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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puzzle by sudokusyndication.com

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”

BE HIND THE STORY

TUESDAY:
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THURSDAY:
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FRIDAY:

Behind the Story

WEDNESDAY:

This Week in History

MONDAY:

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QUOTE OF THE WE E K 

“
The choice to label the series ‘Free Speech and 

Inclusion’ is not only complicit with the framing imposed 
by right-wing agitators, but also risks to undermine the 
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’.“

Anne Berg, History Lecutrer

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