One doesn’t want to get in the habit of ordinally ranking all of the systemic sexual assaults and rapes and founded allegations that have swept college athletics programs recently. Throw a dart and you’ll hit Vanderbilt, Penn State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, LSU, Ohio State, Baylor, Oregon State and a host of others. But, one of the more breathtaking cases to cross the wires has been the sordid tale of Michigan State/USA Gymnastics’ team doctor, Larry Nassar.
It is expansive in both its scope (hundreds of victims, spanning decades) and for the institutional complicity by USAG and Michigan State — a degree of willful blindness and outright enabling that functionally made those two institutions accomplices to the molestation of hundreds of girls and young women.