It’s been almost two years since Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 125 years in prison by a Eaton County, Michigan court on criminal sexual conduct charges, but we are still learning more details about how he was able to continue as the team doctor for USA Gymnastics for so long. (Nassar also received a 40- to 175-year sentence in Ingham County, Michigan, as well as a 60-year sentence in federal court on child pornography charges.)
A new report from the Wall Street Journal says that even though USA Gymnastics was conducting an investigation into Nassar—they didn’t tell Simone Biles until after the Rio Olympics in 2016. Per the WSJ, Biles was one of three gymnasts (along with Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols) who had expressed discomfort about Nassar in 2015, but they say she was not interviewed by the body’s own investigator before the Nassar story went public in 2016.
Rhonda Faehn, the former director of the women’s program for USA Gymnastics, said in testimony before Congress that she was notified in June 2015 that Biles, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman had “concerns” about the doctor’s treatment methods. She claims that she passed that information to Steve Penny, then-President of USA Gymnastics, which he disputes. Though, per USA Today, he does admit to knowing Biles was someone they “might want to talk to about Nassar.” But that never happened and Biles then met with the FBI on the matter in the fall of 2016.
In January 2018, Biles publicly announced that she had been abused by Nassar. “I, too, am one of the many survivors that was sexually abused by Larry Nassar,” she said at the time. “There are many reasons that I have been reluctant to share my story, but I know now that it is not my fault.”
The most decorated gymnast of all-time declined to be interviewed for the WSJ story, but her parents gave the paper this statement: “We continue to struggle with how and why this happened, and every time we hear something new like this, it feels like the harshest of betrayals and it is just too painful for our family to talk about openly.”
Biles is not staying silent, however, tweeting about the story herself. “Can’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away…especially when new facts are still coming out,” she wrote. “What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG???” She followed it up with, “Numb is becoming a normal feeling.”
Biles also recently spoke out against a distasteful banner hanging at a University of Michigan fraternity house ahead of a football game with rival Michigan State University, where Nassar worked. “You can’t touch us @LarryNassar,” it read. Biles responded, “unbelievable….. this is the type of stuff that makes me sick to my stomach. I hope the school is taking the proper measurements in investigating this…”
The school announced it “will be pursuing corrective action with those responsible for hanging the banners and those who failed to intervene.”
It has been a turbulent year—to say the least—for USA Gymnastics (USAG), the national governing body for the sport in America: 2018 began with the sentencing of Dr. Larry Nassar to 175 years in prison on multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct after hundreds of brave women came forward about the abuse they suffered while under his care as a team doctor.
On Wednesday, the USAG filed for bankruptcy in an Indiana court. (The headquarters are located in Indianapolis.) A press release posted on their website says that the voluntary filing “will enable USA Gymnastics to continue to support its athletes, to fully operate and meet its responsibilities to the entire membership and to expeditiously resolve the claims made by the survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by Larry Nassar.” It also notes that any claims by victims would be covered by insurance, and not affected by the filing.
“We owe it to the survivors to resolve, fully and finally, claims based on the horrific acts of the past and, through this process, seek to expedite resolution and help them move forward,” Kathryn Carson, who was recently elected chair of the USA Gymnastics Board of Directors, says in the release. “Our sport is safer and stronger thanks to the bravery of these women. The Chapter 11 filing and the expedited resolution of these claims are critical first steps in rebuilding the community’s trust.”
She also says that the organization will continue to support gymnasts at all levels, including future Olympic hopefuls: “We have made significant progress in implementing safety initiatives and are in the process of searching for a new CEO who has the experience to build a leadership team that will restore confidence in USA Gymnastics, and set and execute a clear vision for a successful future.”
High profile gymnasts (and Nassar victims) like Aly Raisman have been publicly critical of the organization’s handling of the Nassar situation and the USAG’s hiring of individuals who they saw as a part of larger problems within the USAG. “I don’t trust the current leadership/board at USAG to pick a new CEO,” Raisman tweeted in October. “They’ve failed us too many times. They’ve shown us their lack of urgency to fix & understand this horrible problem. If changes in leadership/board don’t happen I am terrified that history will repeat itself.” The USAG hired Mary Bono as its new CEO, only to have her resign amidst controversy just four days later.
There are a number of major gymnastics events coming up in early 2019 including national qualifiers and the World Cup. Given the way sensitive matters have been handled thus far and today’s bankruptcy filing, it seems hard to believe this will be resolved before those premiere events.
At the 2018 Women of the Year Summit, a group of women who helped take down former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar—accused of years of sexual abuse—came together on stage to discuss the extensive challenges they faced, before the trial and after his sentencing. As Glamour executive editor Wendy Naugle, who moderated the conversation, said in her introduction, “They’ve changed the way we talk about sexual assault and abuse in this country.”
