A lawsuit seeking documents from Michigan State University over its handling of sex abuse by former sports doctor Larry Nassar claims university officials signed “deceitful, manipulative, and false” affidavits related to their disclosure decisions.
On Monday, attorneys for Parents of Sisters Survivors Engage (POSSE) submitted new email evidence they claim shows members of MSU’s Board of Trustees may have committed perjury. Lawyers say they anonymously received an unredacted message sent by MSU Trustee Brianna Scott on April 19, indicating that the board had decided to withhold the Nassar documents in a previous closed-door meeting.
“The majority of the [Board of Trustees] indicated very clearly on Monday that we were not in agreement with releasing the privileged documents. Not once was the [Board of Trustees] asked if we wished for this to go to a vote,” Scott wrote in an email submitted to the court.
In written affidavits to the Michigan Court of Claims, Scott and other MSU trustees stated that the board did not vote or take any formal action during the April meeting, indicating that informal board meetings are “informational, not decisional.”
Michigan State University did not answer a request for comment for this story.
POSSE attorneys say the affidavits are “misleading” and the board’s decisions during its April 17 informal meeting intended to bypass Michigan’s Open Meetings Act requirements.
“The failure of the Board to have the Constitutionally-required public vote detrimentally affects that substantial interest in a manner different from the public at large. The unlawful secret vote allowed the Trustees to make the decision to protect the University’s financial interests, without having to face the public and explain why they were valuing money over vindicating survivors’ rights,” wrote attorney Azzam Elder in the Court of Claims brief.
POSSE’s lawsuit calls for the state court to repeal the university’s closed-door decisions and to require the board to vote on releasing documents from MSU’s investigation into Nassar. The complaint also seeks university emails and other communications made by trustees in April.
Monday's brief was entered to oppose the university's request to toss the lawsuit.
“It's unfortunate that we see the Board of Trustees, again, in a situation where they're covering up and trying to obscure the truth of what really happened and what they're doing with what happened,” POSSE’s executive director Valerie von Frank said.
Earlier this year, the MSU Board of Trustees agreed to withhold the Nassar documents after receiving a renewed request from Attorney General Dana Nessel asking for their release. The board maintains the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege as part of its ongoing litigation with United Educators, which was once the university’s biggest insurance carrier.
“We want the records as part of the investigation, not for some kind of retribution or to have a widespread media inquiry, but so that the Attorney General can look at them and ask questions about who knew at the university what this man was doing to our children,” von Frank said.
