Some Michigan State Faculty Ask Ousted General Counsel to Decline Pay Package
Robert Young, former general counsel of Michigan State University. Courtesy photo.
A small group of Michigan State University faculty is asking that former General Counsel Robert Young, who helped lead the school through the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, reject the nearly million-dollar payout he is receiving after being ousted earlier this month.
The request is led by Catherine Lindell, an associate professor in the college of natural science’s department of integrative biology. Lindell said in an interview Wednesday that so far Young has not responded to her. Neither did he respond to messages from Corporate Counsel. The university declined to comment.
Lindell said she sent a letter to the general counsel’s office recommending that Young reject the payout “because it was a poor time and context for someone to be getting such a large payout.”
She said the letter was signed by about 200 people, who were mostly faculty members joined by a few students and staff. Lindell said she was promised the letter would be forwarded to the ousted general counsel. She also sent copies to the board of trustees and various administrators.
Young had made a three-year contract part of his terms for accepting the job during the volatile period eight months ago when the school had already lost its previous president, its general counsel and an acting general counsel due to the scandal. Under the contract, he received $425,000 a year, with the full three years' worth of salary due if he were terminated without cause, which he was.
“We understand that there was a contract,” Lindell said, “but we made the recommendation that he decline the payment, given the crisis that Michigan State is going through.”
Lindell said the university’s students and faculty will be dealing with the emotional and financial effects of the scandal for years to come.
Young negotiated a $500 million settlement with over 300 victims of the scandal, in which Nassar, a school sports doctor, abused more young women athletes under the guise of medical treatment. The university also faces millions of dollars in legal bills.
Although the university carried insurance against such claims, the insurance companies are fighting against paying for the settlement or for legal fees because the school failed to obey federal law requiring it to report abuse claims.
A recent U.S. Department of Education investigation found at least 11 abuse complaints to coaches, faculty or other university employees that were not reported to proper authorities or thoroughly investigated. The report blamed the office of general counsel for the lack of compliance, while under a previous general counsel.
Young, a former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, was first hired in February 2018 by interim president John Engler to be special counsel to handle the Nassar legal matters. At the time, Young was of counsel in the Lansing office of Dickinson Wright, and the school’s general counsel had just departed under pressure.
Young later told Corporate Counsel that Engler, a former governor of Michigan who had previously appointed Young to the court, was an old friend who offered him the general counsel job at that time. Young turned it down.
Then the school’s acting general counsel resigned three months later, and Engler again asked Young to take the job and help the university through the scandal. This time Young took the position on June 1, 2018, after the board of trustees agreed to his three-year contract.
The board of trustees asked Engler to resign in mid-January. On Feb. 1, new acting President Satish Udpa abruptly fired Young, giving no public reason. Neither the school nor Young would discuss it. A search continues for his replacement.