Rachael Denhollander, the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar of assault, joined Andrea Munford, the detective who led the investigation, and Angela Povilaitis, the assistant Attorney General who led the prosecution. These women reflect but a fraction of the army that came together to bring justice against Nassar: More than 140 people came forward to file civil lawsuits against the disgraced doctor, including Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, alleging sexual abuse under the guise of treatment for injuries. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who presided over the case, came up after Denhollander, Munford, and Povilaitis left the stage. (Because Nassar has asked permission to repeal his sentencing, Judge Aquilina cannot speak to Denhollander, Munford, or the survivors, hence why they appeared separately.)
After hearing over 150 statements ranging two decades, Judge Aquilina sentenced Nassar to up to 175 years in prison. The response to the ruling was instantly huge, which surprised her at the time: “After it was over, I took a break and went and did four probation violations. I had no idea that the world was exploding,” the judge told Glamour in her WOTY profile. “I just did what I always do.”
In the panel titled The Collective Power of the Sister Army, Denhollander, Munford, and Povilaitis discussed how they banded together, prepared for a historic trial, and support survivors of sexual abuse. Then, Judge Aquilina spoke about why she allowed survivors to speak out in the courtroom. Below, the biggest moments of the panel.
PHOTO: Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images
Wendy Naugle, Rachael Denhollander, Andrea Munford, and Angela Povilaitis at Glamour’s Women of the Year Summit
On the culture of silencing survivors.
“I felt sick to my stomach when I made that phone call,” Denhollander remembered of when she first came forward. “I lost ten pounds in a week after giving the first interview.” By the time she came forward, she explained, she had experienced first-hand how survivors of sexual abuse were treated because of her church. Denhollander knew it would be important to come forward with a group, as opposed to a singular, anonymous voice.
“When you’re surrounded by the details, all of the time, it’s incredibly difficult,” Denhollander continued. “But what I was really the most afraid of was the investigation and the prosecutor I would get—I knew I could do everything in my power to move that case forward, but if I didn’t have an investigator and a prosecutor with the integrity and the skill to do what needed to be done there was nothing I could do.”
“When I met her I remember thinking she was so powerful and yet so nervous at the same time,” Munford said. “I had to do a lot of ensuring that I believed her, that I’d take this case [seriously], and that I wasn’t going to brush it aside no matter who it was.”
On why we must believe survivors.
Believing survivors of sexual assault is at the center of Povilaitis’s approach to prosecution of these cases: “A victim’s involvement in the criminal justice system shouldn’t create more trauma,” she told the audience. It’s important, she explained, “that we don’t blame them for their assault. That we allow them to have choices in their participation.” This thinking was essential to the plea agreement her team put together that allowed the survivors to give the victim impact statement during the Nassar trial. “It means the victim is a participant and that they have legitimate choices,” she added.
Povilaitis asked the audience: “If your friend came forward, how would you think about it? Start by believing and supporting that victim with their choices… These cases for decades have been treated with some skepticism. When a woman comes forward, she must have some motive to lie, or something to gain—and, quite frankly, as we’ve seen in the last few months with Dr. Ford’s testimony, there’s so much to lose by coming forward with your story—and no guarantees.”
On the paradigm shifts that need to happen to protect survivors.
Denhollander believes that the first step to encouraging survivors come forward with their stories is making them feel protected when they do. “As a survivor, it’s an incredible healing process to get to the point of verbalizing—when you spoke those words, it makes your assault real,” she shared. However, their experiences aren’t normally treated with care. “When you are in the middle of it, you’re hearing those lies—’you should’ve known better’—so loudly in your head, it’s safer to stay silent. Ultimately, that means the perpetrator keeps getting away.”
Munford also noted it’s important to be aware of how we react to someone’s story of a sexual assault: “A lot of people, they want to distance themselves from that—[they’ll think,] ‘That wouldn’t happen to me. So that victim must’ve done something wrong to have that happen, because I would’ve done something different. I would be safe. I would get out of that situation.’ I think we all need to be aware when we’re doing that, because every time somebody says, ‘she did something wrong’ or ‘she did something to deserve it,’ a survivor of sexual abuse, domestic violence, harassment hears that and it silences them. They think, ‘Well, now I’m not going to tell anybody because that’s the reaction I’m going to get.’”
PHOTO: Astrid Stawiarz / Getty Images
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina at Glamour’s Women of the Year Summit
Judge Aquilina about why she let survivors speak in her courtroom—and why it’s important that they did.
