Thursday, May 17, 2018

Archdioceses & Big Ten Schools: The Shockingly High Cost of Sex Abuse


The Catholic Church and Big Ten universities—though different institutions— have custodial relationships with minors. They also have a legal role called parens patriae—essentially, the role of a guardian to ensure the well-being of minors entrusted to their care.
With that backdrop in mind, consider the following:
Michigan State University: The school has agreed to pay $425 million to the 332 victims represented in current litigation, with another $75 million set aside in a trust fund that could go to future plaintiffs.
Penn State (Sandusky abuse case): As of November 2017, Penn State has paid out an additional $16 million to people with claims they were sexually abused by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, raising the total amount of payouts to more than $109 million.
The Los Angeles archdiocese in 2007 paid $660 million to 508 victims.
More generally, from 2003 to 2009 there have been at least nine major settlements with archdioceses in the U.S. involving over 375 cases with 1551 claimants/victims, resulting in payments of over $1.1 billion.
Common threads in these horror stories are lack of supervision of adults charged with caring for minors, ignoring complaints, and attacking complainants while protecting the abusers.

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