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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.
(Alex) It's Thursday, February 8, and this is the 1909 state news weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters. This week I'm joined by state news Student Affairs reporter Demonte Thomas to tell us about a dramatic shake up in MSU. Student Government, then administration reporter Theo Scheerr, but once again during the show to talk about his monthslong passion project, exploring the history of the tunnels beneath MSUs campus. With that, let's start the show. All right. Joining the show, once again, the OSHA administration reporter, the state news, one of the best deals, I think in collegiate journalism, and no nepotism allegations about this one.
(Theo and Alex) Good one Alex, so it's good. You got it. But the six people that you gotta know they loved it, I think, no, you're probably getting messages afterwards. Alex, nice one. Yeah.
(Alex) Anyway, well Theo, you're here to talk about something fun today, which is rare. Normally, you come on, and we get to talk about stuff that's not super fun. So I was excited to bring you on. And before you get into it, I'll set the stage right. It's months ago. I believe it's October. Yes. And for context for those listening. This is, you know, football coach investigated for sexual harassment, you know, we're hearing word of an upcoming attempt to oust the chair of the university's board, all these allegations of wrongdoing, you know, this presidential search for trying to crack into we're doing a lot of very serious reporting. And you came to me, and you said that you had this project, this big project that was going to be the best story, your career, the best thing you've done. And I was like Theo, I can't even imagine this amazing, investigative scoop they're talking about, and you said, Alex, there's network of tunnels beneath MSCs campus with a rich history of shenanigans. And I was like, it's, you know, I respect that you're a crazy person, you know, and like, I was like, that's a nice pitch, you know, kind of whatever, you know. And then for months, you would just, you would just say, Oh, I found this or I found that I talked to this person, I found this old book, this thing in the archives, and you have put together this 6000 Some word story with this rich history of everything that has gone on in this network of tunnels beneath MSU campus that most of us don't even know about. And there's this whole world below the university. It's an amazing story. Those of you who are like, Oh, listen to the podcast, read it, read it, too. And then listen to the podcasts or listen to podcasts, and then read it. It's so well done. It's my favorite thing Theo's ever done. It's amazing. But you're here to talk all about it today. And first of all, before we get into all the details, I just like, I can't imagine most people on this campus. Think about this kind of thing. How did you even tunnels? Like how did that eat the steam tunnels beneath campus? How did you hear about this? How did this come to you? Why did you think to even look into this?
(Theo) Yeah, I mean, last semester, I had a few late classes is getting darker out. And I was walking home one day, and it was it was very dark, but I couldn't help but notice under my feet, there was light. You look through the sewer grates, you circular grates, and there's little, little tiny little holes. Yeah, exactly. And there's light shining through and you can kind of see what's underneath. Yeah. And there are, you know, just like the sort of message like concrete and pipes, and it's just, it was so intriguing. And I had heard that there are tunnels, yeah, there's a walk around. You'll feel like those weird warm holes in the ground. Exactly. It's very, it's almost comforting. I think, like on, you know, winter days. It's just like, you get that little, little bit of heat. And I just started wondering, you know, I mean, what's really what's down there? How far does I go? Because it's all over campus, you know, all of these these little holes. And, you know, I started looking at the University Archives, they had, like, you know, about a sentence or two on their website just about, you know, their Steam tunnels on the university. There are rumors about them, but they're not true. And I was just, I was curious, I wanted to look into it more. And I did
(Alex) That, that's just so great. That's one of the worst things about you is that most people, you know, including myself walk around this campus. And it's massive, and there's 1000s of students, and there's all this weird stuff. And we might observe something like, that's kind of weird how there's all this light and heat coming out of these grates in the sidewalk. And they might wonder what goes down there. But you're, you know, a journalist at heart, you know, and you looked through the archives, and you found this thing, but even that wasn't enough, and it sends you on this whole quest. So tell us, you know, before we get into all your findings about the history of the tunnels and who has been down there and what they've been doing down there, I think the question on everyone's mind, the first question on my mind When you first told me about this was like, Can we get down? Can we get in there? Can we go down there?
