On silence, complicity and what the hell comes next at the University of Michigan
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The phrase “silence is complicity” is a bit polarizing. And I understand both sides. I get the stigma against it, because it basically encourages the popular trend of needing to have an opinion about absolutely everything right away, whether you’re qualified to share it and whether anyone actually wants to hear it. Trust me. I sympathize with that. I get incredibly annoyed by people who are being described in the above scenario. Hell, I’m sure I’m guilty of abusing that myself at times and over-opining on things where I add absolutely nothing new to the equation.
But when dealing with a situation like what’s going on within the University of Michigan community right now, I feel strongly that it’s incredibly important to have this conversation. And for me to make this post. Not because I have something new or better to share than others who have already chimed in. But because I firmly believe that if there’s something bad that has happened, or is happening, or is about to happen, you can’t just make it go away by not addressing it or pretending it didn’t or won’t happen again. You’re not avoiding the issue — you’re making it worse, and you’re doing it in a cowardly fashion.
It’s doubly crucial not to sit back and say nothing when you consider why we’re here in the first place. These conversations need to happen if for no other reason than the symbolism being quiet over this would signal. Because Dr. Robert Anderson’s reach and the disturbing number of people whose lives he ruined never would have grown to the level it has if people in power at the University of Michigan had simply spoken up and done the right thing.
That’s kind of where I’ve been over the past week when it comes to the Wilmer Hale report, the independent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Anderson, which was ordered up by the University of Michigan. I’m linking to it above, because it’s important to read, no matter how tough of a read it is to get through.
I haven’t really tweeted much in the past week. Usually that’s something I’d brag about, because I’m continually trying to spend less time on that god-awful site. But this last wave of inaction hasn’t been because of newfound self-discipline or an attempt to better allocate my time in the day. I haven’t tweeted much because I don’t know what the hell to say. And I don’t know what the hell to say because I don’t know what the hell to think.
Before I continue, let’s be clear on this: I’m not saying “I don’t know what to think” as a way of indicating there’s a single sliver of doubt when it comes to the crux of this whole situation, because there’s not. Robert Anderson was an absolute monster, and he was allowed to do horrible, unspeakable things largely because of multiple seismic failures by many associated with the University of Michigan. Period. End of sentence. Let’s not lose sight of that. With that out of the way, my pause has come as a result of some serious conflicted feelings about fandom, reverence, hero worship and what the hell can actually be done when it comes to a situation like this, where the vast majority of people who deserve justice are already dead.
Today is the one-week anniversary since the report was released. Even with the time that has passed between the point of its release and the time of this newsletter, the fact that I’m finally writing this piece is far from a signal that I have reached the finish line when it comes to my thoughts on everything. Far from it. I still don’t really have a fleshed out action plan. But I do have a pretty strong grasp on what direction this needs to be headed, and an equally strong feeling about the importance of having this conversation in a public setting.
This was all I sent out last Tuesday in the aftermath of the Wilmer Hale report being released to the public:
It’s similar to my thought process above. The first thing a Michigan fan (or really anyone) needs to do is read the report and familiarize yourself with everything that happened. Like I said in the tweet, there will be times where it will make you furious. There will be times where it will make you sad. And I’m sure there will be times where it will be you feel something that’s really hard to describe what it even is, because that’s been the place I’ve been for much of the last week. But you need to educate yourself on what has happened (and what hasn’t happened), and you have to let yourself feel something about it. You simply can’t pretend it hasn’t happened. Or let apathy reign as your emotion of choice.
I try to steer clear from saying things like “you need to” or “you have to” in this space, because who the hell am I to tell you how to act? I’m not a spokesperson for the University of Michigan. Nor am I a gatekeeper for Michigan fans on what is and what isn’t an appropriate reaction to any news event, whether it be good or bad. I’m very much of the school of thought that you should react in a way that feels appropriate to act, and that you shouldn’t perform a specific way because that’s how you’re “supposed” to react. But in a situation like this, I do feel it’s both appropriate and necessary to include some “you need to/you have tos” because the alternative is silence. And in this case, silence really is complicity.
***
I’ve met Bo Schembechler. I revered the man for so long before I ever got that long-awaited opportunity to meet and interact with him. And that reverence and admiration continued long after he died. So much of what I love about my alma mater has ties to Bo. I wasn’t alive or active in my fandom when he was coaching. But mantras like “The Team, The Team, The Team” and phrases like “Michigan Man” became staples of my Michigan fandom, with deep ties to why I had such an affinity for Michigan and how it operated. And even as you get older and realize you’re making some leaps when you’re putting yourself on a pedestal over other schools and claiming you operate by rules that are higher standards than others, you still like to think there’s some truth to it.
But the problem of labeling yourself as good and the opposition as bad is that we don’t operate in a world of black and white. Nearly everyone and everything is a shade of gray, and many times, those people in the gray that purport themselves to be white are more dangerous than the alternative, because there’s that expectation from others that the people who pround their chests at being above all the cretins and unwashed masses operating in the gray really might be above that. But no school, team or institution is immune from evil. And Michigan fans are learning that first-hand right now.
I’m using this space to talk about those in the gray, because using this time and space to talk about the terrible things Anderson did is a misuse of time and a disservice to where the conversation should be framed, especially if forward-looking productivity is paramount (and spoiler alert: it should be). It takes no courage to condemn a monster. I’ve done it since reports of Anderson’s horrible actions first bubbled up, and have continued to do so as new, harrowing details have trickled out in subsequent months — like here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
I’m not looking for a gold medal here. Calling out a monster like Anderson isn’t exactly going out on a limb. Even if it’s a black eye on the University of Michigan, that’s the easy part — it’s the closest thing to black and white we’ll encounter in this whole mess.
Once you get past the easy part, though, the more difficult part is being honest with yourself and knowing you can’t just put this all on Anderson’s shoulders, close the book and pretend everything is behind us. It’s the easy way. It’s the convenient way. But it’s not the right way.
The easy thing to do when it comes to Schembechler is point to the part in the report that states the following: “Multiple University personnel who worked with Mr. Schembechler told us that had he been aware of Dr. Anderson’s misconduct with patients, he would not have tolerated it.”
But our job shouldn’t be to trip over ourselves in an effort to convince ourselves and those around us why these people, who unfortunately can’t speak for themselves, could possibly be innocent. Especially when the other side of the scale offers the following anecdotes, all from people who played for Schembechler:
A former football player told Wilmer Hale investigators that he told Bo Schembechler in 1976 that he no longer wanted to receive physicals from Dr. Anderson because he was given a rectal examination and had his testicls fondled during his physical. The player said Schembechler simply responded by saying annual PPEs were required to play football at the University. The same ex-player told investigators that the threat of an examination with Dr. Anderson was dangled as a motivational tool by an assistant coach on that year’s team.
Another player during that era told investigators he pushed Dr. Anderson’s hand away during a physical when Anderson fondled his testicles and insisted on a rectal exam. The student athlete told the U-M Department of Public Safety and Security that he asked Mr. Schembechler “soon” after the exam, “What’s up with the finger in the butt treatment by Dr. Anderson?” The student said Bo’s advice was to “toughen up.”
A third player told investigators that in 1982, Dr. Anderson played with his penis and made comments about its size. The player told investigators that following the exam, he told Bo about what happened. Schembechler reportedly told the player that he would look into it, but said player ended up never hearing anything further about it.
A fourth player, this one in the 80s, said Bo referred him to Dr. Anderson for migraines. This former student athlete didn’t speak to investigators, but he has previously alleged that on three different occasions, Dr. Anderson gave him a digital rectal exam. The player claims to have told Bo about what happened, and said Schembechler encouraged him to report it to then-AD Don Canham. The player said he did so on multiple occasions, both in 1982 and 1983, but that Canham did nothing.
Yes, there are generational differences and yes, times were different then and now. But we’re not talking about walking uphill both ways to school or lighthearted anecdotes that grow into tall tales as a grandfather tells stories to his grandkids. These are clear-cut of right and wrong, and the decade or cultural focus at the time of these acts don’t change what is right and what is wrong.
The first two allegations specifically involve a player going directly to Schembechler with complaints of abuse and said players receiving an unsatisfactory response. While the latter two have Bo acting in less of a dismissive way, both players ended up hitting a dead end when it comes to having anyone do something proactive about their complaints. It’s hard to dispute that Bo Schembechler was aware of the fact that multiple student-athletes were being abused. And Schembechler, the person with the most influence in the athletic department and almost certainly on the entire campus, did not stop the abuse. Instead, it continued. And spread. For years and years to come.
***
I love cheering for Michigan athletic teams to do well. It, quite frankly, has accounted for an embarrassingly large piece of the pie when is has come to my mood and my happiness over the past few decades. Having a family helps center those priorities quite a bit, but I’d be lying if I said Michigan football games no longer steered the needle between whether we’ll get Happy Scott or Sad Scott on fall Saturdays.
