On Friday, Oct. 11, parents and sister survivors lit luminaries outside of the East Lansing Public Library prior to Michigan State President Samuel L. Stanley Jr.'s scheduled talk with survivors.
"We're here tonight to remind everybody that Michigan State still has chose not to share all the information related to this with the Attorney General's investigation," Bryan Tarrant, a member of Parents of Sister Survivors Engage (POSSE), said. "We want everyone to remember there are over 500 individual girls affected by this."
Each of the 505 luminaries were lit in honor of survivors of Larry Nassar's sexual abuse.
According to a media release from POSSE, the vigil also symbolizes the wait survivors have had to experience for MSU to tell the truth.
"I thought it could possibly be a publicity stunt ... to make it seem like he's trying to fix things and going to be doing stuff in the future. ... I'm still kind of weary of what's going to be going down," Elizabeth Maurer, a survivor, said. "For students, I want them to know they (MSU) literally didn't do anything."
POSSE said they continue hoping MSU will cooperate with the Attorney General's investigation and release withheld documents.
"We're asking President Stanley to finally come forward with full transparency, to encourage the board, to encourage the university, to share all relative information with the Attorney General for (its) investigation and to truly take concrete steps to insure that this could never happen again on this university campus," Tarrant said.
POSSE was formed in April of 2018 after parents of survivors gathered in protest at an MSU Board of Trustees meeting.
The luminaries are meant to reflect "survivors’ hope for greater illumination on those at MSU who enabled decades of predation.
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