At a sexual assault survivors’
forum on Nov. 13, Maya Crosman,
a 2016 University of Michigan alum
and survivor of former U-M lecturer
Bruce Conforth, questioned the
University’s investigation process
into Conforth, who retired without
any punishment in 2017.
“I cannot be sure what happened
at (the Office of Institutional Equity)
when Conforth was allowed to retire
with his reputation intact, but it is clear
that justice was not given to the brave
women who reported him and the
brave women who were still getting
abused by him,” Crosman said.
Crosman was one of six survivors
who spoke during the first portion of
the forum at the Michigan League,
titled “Survivors Speak Up Against
U-M’s Pattern Of Enabling Sexual
Abuse.” The event, hosted amid
heightened community focus on
sexual misconduct because of the
allegations against late University
athletic doctor Robert Anderson,
addressed
the
University’s
mishandling of sexual misconduct
on campus and discussed policy
changes to prevent future abuse.
Isabelle Brourman, a 2015 University
alum and survivor of Conforth, and
U-M professor Rebekah Modrak
organized the forum with help from
Crosman and Katherine McMahan,
a 2008 University alum and survivor
of Conforth and Cassie McQuater,
a University alum and Conforth
survivor.
Conforth, a lecturer at the
University from 2001-2017, was
accused of using his popularity
among the student body to abuse and
threaten multiple female students.
Brourman said the purpose of Nov.
13’s panel was to share the stories
and research from survivors of
sexual abuse at the University.
“There have been enough of
these stories for us to know that it’s
not just something that falls through
the cracks,” Brourman said. “It’s
not a single report that was ignored,
and it’s rather a routine pattern of
complainants who’ve come forward
and a pattern of being ignored, their
information being taken and being
filed away.”
McMahan shared that she was
abused by Conforth in 2007 while
attending a blues concert. McMahan
was the first known complainant
against Conforth.
“He waited for me outside the
bathroom, he grabbed me and tried
to get me to go home with him,”
McMahan said. “It finally took me
pushing him away and going back to
the table to get away from him.”
McMahan first reported her
story to the University in 2008,
which led to the University giving
him a “last chance agreement.”
Jonathan Vaughn intends to run
for the University of Michigan’s
Board of Regents in 2022, he
announced at a U-M sexual assault
survivors forum on Nov. 13.
Vaughn is a former Michigan
football player and a survivor of late
athletic doctor Robert Anderson.
Since Oct. 8, he has been leading
numerous other survivors in camping
outside
of
University
President
Mark Schlissel’s house to protest
the University’s handling of sexual
assault allegations against Anderson.
“I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:
President Schlissel is a puppet, and
the puppet masters are the Board
of Regents,” Vaughn said on Nov. 13.
“Far too long now, 50 some odd years,
this culture of rape, sexual abuse and
cover-up has become a syndicate. It’s
become a syndicate not only with
the faculty being afraid of reporting
or supporting — because there’s this
one faculty member who told me it’s
career suicide — it’s also a syndicate
that the brands that support this
University and some of the media
that support this University say
those things like, ‘We can’t continue
to cover the largest sexual abuse
and rape cover-up in the history of
sports, because for the most part
it’s just two Black men speaking up
about something that happened 30
years ago or a wrestler who couldn’t
keep his scholarship.’ Those are the
things that we’ve heard.”
“Well, I’m here to tell you this
today: the Board of Regents is a
publicly voted on position, and today
I want to announce that I’m going to
run,” Vaughn continued. “And there
are seats that are available in 2023,
2025, 2027, 2029.”
Katherine White (D) and Michael
Behm (D) are the two regents up
for re-election in 2022. Regent Ron
Weiser (R) has said he is also an
Anderson survivor.
The University’s Office of Public
Affairs declined to comment.
The forum, held by six survivors
of sexual assault at the Michigan
League on Nov. 13, also featured
panelists such as Anderson survivor
and former Michigan wrestler
Tad DeLuca, survivors of former
U-M
lecturer
Bruce
Conforth
and attorney Sarah Prescott, who
represents eight survivors of former
Provost Martin Philbert.
Vaughn has said he will remain
outside Schlissel’s house for 100 days
or until Schlissel and the regents
speak with him and other Anderson
survivors directly. While Schlissel
has indirectly spoken to survivors
at Board of Regents meetings and
expressed his support in media
interviews, he has not spoken to
them directly or acknowledged their
presence directly since they have
been camping outside of his home.
In
an
interview
with
The
Michigan Daily on Nov. 11, Schlissel
said he has been listening to Vaughn
and the other survivors but chooses
not to directly approach them.
