U-M agrees to pay $490M to Anderson abuse survivors
The University of Michigan announced Friday it had agreed to pay $490 million to the more than 1,000 claimants who alleged they'd been abused by former U-M physician and team doctor Robert Anderson.
Friday's final agreement follows a tentative settlement reached in January, and it required consent from 98% of the claimants, "a milestone recently reached," U-M said in a news release Friday.
"The University of Michigan offers its heartfelt apology for the abuse perpetrated by the late Robert Anderson. We hope this settlement helps the healing process for survivors," said U-M Board of Regents Chair Paul Brown, in a statement. Reaching this stage has taken more than two years, Brown said.
"Our work is not done until U-M is considered the leader in creating a campus environment that is safe for everyone," Brown said. Claimants and their lawyers will decide how to divide settlement funds. The university has no role in that process, the release said.
U-M President Mary Sue Coleman added in a statement: "This settlement allows the university to protect future generations of students and everyone in the university community. It complements a separate settlement reached earlier this year that adds a Coordinated Community Response Team to the best practices now in place." she said.
The legal case that resulted in plans to form the response team, concluded in August, resulted from a separate class-action lawsuit, the release said. The response team is to have 30 to 40 representatives from U-M's campuses in Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint, meeting regularly to give advice on how to prevent and address sexual misconduct.
More:Group of Nassar survivors support outside investigation into MSU Title IX concerns
U-M's release touted the formation of the response team as having been endorsed by experts, and called it "a best practice for colleges and universities that seek to enact serious reforms." The group is to meet at least three times a year to "to assess, plan, monitor and evaluate sexual misconduct prevention and response efforts," the release said. That follows the university's adoption, in September 2021, of new policies governing prohibited sexual and gender-based misconduct, and spelling out how the university will react to allegations against students, employees and "third parties," and how to report misconduct confidentially, the release said.
According to Friday's release, fresh attention was paid to:• Adopting policies covering protections from retaliation and regulating relationships between supervisors and those they supervise.• Enhancing the vetting of candidates before hiring or promotion.
In January, the U-M Board of Regents unanimously voted to fire then-President Mark Schlissel after an investigation found “inappropriate conduct” with an employee, the board said. That conduct amounted to nonsexual emails to a female subordinate that alluded to friendship and longing.
In 2020, Martin Philbert, the former University of Michigan provost who was fired from his post and banned from campus amid allegations of sexual misconduct, gave up his tenured faculty position and retired at the end of the academic year.
Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: U-M agrees to pay $490M to defendants of sex-abusing MD
