Mon, June 08, 2026
Ohio State University reaches further $100 million settlement with Richard Strauss survivors
In its latest settlement, Ohio State University will pay $100 million to almost 300 former students, mostly male, including former student-athletes, who were sexually assaulted by the campus doctor at the time, the late Richard Strauss who committed suicide in 2005.
Strauss worked at the university between 1978 and 1998. In March 2018, the university received allegations of sexual abuse against Strauss from a previous student athlete. An investigation was immediately undertaken by the university. After a year, it published the 182-page long Perkins Coie Report, revealing the findings.
It stated that a minimum of 177 male students were sexually abused. Inside the Games reports that more than 300 former students were part of lawsuits against Ohio State for failing to prevent such abuse. This reportedly includes an NFL player. Nearly 600 people alleged abuse by the late doctor, whose emeritus title was discarded in 2019. Over 300 people were involved in a previous settlement of $61 million. As stated by the Associated Press, Ohio State sought to have the remaining unsettled cases dismissed, arguing that the time limit for the claims had passed.
However, the remaining plaintiffs argued successfully that they filed timely claims, and that “the time limit didn’t start running until the 2018 investigation into Strauss’ abuse made his conduct public. The men say that was when they first learned that the school had been aware of Strauss’ abuse and failed to protect them from him. Many also only realised then that they’d been victims of abuse since Strauss disguised his abuse as medical care, their lawyers said.” Therefore, this explains the latest settlement.
Ravi Bellamkonda, university president, stated:
“The survivors of the Strauss abuse are all Buckeyes, will always be a part of our family and our community, and I firmly believe that…
We continue to be very grateful to them for their courage in coming forward, and reaching a final resolution is very important to us and is an important step forward.”
The university is also providing counselling services to victims and their families and has reportedly reimbursed treatment received before it provided these services.
However, some of the former student athletes, such as Tim Becker, who went to Strauss in the 1980s, voiced: “He was so public about it, and there were so many people around…
There were people I believed to be employees, there were people I believe to be professors that were all present that witnessed it. Nobody stopped it. Nobody did anything about it.”
According to the Associated Press, university officials failed to stop Strauss despite complaints raised as early as the late 1970s. Many of them allege Strauss abused them during required physicals and other medical exams at campus athletic facilities, a student health centre, his home and an off-campus clinic. Therefore, some of the actions taken by the university appear slightly inadequate now that decades have passed.
