On Friday, Ohio State University released the findings of an independent law firm’s investigation into the sexual abuse committed by former university physician Richard Strauss.
During his time at the school (from 1978 until 1998), the investigation uncovered that Strauss abused at least 177 male student-patients, many of them athletes, with acts that ranged from overt fondling to more subtle abuse under the guise of proper medical treatment. Complaints about Strauss were never elevated beyond the Athletic Department or the Student Health Center until 1996, after which the University took some disciplinary action but did not take away Strauss’s status as a tenured faculty member.
The mountain of witness accounts in the report indicate that Strauss’s abuse was an open secret at OSU for years, a secret that one that nobody in authority took sufficient action against. Shame on them.
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Despite multiple former wrestlers alleging to the media that he knew about Strauss’s abuse, Jim Jordan, the U.S. representative from Ohio who was formerly an assistant coach with the wrestling program from 1987 to 1995, is not implicated by any evidence uncovered by the investigation.
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In 1996 Strauss finally caught some discipline when a student seeing him at the Student Health Center filed a complaint with the Vice President of Student Affairs about an abusive examination. Strauss was placed under administrative leave and investigated by Student Affairs and Human Resources. This eventually led to his removal as a physician from Student Health and the Athletic Department, though he remained a tenured professor. After his appeals failed, Strauss retired in 1998 and was appointed Faculty Emeritus.
Strauss died in 2005, while still Faculty Emeritus at OSU.
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