“The way I’ve chosen to listen
to members of the survivors’
community doesn’t include stopping
by the front of the house and
listening to a group of folks in tents,”
Schlissel said. “But rest assured that
myself and the regents are listening
to not just Mr. Vaughn and the
others who are out there, but the
broader community.”
Schlissel announced on Oct. 5
that he will be resigning from the
presidency in June 2023, leaving his
post two years earlier than planned.
Schlissel’s generous exit package
has stirred backlash from across the
University community.
The University president reports
to the Board of Regents. If Vaughn
were to win in 2022, he’d start in
January 2023 and be Schlissel’s
superior for six months.
Managing
News
Editor
Liat
Weinstein can be reached at weinsl@
umich.edu. Daily Staff Reporter Daniel
Muenz contributed to reporting.
michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
UMich sexual assault survivors of
Conforth, Anderson speak at panel
CALDER LEWIS &
KRISTINA ZHENG
Daily News Editors
NEWS
Jonathan Vaughn to run for
U-M Board of Regents in 2022
Anderson survivor has been camping outside of Schlissel’s house since Oct. 8
JEREMY WEINE/Daily
Isabelle Brourman, a U-M alum and survivor of sexual assault by former lecturer Bruce Conforth, addresses people gathered at a sexual assault survivors forum in the Michigan League Saturday, Nov. 13.
ADMINISTRATION
Panelists talk University’s culture of assault, policy changes needed going forward
LIAT WEINSTEIN
Managing News Editor
The Michigan Daily sat down with
University of Michigan President
Mark Schlissel Thursday to discuss the
ongoing protest of former athletic doctor
Robert Anderson survivors outside his
house and the recent 40% growth of the
University’s endowment. Read part two
of the interview for Schlissel’s thoughts
on the Bright Sheng controversy and
University employees who remain
unvaccinated. This interview has been
condensed and edited for clarity.
The Michigan Daily: Jon Vaughn
and other survivors of late University
doctor Robert Anderson’s sexual
abuse have been camped outside
your house day and night for over a
month. They say you haven’t spoken
with them yet, and that they are
committed to remaining there for
100 days or until you and the regents
speak with them. Why haven’t you
gone to speak with them?
Mark Schlissel: I want to
reiterate that I do appreciate
Mr. Vaughn. He’s a passionate
advocate for something that’s really
important. I admire him for the
courage of stepping up and speaking
out about what he went through. But
as I said at the last board meeting,
the regents and I are listening in
many different ways.
We’ve heard directly from folks
who sign up to speak in public and
at our meetings, and when they do
that they’re speaking not just to us,
but to the assembled media, so it gets
really quite wide coverage. We’ve
heard directly from many Anderson
survivors. We read media reports, we
get other direct messages from the
survivors, and I want to reiterate how
important it is as we work to update
and improve our sexual misconduct
policies and practices and we try to
continue to make campus safer, that
the experiences and the opinions
of survivors of all different types —
because survivors aren’t monolithic,
you know, many of them have
different opinions from one another
— that all of our policies are vetted
and discussed with the survivor
community, and we promise to
continue to do that.
We’re continuing to meet in
mediation with attorneys hired by
the Anderson survivors, including
Mr. Vaughn and his attorney, and
will continue to heed the judge’s
advice not to discuss the process of
mediation outside of these mediation
sessions. I really know Mr. Vaughn is
interested in sharing his story — he’s
been doing it quite widely. I’ve been
listening to him and other survivors,
and perhaps where we don’t agree is
how that listening should occur. But
rest assured, we are listening.
I can’t provide an update on the
mediation. The University remains
apologetic, sincerely, for what the
survivors went through, and we want
to treat them well. The mediation,
as I said, is confidential, but we are
very anxious to come to a good,
fair closure. And all the while we
continue to implement new policies
and processes and procedures, all
aimed at making the campus safer.
We’re a long way from where
we need to be, and everybody
needs to contribute. Mr. Vaughn
is contributing, the survivors of
what happened 30 years ago are
contributing, as well as the survivors
of today. So we’re committed to
doing this together and getting it
right.
TMD: You said that you think
that you and some of the survivors
might disagree on how the listening
should occur. Can you expand
on that and what you think that
disagreement might be?
MS: So, for example, I’ve been
invited to attend an open forum
up in the Michigan League this
weekend. A panel of survivors, as
well as an attorney representing
some of the survivors, and media
will be there. My concern is if I sit in
a forum like that, I become the story
rather than the survivors becoming
the story, and they really deserve
to tell the story without the hoopla
of the president being called out
continuously.
