The previously-privileged documents include email and text communications to and from 20 MSU leaders and employees, records of internal complaints and investigations regarding Nassar, and personnel files of those who worked with and above Nassar during his time at MSU.

The documents will be redacted to remove information subject to privacy laws or covered by “3rd party confidentiality agreements,” trustee and chair of audit, risk and compliance committee Dan Kelly said.

Attorney General Dana Nessel commended the decision Friday, saying she will be re-opening and expediting her investigation given the release.

Friday’s vote comes after years of dogged activism from survivors, parents and other campus groups.

Most recently, a group of survivors filed a lawsuit against the board over its secretive decision-making with the documents.

Recent decisions to withhold also spurred votes of “no confidence” in the board by MSU’s undergraduate student government, Council of Racial and Ethnic Students and Council of Progressive Students.

Nassar is currently serving an effective life sentence for numerous county charges of assaulting young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment and federal child pornography charges. Many of his offenses occurred during his work as an MSU doctor. Subsequent lawsuits and accounts from survivors have alleged that MSU’s administration and board failed to protect his victims and ignored reports of abuse.

​​​​The board long argued that it was prevented from releasing the documents because of legal disagreements with 12 of the university’s insurers regarding a $500 million settlement to Nassar survivors. 

The insurers argued that MSU’s failure to act on reports of Nassar’s abuse left the university outside its policies and on the hook for the settlement, according to court filings.

Those legal battles have now all been resolved.

In public comments before the board vote, survivors and parents of survivors pleaded with the board, saying the release of the documents would be a step forward in MSU’s reckoning with Nassar’s serial sexual abuse.

“We need to know why this happened, so this never happens again,” Sue Moore, the mother of a survivor, said Friday.

Survivor Amanda Cormier said that despite recent public promises that MSU’s handling of sexual violence is improving, she believes “the culture at MSU will not truly heal unless the documents are released.”

Survivor Melissa Hudecz said the years-long withholding of the documents has created additional pain for survivors already victimized by MSU’s doctor.

“There’s two traumas here, the trauma perpetuated by the perpetrator and the trauma brought about by MSU repeatedly failing to do the right thing,” Hudecz said.

Previous attempts to release

Board chair Rema Vassar unsuccessfully attempted to release the documents in April.

Vassar did so by telling Nessel's staff that she had the votes to release, prompting a letter reaffirming the call for their release.

Then, at a board meeting a week after the letter, Vassar announced that the board would maintain their privilege and not release the documents.

Nessel told The State News at the time that she had “literally no idea” why Vassar would tell her she could release the documents and then not do it.

Other trustees have since alleged that Vassar lied to Nessel about having enough support in an attempt to force the board into a vote. Vassar has denied the allegation. An outside investigation into the truth of that, and other allegations against Vassar, is ongoing.

The board then neared a vote to release the documents at their October meeting, when trustee Dennis Denno attempted to motion for a vote on the matter, but was stopped by procedural rules.

During comments from the faculty liaisons to the board, Denno leaned forward and asked that the board take a much-requested public vote on releasing the documents. But, his abrupt motion was killed by the board’s parliamentarians, who said it was not allowed by the board's bylaws.

Vassar was supportive of Denno’s motion but eventually moved on with the meeting, acknowledging that the rules prohibited it.

“I apologize for not being able to honor your wish for transparency in this moment," Vassar said at the meeting. "I am not the parliamentarian." 

Denno then said “you never have anything to apologize to me for.” 

Withholding spurs a lawsuit

The April decision to continue withholding the documents without a public vote on the matter spurred a lawsuit from survivors against the board, arguing that the lack of a public vote violated Michigan’s Open Meetings Act.

MSU has responded to the lawsuit with a motion to dismiss that argues the board has the right to discuss privileged matters in private and that the survivors lack the legal standing required to sue the board.

MSU’s motion also included sworn affidavits from all eight trustees which say they never took a private vote on the matter, rather just “discussed” it and decided to uphold their previous decision to withhold the documents.

The survivors have since filed a brief arguing that the trustees perjured themselves in the affidavits. The brief cites an email the group obtained in which trustee Brianna Scott describes the board's discussions by saying “the majority of the board indicated very clearly … that we are not in agreement.” The brief argues that is an admission of a secret vote.

Clean slate for new president

Kevin Guskiewicz, who was appointed last week as the university’s next president, was asked about the documents at press conferences following his appointment.

He declined to speak about them, saying the board had signaled to him that they would eliminate the issue by the start of his administration.

Guskiewicz said he believed that “things will have been wrapped up” with the documents by the time he starts work at MSU in March 2024.