Detroit News — Detroit – Ten people who say they were molested by Dr. Robert Anderson sued the University of Michigan on Thursday over a policy that limits the number of people who can offer public comment at meetings of the school’s governing board.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of nine men and a woman who said Anderson abused them during his decades as a campus physician. They said they were denied an opportunity to address the Board of Regents in July, in violation of Michigan’s open meetings law.

The university caps the number of speakers and limits the number of people who can talk about a specific topic at five.

Regents have been meeting by video conference during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, the number of speakers was increased to as many as 17, under certain conditions, from 10.

Five people who said they were assaulted by Anderson spoke in July, spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said.

Regents have the “authority to establish rules by which members of the public may address a meeting of the board, and the process in place at U-M is consistent with those at other Michigan public universities,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald said there have been many people allegedly abused by Anderson who have spoken before the regents.

“Additionally, each week the university and members of the Board of Regents receive and carefully review a significant number of email messages and other correspondence from individuals who bring issues to the attention of university leaders.”

Vincent Washington is among more than 800 men who say he was molested by Anderson while he was a football player during the late 1980s. He has not spoken publicly about the abuse but applied to speak during the July regents meeting. His request was denied because five other people were speaking on the same issue.

“It was extremely disappointing,” said Washington, who lives in Atlanta. “You just wonder – do they want to know? Do they want to hear from players? Do they even know or hear from real people who experience the issue?”

Victims of Larry Nassar, who abused hundreds of young girls and women while he was a sports medicine doctor at Michigan State University and for USA Gymnastics, said that speaking publicly before the college’s Board of Trustees or in court when Nassar was given effective life sentences played a role in their healing, said Parker Stinar, one of the lawyers who filed the suit in Ingham County Circuit Court.

“The university is trying to silence survivors from speaking,” said Stinar.

Stinar said while those involved in the case can’t talk about ongoing mediation proceedings, “The survivor of abuse can certainly share publicly their personal abuse with Anderson, and how they felt about it.”

The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order against UM’s policy.

A public comment period is set aside at the end of regents meetings where individuals are allowed to speak for up to three minutes.

The lawsuit includes language from the Michigan Attorney General’s Open Meetings Act Handbook, which says a public body may adopt a time frame for how long a person may address a public body, such as UM’s three-minute rule.

“But a rule limiting the period of public comment may not be applied in a manner that denies a person a right to address the public body, such as limiting all public comment to a half-hour period,” the suit says.

UM is in mediation with more than 800 former students, mostly men, who allege that Anderson engaged in unnecessary testicular and prostate exams, forced masturbation and other inappropriate sexual behavior. The university released in May a report by the WilmerHale law firm that was commissioned by UM showing the university failed to heed reports about Anderson’s abuse.

The next UM Board of Regents meeting is scheduled for Sept. 23.

ESPN — A group of former students, including All-American football player and team captain Henry Hill, filed a lawsuit Thursday morning alleging that the University of Michigan is illegally limiting their attempts to share accounts of the abuse perpetrated by then team doctor Robert Anderson.

Hill, who played for the Wolverines from 1968 to 1970 and was voted the team’s most valuable player in his final season, said he wanted to speak about being abused by Anderson at a meeting of the university’s board of regents this summer but was denied. He and nine others claim in their lawsuit that the board’s policy — which limits public comment on any particular subject to five speakers per monthly meeting — violates the state’s Open Meetings Act and “censors speakers from whom the [regents] might not wish to hear.”

“I thought I had a voice,” Hill told ESPN. “I thought I had a perspective. I was a Black captain in that era. I thought I had a perspective that should be heard.”

A university spokesman said the school has not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit, but that the board has the authority to establish rules for public comment at their meetings. The university’s policy, he said, is consistent with other public schools in the state.

Hill is one of hundreds of former patients who say they were sexually abused by Anderson during physical exams or when they came to him seeking help for routine medical issues. Anderson served as a team physician for the football program and others in Michigan’s athletic department for the nearly four decades that he worked on campus from 1966 to 2003. He died in 2008.

Prompted by other reports of sexual misconduct in the news, former Michigan wrestler Tad Deluca raised concerns about Anderson in 2018. A university police investigation found evidence that Anderson had abused several former patients and that other authority figures on campus were aware of his misconduct. The university also hired a law firm to investigate how high-ranking officials at the school and within the athletic department had handled past claims about Anderson. The resulting report found multiple instances where coaches and administrators failed to heed clear warnings about Anderson’s abuse.

