UM finalizes $490M settlement with victims of Dr. Robert Anderson

The University of Michigan announced Friday it had finalized its $490 million settlement with victims of Dr. Robert Anderson, the late physician who allegedly sexually abused more than 1,000 people in his nearly 40 years working at the school.

About 1,050 people, mostly men, will share in the settlement that covers allegations that began in the late 1960s and stretched over decades until the controversy publicly emerged more than two years ago. Anderson died in 2008 after serving UM from 1966 to 2003 as head of University Health Service and the team physician for the UM Athletic Department. 

The settlement means that each accuser will get an average of more than $438,000. The exact amount, however, for each individual will vary depending on circumstances and will be determined by the accusers and their attorneys.

UM officials previously confirmed it is the largest legal settlement in the university's history and will be paid with university reserves and insurance proceeds.

"The University of Michigan offers its heartfelt apology for the abuse perpetrated by the late Robert Anderson. We hope this settlement helps the healing process for survivors," said Paul Brown, the UM Board of Regents chairman.  

The settlement was first reported in January. But it required consent from 98% of claimants before it could be made official, UM said, a number the university called "a milestone recently reached."

"The settlement "was a victory for more than 1,000 victims of a horrendous predator and hopefully the beginning of UM’s acceptance of its role and a changed attitude,” former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox said in January. He filed the first lawsuit against UM and represented more than 100 accusers.

Cox couldn't immediately be reached Friday for comment.

More than a decade after Anderson died, Robert Julian Stone approached UM and told school officials the doctor sexually molested him during medical treatment while he was an undergraduate nearly 50 years earlier and coming out as a gay man. When he learned that UM police were investigating claims made by other men, he feared the university would bury the case, so he shared his story in February 2020 with The Detroit News.

Stone's story set off a firestorm. Other claimed they also were subjected to Anderson's abuse, which ranged from fondling to forced masturbation to rape.

After Stone's accusation became public, UM's first police investigation surfaced, showing the university police department had been investigating Anderson for 16 months and a top school official, the late Thomas Easthope, was aware of accusations against Anderson in 1979. But the doctor was able to stay employed at the university.

The allegations led to the first lawsuit, filed in March 2020 by attorney Mike Cox, a former Michigan attorney general, on behalf of a former UM wrestler who claimed Anderson abused him on at least 35 occasions in the 1980s. 

The claims grew to include other former student-athletes, pilots, medical students, gay men and a few women. 

The WilmerHale law firm was hired by UM in March 2020 to conduct an investigation into Anderson that led to a 240-page report in May 2021. The report concluded that UM officials knew as early as 1975 that Anderson had been accused of sexual misconduct.

The report found that more than two dozen university employees were told about Anderson's alleged behavior over his nearly 40-year career. Although several employees reported the doctor after learning of complaints, the majority of the people his patients told — including some of the most powerful people on campus — did not act to stop the doctor, according to the report. 

As The News reported in January, the settlement allocates $460 million for the initial claimants and another $30 million for those who choose to participate before July 31, 2023.

The average for each accuser is roughly half that of each victim in the Larry Nassar scandal at Michigan State University. That historic $500 million settlement in 2018 involved more than 500 women. The exact amount for each victim was confidential and varied. But the first wave of women, 332, divided $425 million, for an average of $1.28 million each. 

UM President Mary Sue Coleman said in a statement the settlement "allows the university to protect future generations of students and everyone in the university community."

"It complements a separate settlement reached earlier this year that adds a Coordinated Community Response Team to the best practices now in place," said Coleman, who will depart in less than a month when Santa Ono takes over as president. "We are committed to a safe, welcoming environment for everyone at Michigan."

In August, Detroit U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts approved a settlement between the UM and a student that included creating a team to address and prevent sexual misconduct. The agreement came in a federal class-action lawsuit filed by UM student Josephine Graham, who alleged the university did not maintain or properly enforce sufficient policies and procedures for preventing and responding to sexual misconduct on campus.

The 2021 lawsuit did not seek a financial settlement, but a change in the university's policies in response to the sexual misconduct scandal involving Anderson. The university created a team of "about 30-40 representatives from across the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses to meet regularly and advise the university on a wide range of approaches to prevent and address misconduct," according to a Friday UM statement, a move school officials say is best practice.

That group is expected to meet at least three times annually "to address issues on an ongoing basis and assess, plan, monitor and evaluate sexual misconduct prevention and response efforts," the release said.

"This now puts the University of Michigan in a leadership role setting an example of how to dramatically reduce the risk the re-emegence of a sexual monster," E. Powell Miller, a Rochester-based lawyer and another co-lead lawyer for the plaintiff, said in August.

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Twitter: @Hayley__Harding

Staff Writer Kim Kozlowski contributed.