Five hundred and five 2×4” tiles with pictures of young women and abstract teal art.
Five hundred and five tiles—one for each person “the perpetrator” violated over a thirty-year period.
The sheer enormity of the sexual assault overwhelmed me as I walked through the door of the Michigan State University Museum to visit their exhibit, “Finding Our Voice: Sister Survivors Speak.” Two days after MSU’s former president Lou Anna K. Simon was bound over for trial for lying to police in their investigation of Larry Nassar, I experienced how Dr. Mark Auslander, the Director of the Museum, and his team described not only the trauma experienced by the women but the systemic failure of MSU and the gymnastics community to recognize the behavior. I also got a glimpse of how one sector of the MSU community is embracing the healing power of remorse and reconciliation.
For the past two years, I have been invited to MSU by Dr. Paulette Stenzel, from the Broad College of Business (who will be giving a Teal Talk at the museum this month in conjunction with the exhibit), to talk with their business law students about the organizational failure of MSU as well as the larger gymnastics community to both recognize Nassar’s behavior, respond to the complaints, and the stop the assaults.
As I researched the investigation into the Nassar scandal, the pattern of organizational failure as described by Masoud Shadnam and Thomas B. Lawrence in their article “Understanding Widespread Misconduct in Organizations,” came starkly into focus. As I walked the exhibit, every element of moral failure was on display.
- A small museum case with a jacket and Olympic pins: Breakdown in commitment to ideology. This failure is seen when individuals and organizations either do not communicate the ethical expectations or fail to enforce them. In the world of gymnastics, the rule is that gymnasts aren’t supposed to be given “special favors.” In the world of sexual assault, giving special favors in exchange for silence is known as “grooming” the victim. The museum had a display box with the pins and other memorabilia the perpetrator gave to the women. And, the Director said that stashes of pins and other “goodies” were found in hidey-holes throughout the university as the investigation continued.
- A timeline of history of gymnastic excellence and the failure to stop the predator: The cost of disclosure is too high for the organization. This failure is seen when the cost of holding individuals accountable for misconduct is perceived as being too high for the system to bear. A persistent story throughout the unravelling of the abuse was that if individuals brought forward the accusations, the opportunity for the gymnasts to succeed would be diminished because they would be blackballed in competition by the other judges and coaches. The fear of retaliation keeps many a would-be whistleblower silent.
- A wall marked with the heights of the women when the assault began: Work arrangements diminish the effectiveness of surveillance. Many of the women, represented on the wall only by a short pencil line like one makes to show the height of children and their age, were assaulted in their dorm rooms, their hotel rooms, or in other private—unsupervised—conditions. Every training on preventing sexual assault talks about making sure the room is “two deep”: no one is left alone with children. In the case of the perpetrator, even when red flags were raised, supervisors allowed him to continue his so-called therapeutic practice without supervision.
- A section on institutional failure: The systems designed to curtail abuse are delegitimized. Universities have very detailed processes for assuring claims of sexual assault are reported and investigated. At every turn and at every level, MSU did its best to thwart the process. The section on institutional failure featured an enlarged copy of a published report that seemed to exonerate the perpetrator beside a copy of the full, unredacted report that laid out the offenses.
As MSU’s community grappled with the scope of the evil in its midst, small groups of people began finding tiny opportunities for recognition and remorse. One event involved tying teal ribbons with the name of the victims around the trees on campus. But then the tulle became infested with gypsy moths. The word went out from the arboretum staff that all the ribbons would be taken down.
Over breakfast the day after the announcement, Dr. Auslander lamented that nothing could be done to memorialize the ribbons. As he tells the story, his wife reminded him that he was in charge of the museum. He went into action, thinking only about saving the ribbons.
As Auslander marshalled his resources, he got twelve hours to negotiate a compromise. Thus, began the amazing curation of a historical moment. As the ribbons were taken off one by one, the name of the victim was stated, and then the artifact was put into a plastic bag. The simple act of saving ribbons turned into healing reconciliation.
As the idea for the exhibit began to take shape, the sister survivors and their parents were invited to share their stories and find a place for healing. The 2×4” tiles were created by the sister survivors and their parents in the safe space of a sanctuary. As victims became more comfortable, they found themselves coming back to campus—to the place of the violation—and replacing a tile with their picture.
The exhibit ends with the figure of a full-grown woman draped in folds of silken butterflies. On the wall behind the figure, one still sees the shadow of a small, frightened girl. Through recognition, remorse, and reconciliation, the healing process continues.
Auslander and his team have created for each of us a model of how we can repair the tears that shred the fabric of our community. Beginning with a tiny act of moral courage—saving the ribbons—Auslander was able to bring together the extended museum staff as well as many survivors and their family members to help the MSU community recognize the atrocity of the action, provide a place where members of the community could feel remorse and maybe even repent of the collective action, and afford an opportunity for healing.
Each of us has had occasion—although perhaps not on the same scale—to witness organizational failure. May we be inspired from the example they have set to engage in small acts of moral courage to intervene in the face of ethical wrong-doing and then heal ourselves and those around us when damage has been done. Very nicely done, Dr. Auslander. Very nicely done.