Ohio State and Dr. Richard Strauss: Decades of Abuse and Institutional Silence

Timeline

1. 1978Strauss joins Ohio State's College of Medicine and begins treating athletes.
2. 1979Athletic department staff are aware of complaints about his examinations, according to the later investigation.
3. 1996Ohio State suspends and then removes Strauss from athletics and student health; it does not report him to law enforcement.
4. 1998Strauss retires with emeritus status.
5. 2005Strauss dies.
6. Apr 2018Ohio State announces an independent investigation after former wrestlers come forward.
7. May 17, 2019The Perkins Coie report finds Strauss abused at least 177 students.
8. May 2020Ohio State agrees to pay $40.9 million to 162 survivors.
9. Sep 2022The Sixth Circuit allows lawsuits dismissed on limitations grounds to proceed.
10. Jun 2023The Supreme Court declines Ohio State's appeal.

The ethical issues

• Institutional knowledge and inaction over nearly two decades.
• Male survivors and the stigma of reporting.
• Statutes of limitations: whether institutions should benefit from time limits on claims they concealed.
• Medical authority as cover for abuse.
• Accountability of coaches and administrators who heard complaints.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
Survivors	Acknowledgment, compensation and accountability.
Ohio State University	Legal liability, reputation and its duties to students.
Coaches and athletic staff	Their duties when athletes complained.
Current athletes	Confidence in medical care and reporting systems.
State medical board	Its own failure to act on complaints.

The case

Richard Strauss joined Ohio State’s College of Medicine in 1978 and soon began treating athletes. He became a team physician for many sports, including wrestling, gymnastics, swimming and diving, fencing and lacrosse, and later worked at the student health center.^[1]

In 2018, former Ohio State wrestlers publicly described examinations by Strauss that they said were abusive. Others came forward from many sports.^[1][4] The university commissioned an independent investigation, conducted by the law firm Perkins Coie, and asked more than 100,000 alumni to share information.^[1]

Background

The case became public through persistence. A former wrestler first wrote to the university asking for information about Strauss in January 2018. When he did not get a timely response, he took his allegations to The Columbus Dispatch in April.^[1] He later said he had not recognized Strauss’s behavior as abuse at the time, and that it was an “open secret” on the wrestling team.^[1]

Strauss’s reach went beyond the varsity teams he served as physician. He also treated students in hockey, cheerleading, volleyball, soccer, track, golf, baseball, tennis, water polo and football.^[1] His habit of showering alongside male students at Larkins Hall was, according to the investigation, unique among team physicians.^[1] After leaving the university’s health roles, he ran an off-campus clinic that, according to former employees, advertised in the student newspaper, promising student discounts.^[1] In June 2018, based on what it had found, the investigation expanded to cover his examinations of high school students.^[1]

The rules and governance

The investigation’s structure reflected Ohio State’s status as a public university. The Ohio Attorney General’s office appointed the law firm Porter Wright as the university’s counsel, and Porter Wright commissioned Perkins Coie to carry out the independent investigation.^[1] The report named more than 20 university officials and staff as knowing of complaints but failing to stop him.^[1]

Reporting ran through two channels, law enforcement and the medical licensing board, and neither stopped him. In May 2019, after the report’s release, the State Medical Board voted to release records of its 1996 investigation if the victims agreed to waive confidentiality.^[1] In the lawsuits, the key legal question was the statute of limitations. The Sixth Circuit’s “discovery rule” reasoning, which the Supreme Court left in place, started the clock when survivors learned of the institution’s failure, not of the abuse.^[1][6]

The findings

The report, released in May 2019, concluded that Strauss had sexually abused at least 177 male students, many of them athletes, during his time at the university.^[2][3] It found that athletic department personnel were aware of complaints about his conduct as early as 1979, including unusually prolonged genital examinations and his showering with students. Complaints reached staff in athletics and student health over many years. The university did not take meaningful action until 1996, when it suspended Strauss and then removed him from athletics and student health. It allowed him to retire with emeritus status in 1998. He opened an off-campus clinic and continued to see students there.^[1][2]

