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Host Lily Guiney and city reporter Maggie George discuss activism at the State Capitol.
Welcome to The 1909, the podcast that takes an in-depth look at The State News’ biggest stories of the week, while bringing in new perspectives from the reporters who wrote them.
Lily Guiney 0:10
Welcome to The 1909 your home with The State News for everything happening on campus and around Lansing. I'm Lily Guiney. Today we'll be recapping President Stanley's contract review, a shooting on MAC Avenue and an impasse, and MSU's divestment from fossil fuels. Then we'll hear from city reporter Maggie George about history of activism at the State Capitol building.
Let's get into it.
So the issue of the week so far has been MSU President Samuel L. Stanley, Jr, his contract being under review. For anyone who's unfamiliar, an article in The Detroit News on September 11 cited anonymous sources saying that members of the Board of Trustees had given Stanley two days to retire or be dismissed from the position. It says come out that there was no ultimatum involved, though several board members have spoken out about their desire to see Stanley removed. The MSU faculty senate met on the 13th to discuss responses to the board and heard remarks from Stanley and Provost Teresa K. Woodruff. The senate eventually passed both a resolution encouraging transparency from the board and one stating that in order to maintain the faculties confidence, the board would have to undergo professional development. The issue that seems to be at the center of all of this is the resignation of former Broad College of Business Dean Sanjay Gupta.
Crain's Detroit business reported on the 14th that Gupta had witnessed a member of the Brode faculty inappropriately touch a student while intoxicated at an MBA event. He failed to report the incident to MSU and upon his resignation, the university released a statement attributing the departure to the lack of report. Members of the Board of Trustees reportedly took issue with Stanley's handling of the resignation, leading to the current contract review. And it was a lot of info and I just want to give a shout out to our campus administration reporter, Vivian Barrett, who was our guest last week. She has been reporting on these issues all week. Thanks also to Melanie Soverinsky for her reporting on former Dean Gupta.
At around 1:30am On Sunday, the 11 shots were fired near MAC Avenue north of Grand River. Police later found 31 bullet casings at the scene from three separate firearms and a victim was transported to the hospital. East Lansing police said in a statement that although the suspects were not apprehended, there appears to be no immediate danger to the public. They've encouraged anyone with information about that night to contact them for aid in the ongoing investigation. Thanks to our senior city reporter, Wajeeha Kamal for her reporting on that.
MSU's hub of the National Climate Action Group Sunrise has been fighting for MSU divestment from fossil fuels for over a year. The university holds a portfolio of oil and gas investments worth around $90 million. MSU has said that their investments will be devalued by 2031. But Sunrise says that's not enough. The issue is that if MSU were to divest right now, they'd likely be in breach of several contracts with the company's. MSU Board Trustee Pat O'Keefe said in an interview with The State News that concern students should quote, "go get a STEM degree and be part of the solution unless they were prepared to turn off the heat in their dorms." MSU's fossil fuel investments make up about 2% of the university's $4.4 billion endowment. Sunrise members are now advocating for student representation on the board's investments subcommittee bill for which was passed by the Associated Students of MSU. But which has not been adopted yet by the board. The members say that the November midterm elections will be a centerpiece item in their efforts for divestment. And they plan to continue lobbying for divestment. Thanks to our environmental reporter, Alex Walters for some very comprehensive reporting on that story. Now, I'd like to do introduce our city reporter, Maggie George. Hi, Maggie.
Maggie George 3:43
Hi, Lily!
Lily Guiney 3:44
So you had a great story in print this week about history of protests at the capitol in Lansing. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Maggie George 3:51
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So the story that I wrote was inspired by a Tik Tok that I had seen about some local Lansing history that I had never heard of before. And it got me thinking about how all of us MSU students on average, were here for four years. And we don't have a great awareness of the history and maybe culture of the area and that specific Tiktok really contextualize that for me how much I don't know about the area, even though I'm from Grand Rapids, which is only an hour away. There's still so much I don't know about this area. So I was inspired to do a piece about what is important to the people of Lansing, with Lansing being the capital city, there's a lot of demonstrations that happen on the lawn of the Capitol building. And that's not something that's specific to Lansing, the State Capitol in Michigan specifically that happens at the US Capitol that happens at probably every state capitol. It's a really big symbol of processes going into place and government happening and people bring their protest to the Capitol because they feel like it's the best place to demonstrate need to feel the most heard.
