Similarly to the faculty open letter, 
the student open letter calls on the 
University to issue a public apology 
on Sheng’s behalf and reinstate him 
as instructor of the undergraduate 
composition course. 
Sheng also had no comment on the 
student letter.
Cho and LaGrand told The 
Michigan Daily they decided to write 
the letter after noticing the impact the 
incident was having on the culture at 
SMTD and Sheng’s career. 
Cho said while Sheng should have 
provided proper contextualization 
and warning for students prior to the 
showing of “Othello,” the University 
could have allowed students to openly 
discuss the incident rather than 
simply having Sheng step down.
“(His stepping down) just cuts 
off any opportunity for healing, 
understanding, and (the ability) 
for people … to move on,” Cho said. 
“That’s why in the letter we asked for 
his reinstatement.”
LaGrand said it is important that 
faculty members have the autonomy 
to talk about and address issues of 
racism without fear of administrative 
repercussions. 
“In order for there to be progress 
in society — for us to be a progressive 
institution — you actually have to 
talk about the things that we think 
are unjust or wrong about history,” 
LaGrand said. “And if you feel like 
even bringing them up might cause 
you harm to your career or to your 
reputation, then we’re not going to 
progress as a student body or as a 
faculty body.” 
In a statement in an October 
2021 Central Faculty Governance 

Newsletter, the Senate Advisory 
Committee 
on 
University 
Affairs expressed their support 
for 
implementing 
a 
restorative 
justice approach to Sheng’s case. 
This approach would include a 
professionally mediated discussion 
between Sheng, the composition 
students in the class where “Othello” 
was shown and administration 
representatives. 
“The discussion would seek to 
arrive at an understanding of each 
party’s perspective, an agreement 
about what happened, and a course 
of corrective action,” SACUA wrote. 
“Such an approach would help 
Prof. Sheng and the university have 
an opportunity to learn and make 
amends. It would also provide the 
affected students a measure of justice 
and give them a critical say in how 
justice is enacted.” 
Cho said she noticed the effect 
the incident had on SMTD culture 
and community, including faculty 
members who are concerned with 
whether this incident is reflective of 
how sensitive issues will be addressed 
in the future. 
“T 
 
he students involved were 
understandably talking about a 
safe environment in the classroom, 
but we also need to consider a 
safe environment for everyone, 
including the faculty,” Cho said. 
“We’re a community here. It’s 
not teachers against students — 
we all want a holistic collective 
environment.” 
Correction: A previous version 
of this article incorrectly introduced 
Evan Chambers as the chair of the 
composition department. He is a 
professor — Erik Santos is the chair.
Daily 
Staff 
Reporter 
George 
Weykamp 
can 
be 
reached 
at 
gweykamp@umich.edu.

Since allegations of sexual abuse 
against late University of Michigan 
athletic physician Robert Anderson 
were first publicized in February 
2020, hundreds of individual law-
suits and two class-action lawsuits 
have been filed against the Univer-
sity and the Board of Regents by 
survivors. 
The University’s Division of 
Public Safety and Security’s annual 
security and fire safety report from 
2020 said that 97.7% of the total 
2110 reports of rape and fondling 
that year stemmed from Anderson. 
The allegations against Anderson 
— from more than 950 people total 
— may comprise the largest scale of 
sexual abuse by a single person in 
U.S. history. 
The Michigan Daily broke down 
the progress of these lawsuits, as 
well as other current actions by sur-
vivors to demand accountability and 
acknowledgement from the Univer-
sity. 
Court-ordered mediation
The survivors — the plaintiffs of 
the lawsuits — and their attorneys 
have been in court-ordered media-
tion with the University since Octo-
ber 2020. Little is known of the 
status of the mediation process 
or expected resolution date, since 
the mediation process takes place 
outside the courtroom and public 
records are not available. There are 
also strict confidentiality measures 
in place that bar all parties from dis-
cussing updates with the press. 
While survivors are unable to 
discuss the mediation, they have 
been actively sharing the impacts of 
abuse and protesting the Universi-
ty’s handling of allegations of abuse.
Anderson survivors rally outside 
Schlissel’s house, demand Univer-
sity accountability
Jonathan Vaughn, a former Uni-
versity running back, is a survivor 
of Anderson currently leading a 
protest and sit-in outside University 
President Mark Schlissel’s house. 
Vaughn expressed frustration at 
the nearly 14-month long media-
tion process. In an interview with 
The Daily, Vaughn compared this 
process to sexual misconduct alle-
gations against former U-M Pro-
vost Martin Philbert, which was 
settled within a year of the Univer-
sity being made aware of the allega-
tions. 
“(The case) really hasn’t gone 
anywhere,” Vaughn said. “(It’s 
been) a lot of game-planning by 
Michigan, the office of Presi-
dent, the Board of Regents as well 
as the attorneys, which we under-
stand. That’s kind of their strategy. 
We understand it, but that doesn’t 
mean we accept it. There really 
hasn’t been any substantive nego-
tiation at all.”