Strauss died in 2005, so he never faced charges or civil suits.^[1]

Inside the report

The report, dated May 15, 2019, set out a sequence of missed chances.^[2] In November 1994, the university’s director of sports medicine completed what he called an “investigation” of complaints from male fencers and concluded they were based on “unfounded rumors.” Strauss “voluntarily” stepped down as fencing team physician. The matter was not escalated beyond athletics, and no report was made to the State Medical Board.^[2] In January 1995, two patients at the student health men’s clinic separately complained of misconduct. The health service director introduced a special intake form and a quasi “chaperoning” policy but took no personnel action.^[2] Only in January 1996, after a third patient reported being fondled, was Strauss placed on leave. The university then held a closed disciplinary hearing at which “no students-patients were given the opportunity to participate.” His physician roles ended that summer, but his tenure in the School of Public Health “remained unchanged,” and that school later recommended him for emeritus status.^[2] The investigators noted that it was outside their mandate to decide whether the university had a legal duty to report. As a factual matter, they found that no report was made at the time of the 1994 complaints.^[2]

The licensing board’s part was examined separately. A board investigator concluded in December 1996 that Strauss had been “performing inappropriate genital exams on male students for years.” The case nonetheless sat inactive while he moved to California, where he held a license, and it was administratively closed in January 2002 “with no official action ever pursued or taken.”^[8] A companion inquiry into physicians who may have failed to report him was also closed without further action. Governor Mike DeWine’s working group, reporting in August 2019, recommended that the board identify current license holders who had known of Strauss’s conduct but not reported it.^[8]

Who knew

The report described a culture in which athletes joked about Strauss and many staff treated the complaints as an open secret. Some former wrestlers have said that coaches knew of the abuse. Those allegations have included U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, a former assistant wrestling coach, who has denied that any athlete reported abuse to him.^[1][4] The report also found failures by the State Medical Board of Ohio, which investigated Strauss in 1996 but took no action against his license.^[1]

Settlements and litigation

Ohio State apologized. In May 2020 it agreed to pay $40.9 million to settle claims by 162 survivors, and it reached other settlements later.^[1][5] But it also sought dismissal of many other lawsuits, arguing that the statute of limitations had expired decades earlier. A federal judge agreed in 2021. In September 2022, the Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that the clock did not start until plaintiffs knew or should have known that Ohio State had failed to protect them. In June 2023, the Supreme Court declined to hear the university’s appeal, allowing the cases to proceed.^[1][6] Ohio State continued to deny that it had covered up the abuse.^[7]

Aftermath

The case left a record of what institutional failure looked like over two decades. According to the report, staff knew of the complaints as early as 1979, and he received an emeritus honorific when he retired.^[2] The state’s own review concluded that, once the matter “finally reached the Medical Board, it had its most significant opportunity to stop Strauss from ever again practicing medicine.” The board never took action against him.^[8] Ohio State apologized and paid settlements, while continuing to contest the remaining suits in court.^[5][7]

The core dilemma

Many people at the university heard about Strauss’s conduct over nearly two decades and did not stop him. How should responsibility be assigned to an institution whose individual employees each failed in small ways? And should an institution that concealed abuse be able to rely on time limits to avoid liability?

Competing values

• Legal finality vs. justice: statutes of limitations protect against stale claims but can shield concealment.
• Institutional reputation vs. survivor welfare: litigation defense against acknowledgment and repair.
• Medical authority vs. patient autonomy: deference to doctors made abuse harder to name.
• Individual vs. institutional responsibility: no single person stopped Strauss; the system failed.

Strongest arguments

For full institutional accountability: the university’s employees knew of complaints for years, and the university failed to report him even after removing him. It benefited from the athletes’ participation, so it should not rely on procedural defenses to avoid paying.