(Theo) Yeah. So I mean, that's that's question. You're not supposed to, first of all, I should say it's against policy. You know, you it's an ordinance violation, you could go to prison, you could pay a fine, etc. It's up to MSU dpps. So, can you you know, like can you physically access these covers or should you said we shouldn't, but can we write what I'm candling Yes, you know, state news, myself. I we found owns entrances across campus that are open left wide open, you know, overnight over, you know, weeks on end, you know, that are just openable. All over. And you of course, the story of talked to plenty of people who've been down there, yes, hung out and had a good time. Like, yeah, it's supported by this, this rich history of people kind of, you know, going tunneling is what it's called. So you totally can get down there. Exactly. Yes. Maybe more on the shirt. What is because you asked MSU about this, you said like, right? Why shouldn't people go down there? And they told you, right, well, well, there's Yeah, the pipes are very hot. You know, obviously, they're their Steam tunnels, they transports steam to all the buildings, the heat all the buildings, so you know, you touch these pipes, you're gonna be burned automatically. And it's dangerous, you know, you could get lost, etc. It's it's dangerous is the whole idea. Yeah.
(Alex) And they say the Another interesting note thing that I love in your story is that MSU tells you that there are these motion sensors all over the tunnels. So if anybody reads the news, get some bad idea to go down there. They're going to be instantly detected, and they're gonna find you and lock you up. However, I'm going to FOIA work.
(Theo) Yeah, I looked, you know, did some public records requests. There haven't been any motion sensors bought for tunnel use in the past 24 years. And these things only last about 20 years? You know, when they're in the face of humidity, and it's lower by sea means Yeah, right. And they are steamy down there. So it's a little skeptical about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To be clear, I'm, as you said, their motion sensors and look at you if you get on there. Right. Right. But so don't try it. Yeah.
(Alex) All right. Well, we'll move on. We won't do the whole podcast just kind of vaguely encouraging people to go into steam tunnels, right? Not our intention. It does not. But alright, so before he told me, you know, you started some more modern examples, some examples. But I think like the biggest story from these tunnels, maybe the reason people might already know what this tunnels is the story of Dallas ever, right? Which is sort of this big part of the MSU zeitgeist, and there's a lot of sort of rumor and myth and things that are true and aren't true about this. You for this story have put together what we believe is sort of a reputable retelling of that story and sort of the truth of it without some of these urban legends. Can you talk us through the case of Dallas because such a fascinating story?
(Theo) It is and it gets misinterpreted a lot? Yeah. People say that he you know, there's a student in the 70s went crazy in the tunnels and he you know, never got out that he was part of a call etc. The truth is, right. Like that, yeah, that sort of thing. What really happened and this is according to you know, I talked to the investigator that actually ended up finding him I read the book multiple books actually got it. I do I do. Remember when he brought this in? You showed me I feel show the camera that note in the book, right. So this is I got this from the MSU library. It says the tunnels are real on the inside cover somebody and as they're reported, they are they they are listening and not watching our new video version of the podcast that sort of not an engaging bent, we just but you can imagine that he has this old kind of rusty book and that there's like this creepy note. Anyway, go on about Dallas. Right, right. So James del Dallas Egbert, the third, he goes by Dallas. He enrolls in MSU. In 1979. He's 15 years old. He's a child prodigy. And he's already taken to kind of being a little bit dangerous. He steals chemicals from university labs, and he makes his own narcotics to support his own drug addiction. He does all these things. And including he goes in the tunnels, and he plays this game Dungeons and Dragons. And this is I mean, you probably you're familiar with this game. It's supposed to be played on on a tabletop. It's like a fantasy role playing type of thing. But he sort of joins these groups that take a little bit further at the time. And they play it in these miles of tunnels in the tunnels under campus under campaign Dungeons and Dragons. Exactly. They hide all these artifacts around it. Yeah, they coordinate different things. You know, eventually he's kicked out because they're worried about his age. He's so much younger, and it's dangerous. And you know, he's also he appears to be on drugs. He kicks out but that doesn't stop him from going into tunnels. And he goes in them. I mean, sometimes multiple times a day. And it's kind of a place of refuge for him there. He's bullied. He has problems we you know, he's confused over sexuality is facing pressure from his family in a number of different ways. And it's kind of a place of refuge for him. On one day, it's 1979. August, and he goes down there. He goes into this small little alcove in the tunnels he likes to join. He starts thinking about all these things, and he decides to take a handful of Quay Lutz that he brings with him. He takes them he quickly passes out and for Quaaludes For those not familiar, right. That's an overdose. Right? He's dropped like this is it's purposeful. He is just trying to Yeah and his life. And, you know, days pass on the surface and the family just and hear from their son who's at school very young, supposed to be under the protection of MSU. And they call this private investigator Williams seed deer to go and kind of do what police couldn't at the time. Find their son. Yeah. He flies to Mizzou, you've talked to this man I've talked to he's still alive. He's still he is still kicking