EAST LANSING, Mich. — Four miles away and seven years ago, Rachael Denhollander walked into the Ingham County Courthouse in downtown Lansing for the first day for the sentencing hearing for serial sexual predator Larry Nassar.
Denhollander would be one of more than 150 survivors who would provide impact statements.
Not present in the courtroom that day: anyone from Michigan State University, where Nassar had spent more than two decades working as a doctor in the sports medicine department, abusing patients on a near daily basis in addition to his acts with USA Gymnastics.
The lack of school representation — then-president Lou Anna K. Simon, for example, or anyone from the board of trustees — served as a stark reminder of how MSU viewed the case. (Simon, after a media furor, would attend a single day of the nearly two-week proceedings.)
Rather than being moved to action by women who spoke through tears but shined through truth, the school seemed to view the Nassar case in more blunt, bottom-line ways — exposure and lawyers, settlements and public relations.
Then came Thursday morning, when Denhollander, alongside fellow survivors…
