Lawyers representing two former students who say they were sexually abused by a doctor at the University of Michigan say new testimony proves school administrators refused to fire the doctor even after his sexual abuse behavior at the school was reported to them.

The testimony, from former University of Michigan Associate Vice President of Student Life Tom Easthope, was featured in a newly-amended complaint filed by the victims September 10 as part of their class action lawsuit against the school. Their claims of past sexual abuse at the hands of Robert Anderson are being litigated through the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Easthope said in a recorded deposition taken by the plaintiffs that he remembers firing Anderson in 1979 as soon he heard reports the doctor was “fooling around with boys,” and was later stunned to learn his decision had been overruled. He had reported the allegations of abuse to his boss, Vice President of Student Services Henry Johnson, but admitted he didn’t report it to anyone else in the university’s administration nor to the police, the class action complaint says. He also said he didn’t confront his superiors and insist Anderson be removed when he found out the doctor had only been transferred.

At another point in his deposition, Easthope said the culture at the school was such that the student athletes who dealt with Anderson would have been taking a risk to demand action.

“If you were a young athlete and you wanted to perform, you didn’t want to get yourself in trouble with anybody …  it would be hard to know that you got yourself in trouble because of some guy screwing around with you,” the class action quotes Easthope as saying. Later, he added “I can tell you how I would feel, but I’m not 100 athletes that had their scholarships on the line if they reported somebody who was revered by their coaches.”

During his deposition, Easthope told the plaintiffs’ lawyers he suspected the university’s athletic director had a hand in saving Anderson’s job and said the doctor worked very closely with the athletic department. He also said Anderson was Vice President Johnson’s personal physician.

Anderson retired in 2003 and died in 2008. The plaintiffs, listed as John Doe and Richard Roe, are suing the university and its governing Board of Regents. They are seeking the court’s approval to represent an indefinite number of Class Members who also suffered sexual abuse by faculty or staff the school failed to protect them from.

Sexual Abuse Came Under the Guise of Medical Care

John Doe was a student and football player at the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1993 and says he was sexually assaulted by Anderson every single time he had to meet with him, according to the class action lawsuit. The doctor fondled his genitals and digitally penetrated his anus during each of six visits during which Doe understood he had to submit in order to be allowed to continue playing football.

The plaintiff says he believed Anderson’s actions, although upsetting to Doe, were in keeping with the standards of a college-level athletic examination.

During his junior year, Doe says he left the football team to avoid having contact with Anderson, then returned and played through several injuries without reporting them in order to keep away from Anderson. During his senior year, a wound on Doe’s elbow and forearm got so badly infected, the football team’s trainers threatened to ban him from practice unless he saw Anderson to get it treated. The player obeyed. During the appointment, Anderson against assaulted him under the guise of performing an examination, commenting when he was finished “well, it doesn’t seem to have spread.”

The experiences caused Doe psychological trauma, the class action lawsuit said. He suffers from anxiety disorder to this day, he claims.

Richard Roe was a student athlete at the university in the 1980s and had to see Anderson four times for physical examinations, which went much the way John Doe describes, their class action lawsuit says. He too has suffered emotional damage as a result, he says.

University of Michigan Sex Abuse Ignored for Decades, Plaintiffs Say

According to the Doe class action lawsuit, the University of Michigan began hearing complaints about Anderson sexually assaulting male students during exams shortly after he was hired in 1968.

Former Athletic Director Don Canham and others have been accused by students who say they reported their abuse to school officials and either nothing was done about it or the students themselves were confronted. One of those is a former wrestler who says he wrote a letter to his coach about the abuse, which was then shared with Canham, in 1975. Nothing happened to Anderson, but it did to the wrestler. He was publicly humiliated, forced off the wrestling team and lost his scholarship, ESPN reported in February.

At a press conference held with his lawyers and two other former Michigan athletes who say they were abused by Anderson, too, the once wrestler addressed reporters. He said he wrote a nine-page letter to coach Bill Johannesen about the genital and rectal “exam” Anderson performed on him during an appointment about an elbow injury. Johannesen “read parts of the letter aloud in front of his teammates and told (the alleged victim) it was clear he no longer wanted to be part of the wrestling team,” ESPN reported. After that, Canham sent the student athlete a letter informing him his athletic scholarship was being canceled.

Canham reportedly died in 2005.

The same former wrestler wrote a second letter, in 2018, to the current athletic director, which ultimately triggered a police investigation.

Class Action Lawsuits and Acknowledgment

The University of Michigan is now facing several lawsuits in addition to the Doe class action over Anderson’s abuse and the school’s decision to transfer the doctor accused of molesting students from his position as the director of university health services to Senior Physician with U of M Health Services.

In May, as part of a court filing in one of the class action lawsuits against it, the university admitted Anderson assaulted students and said there were many credible allegations of sexual abuse against him. Lawyers for the University of Michigan said their client is willing to pay damages to the students who were abused, but wants to do out of court, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The University of Michigan Sex Abuse Class Action Lawsuit is John Doe, et al. v. University of Michigan, et al.,Case No. 2:20-cv-10629, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.