even include statements from
survivors’ family members and
support systems.
McCaul delivered her impact
statement
Friday
afternoon
with her dance instructor by
her side.
“This past year and a half
has been, without a doubt, the
most difficult and traumatic
period of my life,” McCaul said
in her statement.
During the first week of
sentencing, an investigation
from
The
Detroit
News
revealed MSU President Lou
Anna Simon and 13 other
MSU officials knew of the
survivor reports and Title IX
investigations into Nassar in
2014. State legislators, media
outlets and students began to
call for Simon’s resignation.
McCaul’s
impact
statement
echoed that sentiment.
“In the aftermath of Nassar’s
crimes,
calls
have
been
renewed for MSU President,
Lou Anna K. Simon, to resign,”
McCaul said. “The fact that she
has yet to do so is insulting to
the hundreds of survivors like
me — it is, in fact, 42 months,
countless
slanderous
public
statements by Jason Cody, calls
from numerous Congressmen
and women and one $150,000
slap-in-the-face of a raise too
late.”
According to a 2016 lawsuit,
one of the first survivors — an
Olympic gymnast — stated
Nassar sexually abused her in
1994, years before McCaul was
even born.
“How many little girls could
have been spared from this
lifelong battle,” McCaul said, “if
someone at the university had
done the bare minimum and
listened?”
Though the hearing extended
beyond Friday, McCaul and
many fellow survivors decided
to stay until Nassar received
his final sentence. McCaul will
have missed nearly two weeks
of school for the hearing, but
supporting the women who
continued to come forward was
too important to her.
“Coming back I feel is really
important because a lot of
statements that have been given
in the past few days reference
the community of survivors
and how people feel more
comfortable sharing their story,
and they only found their voice
as a result of people that came
before,” McCaul said. “So I
want to be here and show them
were still here for them I want
to learn their names I want to
give them a hug, show them that
we are here for them.”
McCaul’s
lawyers
originally brought seven
of the survivors together.
The group went through
mediation
together
and
formed
a
lasting
connection.
“But we really bonded
in
a
way
that
was
unanticipated,”
McCaul
said. “We knew that we
would get along but we talk
every day, we’ve gone out to
dinner together, we’ve gone
over to each other’s houses.
We speak every day. It kind
of set the grounds like we
need to start a community,
we need the relief that we
felt from meeting each
other.”
One
of
the
women
McCaul
spoke
with
was
Jessica
Smith,
a
survivor who created the
#MeTooMSU
Facebook
group, a forum to share
stories and raise awareness
of the culture of abuse
plaguing MSU’s campus.
McCaul
demanded
Aquilina
deliver
the
strongest sentence.
“Judge Aquilina, I implore
you to impose a sentence
against this man which sends
an unmistakable message to
those who perpetrate heinous
crimes against young people,”
McCaul said. “Whether they
molest and maim, or look the
other way to protect their
Green-and-White.”
Aquilina took note of the
powerful community of women
and girls she dubbed “sister
survivors” she saw in her
courtroom. Following the final
impact statement from survivor
Rachael
Denhollander,
the
first woman to go public with
accusations in 2016, Aquilina
said, “You built an army of
survivors, and you are the five-
star general.”
No one knew what to expect
going into the first day of
sentencing. But McCaul had an
idea of how emotional it would
be.
“We had no way to prepare
ourselves for what this was
going to look like and that
first day was so difficult, it
was so cathartic, so intensely
emotional that it was really
hard to deal with,” McCaul said.
“And I don’t think — and I mean
media cover can only do so
much, live stream can only do
so much — but it is so different
to watch it from a screen than
to be in that room and feel that
energy. And to be in a room
with him. To see Larry after all
of this is crazy. “
Eight days and 156 impact
statements
later,
each
as
powerful as the one before,
Aquilina sentenced Nassar to
40 to 175 years in state prison.
Before
delivering
her
sentence, Aquilina reminded
the room and all watching on
the livestream, 1 in 10 children
are abused before their 18th
birthday, calling for change.
“Speak
out
like
these
survivors, become part of the
army.”
2 — Friday, January 26, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
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Every Friday, one Daily news staffer will give a behind
the scenes look at one of this week’s stories. This
week, Public policy junior Andrew Hiyama covered the
sentencing of Larry Nassar, the MSU doctor who pleaded
guilty to molesting hundreds of his patients.
“By the time we got there, the courtroom was already
insanely crowded and there was only room for one of the
three reporters we brought to actually get in. The other two
of us had to stay in an overflow room with the proceedings
being shown on a TV. Even so, not physically being there,
all of the victims’ testimonies were incredibly powerful.
Aly Raisman, an Olympic gold medalist, stood up there and
told Larry Nassar, who in some ways had ruined the lives of
hundreds of women and girls, that he was nothing. Overall, it
was a very intense experience.“
Public policy junior Andrew Hiyama, “Nassar sentenced to
40-175 years in prison for sex abuse”
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QUOTE OF THE WE E K
“
The choice to label the series ‘Free Speech and
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important efforts to make our campus a more equitable
place where we confront white supremacy head on and
don’t just throw around empty, sanitized language that
allows us to celebrate an increasingly hollow-sounding
concept of ‘inclusion’.“
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