University president Mark Schlissel apologized to Anderson’s victims for the doctor’s misconduct, and the school said it hopes to settle negligence claims outside of court for “more certain, faster relief.” The university said 16 months ago that it was setting up a framework to handle those claims, but it hasn’t provided a public update on that process since.

More than 100 lawsuits have been filed against the university, and nearly 900 claimants entered a mediation process last October. Hill’s attorney, Parker Stinar, said he and his clients can’t comment on mediation other than to say it remains ongoing 11 months after discussions began.

Hill, who is now in his late 70s and lives in Detroit, is a claimant in the mediation process. He said he was abused by Anderson on multiple occasions while at Michigan. He said at one point he asked the doctor to provide him with a deferment letter to help him avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. Hill said he had a low draft number and was concerned that being a young Black man would land him on the front lines in battle. Anderson provided a letter, and Hill was not drafted.

“I paid for that letter,” Hill said, referring to Anderson’s abuse.

Hill said he wants the university to acknowledge what happened to him and many other athletes. He said he’d also like to see more safeguards put in place to prevent similar abuse in the future.

Hill said he had hoped to share that perspective at one of the board of regents’ monthly meetings this summer in hope that it would prompt some form of justice. He said that he followed the proper steps to put in a formal request to speak at a recent meeting but that he was denied because of the board’s policy limiting the number of people who can speak on a particular topic at each meeting.

He said being able to share what happened to him publicly is part of the justice he’s seeking.

“Just the fact that it gets brought out in a public forum so people can see,” Hill said. “To stifle comments and information doesn’t seem right for me.”

A university spokesman said Anderson survivors have addressed the board at its meetings on a regular basis.

“Additionally, each week the university and members of the Board of Regents receive and carefully review a significant number of email messages and other correspondence from individuals who bring issues to the attention of university leaders,” the spokesman said.

Hill’s lawsuit asks the court to take action that would allow more speakers to address the regents at their next board meeting. The board is scheduled to meet again Sept. 23.

MLIVE — MASON, MI – Ten people, including a former University of Michigan football team captain, are suing the university for alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act at Board of Regents meetings.

The lawsuit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court in Mason on Thursday, Sept. 9, accuses UM of limiting the ability of survivors of sexual abuse by former athletic doctor Robert Anderson to speak at regents’ meetings. The current speaker limit is five people per topic, according to UM policy.

One of the plaintiffs is Henry Hill, a Wolverine defensive tackle and first-team All-American in 1970. Hill, nine other survivors s and their attorneys argue the limit on speakers is a form of censorship on language that tarnishes UM’s image.

“The university is again attempting to suggest that they’re above the law,” said Hill’s attorney Parker Stinar, who is also in mediation with UM in the federal court case involving nearly 900 Anderson survivors.

“These individuals submitted their request in a timely manner and were denied. Simply, (the university) said that they limit the numbers of speakers per topic to five. That’s a clear violation of the Open Meetings Act.”

As this is a separate lawsuit from the federal case, Stinar said Ingham County was the appropriate venue for an initial claims lawsuit against the regents of a public university.

The Board of Regents has the authority to establish rules for public comment, UM Spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said. The UM policy is “consistent with those at other Michigan public universities,” Fitzgerald said.

“Anderson survivors have regularly been among the members of the public addressing the board, including as recently as the July board meeting when five Anderson survivors addressed the board,” Fitzgerald said. “Additionally, each week the university and members of the Board of Regents receive and carefully review a significant number of email messages and other correspondence from individuals who bring issues to the attention of university leaders.”

Michigan law states that “a rule limiting the period of public comment may not be applied in a manner that denies a person the right to address the public body,” according to an Open Meetings Act handbook by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

The UM policy “explicitly allows defendants to prescreen and potentially censor speakers from whom (the regents) might not wish to hear, such as members of the public who may be dissatisfied with (the regents),” according to the complaint.

The next regents meeting is Sept. 23. The lawsuit requests the court force UM to allow more speakers to address sexual abuse with the regents at future meetings.

Hill is is one of the hundreds of survivors who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit against UM over its handling of Anderson’s sexual abuse. There are currently more than 100 Anderson-related lawsuits against UM.

The survivors accuse Anderson, who worked for at UM nearly four decades before retiring in 2003, of performing unnecessary hernia and prostate exams on them. The survivors also allege Anderson in some cases fondled their genitals during routine physicals.

Read more about the Robert Anderson case here.