While The Daily is unable to 
verify these claims due to the pri-
vate nature of the mediation, pub-
lic records and interviews prior to 
the start of mediation shed some 
light on how the litigation is pro-
gressing.
Individual lawsuits against the 
University
Thousands of accusations of 
abuse by Anderson have been 
lodged since attorney Michael Cox 
filed the first claim against the Uni-
versity and the Board of Regents on 
March 4, 2020, on behalf of plaintiff 
“John Doe MC-1.” 

Division of Public Safety and 
Security releases annual Security 
and Fire Safety report, finds most 
crimes stem from Anderson reports
In the last year and a half, more 
than 
850 
individual 
lawsuits 
against the University — collec-
tively referred to as a mass tort case 
— were filed by 60 attorneys. The 
individual cases were filed in the 
U.S. District Court for the Eastern 
District of Michigan and assigned to 
Judge Victoria A. Roberts.
The court named attorneys 
Michael Cox, Mick Grewal, Rich-
ard Schulte and Steve Drew to lead 
the mass tort case. The court also 
designated a 12-attorney steering 
committee — attorney Parker Sti-
nar confirmed his membership on 
the committee to The Daily. Stinar 
is representing approximately 200 
plaintiffs.
Cox wrote in an email to The 
Daily that the group of 60 attorneys 
are “working together as a group or 
coalition in negotiating a settlement 
through mediation with the Univer-
sity.” 
Cox is representing over 100 
plaintiffs suing the University, 
including Vaughn. In an interview 
with The Daily, Vaughn said he con-
nected with Cox through a referral 
from a former teammate three to 
four days after the first public story 
on the Anderson case. Vaughn said 
he decided to use his name in the 
lawsuit in order to humanize the 
experiences presented.

“I didn’t look at it as bravery,” 
Vaughn said. “My name’s not John 
Doe and you’re not going to refer 
to me as John Doe. I think that is 
the number one tactic that massive 
brands and powerful people use to 
keep their brands out in front. When 
you’re faceless, nameless and voice-
less, the general public can’t really 
identify with someone that’s anony-
mous.”
In April 2020, Cox and attorney 
David Shea submitted an emer-
gency motion to depose Thomas 
Easthope, the former associate vice 
president for the Division of Student 

Life who worked with Anderson at 
the University in the 1970s and 80s. 
The deposition, a court process held 
to collect evidence, occurred in July 
2020.
During the deposition, East-
hope said he fired Anderson in 
1979 following complaints of sexual 
abuse, but his boss, Vice President 
for Student Services Henry John-
son, rehired Anderson. Anderson 
remained at the University until 
his retirement in 2003 — he died in 
2008. 
Cox emphasized how much this 
deposition revealed about the Uni-
versity’s efforts to hide Anderson’s 
abuse. 
“The deposition of Tom East-
hope demonstrated the long-run-
ning comprehensive cover-up of Dr. 
Anderson’s predatory conduct at the 
highest levels of UM’s administra-
tion,” Cox wrote.
A lawsuit from March 2020 
also alleged that Assistant Athletic 
Director Paul Schmidt knew of 
Anderson’s abuse while Anderson 
was employed by the University but 
did not speak out against him.
In May and September 2020, 
the University’s defense counsel, 
Jones Day, submitted a motion to 
dismiss the mass tort case entirely, 
citing Anderson’s death in 2008. 
Day also sought to dismiss the 
case due to the fact that more 
than three decades had passed 
since some of the abuse allegedly 
occurred. 

In October 2020, Judge Roberts 
ordered the University to withdraw 
its motion and prohibited further 
motions to dismiss from being sub-
mitted. 
In March 2020, the University 
hired the law firm WilmerHale to 
conduct an independent investiga-
tion into the Anderson allegations. 
WilmerHale is the same firm used 
to conduct an investigation into alle-
gations against Philbert.
Independent report finds 37 
years of sexual abuse by former 
U-M doctor Robert Anderson
As part of the investigation, 
letters were sent out to around 
300,000 alumni, asking them to 
provide information to Wilmer-
Hale. During the investigation, 
Judge Roberts ordered the Univer-
sity to clarify to the alumni notified 
about the Anderson abuse that there 
was ongoing litigation regarding 
the allegations. In May 2021, Wilm-
erHale released its report, which 
detailed decades of abuse by Ander-
son and attempts by the University 
administration and athletic depart-
ment to suppress these allegations. 
In 
the 
WilmerHale 
report, 
Schmidt told the firm that he held 
Anderson “in high regard” and 
“would have given Dr. Anderson 
the benefit of the doubt” if a stu-
dent raised concerns of Anderson’s 
examinations.
Judge Roberts ordered the par-
ties to enter mediation, a method of 
reaching a resolution between par-
ties without going to trial, last Octo-
ber. The court-appointed mediator 
is attorney Robert F. Riley. 
Class action lawsuits against the 
University
The first class-action lawsuit was 
filed March 9, 2020, by lead attorney 
Annika Martin of Lieff Cabraser 
Heimann & Bernstein, along with 
law firms Sauder Schelkopf and the 
Miller Law Firm. 
The class-action lawsuit was 
filed on behalf of all survivors of 
Anderson’s abuse under the repre-
sentative plaintiff and anonymous 
Anderson survivor, John Doe. It 
was amended on Sept. 10, 2020, 
to include another representative 
plaintiff and anonymous survivor, 
Richard Roe, in addition to the 
information gathered during the 
deposition of Easthope. 
In an interview with The Daily 
in September 2020, Martin spoke 
of the differences between class-
action cases and mass tort cases. 
Martin said individual cases are 
limited to monetary settlements 
and often provoke a first-to-
come-forward mentality among 
survivors, highlighting the com-
pensation disparities between the 
first group of survivors of Michigan 
State University Doctor Larry Nas-
sar to come forward as opposed to 
later groups. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, November 3, 2021 — 3

ADMINISTRATION
It may be the most sexual abuse allegations 
against a single person in U.S. history. What’s 
happening with Robert Anderson case? 

ELISSA WELLE 
Daily Staff Reporter

Survivors of former athletic doctor have filed individual, class-
action lawsuits against University and Board of Regents

BRIGHT SHENG
From Page 1

When Ann Arbor Public Schools 
announced a shift to remote learn-
ing for students in A2STEAM 
schools on Oct. 25, AAPS parent and 
LSA junior Patrick Gallagher said 
the announcement’s short notice 
was hard to work around. Gallagher 
said his first-grade son was not able 
to complete school work that day 
due to the online format.
“We were notified at 7:30(a.m.), 
which was 40 minutes before the 
start of the school,” Gallagher said. 
“I know a lot of parents who are 
coming from different parts of Ann 
Arbor and different parts of Washt-
enaw County, and they leave the 
house way before 7:30 to get out 
here. They were already on their 
way, there were people getting ready 
at the bus stop. It was a nightmare.”
The announcement cited a high 
amount of staff illness and short-
ages, leading to a move to remote, 
asynchronous learning. Gallagher, 
however, said the shift to remote 