And over the last few years, there's been a lot of, big political issues that have happened from how people reacted to..the government's response, to COVID, and, you know, the 2020 election, and Roe v. Wade being overturned, gun violence, March of our lives, all of these things have been really running rampant in politics in the last few years. And I think maybe it's just because I've moved to Lansing last year, I feel like I've heard of so many more protests than I ever did before. And like I said, maybe it's just because I've been in Lansing, I'm more aware of these things. Maybe it's just because I'm coming-I've come into more of an age where politics are more relevant to me, as opposed to when I was in second grade you know, I didn't hear about this stuff because, I was so young, and it wasn't really relevant I didn't have the capacity to understand it. But I put together a timeline of the activism that's happened in the last few years.
The first protests in the article that I wrote about happened on April 30, 2020, and then it goes all the way up to recently, throughout the summer. So that's, you know, I wanted to give a recap and an explanation about all of these protests that have happened and give the argument from past coverage of what the coverage was.. saying was argued in these protests and what people were chanting what their sign said, and what their purpose was that brought them there.
Lily Guiney 6:27
So like you said, some of the most influential protests of the past few years have been held on that front lawn. Why do you think it is that people in organizations choose that as the location for their activism versus anywhere else in the capital city?
Maggie George 6:40
Yeah, absolutely. I think first of all, it's right in the center. And one thing that I remember from when I used to drive to work from my dorm last year is that even all the way out on Michigan Ave. Like where the QD is, I like the intersection of Michigan and
Lily Guiney 6:59
Michigan Avenue and Harrison, where the quality dairy sets right off of campus.
Maggie George 7:05
Yes, thank you, you can see the Capitol from there. And it's a really big monument, obviously, with that statue in front of it represents democracy. And that space is really big and open, you know, I have a hard time thinking of anywhere else that has that much big open space that's also open to the public, and also where it would draw that much public attention. I think there's, besides the protests that I talked about, there's a historical element to being attracted to the Capitol for your political activism, because the policymakers and the state senators and representatives and just government in general, they're there. And so if they can look out the window of their office and see, okay, well, there's another protest, you know, we would be best suited to listen to them and figure out what they're talking about. I think, you know, people are attracted to it, because they hope that it will get the attention of the people who, whose job it is to do something about it.
Lily Guiney 8:02
And I've covered my fair share of protests over on the lawn at the Capitol, and I can confirm the Legislative Office Building is right across the street from that lawn. So they are literally looking out their windows, at whoever is on the front lawn, doing whatever they're doing. So did you learn anything particularly interesting, or just really compelling that you hadn't known before while reporting this story? Because obviously, you pulled from The State News archives a little bit and you went back and were able to look at these photos. Thanks to our multimedia, folks, by the way, for some really awesome photos accompanying Maggie's story. But was there anything that stuck out to you?
Maggie George 8:39
Um, I think what stuck out to be one thing specifically was from, January 6 of 2021. That month, you know, we saw a really big protest at the US Capitol, not the Lansing Capitol, as the president at the time, you know, promoted an instruction at the Capitol. And that led to a really big, I think, movement and like a mobilization of activists that supported the former president to make their voices heard about that election.
The one thing that really struck me about that whole event was how their protests happen later in the year, or later in the month, not that year. There were protests happened later in the month, and it really didn't turn into much of anything besides a couple of people. Like maybe just like staying around the lawn because the-our governor has been controversial on-on the right side, people have made threats against her, threaten to kidnap her, threaten to remove her from office, all of these things, and she worked with other legislators to increase the police presence at the Capitol throughout the rest of that month because there was rumor circulating that on January 17, there was going to be a pretty big protests. And nothing really came of it. I, you know, read about, I read about the police presence being requested and how many different police departments and National Guard and that type of thing were there. But nothing really came of it, which I think is surprising personally, because I think there's a lot, there's always police presidents at these events. But that was a group specifically that wasn't really able to mobilize because of the police presence.
