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By Amanda Castro
Associate News Editor
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Republicans elected Ohio U.S. Representative Jim Jordan on Tuesday to lead their House conference when the party enters the minority next year, bringing renewed attention to allegations from 2018 that Jordan knew about sexual misconduct by Ohio State University team doctor Richard Strauss while the GOP lawmaker served as assistant wrestling coach.
An independent university-commissioned investigation found Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male student-athletes and other students during his years at the school. Jordan has consistently denied knowing of sexual abuse while he coached at Ohio State.
His spokesman at the time, Russell Dye, said in 2025 that "Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it."
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Jordan, 62, defeated Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise in a 106-73 secret ballot among House Republicans on Tuesday. His victory follows Republicans' loss of more than 40 House seats in the midterms and House Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to step aside from party leadership.
The Ohio Republican, co-founder and former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, pitched colleagues on his experience confronting Democrats through congressional investigations and hearings. "I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats' playbook," Jordan said as he sought the job.
He will take charge of a diminished Republican conference as Democrats assume control of the House, while allegations surrounding his years at Ohio State continue following him decades after he left coaching.
Newsweek reached out to Jordan's office for comment.
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When Was Jim Jordan Appointed Minority Leader?
House Republicans selected Jordan as their next leader on Tuesday, after the party lost control of the chamber in the November 3 midterm elections. He defeated Scalise, the current House majority leader, 106-73 in the closed-door conference election. Jordan is set to lead House Republicans in the 120th Congress when Democrats take control in January.
The change represents a major promotion for Jordan, who has chaired the House Judiciary Committee since Republicans took the majority in 2023. He previously unsuccessfully sought the Republican leadership in 2018 and the House speakership following Kevin McCarthy's removal in 2023. This time, he needed only the support of a majority of his Republican colleagues rather than the full House vote required to become speaker.
As minority leader, Jordan will become the most prominent House Republican and face the task of rebuilding a conference battered by the 2026 elections. He has signaled that Republicans cannot limit themselves to responding to Democratic investigations, telling his colleagues that "offense, not defense, wins elections."
How Long Has Jim Jordan Served in the House?
Jordan has represented Ohio in the U.S. House since January 2007. First elected in 2006, he has served in every Congress since the 110th and won reelection again in 2026. The House historian lists him as serving 10 consecutive Congresses through the current 119th.
His move into congressional leadership comes after roughly two decades in Washington. He became one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 and served as its first chairman, later rising through key investigative committees.
Before entering Congress, Jordan served in the Ohio House from 1995 through 2000 and the Ohio Senate from 2001 through 2006. He was elected to Congress after Republican Representative Mike Oxley retired.
Jim Jordan's Wrestling Background and Career
Long before his political career, Jordan was an accomplished wrestler. He won four Ohio high school state championships before wrestling at the University of Wisconsin, where he became a three-time All-American and won NCAA Division I championships at 134 pounds in 1985 and 1986. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame lists his collegiate record at 156-28-1.
After graduating from Wisconsin with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1986, Jordan returned to Ohio and became an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State. He also earned a master's degree in education there before later getting a law degree from Capital University.
That period of his career is central to the allegations that later emerged because Strauss worked with Ohio State athletes during the same period. The overlap between their tenures has led former wrestlers to challenge Jordan's assertion that he never knew about abuse, while Jordan has maintained that no athlete reported sexual abuse to him.
When Did Jim Jordan Work at Ohio State University?
Jordan worked as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. Sources differ slightly on the precise endpoints: The National Wrestling Hall of Fame records his coaching tenure as 1986 through 1994, while accounts of the Strauss investigation have described him as an assistant coach from 1987 to 1995.
Strauss was working with Ohio State athletes while Jordan was coaching the wrestling team, placing the two men in the athletic program during some of the same years in which investigators later determined abuse occurred.
Jordan left coaching as his elected career began. He entered the Ohio House in 1995 and subsequently served in the state Senate before winning his congressional seat in 2006.
Ohio State University Sexual Abuse Allegations
The Ohio State scandal extends beyond the dispute over what Jordan knew. An independent investigation commissioned by the university determined that Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male student-athletes and other students during his Ohio State tenure. The investigation also concluded that university personnel knew of concerns about Strauss' conduct years before meaningful action was taken against him.
The controversy involving Jordan is narrower and disputed. Former Ohio State wrestlers and wrestling referee Fred Feeney have alleged that Jordan knew about Strauss' conduct while he was an assistant coach. Some repeated those accusations in HBO's 2025 documentary Surviving Ohio State. Former wrestler Dan Ritchie said in the film that Jordan's assertion that he knew nothing was "a flat-out lie."
Feeney provided one of the most specific allegations. In the documentary, he said Strauss sexually assaulted him in a shower after a wrestling match and that he subsequently described the incident to head wrestling coach Russ Hellickson and Jordan. According to Feeney, Jordan responded: "It's Strauss. You know what he does."
The allegation is Feeney's account, not an established finding. Jordan has disputed that account and has consistently denied seeing, hearing about or being told of sexual abuse.
Jordan declined to participate in the film.
The Republican was also expected to be questioned under oath in July 2025 in litigation brought by former Ohio State students. He was not a defendant in those cases, according to NBC News, but was referenced in some lawsuits alleging that he knew of the abuse.
The university-commissioned investigation did not make a public finding that Jordan personally knew about sexual abuse. NBC News reported that his then-communications director pointed to language in the investigation saying investigators had not identified contemporaneous documentary evidence showing that members of the coaching staff received or knew of complaints about Strauss' sexual misconduct. The names of coaches and administrators were redacted from the publicly released report.
Ohio State has paid tens of millions of dollars to settle claims from survivors over the years. Those settlements were reached without an admission of liability by the university. Litigation over the scandal also produced a significant appellate fight over whether additional claims were barred by statutes of limitations, with the Supreme Court in 2023 declining to disturb a lower-court ruling that allowed lawsuits to proceed.
Ohio State University told Newsweek on Tuesday that the investigation into Strauss was independent, rather than a university investigation, and directed Newsweek to the investigation's report and related litigation materials.
“Ohio State is a fundamentally different university today than it was when Strauss was an employee,” the university said. “The university has stringent compliance standards and is committed to preventing and addressing sexual misconduct.”
The university added that it remains “committed to supporting and reconciling with survivors through monetary and non-monetary means.”
What Has Jordan Said in Response to the Claims?
Jordan has repeatedly denied that he knew Strauss was sexually abusing students during his time at Ohio State. His position has remained consistent since the allegations involving him became public in 2018.
"There was no truth to the fact that I knew of any abuse," Jordan told reporters in July of that year. "I've talked to other coaches, they didn't know about any abuse. It's just not accurate to say those things, that we know of it and didn't report it. It's just not true."
His office reiterated that denial through Dye when the allegations received renewed attention in 2025.
Jordan also framed his response in terms of his reputation for taking on powerful institutions. In a television clip included in Surviving Ohio State, he said: "I've stood up to the FBI. I've stood up to the IRS. So if I thought there was something wrong, if I knew there was something wrong happening, I would have stood up for them."
That categorical denial conflicts directly with accounts from some former wrestlers and Feeney. The disagreement over what Jordan knew has persisted for years without a public investigative finding establishing that he personally had contemporaneous knowledge of Strauss' sexual abuse.
His election as Republican leader does not resolve that dispute. It does, however, elevate Jordan to his party's most powerful position in the House just as Republicans prepare for life in the minority, ensuring that his record both in Congress and before it will receive heightened scrutiny.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kate Nalepinski and Edward T. Cummins
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