Oftentimes there are some really awful things that happen in the Michigan sports world that are caused people that I wish didn’t represent my school. But you can condemn those players and their actions while still proudly supporting your school. There wasn’t a whole lot to cheer about as a Michigan fan during the Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke eras. But when Brendan Gibbons made the game-clinching kick in the 2012 Sugar Bowl, I thought the night “brunette girls” was a great example of a cool-as-ice Michigan Man doing an awesome thing on the field and following it up with a fun quote afterward. Totally the type of guy I want to root for. That tone changed really quickly when, two years later, the University separated itself from him because of sexual misconduct. I’ve had similar trajectories when it comes to cheering for athletes like Frank Clark and Darryl Stonum and Taylor Lewan and unfortunately, more than a handful of other athletes who have done really dumb things while representing the school.
It’s easier to disavow yourself from that sort of behavior when it happens in the present, though, and you live it. When you have your opinion of someone positively shaped by decades of experiences and anecdotes, it’s hard to come to terms with just how much that view of him changes when something so seemingly out of character surfaces nearly 15 years after his death. And if your view of that man shaped your view of the institution and the football program that he served as an avatar for, how will your changing views of that man affect how you feel about that institution?
Bo Schembechler is far from the only person to be approached about Anderson’s wrongdoings and not put a stop to them. But he is the only person who was made aware of what was going on who has a big statue of himself in front of the Michigan football headquarters, which just so happens to be named after him.
I 100% do not think Bo Schembechler was an evil person. I do not think he was the biggest reason behind how and why this Anderson stuff happened, and how it never came to public light until decades later. But you don’t get to skate simply for not being the worst offender. You either stood for what’s right and did your part to prevent this evil from happening, or you didn’t. And Bo, like many others at the University of Michigan, stand on the wrong side of this incredibly dark chapter of the schoo’s history.
So that’s why Bo is the focus here. It’s not about those who are most culpable (though, again — this is not giving him a pass because he’s not as culpable as others — even “a little” culpable is way too culpable when it comes to a monster like Anderson ruining the lives of hundreds of people over a decades-long timeline), it’s about those who are most impactful. And when you’re dealing with people whose misdeeds are old enough to drink and vote in elections, the next step is what is most important, because that step has to include forward-looking steps, and not just performative acts that do nothing to ensure this never happens again.
***
That brings us to the present. There’s a lot of talk about statues and names of buildings. And there are a lot of people who have very passionate thoughts on these very topics. I am not one of those people. My preference is that the statue goes down and that the building is renamed. But I have some qualms is that ends up being the end result, too, and I question anyone whose action plan starts and ends with a statue.
To me, whether there’s a Bo statue or not is largely a cosmetic decision, and falls under some of the performative outrage that we see a lot of in 2021. “Most people that are mad want the statue to come down, so I should be mad and want the statue to come down, too!” Like I said above, I’m in favor of removing the statue, too. The conclusion comes largely because of the message it sends if it’s still standing there. And if it does stay, I think it’s imperative the statue be revised/reconfigured to account for what happened. This is part of Schembechler’s legacy now. It’s a part of the football program’s history now. Pretending it didn’t happen — silence — is showing continued complicity to this dark chapter.
Bo Schembechler is so much more than the guy who didn’t do the right thing when it came to Dr. Robert Anderson. But conversely, you can’t look at the legacy of the Hall of Fame coach through an unbiased lens without the Anderson cloud looming large in perpetuity. The number of lives that were damaged at least in part to his inaction are on his career scoreboard, the same one boasting all the Big Ten Championships and Rose Bowl titles.
If the statue is removed and the building is renamed, I worry that said removal it would lead some to think it’s time to hang a Mission Accomplished banner and put everything behind us. But it doesn’t work that way, either. I’m far more interested in actionable steps that can ensure stuff like this never happens again — on Michigan’s campus, on anyone else’s campus, or at any other place where someone can abuse their power to the point where it causes this sort of damage. This is a school that has put itself on a pedestal as an example for schools around the world — both academically and athletically — to benchmark itself against when it comes to success. The pedestal is already built and there certainly are eyes on the University right now, albeit for the wrong reasons. Why not use that pedestal to actually come up with ways to set a great example when it comes to transparency in a crisis, and then subsequently in providing a roadmap for others to prevent this from happening again.
For a program that has prided itself on doing things the right way for so long now, it’s about damn time to get back to making actions match its aspirations. And it’s about time for doing things “The Michigan Way” to be a positive once again, and not a cliche where everyone’s in on the joke except the few fans that are still buying into it.
Some donors are sure to be turned off if Michigan opts to do something that publicly sullies the Schembechler legacy. There’s a good first test. What’s it going to be? Preserving someone’s reputation, protecting a motto and ensuring cash still flows into the program? Or doing the right thing?
The next step will speak volumes about where this program stands, and the trajectory it will take for years to come. If you’re a fan that cares about which direction the program takes as it hits this fork in the road, I implore you to let your voice be heard.
Just remember: Silence is complicity.