instruction was not well-thought-
out, especially without proper 
learning equipment.
“They said, ‘Hey, you can do 
remote learning?’ but he is in first 
grade,” Gallagher said. “They didn’t 
hand out any devices. There was no 
real plan. They were not prepared 
for this. This was not a day of learn-
ing. My son didn’t do any school 
work.”
Prior to the Oct. 25 closure, the 
district announced on Oct. 21 that 
three of its schools — Skyline High 
School, Huron High School and 
Forsythe Middle School — would all 
have an emergency closing on Oct. 
22 due to staff shortages. Parents 
and students were notified at 9 p.m. 
the previous night. 
“This is an emergency measure 
made necessary due to numerous 
unfilled positions across the dis-
trict and an inability to fully staff 
our schools for tomorrow,” AAPS 
Superintendent 
Jeanice 
Swift 
wrote. “Taking this step to remote 
learning with these three schools 
that were most critically impacted 
by staffing challenges, will allow 

the AAPS to redeploy substitute 
personnel to assist with the short-
age of staff across other buildings 
and stretch the resources to staff the 
remaining schools.”
Most recently, on Oct. 27, Swift 
announced that all schools in the 
district will be closed on Nov. 1 to 
“safely staff” the buildings. Swift 
said this time of year also typically 
experiences low attendance rates 
due to Halloween and the Special 
Election school holiday on Nov. 2. 
Ann Arbor resident Lena Kauff-
man is the parent of a 10th-grader at 
Skyline High School and a seventh-
grader at Forsythe Middle School. 
She said her youngest had a hard 
time with the shift to remote learn-
ing, especially after experiencing a 
full year of remote instruction. 
“It was a huge surprise, espe-
cially to my middle schooler who 
reacted very strangely, which I later 
heard from friends that their middle 
schoolers also had a hard time with 
it,” Kauffman said. “She didn’t trust 
the school was going to be back the 
next day because she had this expe-
rience from the previous year … It 

made me really sad that she didn’t 
trust her school district and the 
grown-ups anymore.”
Ypsilanti resident Robyn Kaiser 
is the parent of a 10th-grader at 
Skyline High School. Kaiser said 
her son was frustrated with the 
move online and anxious about the 
possibility of more frequent clos-
ings in the future.
“(My son) was frustrated,” Kaiser 
said. “The concern was that (Swift) 
was just going to keep doing this and 
they are not going to be able to go to 
school and they will go backwards 
to where they were last year. It does 
definitely provide a level of anxiety 
for him.”
Swift sent an Oct. 22 update to 
the AAPS community, in which 
she said 112 teacher positions were 
unfilled, leading to a shift in remote 
learning.
“We take any decisions to tem-
porarily transition to remote learn-
ing very seriously as we continue to 
prioritize daily in-school learning in 
the AAPS,” Swift wrote. 

Some AAPS parents, frustrated over recent school 
closures, criticize administration’s planning