in. He still has a business private detective. Yeah. Yeah. But some stuff as often calls himself, you know, the real life James Bond. I should I should add, yeah, yeah. Right. Right. I just spoke to the real extreme, Bob 1979. He's going he's Yes. Okay. He's going East Lansing. He's finding out everything he can he finds out that he likes to go in the tunnels to Dallas likes the tunnels, and he requests MSU. You know, let me search them. He's, he's got to be down there. You know, I know he likes it's dangerous. That's his place to be. And at first MSU says no, that, in fact, the tunnels, you know, they're not accessible. I think originally, deer told me that, you know, MSU told him that the tunnels didn't even exist. I'm not sure. You know, you can take that out his word. But you know, eventually, after a lot of times, conversations MSU lets deer search with tunnels for Dallas. So him a few of his partners and local police. They go on this this two day journey. And they just search the whole thing, you know, comb all of this number of miles in these tunnels? Yeah. Giant camp, I should say Currently, there are 13 miles of tunnels to the campus. At the time, I think it was a little bit less because there are less buildings, but it's very hot, you know, he has to take breaks, because it's just like heat exhaustion. You know, he describes in his book that he wrote about it, there's a little like metal clip on his overall that like, during this time in the tunnels, it heats up to the point where it's like it sports is through through the shirt into his skin, you know, it's a dangerous environment. Right. Eventually, he finds you know, the joint, the preludes that Dallas left behind. But no, Dallas No, no. And he keeps searching for him tries all these kinds of weird, wacky investigative methods. He doesn't find them until I wasn't she because story. She engages in a game of tunnels, Dungeons and Dragons to kind of get in his head, not in the top, on on surface, but just to kind of understand the lore of the game. He played just to kind of get the kids about wrestling. Yeah, at wrestling. So another another Dallas hobby, right? Yeah, all these dangerous things. He used to go on train tracks, you know, there's a train tracks, there's a trestle above the water, right. And this is actually something that a lot of some college students would do. During this time, they would lay under the trestle, and they would let a train pass by over their heads. So basically, like, your unders, like in between the tracks underneath the train, exactly. You're underneath the train. And Dallas would do that. He's very skinny, you know, person. So he was able to deer try to again, get inside of his head, he just put it upon himself to, you know, go to those same tracks and lay on them. He realized though, as the train was moving towards him, it had this thing on it meant to deflect objects in its path, like, you know, large rocks or anything like that, like a guy on the track. Right? It would have killed him, basically, if he hadn't realized looked up. And then he describes in the book at the last moment, I don't know how true that is. He jumped out of the water. Yeah. You know, saving his life inches from these deep in this investigation. Yeah. tunnels inside the kids had, how does he end up actually finding out what happened to Dallas, he gets a phone call from Dallas himself. Dallas has survived the overdose. He's crawled out of the tunnels, you know, bounced around between a few East Lansing hosts and eventually made him he made his way to I believe, Morgan City, Louisiana. You know, he's got like, kind of a part time job there. He's just sort of escaping from everything. And and he this investigator has been, you know, spending. Just call him. Yeah, he just calls him Yes, sir. That he's looking for him. He He gives it up and he says, you know, you can you can come and get me. And he does, you know, returns them to his parents. You know, the media gets word of it. It's it's basically solved at that point. It kind of does. That's not the ending though. You know, deer and Dallas, they have sort of relationship afterwards, where just you know, providing comfort, kind of a fatherly figure. And he gets a series of kind of concerning phone calls from from Dallas saying that the problems that he was talking about earlier, they've continued in the habit of bullying, the bully struggling with their sexuality. Yeah, the pressure from his parents especially. And one year and one day after he went missing from the tunnels, he fatally shot himself. And, you know, deer told me that he had phone call a little bit before and they said, you know, like, Detective like, things haven't improved. proved, you know, they haven't gotten better at all. And that was really the last you ever heard of him. So this case kind of, especially his, his untimely death, kind of caused an uproar within the Dungeons and Dragons community because he was so associated with that game that people thought, you know, anybody who played it would sort of be driven to suicide. Somehow it didn't even inspired a movie called mazes. And monsters with Tom Hanks with Tom Hanks and his first leading role, right? Where he plays this character that gets overly involved in a role playing game and then eventually
(Alex) Because I think it's interesting that you know, the way that you just told us, yes, Dallas story is not the way that it's told and so much. I mean, it was such a so much media and the movies and the books and the radio and all that. But it's like it's sensationalized in a way into all of this fear over like this Dungeons and Dragons becoming the satanic thing and how it motivated this kid to do all this weird stuff and go disappear into these tunnels. And it really became so much bigger than it truly was. Yeah, no, that's, that's very true. Yeah, well, you know, beyond just Dallas, because that's obviously a very high profile example. You talk to a lot of people who've also been down in these tunnels spent time down there. Tell me about other MSU students who have, you know, made a hobby out of just hanging out in the tunnels?
