In this History episode we focus on the Larry Nassar scandal — USA Gymnastics, Michigan State University, the FBI, and the 265 women who reported abuse while institutions protected the team physician for decades. The FBI's Indianapolis field office received formal allegations against Nassar in July 2015 and conducted one interview in the following six weeks, then waited eight months. The DOJ Inspector General found that 70 or more additional athletes were abused during the fourteen months the FBI held the case without substantive action.
We examine the layered institutional structures that enabled Nassar — the Karolyi Ranch's isolation, USA Gymnastics's culture of deference to authority, Michigan State's 1997 internal review that cleared him — and the 2021 Senate testimony in which Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Maggie Nichols described the institutional system that enabled him as clearly as they described Nassar himself. Michigan State settled for $500 million. USA Gymnastics and the USOPC settled for $380 million. The DOJ paid $138.7 million in 2024 acknowledging the FBI's delay. No FBI agents were criminally charged.
This podcast features narration with a synthetic AI voice.
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