MSU’s $500 Million Nassar Settlement Comes With a Catch

The $500 million that Michigan State University pledged to the survivors of Dr. Larry Nassar’s abuse seems to have come with a catch, with the survivors pledging to cease “advocating for two specific reform bills” about “governmental immunity in cases involving childhood sexual abuse,” according to Deadspin. The bills, which are currently being debated and voted on in the Michigan state legislature, seek to change state government legal culpability in child sex abuse cases. In the MSU settlement, Nassar’s victims pledged to not support those bills—essentially barring them from “their right to petition their elected officials,” a source told Deadspin. The plaintiffs’ attorney John Manly said that the bills were unlikely to pass in the legislature anyhow and the survivors were not barred from advocating other issues, so “nothing was given up,” he told the website.