A retired Michigan State president gets millions on her way to court.

Lou Anna Simon (Getty Images)

That’s the headline the rocked the college sports world when it was announced that Lou Anna Simon, who faces two felony counts and two misdemeanors, was retiring from the university with a buyout of $2.45 million after 45 years at the school, 13 as president.

The outrage comes from Simon being charged with lying during the scandal that sent serial sex abuser Larry Nassar to jail for life. Isn’t there some clause in a college president’s contract that says she or he forfeits a retirement or pension package under such circumstances, or at least the money is put into escrow until the trial, which begins in February?

Seriously, can the optics of this get any worse? If convicted, Simon will lose her emeritus status with the university and her presidential portrait hanging somewhere, but apparently not the money that will be paid in installments over three years.

Prosecutors allege that Simon was informed about sexual assault complaints against Nassar in 2014 but denied it to police in 2018. At least two other employees have been convicted in the scandal and lost their jobs at MSU. Simon faces a possible four years in jail and a $5,000 fine, and she’ll have plenty of money to pay it.

The lawyers who defended the more than 200 young girls and women who filed a class action suit against Nassar have called the Simon settlement nauseating and have asked, “How many children need to suffer before you think that somebody who was at the helm shouldn’t be rewarded?”

Simon claims she didn’t know the sports doctor under investigation was Nassar until 2016, when the media reported his name, still two years before she lied to police. Look, a number of people at the alumni-dominated administration were torn apart over loyalty to their school. But to give one of them 2.45 mill out the door is as bad a look as you can have.

The university continues to hire experts to examine the climate that allowed Nassar, the varsity athletics trainer, to prey on young women. Isn’t having a president who knew, sat on the story and gets a Sparty parachute part of that climate?

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