Ohio State University has agreed to pay $100 million in damages to 279 former students who said a campus doctor sexually assaulted them decades ago.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Just one of the former students who were part of five active federal lawsuits against Ohio State did not sign on to the agreement, the university and the lawyers for the accusers said in a statement.Details of the settlement were being finalized, the joint statement said.It did not divulge the name of the holdout.
The announcement appeared to be a significant step toward ending the eight-year legal battle in the Southern District of Ohio to get Ohio State to pay damages over allegations that it knew Dr.Richard Strauss was preying on students, the majority of whom were also athletes, but did nothing to stop him.In the coming weeks, a special master appointed by the court is expected to interview each of the men involved in the litigation to determine the level of harm and how much settlement money they will receive.
“The survivors of the Strauss abuse are all Buckeyes,” OSU President Ravi Bellamkonda said Wednesday at a university board meeting where the settlement was announced.“We continue to be very grateful to them for their courage in coming forward, and reaching a final resolution is very important to us and is an important step forward.”Before the settlement, OSU had settled Strauss abuse claims with 317 other survivors for more than $61 million.
Both OSU and its former president have publicly apologized “to each person who endured” abuse at the hands of Strauss, who died by suicide in 2005.OSU has been battling Strauss-related lawsuits since 2018, when a whistleblowing former wrestler named Mike DiSabato came forward with allegations that Strauss sexually abused him and hundreds of other male athletes under the guise of physical exams.Pushed by DiSabato, OSU hired the law firm Perkins Coie to condu...