Aly Raisman's mom eviscerates Tom Izzo

different than penn state... why are they all not fired????... msu is starting to sound just like the joe pa supporters did..... everyone in authority at msu should just shut the f up..... we are talking about 13-14 year old girls..!!!!!!

it takes a special kind of stupid to make the rest of RCMB right, but this guy pulled it off.

Sounds like there were a few lawyers at MSU offering this same type of advice. I would add that often this discussion of legal obligations vs moral obligations fails to properly account for the full possible fallout over the course of years. It happens like this because its easier for a lawyer to pitch to their client the immediate outcome/fallout while ignoring the slew of later potentials. You really have to have your clients trust to get messy with long term projections, and its hard to do professionally without coming across as paranoid, so I get it. I also understand the moral hazard of the billable hours by which an attorney, faced with a client that at a given point in time (possibly without considering all potential outcomes but whatever) wants to choose the outcome that's quite possibly going to result in extensive future litigation, who thereby fails to fully object or caution the client regarding this eventuality. 

For example, 1) full disclosure and communication between the parties (USA Gymnastics and MSU) and 2) a leadership decision to, immediately after the first set of allegations, suspend Nassar pending investigation, would have drastically changed the outcome here. Many fewer girls would have been harmed, and the University would not be faced with nearly the level of potential harm they face now. While these two things were not legally required, per se, (I actually disagree on this point based on these MSU employees status as educators; if it were a middle school teacher who had not fully reported potential abuse, or a principal who had heard reports of abuse but had not acted on it, they would be in a world of hurt...but anyhow) its likely that counsel was involved at this point in some manner at an early stage with the decision not to suspend (or fully investigate) Nassar, and with the decision between USA Gymnastics or MSU not to communicate with the other. 

"What do we have to do here", vs "what should we do here", is not simply questioning the difference between legal and moral obligations. The "should" question considers the legal, but then also entertains future liabilities that may very likely result in litigious activity and harm to the client. Moral considerations are not just a PR issue by any stretch of the imagination.

Had they asked the uncomfortable questions such as what if this continues, what if there is more to the allegations than we know, or what is the potential harm to the university if it becomes known at a later date that the university had some cause to suspect Nassar, but did not investigate, and as a result more harm was done to other girls, my guess is they would have acted more appropriately at those earlier stages. I'll close by saying in cases like this where there is ongoing harm to former victims (emotional, etc) and where there is evidence that at least one girl has taken her life (potentially as a result of) after being abused, there is a definite cost, likely financial (loss of state + federal +alumni + grant monies) and a huge loss of reputation that branches over into the above, as well as destroys a ton of the good work and improvements done over the last 20 years.