CAROLINE WANG 

Daily Staff Reporter

Superintendent cites staffing shortages as reason for school closures

Investigators at the University 
of Michigan’s Institute for Social 
Research and Graham Sustainability 
Institute 
launched 
the 
sixth 
Sustainability 
Cultural 
Indicators 
Program survey on Oct. 12. The 
survey tracks the degree to which 
members of the campus community 
are 
aware 
of 
the 
University’s 
sustainability measures and also asks 
about respondents’ personal actions to 
reduce their carbon footprint. 
The University began sending 
these annual surveys to students and 
faculty in 2012. The last version of 
the survey was in 2018, before the 
COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 survey 
was sent to more than 20,000 students 
and 7,000 faculty and staff.
This year’s SCIP survey included a 
new section about carbon neutrality 
and was the first survey of its kind 
to be sent to students, faculty and 
staff on the U-M Flint and Dearborn 
campuses. 
John Callewaert, director of 
strategic projects in the Office of the 
Associate Dean for Undergraduate 
Education 
in 
the 
College 
of 
Engineering and an investigator at 
the Institute for Social Research, said 
the SCIP survey is unique because 
it is a longitudinal study, meaning it 
measures attitudes over time. 
“What we really wanted to do 
is measure any changes over time, 
particularly if there are ways to test 
new initiatives in part of campus and 
see if there’s a change there as a way 
to inform action in other places,” 
Callewaert said.
Alexandra 
Haddad, 
strategic 
communications manager for the 
Graham Sustainability Institute, 
said the survey aims to find out 
how the campus community feels 
about the University’s sustainability 
practices.
“What we’re measuring is not 
sustainability, like reduction in carbon 
footprint (or) … quantifiable outcomes 
and lower greenhouse gas emissions,” 
Haddad said. “We’re measuring 
how the culture of sustainability has 
changed over time at the University of 
Michigan.”
Since the survey was last sent in 
2018, U-M President Mark Schlissel 
and the Board of Regents committed 
to achieving total carbon neutrality 
for the University by 2040, achieving 
net-zero 
carbon 
emissions 
from 
purchased electricity and creating a 
plan to fully divest from fossil fuels by 
2050.

In the 2021 winter term, the Board 
of Regents voted to disinvest from 
fossil fuels following years of sustained 
student activism on campus. As a 
result, the University will no longer 
invest in the top 100 coal and top 100 
oil and gas publicly traded companies. 
Some student organizations, such 
as the Climate Action Movement, 
said the move does not go far enough 
because it still allows the University 
to invest in natural gas projects. CAM 
also criticized the slow timeline for 
divestment, because the University 
does not have to sell their existing 
fossil fuel holdings until 2050.
Callewaert said though many parts 
of the SCIP survey remained the same 
from the previous iteration, including 
questions about waste prevention, 
conservation and transportation, the 
addition of questions about carbon 
neutrality are especially relevant:
“The major change this year is 
the whole set of questions on carbon 
neutrality, given the objectives and 
priorities that the University set 
recently for getting moving towards 
carbon neutrality and setting some 
goals around really increasing efforts 
around climate action,” Callewaert 
said.
The surveys differed slightly 
between 
the 
three 
campuses, 
Callewaert said, in order to reflect the 
campuses’ unique sustainability plans.
“Particularly with the carbon 
neutrality initiative, there’s been a big 
push for the three campuses to work 
more collaboratively around some 
sustainability issues,” Callewaert said. 
“We created very similar surveys, 
but we adapted them in ways to best 
address the activities and the interests 
of the Dearborn and Flint campuses … 
We tried to make sure we were only 
asking questions that made sense at 
each campus.”
Engineering sophomore Sophie 
Cronk, a collective impact coordinator 
for 
the 
Student 
Sustainability 
Coalition, said the addition of a section 
on carbon neutrality will help people 
learn about the University’s carbon 
neutrality efforts and the President’s 
Commission on Carbon Neutrality, 
which released its final report this past 
March after two years of research. 
“It’s a really helpful addition 
because it spreads awareness about 
the PCCN to people that might not 
already know about it,” Cronk said. 
“One of the great things about the 
SCIP survey is that it goes out to … a 
broad group of students and not people 
who just engage with sustainability on 
campus.”
Daily Staff Reporter Justin O’Beirne 
can be reached at justinob@umich.edu.

Climate change survey 
tracks attitudes toward 
campus sustainability

JUSTIN O’BEIRNE 
Daily Staff Reporter

Sixth annual questionnaire sent to more than 
20,000 students, 7,000 faculty and staff

ADMINISTRATION

ANN ARBOR

KEITH MELONG/Daily
A group of survivors and students gather on the Diag calling on the University to take 
action for a safer campus Tuesday afternoon.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