Fortunately, the organizers of
that forum are live streaming it on
YouTube, so I can watch it here in the
president’s house without disrupting
the proceedings by being there.
Others may disagree, but that’s my
choice as the best way to get input
from that forum without disrupting
the forum in a way that might
diminish the ability of the survivors
to tell their stories.
TMD: What has it been like for
you to have this camp outside your
house? How has it affected your day-
to-day life?
MS:
Probably
under
Mr.
Vaughn’s influence, this group of
survivors and supporters have been
enormously
respectful,
despite
how aggrieved they feel and how
passionate they are. They have made
their points known — there are
placards up and there’s a bulletin
board where people can sign and
the like, and there have been some
demonstration-type protests with
chanting and the like — but that said,
I do not feel mistreated.
Schlissel on Anderson survivor
protesters: “I do appreciate Mr. Vaughn”
UMich President does not plan to speak directly to those outside his house
CALDER LEWIS &
ELISSA WELLE &
JUSTIN O’BEIRNE
Daily News Editor &
Daily Staff Reporters
Content warning: descriptions of
sexual assault
More than 50 students in the Ford
School of Public Policy walked out of
their classes and marched through
the halls of Weill Hall on Nov. 12 in
protest against the admission of a
Public Policy and Social Work master’s
student who was found guilty of Title
IX violations related to sexual assault by
his undergraduate university, Eastern
Mennonite University.
In a Nov. 10 email addressed to Public
Policy master’s students, an individual
named as Ryan Decker — who The
Michigan Daily was unable to verify
the identity of — expressed his dismay
that a current Public Policy graduate
student had been granted admission to
the Master of Public Policy and Master of
Social Work programs at the University
after committing sexual assault.
The Daily obtained a copy of Decker’s
email. Because the student hasn’t been
criminally convicted and is not a public
figure, The Daily is not publishing the
student’s name.
“I am horrified to learn that (name
omitted) has been granted admittance
to the prestigious Masters of Social
Work and Masters of Public Policy
programs at the University of Michigan,
given his history of sexual assault,”
Decker wrote. “It’s baffling- how was
someone who was found guilty of
violating Title IX at another university
allowed into these programs?”
The protesters have created a list of
three demands: the immediate removal
of the particular graduate student’s
ability to come to campus, transparency
on the University’s admission process
and for communication from Ford as
they address the situation, and for Ford
to create safe spaces for survivors of
sexual misconduct.
In addition to Nov. 12’s protest,
the demonstrators initially said they
planned to continue to boycott their
classes and picket outside of Ford
every day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. until
the demands are met. However, they
stopped their picket midday Nov. 15 after
some in Ford raised concerns that the
protest could create an uncomfortable
or triggering atmosphere for survivors
walking to class, according to messages
reviewed by The Daily.
The protest comes amid intense
focus on the issue of sexual misconduct
on campus recently because of the more
than 2,000 allegations against former
University
athletic
doctor
Robert
Anderson, which may be the most
sexual abuse accusations against a single
person in U.S. history.
Other recent occurrences of sexual
misconduct at the University include
allegations against Computer Science in
Engineering professors Walter Lasecki
and Jason Mars and the upcoming
trial of former interim CSE chair Peter
Chen. In addition, former provost
Martin Philbert retired in June of last
year after being placed on leave due
to allegations of sexual misconduct,
and SMTD professor Stephen Shipps
retired in 2019 after 40 years of sexual
misconduct allegations were brought
against him. Former SMTD professor
David Daniels, former LSA lecturer
Bruce Conforth and English professor
Douglas Trevor have also been accused
of sexual misconduct.
Following Decker’s email, Public
Policy Dean Michael Barr wrote in an
email to all Ford students Nov. 10 night
that addressed “sexual assault in broad
terms.”
“I know it will be frustrating to some
of you, but for confidentiality reasons
I am not able to comment about the
particular case raised or the student
mentioned in the email,” Barr wrote.
Public Policy students walk out
of class to protest admission
of master’s student found
guilty of Title IX violations
GEORGE WEYKAMP
Daily Staff Reporter
Group of students call on Ford School
administration to take action on behalf of survivors
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
See SCHLISSEL, Page 2
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IN DEX
Vol. CXXX, No. 59
©2021 The Michigan Daily
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ARTS...........................3
MIC.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
OPINION....................5
STATEM ENT..............6
SPORTS......................7
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GABBY CERITANO/Daily
On Sept. 23, 2021, a crowd gathered an hour prior to the first in-person Board of Regents
meeting since the pandemic. Jonathan Vaughn, among others, gathered to protest the
University’s handling of allegations of sexual abuse against late University athletic doctor
Robert Anderson.