“I don’t see my role as [that of] a punisher—I really look at my role as one of rehabilitation for the safety and healing of any victim,” she said. “I’ve been a judge for fourteen years, and I’ve always let everybody speak. And that is because I know it’s so healing. When you look at the victims, they’re not the only [ones]: Their families, husbands, communities are all victims. It’s the people’s court. They have a right to speak.”
“I have found, throughout my fourteen years of being a judge, that allowing victims the safe place for the defendant to say, ‘You hurt me, I’m mad, and it’s not just me, it’s my husband and my kids…’ the healing begins,” Judge Aquilina continued. “And defendants need to hear that what they did was wrong and the effect [it had.] And that has an effect on defendants—most of them, not Larry Nassar, but most of them get out of prison. If we’ve treated them right, and if we’ve also listened to them, they change in a good way; if we make them angry, we shut them down or shut them out, the same way the sister survivors were shut down and shut up… they come back out and they do worse crimes. So I try to treat the courtroom as a community and give everybody a voice.”
“I would’ve listened to a 1,000 girls if that’s what it took,” she added.
Judge Aquilina on the ripple effect of the Nassar trial.
In response to accusations of judicial impartiality, she recalled hearing from some of her peers who disagreed with allowing so many testimonies in court—but those, she said, “were few and numbered”: “There are always going to be naysayers—I don’t listen to naysayers, I never will and never have. Most of the judges said, ‘I watched you, and I’m going to rethink what I do in the courtroom…because I saw the transformation.’ That’s not just from my community—it’s from around the world.”
“What’s happened now is people come to court… They’ve watched the videos of the Nassar case,” she said. “They use that as the model. They come to my courtroom and tell me what happened. If they’re afraid, they bring their grandmother, they bring their friend… It’s clear to me that that’s what happened. The ripple effect is ongoing… It’s been an incredible feeling that this tragedy has turned into something so valuable.”
Find out more about Glamour‘s 2018 Women of the Year here.
The 2018 ESPY awards—the annual broadcast that honors athletic achievement—took a powerfully emotional turn when it came time to hand out the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, which went to the survivors who bravely spoke out against Larry Nassar, the doctor who earlier this year was convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse and will be spending the rest of his life in prison. During his two trials, more than 100 young women gave powerful victim statements (or had statements read on their behalf) about how his abuse affected their lives.
During Wednesday’s ceremony, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, former Michigan State softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez, and gymnast Sarah Klein, speaking out for the first time tonight, accepted the award.
“We’re about to tell you a story that is difficult to hear,” said Jennifer Garner, introducing the award. “A story about what can happen in sports goes terribly wrong … We have to hear it…to make sure it never happens again.”
“Abuse. Silence. Victory. Abuse. Silence. Victory. The cycle was repeated for generations,” Garner continued in a voiceover of a moving short film featuring many of the women.
All together, 141 women—including Klein, Raisman, and Thomas-Lopez—came to the stage as the video concluded, creating an image that will not easily be forgotten.
“It is such a privilege to stand up here with my sister survivors as we represent hundreds more who are not with us tonight,” Klein said. “Make no mistake we are here on this stage to present an image for the world to see, a portrait of survival, a new vision of courage.” And she did not hold back when it came to calling out the United States Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, and Michigan State University, saying they placed “money and medals above the safety of child athletes.”
Raisman echoed that sentiment in her speech as she listed the many years, beginning in 1997, that someone spoke up about Nassar’s abused and was not believed “in favor of money, medals, and reputation.” She called attention to the inaction of so many over 30 years of Nassar’s crimes. “The ripple effect of our actions, or inactions, can be enormous, spanning generations,” she said. “Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this nightmare is that it could have been avoided … All we needed was one adult to have the integrity to stand between us and Larry Nassar. If just one adult had listened, believed, and acted, the people standing before you on this stage would have never met him. … To all the survivors out there, don’t let anyone rewrite your story. Your truth does matter. You matter. And you are not alone.”
The message may have been hard to hear, but it was also hopeful. “As a survivor, I am here to say that if we can just give person the courage to use their voice, this is worth it,” said Klein. “If one more victim of sexual abuse feels less alone tonight, then our suffering has meaning.”
And Raisman concluded her speech with a simple, yet impactful statement: “We may suffer alone, but we survive together.”
The ESPY audience—which included Nassar prosecutor Angela Povilaitis and detective Andrea Munford, who were thanked by Klein—gave the award recipients a standing ovation. Also in attendance to support the young women—and receive a heartfelt thank you from Raisman: Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who let every victim who wanted to speak do so during the sentencing phase of Nassar’s trial. She famously told Rachel Denhollander, the first to give her statement, “You started the tidal wave. You made all of this happen. You made all of these voices matter…You are the bravest person I have ever had in my courtroom.”
“For 25 years, the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage has been given to those who change the world in important ways and the future will undoubtedly be different because of the actions of these heroic women,” said the show’s producer Maura Mandt, prior to the 2018 ceremony. “This tribute will reflect the awe and admiration these individuals deserve.”
The social media reaction to the “Sister Survivors” was swift and supportive.
Since breaking her silence on Nassar, olympic gymnast Raisman—perhaps Nassar’s most well-known survivor—has continued to speak out on behalf of victims of abuse everywhere and launched an initiative called Flip the Switch, to protect athletes from sexual assault. Thomas-Lopez says that she told trainers about what she endured during Nassar’s “treatments” while she was a student at Michigan State University but was dissuaded from filing a formal complaint. She eventually quit playing softball, the sport that landed her a scholarship to MSU. Klein, too, has continued to stay involved, attending a Senate hearing in June that attempted to uncover who knew what, and when, inside the USA Gymnastics organization.
ESPN the Magazine also made Raisman a cover star of their new “Heroes Issues”.
Ashe was a tennis champion and an activist who used his platform to advocate for human rights—speaking out against apartheid and later sharing his struggle with AIDS. According to ESPN, “Recipients [of the award] reflect the spirit of Arthur Ashe, possessing strength in the face of adversity, courage in the face of peril and the willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter what the cost.”
Past honorees include athletes Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King, news anchor and activist Robin Roberts, and TV personality and activist Caitlyn Jenner. It’s almost always a tear-inducing moment that reminds us all how sports can bring the world together and the impact that athletes’ voices can have for the greater good.
Former U.S. gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was charged with six counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child on Friday, following an investigation conducted into an elite sports center owned by coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi. Nassar is already serving decades in prison after being found guilty of criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography in Michigan, where more than 100 victims recounted stories of abuse during court hearings.
The most recent charges came after five former gymnasts urged an investigation into the Karolyi ranch, which is located in a secluded area of the Sam Houston National Forest, north of Houston. Numerous Olympians have trained at the facility.
On Friday, prosecutors found no evidence of wrongdoing by the Karolyis, but did charge trainer Debra Van Horn with one count of sexual assault as an “acting as a party” with Nassar. Although a statutes of limitations prevented prosecutors from charging USA Gymnastics officials for neglecting to report abuse to authorities, Walker County assistant district attorney Stephanie Stroud shared a strong statement about the organization’s “total failure” to protect athletes.
“We are bound by the law, but that in no way means there was no wrongdoing at the ranch or within the ranks of USAG,” Stroud said. “It is our belief that there was a total failure by USAG to protect the athletes that were part of their program, and to take appropriate action once they were made aware of Dr. Nassar’s actions.”
It’s unclear if Nassar will face trial in Texas. Last month, Michigan State University agreed to pay $500 million to women Nassar abused while working at the university.
Less than three months after disgraced doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to decades in federal prison for the sexual assault of hundreds of young women and girls, Michigan State University has agreed to pay $500 million to the women he abused.
Though the settlement is not yet finalized, the agreement — made by lawyers on behalf of 332 of the victims — was approved Tuesday by the university’s trustees. In January, Nassar was convicted of having used his position as Michigan State doctor and a physician for the United States Olympic gymnastic team to prey upon young women and girls for years, abusing them under the guise of legitimate medical treatment.
“This historic settlement came about through the bravery of more than 300 women and girls who had the courage to stand up and refuse to be silenced,” John Manly, a lawyer representing many of the victims, toldThe New York Times. “It is the sincere hope of all of the survivors that the legacy of this settlement will be far-reaching institutional reform that will end the threat of sexual assault in sports, schools and throughout our society.”
PHOTO: JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP/Getty Images
Larry Nassar
The trial earlier this year generated international interest, captivating viewers across the nation and the world over the seven day duration. Hundreds of women testified against Nassar in a courtroom presided over by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who was heralded by some and accused by others of undermining justice during the proceedings.
Michigan State was accused of covering up Nassar’s abuse and ignoring complaints about him for years; in the aftermath, the university’s president resigned and William D. Strampnel — a former dean of Michigan State University’s osteopathic medical school and Nassar’s longtime supervisor — was charged with criminal sexual conduct, misconduct by a public official and two counts of willful neglect of duty.
“Michigan State is pleased that we have been able to agree in principle on a settlement that is fair to the survivors of Nassar’s crimes,” said Robert Young, a lawyer for the university, told the Times. “We appreciate the hard work both sides put into the mediation, and the efforts of the mediator, which achieved a result that is responsible and equitable.”
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