(Theo) Yeah. So I should note that they were first built in 1904, you know, just as a new way of providing heat to the university, but by the 1960s. That's one of the first, you know, reported case of somebody a going into the tunnels for fun. And I talked to, you know, one of the people at the time that did that. And I His name is Will, he told me that, yeah, at the time, he had a friend in the dorms that, you know, was trying to make a map of the tunnels, and occasionally that he would, you know, lead him down into the tunnels with him and just show him around. He said it was it smelled a little bit weird. And later, and that's the thing. This is, this is what happens to really a lot of the people that I talked to that have been in the tunnels, it really it sticks with them, you know, and afterwards, they become inspired. And they make media about I mean, this individual, he wrote a book, and he included the MSU steam tunnels as a location, and it's a novel. But he was just on his mind even 60 years later. And yeah, but that's not the only person that have been in them. I mean, there were 2015, five students were arrested for going in the tunnels. I mean, we found all those social media posts, stuff like online, everybody says, you know
(Alex) Down there through this entrance, this is how you get in or you get out. Exactly. So what is you know, this widespread fascination, all these people finding and being fascinated by the same thing, just hanging out down in those tunnels, you and your story, you talk to people who try and get to the bottom of like, you know, well, why do we? Why do we like this? Why are so many people in this? He talked me through? What's the what's the appeal to draw?
(Theo) Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think it's similar to what I was experiencing when I see, you know, the world lit up from below in those teams huddled grates. It's just this intrigue. I talked to an expert, I guess on the underground, he wrote a book about underground spaces, hidden spaces. It's really great. His name is Wil hunt. The book is called underground, I believe. Yeah, makes sense. And he tells me that, you know, throughout all of society, you have these these tales of people going into these deep, dark places and reemerging kind of transformed. And there's something alluring about it. It's basically, you know, people are able to project their, their known feelings onto the unknown. You know, if there's something you fear in society, you you project it onto what you don't know. And that's the case. You know, what, from what we've seen with these tunnels, people have said that there are, you know, they're like, people, a criminals, you know, in the tunnel
(Alex) Well, actually is another private detective William seedier, he says while he's observing these tunnels, that he developed his theory that they're connected to some sort of string of elaborate sexual assaults.
(Theo) Right, Right. He's convinced that there are basically yeah, like rapists in the tunnels that pop out and and, you know, assault people. And he claims that he saw a tunnel that move once and he's convinced that it wasn't one of the student explores that he was so closely studying, but it was actually a, you know, one of these perpetrators of these crimes. And we see sort of a similar thing. It's not just, you know, criminal level, but it's also kind of conspiracy. You know, I talked to someone who said they saw eight men in suits in business suits, one by one crawl out of an entrance, right outside the administration building. And she was really, I mean, this was first reported actually by the state news in 2003. I talked to her 20 years later, and she's, she stands by the state really, yeah, she's now works at a university yourself. And she says, you know, It was kind of a really strange experience she was she was scared and she couldn't help them wonder I mean, what's down there? business suits like business suits. Yeah. Like businessmen know what they're doing. Yeah, she thinks that there's, you know, some sort of nuclear bunker, you know, contingency of some sort. Under the university, especially by the admin building is what kind of prompted that fear. I wasn't able to confirm that, you know, this, spokesperson, Emily Grace said that she wasn't aware of anything down there. Part of any emergency plan. But yeah, there's something that really draws it draws people to those spaces. And I talked to somebody else. He's a filmmaker, a local indie horror filmmaker, who kind of uses that to his advantage. He says that there's, you know, something that's just perfect for horror movies about underground and he's actually very nice. Yeah, panels, like, ya know, he's filmed two movies in the MSU, steam tunnels, the infrastructure planning facilities team, IPF, they let him down there, and he film to kind of elaborate, you know, one, there's a monster that lives in the tunnels under this fictional university that, you know, occasionally grabs students and eats them scannable. And another one, they students, they're involved in this larger plot, and they hide another student's body in the tunnels when they a party goes wrong. And just all of these things, this is perfect, dark, dim setting. For for tragic events. Yeah, you know
(Alex) It is it's scary. But it's and that's kind of like the same thing with the Dallas case, you know, is the project, all of these cultural perceptions of, you know, there's Satanism and the kids are playing the Dungeons and Dragons, and they're leaving our religion behind, and all that sort of, I guess, in the 80s of Dallas, Scott projected onto the MSU tunnels, and you explore that in a really great way in your article, and then sort of the pushback from sort of the Dungeons and Dragons community, trying to defend themselves. And it's handled well in the story. And you, you know, we're so fascinated by these tunnels, that not only have you, you know, put together this accounting of tunnels underneath MSU. But you went beyond MSU. And you found that there are other universities that also have similar networks of underground steam tunnels, and you talk to some of those explorers. Tell us a little bit about the tale of the tunnel, Bob's
(Theo) Yeah, yeah. So it's a very common system for these large universities to have. And coincidentally, this is so common for people to explore these things that two universities have these similar figures. They're both named tunnel, Bob. So at University of Michigan, there was somebody in the 70s, who never He never gave his real name to the press. I did talk to him. Didn't give me you know, permission to publish his real name, either. But his name, you know, was he just he's known by tunnel Bob, because the security guard would see him all the time and just sort of gave him that nickname. And it's stuck. And everybody at UNM knows him by tunnel Bob, and he's just as infants figure that, yeah, he would, he would explore the tunnels. He told me that he pee it was in the tunnels one day, he found access to this room full of these jars that had fetuses in them, you know, floating this sort of formaldehyde, you know, glowing UV light. All of the spooky stuff is in the basement of the biomedical building, apparently. And the tunnel is just led there, you know? And it's funny because coincidentally in what was it University of University of Wisconsin Madison there's another individual named tunnel Bob another tunnel Bob Yeah. These two things are no so they don't know each other at all I asked. You have tunnel Bob they've ever spoken he said no. You know of each other. They do know of each other. Yeah. He's familiar with with the other tunnel Bob. But this tunnel Bob, he's same sort of thing. People thought that he lived in the tunnel. So he's, he's since denied that in an interview. You know, people say that he's, he's, he lived down there because he's scared of, of women. You know, he's a Vietnam vet. He's shell shocked. And, and those things generally aren't true. He's just really likes the tunnels like all these other folks. Yeah, yeah.
(Alex) Theo, this again- to those who listening. You got to read this story. It's amazing. You've spent so much time being so thorough chasing down all of these leads about this system seem tunnels. I gotta ask you for listening to the 1909 this is still a news podcast. I got an S card reading questions. Have you been down in the tunnels?
(Theo and Alex) Alex? No. Okay. Really? Yeah. Hello, I've been tempted. Now, no, no, not even not even. Maybe to celebrate the publication your big story? Time in the tunnels? Well, once it's published, you know, they're gonna be lucky enough to ruin it for everybody. They're gonna do thank you so much for coming on the show, delighting us with this wonderful tale. It's always a joy to have you on you're on a lot. And as I've said before, we don't pay you for it because you're not the host, but you're on pretty much every episode. So, yeah, he's here to the good of his heart, folks. All right, the thank you so much. Great talk to you as always. Thank you, Alex. Have a good one.
(Alex) All right. Well, the Demonte Welcome to the show. It's great to have you.
(Demonte) Thanks, Alex. Great to be on. Yeah.
(Alex) So you've been doing you know, a lot of great reporting your new student affairs reporter writing about you know, as MSU, which is the Undergraduate Student Government, student clubs, student organizations, and these coalition's and this week, you've written a story about sort of a major shake up to the major kind of coalition's for student groups. And before we get into that, though, I want you to just explain because there's so many acronyms and jargon and words that just get thrown around the Corps and cops coalition, we talked about it a lot. We don't always explain what it is. Tell us for those who might not know what is causing cops. What does it do?
(Demonte) So of course, in cops coalition, acronym of itself is a coalition of racial and ethnic students and the Council of progressive students. The organization has been around since 2013, has done a lot of great work and advocating for students, scholars and other marginalized communities on Michigan State University's campus, including advocating for the Multicultural Center, which is in construction as we speak
(Alex) So that knew that Senator, the board passed, you know, a massive budget for it. Last year, that was the product of sort of this kind of advocacy by this coalition. Right? Yeah, I see. And so it's Corps is racial ethnic students. Council of cops is Council of progressive students, right? I see. But it's things are changing. And you wrote about it this week. Tell us what happened. How did the Oldham blow up?
(Demonte) So what basically happened was, and January on January 27, Black Student Alliance, aka BSA released a statement via social media, and forming it gets community that the student organization will be withdrawing from a course of cops coalition due to lack of transparency. Well, I don't want to say lack of transparency, but a lack of communication, on authorized allocation of funds, and whole bunch of other stuff that has been at hand.
(Alex) So BSA, you know, was one of the members of this coalition, I know that, you know, the university provides some funds to this coalition to do kind of event and some of the advocacy work and stuff you're saying that, you know, they were doing that without spending that money without communicating with without getting authorization from BSI, one of the members.
(Demonte) According to the statement, yes, I see. A week later who see apostle and crew which is the Asian Pacific American student organization, and cultural still asked for his OS, the Latinx student organization, next student organization both announced on the same day that they too will be withdrawing from the course and clubs coalition. I think that the apostle student group went into full debt of one of the many factors that led to the withdrawal of all three of these organizations.
(Alex) And the reasons the reasons were similar was communication using funds without permission from the members.
(Demonte) So each of the statement is very similar to BSA statement mentioned its lack of communication on outdoor ice allocation of funds, well, per se, the student organizations consent or knowledge, by belief of posso statement goes into full detail. It reads basically, since the organization was founded in 2013, hired ministration have took approximately $5,000 from each student group out there, again, because set nor full knowledge, I should say
(Alex) I see so they feel like you know, the administration is taking this money from these student groups for these coalition's and that they're not getting much for it. Is that fair to say?
(Demonte) I'm not sure if that would be fair to say, but I would say it is a factor. One of the many factors I have
(Alex) is sort of that the $5,000 that's drawn from each group, right? I see. So what about you know, the other thing that I thought was interesting what the statements is that you know, cores and cops obviously work together. They're described together a lot, but they are sort of separate and they you know, the statements were pretty clear differentiating that they felt a little bit differently about cores and they did about cops you talked about that the difference between these two coalition's
(Demonte) Yeah, so chorus itself has been around for a few years now longer than a chorus and cops coalition's to my understanding course and cause has been around for 10 years now since 2023, but course itself basically serves more of a space for students of color, so marginalized students on campus, and has been since its founding. And each of the statement reiterates that even though that they are leaving the Cubs cores and clubs volition sorry. They are completely
(Alex) sort of open. I've always sort of felt like, you know, they're leaving cores and cops, but they're keeping the door open for course, is that fair to say?
(Demonte) I would say for certain that it looks like that they're still open to working with cops, if they need any help, their phone call away or whatnot, but they're just kind of leaving, pushed by moving aside from
(Alex) Withdrawing kind of formulae from the coalition to feels like you're right. And so but where does
that leave cops? Because you know, cops is it's for groups. Right? It's crew, it's BSA. It's a paso, and it's Mesa, which is a Native American Student Organization. I mean, what is it? Do we know what the feature of cops looks like when three out of the four members have withdrawn? I mean, it's not is can you be a coalition with one group?
(Demonte) As of this episode, North American indigenous student organization are nice. So they are still currently and connections with the course and cops coalition. But it's currently unclear of where we're at at least the coalition as a whole with mass majority of its coalition itself withdrawn
(Alex) Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for taking the time to cover this is obviously a very complicated story. And I know that you're going to stick with it. And so we're going to have you on once we have a little bit more clarity on what this all means for sort of the future quarters and cops. But thank you so much for coming on the show.
(Demonte) Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Nice to be on.
(Alex) That's all for now. But we'll be back next week with fresh reporting from the great minds here at the State News. Until then, the stories we discussed and plenty more available state news.com. Thank you to my guests to monta and Theo our podcast editor Anthony Brinson and Video Producer Brad the plant. And most of all, thank you for listening for the nine to nine. I'm Alex Walters.