Ohio State University agreed June 4, 2026, to pay $100 million to settle legal claims from hundreds of former student athletes who said they were sexually abused decades ago by Dr. Richard Strauss.
Strauss worked at the school from 1978 to 1998, ran an off-campus clinic and died in 2005.
The school's Board of Trustees approved a preliminary agreement with all but one of the 280 survivors with claims still involved in pending litigation, which the board said, once finalized, could mark the end of a lengthy legal battle.
Ravi Bellamkonda said during the meeting, "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."
An independent report concluded that scores of Ohio State personnel knew of complaints about Strauss' conduct as early as 1979 but failed for years to investigate or take meaningful action.
Two of Strauss's accusers, former student athletes Steve Snyder-Hill and Ron McDaniel, spoke to "CBS Mornings" in 2018 about their experiences. Snyder-Hill said, "He was a doctor. I was a student. I went in there vulnerable. I was even more vulnerable because he had me de-clothed. And I'm sitting there in front of him. And everything's going really badly." McDaniel said, "We thought we were doing the right thing in telling our coach. They were the athletic department. We looked to the coaches, the trainers and the doctors to do the right thing."
Ohio State already had settled with 317 survivors for more than $61 million, the school had said, and many former student athletes signed sealed agreements that kept their names a secret; some former NFL players were among the victims, a lawyer in one of the lawsuits said.
The university and plaintiffs issued a joint statement thanking mediators and saying they were working to finalize the details of the settlements.
The agreement covered 279 former students.
The school had fought lawsuits in federal court since 2018 brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss.