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Host Lily Guiney discusses the update of an ongoing case of Phat Nguyen and Pi Alpha Phi, a Turning Point USA meeting and a new ASMSU bill.
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 0:11
Welcome to The 1909, your home at The State News for everything happening on campus and around the Lansing area. I'm Lily Guiney. This week we'll be recapping a contentious meeting of MSU chapter of Turning Point USA, an update in the ongoing case of the death of a Pi Alpha Phi Fraternity pledge and a bill that could make MSU a sanctuary campus.
Then we'll hear from our environmental reporter Alex Walters about the health of the Red Cedar and a recent cleanup. Let's get into it.
So, before we begin the news recap. I'm going to introduce a new segment on the 1909 entitled, "Is Sam Stanley still MSU's president this week?" The answer is yes. He is still obviously president. I keep having people ask me that question. So I figured it would be good to just put that out there right away. At least the contract is still considered to be under review. But as far as everyone knows, he's still very much in his role. In fact, he made an appearance at the unveiling of renovations to Munn Ice Arena a few days ago, alongside MSU athletics faculty and the hockey team. So now that we've scared that away, it's time to talk other news.
Lily Guiney 1:12
Last week MSU chapter of Turning Point USA hosted a meeting at Wells hall with former gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelly as a guest speaker. If you're not familiar with Turning Point, it's a national conservative youth organization that has chapters in both high schools and college campuses. Think Charlie Kirk and Candice Owens. So I'm gonna use chapter had Ryan Kelly on campus. He's known for being arrested by the FBI for his involvement in the January 6 Capitol riot. About 20 minutes into Kelly's Q&A session he was interrupted by student protesters who had been sitting in the audience pretending to be members of the club. There was a lot of yelling and swearing, and eventually, the rooms edited, settled into a still heated debate on fascism and abortion rights and COVID-19 regulations. Comparative cultures and politics sophomore Jesse Estrada-White initiated the debate calling Kelly a fascist who wasn't welcome on campus. I'm using a little bit more of a narrative tone to describe the story than some of my other recaps because I was actually at the meeting. And so if you're wondering why it sounds a little different, there's your explanation.
Lily Guiney 2:10
It was a pretty heated room to be in and Kelly lost the Republican nomination for governor to Tutor Dixon which he attributed to his FBI arrest. When I asked him after the meeting if he plans to vote for Dixon in November, he declined to comment but said to keep an eye on his social media for some new information coming soon. So until then, I guess we'll have to be on the edge of our seats. Moving on.
We have an update this week from the courts in the case of Phat Nguyen and a Pi Alpha Phi fledge, who passed away from alcohol intoxication in what appeared to be a hazing incident at a party last year. The Union County prosecutor's office dismissed charges against the fraternity president, a former MSU student, on September 15, the fraternities president along with former MSU students and codefendants Ethan Cao and Andrew Nguyen, no relation, were each charged with three misdemeanor counts of hazing, resulting in physical injury and one felony count of hazing resulting in death back in June. The other two defendants both waive their right to a preliminary examination and will be arraigned on will have been arraigned by the time this goes out on the 30th.
Circuit Court, according to East Lansing court administrator Nicole Evans, it remains to be seen whether or not the defendants themselves who all had leadership roles in the fraternity partook in direct hazing of the pledges. But witnesses at the party told The State News that what they saw done to the pledges was Pi Alpha Phi tradition. One student told The State News that Phat Nguyen was quote, hazed to death and that is the truth. For the sake of the victims and their families. I'm not going to get into the specifics of what the witnesses saw at the party on here. But if you'd like more information, you can run a full article on The State News website with the details. And we'll have more info on the court cases as they develop.
Lily Guiney 3:51
The Associated Students of MSU will be hearing a bill in the near future that could provide better aid and protection to students of undocumented or dreamer status, who benefit from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA Program. Advocates of the bill are still working to drum up support but say they're hopeful that it'll bring traction in the coming weeks. Asian Pacific American Student Organization Representative Connor Lai said that the bill would contain four major components similar to those in sanctuary cities. It would declare MSU would not share student information with immigration authorities would commit to restrict access to campus from immigration authorities and prohibit collaborative collaboration with entities like ICE, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement on campus as well as having resources available for students and families.
Lily Guiney 4:36
Lai said the MSU has the resources available to become a sanctuary campus it just needs to take action. This comes on the heels of the city of East Lansing being advised over the summer to become a sanctuary city. Many cities in the US became sanctuary zones during the Trump administration when programs like DACA were threatened. However, cities often balk at losing the funding that comes from cooperation with immigration and custom enforcement. Lansing, in fact, was a sanctuary city until 2017, when it rolled back its protections in order to preserve federal funding. Advocates for sanctuary campuses say that if cities won't take the lead on protecting undocumented people, then universities will have to step up. Members of as MSU that are involved with the bill said it would be an important step for MSU and making sure that all students are able to get the most out of their education and their time on campus without having to live in fear of being detained or deported. And that's it for our news roundup of the week. Now, I'd
Lily Guiney 5:31
like to welcome our environmental reporter, Alex Walters. Hi, Alex.
Alex Walters 5:34
Hi, thank you for having me.
Lily Guiney 5:37
Well we're happy to have you in. So you had kind of a fun story you got to report on last week about the Red Cedar River. Tell us about that.
Alex Walters 5:43
Yeah, it was a very exciting story. So last week, there were two events at the Red Cedar; on Sunday, there was a cleanup. And on Thursday, there was a river sampling. And so I thought with those two events, it might sort of be timely to do a broader piece about the health of the river, what it's like for students, and you know, what's going on inside of it.
Lily Guiney 6:00
Awesome. So we've all seen the reports of spin scooters or the green moving cards, or God only knows what, being thrown in the river. But there's a little more that goes into pollution than just that. Give us a little background on the types of things that can harm the river and its ecosystem.
Alex Walters 6:18
Yes. So you know, when I went into the story, I think the same assumption that everybody does. The biggest causes of pollution are, you know, trash thrown in the river or the scooters that somehow end up in there. But what I found in talking to the experts on the river is that it's actually a lot more broad than just that. So obviously, the you know, plastic and metal in the river is sort of their first concern, and that's why they do the cleanup. There were two other concerns that I think were at the top of the organizers' mind, the first one was just invasive species. And there's a whole section in the article about that they found it's called the Rusty Crayfish is the biggest one. And then the Asian Clam is the other one. And they're both sort of all over the river. And I think most people have a pretty good understanding of invasive species, but it's just extra. So you know, keep in mind, never move anything from one stream to another.
Alex Walters 6:59
If you see something, there's a website that recommended where you can report it. And so that was one concern. But the greater concern was that, you know, when you have a river like that in sort of, not an urban environment, but just a developed environment, like a college campus, there's a lot of impervious surfaces, like concrete or buildings. And so any sort of runoff, whether that be oil from cars, that drips, or just like the rainwater, it runs, instead of soaking into the ground and becoming groundwater, it runs across those impervious surfaces into the river.
And that was a big concern for the organizers was that, you know, this river is meant to just exist in nature, not on a giant developed college campus. And so they talked about something called sustainable urban planning, which there's a little bit of that at MSU talked about Wells Hall has a green roof, where instead of water just flowing off and down into the river, it sort of soaks into this like plant roof, they talked about in IM west as a parking lot that's actually porous. So water sinks down through it into the groundwater. And you know, I think especially Molly Engelman, who's the president of the club that did these events, was saying that she just wants students to sort of be more aware and pushing for these things across camp to protect the river. And the consequence of that isn't just pollution of the river. It's also the flooding. And you know, you see every couple of years, there's just major floods. And that's because the river is not meant to take on as much water as it is. But there's optimism there. I mean, Jo Latimore, who is the professor who is leading the sampling, was saying that it's actually considering how to develop the area is around, and it's actually holding up very well. Yeah, it's not all doom and gloom.
Lily Guiney 8:26
Yeah. Well, you stole my line there. Actually, I was gonna say the story, obviously, wasn't all doom and gloom and doom. But I guess Can you elaborate a little bit more? Tell us a little bit about the progress that's being made and keeping the river healthy.
Alex Walters 8:39
Yeah, I mean, I think there's like this. I don't even know what to call it, just like a stereotype or a cultural idea at MSU of like, the Red Cedar is this disgusting river with the fish with three heads and you don't get in there, and you get if to get a tetanus shot after jumping in.
Lily Guiney 8:53
I don't know who told me this. But I, when I came to MSU, I was under the impression that the Red Cedar had been biologically dead for a period of time. Was that true?
Alex Walters 9:02
I don't think the Red Cedar. I mean, there was a time, I think, in the 70s. Yeah, got in the Red Cedar needed a tetanus shot, and that it was horrible. But you know, every organizer that I talked to, they said, because I went into the store with sort of that in mind, like I was asking them, like, what do we do to save the river? And they would sort of tell me like, well, we kind of have been doing that. And it's actually not in that bad of shape. And especially for a river on a college campus, a river that people don't see any value in and they throw scooters, and like Solo cups into, it's actually in really good health. And the way that they found this, I think, is really interesting.
Alex Walters 9:35
It's not through chemical sampling. It's through sampling the, like the bugs, basically, that live in the river, which at first, you know, I kind of asked the professor that was doing it, I was like, Is that accurate at all? Or is this sort of a pseudoscience? And what she was saying actually makes a lot of intuitive sense, which is that if you take a chemical sample, you're kind of getting a still image of the river at that point. It's just exactly what it is. But these bugs spend their entire lives in it and some of them live for weeks or some of have lived for years. And so by sampling what's actually there, naturally, you get a wave fuller picture of what the river looks like. Because you know, the different bugs have different tolerances of like how much pollution. They can take what temperature. And so by seeing what can live and what doesn't live, they get a full picture of over a longer period of time, what it looks like, and the picture is actually like, pretty positive.
Lily Guiney 10:19
Well, that's really good to hear. I know, I feel like every year we start to see more and more people interacting with the river, and I guess, a little less harmful ways. Uh, you know, every year we see someone like trying to kayak it, which we might not quite be to the point where you can really kayak the Red Cedar. I saw a guy like trying to kayak the rapids by Wells Hall last year. And that didn't go too well for him. But you know, the attempt was made. And I, you know, every year someone tries to serve, and you know, like standard college campus antics. But do you think that the people you spoke to were optimistic that someday there would be a little bit more of a maybe not a symbiotic relationship, but a respectful relationship between students in the river?
Alex Walters 11:05
I think, you know, what they said, wasn't that they saw that in the future, but that, that that's what's needed in the future. And both Professor Latimore and also, Molly Engelman, the president of the club, they said that, you know, if we want people to support initiatives for like more sustainable urban planning, if we want people when there is a public development that could hurt the river to speak up and go to those meetings, and if we want people to just not throw their trash in it, the first step is just having people value it and seeing it as this beautiful part of campus that we can all enjoy. And so it's not so much, you know, in the future will value it. It's if we want the river to be there in the future. We need to value it right now.
Lily Guiney 11:40
Well, that's all I have. And thanks so much, Alex, for coming in.
Alex Walters
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it was great to hear about the river and what we've got going on there. And that is your episode of The 1909 for this week. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and we air every week on Mondays. And from East Lansing. I'm Lily Guiney.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai