Ohio State reels from multiple scandals amid wider crisis in higher education

Ohio State is grappling with sexual abuse allegations and questions over donor influence as financial pressures mount across higher education

When Rocky Ratliff transferred to Ohio State University in Columbus to study political science and wrestle for the college in the mid-1990s, he soon found himself being sexually abused by a prominent member of the university athletic department’s medical staff.

At the time, Dr Richard Strauss, who is believed to have abused hundreds of student athletes over a period of decades at Ohio State, and who killed himself in 2005, would subject young men to intense abuse, including rape.