I think your last sentence is pretty close. I don't think it was about the prestige of the university per se as much as it was a fear of breaking with a respected organization and (rightfully) attacking it. Nassar had his "nice guy" game on point, and was thus trusted by colleagues, parents, etc. People get kind of a cognitive dissonance when they hear the respected doctor is doing heinous crimes, and disbelief is one of the ways they dealt with that dissonance. Staying quiet is another. There were a lot of isolated adults who heard from victims, but even when they did believe them, no one wanted to be the one who lit the fuse.
Back in what had to be the fall of 2001, I went to a game in Spartan Stadium. Sometime in the third quarter, an airplane slowly approached the stadium at low altitude and lazily hung a left. The terror in the side of the stadium that could see this was palpable even to twelve year old idiot me.
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