Former OSU students air claims of sex abuse

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Former students alleging sexual abuse by a former Ohio State University team doctor appealed in person to the school’s trustees for the first time Friday, pleading with them not to dismiss or minimize their allegations.

Seven accusers of Dr. Richard Strauss told the board that the now-dead physician’s actions have caused them long-term harm. They described the incidents occurring during team physicals, while being treated for injuries and during routine medical exams at the student health center.

Ohio State President Michael Drake told the men, three of whom spoke anonymously, that their stories were being heard and respected.

“We know that it takes great courage, great courage, to come forward in circumstances like these,” he said. “We are all fathers, sons, sisters, husbands, mothers, wives. We are here to listen to you today, and to hear you.”

But ex-student Steve Snyder-Hill, who complained about Strauss after an invasive 1995 exam of his genitals and rectum and inappropriate questions about Snyder-Hill’s sex life, said it doesn’t feel that way.

“Twenty-three years later, the university remains dismissive of us,” he said. “They’re using language like we’re trying to find out what ‘may’ have happened and who ‘may’ have known. I can’t tell you how traumatizing that is for us, to invalidate us by using that language.”