Gymnasts to join lawmakers Monday to unveil bills aimed at stopping sexual abuse

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

February 26, 2018

By Kathleen Gray

Michigan state Sen. Margaret O’Brien has known Rachael Denhollander for years.

When Denhollander was growing up in Kalamazoo, she worked on some of O’Brien’s early political campaigns. And when, after becoming a lawyer and moving to Louisville, Ky., Denhollander decided to go public with her story of being sexually abused by former Michigan State University sports doctor Larry Nassar, she counted on that connection with O’Brien to turn the story into positive action.

“After she first went public, she asked me if she could meet with legislators. She told us what she had discovered in research and found we were one of the worst states of the nation,” O’Brien, a Portage Republican, said. “The charge was laid out that we had to do something.”

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