eight years. Scandal and trials; six presidents, three of them interim; raucous board meetings where Nassar survivors demand accountability; trustee confrontations, complete with ritual denunciations by Democratic Party bigwigs determined to unseat a board chair (Vassar) deemed insufficiently compliant.
Running through it all is the Nassar scandal and the university's struggle to manage the aftermath with honesty, transparency and a bias to using action to build trust. Nessel's assessment of the documents and what they portend don't vindicate the trustees' management of the crisis; they indict it, again.
Institutions as dysfunctional as MSU don't get that way by accident. They get that way by choice -- in this case, invoking attorney-client privilege to deny access to thousands of Nassar documents that survivors and the public had a right to see.
Who benefits? In theory, the trustees, the club and whatever more legal exposure might accrue to MSU. Thanks to Nessel, we now know so much of it was unnecessary. And that's completely unsurprising.