For limiting liability: time limits exist for good reasons, including the difficulty of defending claims decades later, and the university has paid substantial settlements. Public universities are funded by taxpayers and students who had nothing to do with the failures.

Applying the frameworks

Ethics of care

The care lens centers on students who trusted a doctor and an institution. It asks why complaints over nearly two decades failed to produce protection, and what care required: listening, believing, acting and supporting survivors, many of whom carried the harm silently for years.

Kantian (duty)

A Kantian lens condemns the abuse as the most basic failure to respect persons, and judges the institution by its duties: to investigate, to report to authorities and licensing boards, and to tell the truth. Relying on the statute of limitations to avoid accountability raises a further duty question.

Rights

A rights lens emphasizes bodily integrity, informed consent in medical examinations, and survivors’ rights to justice. The court rulings on when the statute of limitations begins recognize that survivors may not know of an institution’s failures until long after the abuse.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You are an Ohio State athletic department administrator in the early 1980s when an athlete complains that the team doctor’s examinations are inappropriate. The stakeholders include athletes, their families, coaches, the medical staff, the university and future patients. The codes in play are medical ethics, university policies and reporting obligations.
2. Gather facts. What exactly is the complaint? Have there been others? Who has authority to review a physician’s conduct?
3. Test options. Options: (a) dismiss it as a joke or misunderstanding; (b) refer it to the medical director; (c) also report it to the state medical board and ensure chaperones for all examinations. Weigh institutional relationships against athlete safety.
4. Check codes and law. Are you treating an “open secret” as acceptable? Would your response protect the next athlete?
5. Decide and document. Record the complaint and actions taken.
6. Communicate and follow up. Communicate with the athlete about what you are doing, and follow up until there is a resolution.

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: the report’s findings; the 2020 settlement; the courts’ rulings allowing later suits to proceed.
• Contested: the extent of individual coaches’ and administrators’ knowledge; the university’s total liability.

Why this case matters

The Strauss case is one of the largest documented cases of abuse of male athletes in the United States. It shows how complaints can be absorbed by an institution’s culture, and how law can either protect or expose institutions that fail to act.

Key terms

Duty of care

The responsibility of coaches, organizations and institutions to protect the health, safety and well-being of those in their charge. It is not a license for total control.

Whistleblowing

Disclosure of wrongdoing in the public interest by someone inside or close to an organization: a moral safety valve.

Institutional accountability

Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.

Consent and autonomy

Whether people have agreed freely and with full information, and whether their right to make their own choices is respected.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. The investigation found that staff knew of complaints for years. What makes people in institutions dismiss or normalize such reports?
2. Ohio State paid settlements but also fought lawsuits on statute-of-limitations grounds. Is it ethical for an institution to use that defense here? Why or why not?
3. How did cultural attitudes about men and masculinity affect whether athletes reported and were believed?
4. What should be expected of coaches who heard athletes joking or complaining about a team doctor?
5. Compare this case with the Larry Nassar case at USA Gymnastics and Michigan State. What common institutional failures appear?

Sources

1. Ohio State University abuse scandal — Wikipedia
2. Report of the Independent Investigation: Sexual Abuse Committed by Dr. Richard Strauss at The Ohio State University — Perkins Coie for The Ohio State University
3. Independent investigation finds Ohio State doctor Richard Strauss abused students from 1979 to 1998 — The Ohio State University
4. Ex-athletes say Ohio State doc groped, ogled men for years — Associated Press
5. Ohio State Pays $40.9M in Sexual Abuse Settlement — Inside Higher Ed
6. Supreme Court lets lawsuits over team doctor's sexual abuse proceed against Ohio State — Associated Press
7. Faced with more lawsuits, Ohio State denies covering up sex abuse scandal years after paying settlements — NBC News
8. Report of the Governor's Working Group on Reviewing the Medical Board's Handling of the Investigation Involving Richard Strauss (Aug. 30, 2019) — State of Ohio