By Steve Brown and Nick Evans, WOSU
Ohio State University officials say the federal office that oversees enforcement of Title IX has opened an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against a now-dead former Ohio State doctor.
A statement from a university spokesperson says the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights(OCR) has opened an investigation based on the allegations against Richard Strauss made by former Ohio State students.
“The directed investigation will be conducted by the OCR Cleveland regional office and will examine whether the university is responding promptly and equitably to complaints and reports by former students, including allegations that employees knew or should have known about the sexual misconduct and allowed the abuse to continue,” the university release said.
Ohio State is also carrying out its own investigation led by private law firm Perkins Coie. The statement by the university says, “Due to the concern of re-traumatizing individuals who were affected and do not wish to revisit the experience, investigators are not contacting any former students who may have been examined by Strauss.”
Instead, Perkins Coie will work with the university “to release regular updates to the public in order to empower others to determine whether they want to come forward.” The university says that the law firm is using “the most trauma-informed approach to an investigation of this type.” For those who wish to come forward with information, the university is encouraging people to contact the law firm at osu@perkinscoie.com.
University President Michael Drake defends the school’s efforts to investigate the allegations against Strauss, noting the case spans decades and the incidents happened decades ago. He hopes the investigation helps prevent future abuse.
“One of the things we’ll be most interested in is learning what we can about what the early warning signs might have been 20 years ago and what we might be able to do today that’s better to help protect people better in the future,” Drake said.
Calls for Title IX Investigation
The National Women’s Law Center, in an August 1 letter, said that Ohio State should be investigated for potentially violating its Title IX obligations. The letter was addressed to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Kenneth Marcus of the Office of Civil Rights.
“Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, colleges and universities that are recipients of federal funding must respond to sexual harassment on their campus of which they know, or should know,” the letter reads. “This responsibility is triggered when responsible employees of the University, including coaches and assistant coaches of athletic teams, have knowledge about the sexual harassment.”
More than 100 former students reported first-hand accounts of misconduct by Strauss, who worked at the university from 1978-1990s. Lawsuits from over a dozen students claim that Ohio State administrators and athletic staff knew about but failed to act on reports of Strauss’ conduct.
Strauss died in 2005.
Sexual Abuse and the #MeToo Movement
Sexual abuse scandals have rocked Penn State and Michigan State in recent years as well. President Drake believes other institutions are likely to face a reckoning of their own.
“It couldn’t be that these things that couldn’t ever happen, happen once and then happen again and then happen again and then happen again in these big ways—so there, we’ve seen with the #MeToo movement once people start sharing what’s happened to them there are lots of me toos,” Drake said.
He says the independent investigators are working in good faith.
“We don’t know what happened in the past or what happened at other places, but I think it’s demonstrated that we’re really interested in learning what happened and then trying to make our best decision going forward,” Drake said.
School officials expect to provide an update on the investigation at a trustees meeting at the end of this month.