Lily Guiney 10:29
That's interesting. And I know, I covered an event, which I believe was in October of last year, that was another sort of stopped the steel election integrity protests, and it was very, very well attended. And like you said, there was a heavy police presence there, um and the result of that was we had a lot of election, quote-unquote, "election security candidates and state offices", who were present at that event and who have been present at other events at the capitol in the year since then, and some of them are on the ballot in November. So that's kind of a good segue into my next question, which is my final question. Do you think we'll see more of these types of large-scale protests in the future, particularly as we enter a midterm election season in the next month and a half?
Maggie George 11:15
I cannot emphasize the word yes enough, genuinely this midterm, I was listening to another news station or another podcast. And it was like a national podcast. And they mentioned the Michigan midterm election, because the gubernatorial race is going to be so integral or integral to the ... to you know, we're Michigan is a swing state, it's going to be so important to national politics, because Governor Whitmer and her opponent stand on two completely different sides, and, you know, reading tweets and stuff like that, there are a lot of things that people feel very strongly about that they are standing behind their candidate with full support, because they think that this person is going to be the one who fixes everything. And not only that, but there are, you know, Lily you're covering politics, like, you know, there are so many other smaller offices that people don't really think about, they tend to think about the governor in the midterms or the president in the presidential election. But besides that, they don't really think about the smaller offices, like, you know, with everything that's been happening with the Board of Trustees, people don't realize that that's an elected office.
And, you know, I think as time goes on, we're still in a space where we're in Michigan, at least we're not sure what the standing of abortion rights in Michigan are going to be. It's like, constantly since Roe v. Wade was overturned, it's been hanging in the balance of what's going to happen any day, this could go away. You know, it's been really scary and very emotionally charged for a lot of people. And that's just one thing. You know, that's going to be on the ballot in November. That is one thing, constantly, we're seeing problems with gun violence. That's something that people protest about a lot. We're seeing lots of people still talking about election fraud. And like you said, people running on the platform of secure elections. And on the left side of it, people arguing that securing elections and ending mail-in ballots and absentee ballots and stuff is an infringement of rights, because you're restricting how people can vote. And I think that both sides of the alley will protest about that. So, you know, not only I think, are we going to see protests about these issues, but we're going to see protests from each side.
There was one- there was one Planned Parenthood generation action protests that I went back to, went to back in May, I think when the draft decision was leaked, it wasn't official yet. But at that protest, there, it went for a couple hours. And it's a pretty rainy day, it was like I think, during exam, so there wasn't a ton of people there. But even at that protest, counter-protesters showed up, I think, honestly, yes, absolutely. We're gonna see a lot of these. And if you're somebody who likes to be very politically active and mobilize, this is going to be a great way for you to do that and to demonstrate as long as you're staying safe.
And if this is something that you're not interested in, and it gives you a lot of anxiety to think about these demonstrations and that type of thing, I think, you know, there are lots of other ways that you can get involved like registering to vote and making your voice heard that way. But I think especially throughout midterm season, and with the next presidential election, probably for a long time, we're going to see a lot of very emotionally charged politics being represented through protests and demonstrations.
Lily Guiney 14:51
And, like Maggie said, I will see a ballot proposal for abortion rights and Michigan's Constitution on the ballot in November as well as the Voting Rights ballot proposal, both of these were approved by the State Court of Claims, or sorry, the Michigan Supreme Court last week. And so like Maggie said, we're really heading into what could prove to be a very tumultuous election season. So stay with The State News. We're going to be covering every bit of it. I'm going to be covering a lot of politics. So I really look forward to you know, bringing these stories to our readers.
And with that, we finished our news roundup for the week. Thanks for being here, Maggie.
Maggie George 15:29
Yeah, thank you for having me, Lily.
Lily Guiney 15:30
Yeah! So everyone listening you can catch The 1909 each Monday on The State News website. And signing off from East Lansing. I'm Lily Guiney.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai