Former University of Michigan students and athletes on Wednesday called on the institution to conduct a full investigation into one of its former doctors accused of decades of sexual assault.
Richard Anderson, who worked at the Ann Arbor-based university from 1966 to 2003, is accused of assaulting hundreds of students and athletes.
He died in 2008.
Read also: Sexual assault, rape and ordinary sexism in business school: an investigative book reveals the underside of campuses
Tad DeLuca, who claims he was victimized by Richard Anderson in the 1970s when he was on the wrestling team, has called for an investigation into
"Michigan's culture of sexual abuse protection."
He called on the university's board of directors, which meets on Thursday, to cooperate with the justice system in this state in the north of the United States.
"We will continue until justice is served"
, said Jon Vaughn, a member of the football team from 1988 to 1991.
"From victims of abuse, we become survivors who take action"
, he added.
A report, produced by a law firm at the request of the university, concluded in May that Richard Anderson
"had engaged in sexually abusive behavior with his patients on multiple occasions."
Several lawsuits are initiated, and the university said Wednesday it was
"actively engaged in a confidential mediation process, guided by the court, with the victims of Dr. Anderson".
The scandal notably threatens to tarnish the reputation of the iconic coach of the American football team, Bo Schembechler, who died in 2006. One of his children, Matt Schembechler, recently revealed that he was assaulted by the doctor at the age of 10 years. He claims to have warned his father, who would have done nothing.
Other members of his family, on the contrary, defended Bo Schembechler, assuring that he
"would never have tolerated"
such acts. Another local institution, Michigan State University (MSU), has been rocked by the biggest sex scandal in US sports history. Larry Nassar, the former doctor of the US gymnastics team who was sentenced in 2018 to a heavy prison sentence for sexually assaulting at least 265 victims over two decades, served at MSU as a therapist. That same year, the University of Southern California (USC) Los Angeles agreed to pay $ 215 million in compensation to victims of a campus-employed ex-gynecologist accused of sexual abuse by hundreds. of women.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/NS3ZU25XBNH4BJLTJPBCRCLEXE.jpg)
