Quid Pro Quo, Again

Dr. Lawrence Gerard Nassar’s molestation of young girls dates back to the 1990’s and at least 14 of his victims reported him to various figures of authority at MSU over the intervening years. In 2014, one of those authority figures finally took a Nassar victim seriously enough to report him to MSU’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives. OIII was the MSU bureaucracy then responsible for investigating Title IX discrimination complaints. That accuser also reported the incident to MSU’s police department two months later.

The MSU Title IX investigation was a whitewash. The author of the report, Kristine M. Moore (currently MSU’s Assistant General Counsel) went so far as to issue two reports – a more truthful one to Nassar and another, abbreviated version to the victim. At some point in 2014, recently departed MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon was informed of the circumstances and did little or nothing. Nassar continued to molest his female patients; at least 12 more before he was finally arrested.

Some time in 2015, MSU’s campus police department finally made a criminal referral to the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office. Stuart Dunning III’s office did nothing, perhaps because he was just too preoccupied with his much beloved prostitutes. And his subordinates were perhaps too busy covering for his wretched behavior. In March 2016, the Ingham County Sheriff arrested Dunning and his lawyer brother for pandering. Dunning plead out and resigned from office.

Ingham County Circuit Court judges selected Gretchen Whitmer, a current Democratic candidate for Michigan Governor, to serve out the remainder of Dunning’s term. Whitmer averred that Dunning’s distractions did not affect any ICPO case and immediately signaled her virtue by establishing a new domestic violence unit within the ICPO. You are allowed to be skeptical.

MSU Campus Police Chief Jim Dunlap returned to the new, interim Ingham County Prosecutor – Ms. Whitmer – with his department’s referral of the Nassar molestation incidents. He got blown off by Whitmer and her chief assistant, Lisa McCormick. Dunlap was convinced that Whitmer’s office was not interested in pursuing the molestation charges because they were “much more difficult to take to trial” than the kiddie porn charges then being developed by the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan.

Whitmer and McCormick were entirely content to allow Nassar to be prosecuted for kiddie porn by the Feds, but both now claim they did not file molestation charges against Nassar because of ‘jurisdictional issues’.

Dunlap stalked off and contacted Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office that same evening. He wanted Nassar fully charged for all his offenses. AG Schuette had no qualms about going after Nassar. At the time, there were only 5 or 6 molestation complaints against Nassar, all of which arose from MSU. The Eaton County Twistar cases were developed after Schuette took over the prosecution. There were no ‘jurisdictional issues’ when Whitmer blew off Dunlap.

The rest is history. But is it the entire history?

The key player behind the 2014 MSU Title IX investigation whitewash of Nassar was his superior at MSU: Dr. William D. Strampel, the Dean of MSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine from 2002 until December of last year. He must have vouched for Dr. Nassar’s ‘methods’, allowing Kristine Moore to officially conclude that Nassar’s molestations were “not of a sexual nature” in both versions of her Title IX report. Despite this deceit, Strampel dictated special protocols for Dr. Nassar’s future treatments. Of course, he had no intention of following up on those protocols.  Moore made it clear in her undisclosed version that Nassar’s ‘methods’ would open up MSU to liability.  All three knew what was going on: Moore, Strampel, and of course Nassar.

Strampel suddenly resigned from his position as Dean of the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine in December 2017 as the Nassar case exploded across national headlines.  At the same time, he took medical leave from his faculty position at MSU COM – however he remains on the MSU COM faculty. The new Interim President of MSU, John Engler, just took the first step to revoke Strampel’s faculty tenure for “not act[ing] with the level of professionalism we expect from individuals who hold senior leadership positions”. An obvious reference to Strampel’s protection of Nassar during the 2014 Title IX investigation.

We know much less about Strampel’s involvement with Whitmer’s 2016 failure to charge Nassar, but scrutiny here is sorely needed. Strampel has been a major donor to Democratic candidates in the Lansing area:

Strampel Campaign Contributions Page 1
Strampel Campaign Contributions Page 2
Strampel Campaign Contributions Page 3

About $ 10,700 in direct contributions to Democratic candidates since 2000 and another $ 1,765 to a Truscott Rossman managed MSU PAC.. He has been especially generous to Gretchen Whitmer, donating $ 3,650 to her campaigns since 2003. $ 3,300 of that in 2017 to Ms. Whitmer’s current gubernatorial campaign. Deep gratitude or quid pro quo?

Strampel made only two itemized contributions, totaling $ 450, to Republicans. $ 200 to Battle Creek’s John ‘RINO Joe’ Schwartz back in 2002 and $ 250 to the House Republican Campaign Committee in 2011. His political sympathies and connections are pretty evident from his lopsided contribution history.  These contribution numbers are big enough to convince any reasonable observer that Strampel was well connected to the Lansing Democratic establishment, and Gretchen Whitmer in particular. Note here that Whitmer has not disavowed Strampel or his contributions.

Strampel would have had Whitmer’s ear in 2016 when she was deciding what to do with the major embarrassment working in his college. An embarrassment he covered up in 2014. Strampel might even have gotten to Whitmer before Chief Dunlap. Strampel probably thought that hanging Nassar on the kiddie porn charge exclusively in 2016 would satisfy the public and avoid undue scrutiny of his baleful role in the 2014 Title IX investigation.

Strampel is the very exemplar of the clowns turning our universities into delusional Marxist indoctrination camps. During the same period Strampel was contributing heavily to the Lansing Democratic establishment, he was a key player in a Stalinist faculty purge at MSU called ‘Advancing Diversity through the Alignment of Policies and Practices’ (ADAPP). ADAPP was “a sweeping effort to align [MSU’s] values of diversity and quality with academic human resource policies and practices at the department- (or unit-) level.” In plain text, a Stalinist purge of the few remaining conservative MSU faculty.

ADAPP was funded by a $ 4 million Institutional Transformation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE Program in 2008. It was so successful that it was institutionalized by MSU in 2014. No more Federal money needed. Somehow, ADAPP failed to align MSU’s values with fundamental human morality in the Nassar case.

Nassar himself does not appear to have had any particular political bent, or made any political contributions. He didn’t need to. He was protected from above. MSU knows this. They are furiously 404ing Strampel’s online history. There is no more fitting end to a Stalinist’s career.

Justice here needs to go well beyond Nassar.