(Alex) It's Thursday, March 7, and this is the 1909 state news weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host Alex Walters this week and outside investigation has once again thrust MSUs Board of Trustees into tumult in turmoil. Two members are accused of wide ranging misconduct, including repeated interference and University Affairs and attempts to orchestrate attacks on their political rivals through manipulation of students. The investigation recommends that they be removed from office now to break all this down what the board members did what it means for MSU what might happen next, I'm joined by the state news administration reporters the o Shakyra. And O and McCarthy. The o n s o n great to have both you guys back on the show. Thank you as always great. So you guys so MSU is getting back from spring break this week. You guys didn't exactly get one because midway through the week, we got this report and you have been working hard all week down on the salt mine doing the news, you know, and you're here to talk about it. And it's a lot you know, and before we get into all of that lot that went on last week, let's go back to October to when all this stuff starts for those listening tonight tonight who are so confused right now. All right, October MSE board feel how did this whole thing get started letter that started at All right
(Theo) so this happened when trustee Briana Scott, she wrote a letter to the board and we published this letter, basically calling out the board chair at the time bream of Vassar for allegedly you know, violating a lot of board policies overstepping in her role as trustee. I mean, there's a few specific allegations right that she's bullying the interim president Teresa WOODRUFF You know, she meddled in this official report about the campus shooting, you know, settling all these lawsuits, leaking the name of the four of the the woman that Mel Tucker, sexually harassed, Brenda, Tracy, just all of these things, and it kind of caused her an uproar, and you would see a lot of different, you know, sides being being chosen. And eventually MSU took these allegations so seriously, that they started an investigation just to see whether they're true. They hired, you know, an outside firm now to say there's all this stuff being alleged. Let's see what if it is true, what isn't? So these lawyers have for months now been working on this investigation and talking about the scope of this investigation, you know, who they talked to? How much is the cost? Yeah. So it's obviously they started with this specific list of allegations that Scott put out, but it kind of expanded as it went further. I mean, the investigators say that Vassar, during the investigation also put out her own letter of, of allegations to investigators, and they expanded it to include some of those. As they were going about this, we actually released a story on the, you know, naming the two finalists for the presidential search, they expanded it to include how that information got out to the public. Yeah. And just a number. I think there's 50, in allegations all told the the mandate was pretty broad with this letter, but then what was actually asked of these lawyers was investigate, basically, any violations of the trustee code of conduct. So they're kind of expanded and expanded. Do you have the numbers in total, you know, how many people they interviewed, you know, the gigabytes of documents, all that it was? Shoot, I think it was over 50 people they interviewed. And it was, do you have that on? I'm searching for it right now. It was definitely over 50. And then, I think they also had the number I think was also over 50 separate allegations as well. So yeah, they definitely as time went on, and more people brought more things to light. You know, there were even some people who are interviewed and kept anonymous, who also just raised some separate concerns about like interactions they were having with trustees, where they even were like looking into some of those things. So yeah, when it was all said and done, it was it was over 50 allegations separately, that were looked into it was really an opportunity for people to sort of air out their grievances within the board and about the board. Yeah. And it seemed like they did because there's all this new stuff in there. Yeah. All right. So before we get into some of that new stuff that's been turned up by this report. Talk me through the things in Scotts letter that she alleged back in October, which of them were corroborated and which of them which of them were they not able to find evidence? Yeah, so a big part of her letter was allegation that Vassar is bullying Woodruff that she's requesting her speaking schedule. Yes, the interim president. They they found that there is this sort of fraught relationship between the two of them and they provided a few sort of vague examples of that. However, in the end, it didn't violate board policies. It didn't cross that line of, I believe, you know, deceit, incivility, etc. I think the next one that was pretty Big was the official report about the February campus shooting, yes, this big review of how MSE responded, etc. The Scott alleged that Vassar kind of bullied or not, I guess that wasn't the wording that she used, but convinced the investigators to change a finding in that review, and kind of soften the wording to be a little bit nicer on trust, because the finding initially, you know, was saying that these trustees were acting outside of their role in a harmful way and sort of interfering in their response to the shooting. But obviously, the one that eventually was released was sort of a much softer wording, I forget. Exactly. Yeah. ones of like, you know, trustees desperately wanted to help and, you know, a little bit too much. Yeah, they initially reported that desperately wanted to help became involved in that incident beyond their expertise and outside of their appropriate role. So pretty firm. Right. But what it was actually published in the end, it just said that they wanted to help but became involved in in, in the in the incident beyond the customary role and expectations of a governance board. Yeah. So and Scott was saying the Vassar was the one who kind of pushed them to change that word. Yeah. What they found instead that it wasn't Vassar. That instead, people that were in on that meeting, say it was actually no kind of trusted dentist. Yeah. Trustee, Dennis Danna, who is really a big part of this report as well, who kind of led this this questioning of the consultants of that firm? And he was
(Alex) can you talk through it too, because we've talked so much for months now. But all this change in the report, the official shooting report, we've never actually known what the conduct was that the trustees did that was described as so inappropriate. Now, we do talk as to what did these trustees do that all of this stir has been made about?
(Theo) Yeah, I think a big part of it. They said that trustees showed up at Sparrow hospital to try and visit the survivors. And, you know, kind of inserted themselves between phone calls of between the administration and grieving families, kind of, again, out of this, this desire to help but in effect, it kind of interfered in this this established process that they have at the hospital.
(All three) Didn't the hospital contact? MSU? Yeah, yeah, they did. They were. They basically requested that in the future. MSU Yeah, they don't show up to the hospital, or was it that they needed to notify them first? I think it was just like, yeah, that can't happen again, with when it comes to official MSU visits like that can happen. Yeah, trustees can't be shown up in hospital rooms.
(Theo) Right. Right. So but apparently Deno really took objection to that. Finding, right. And sort of led this questioning of the investigators really saying, you know, is that really appropriate in a way that other trustees the President at the meeting described as bullying and aggressive, and eventually they did sort of change these things. In the final report, we see a very softer approach on the trustees. And that sort of, you know, aggressive intimidation from Donna was something that's repeated with a lot of examples in the report, including even the lawyers who compiled the report, say that in their Interview with Dan Oh, he threatened them. And then they write this thing about like, we're not influenced by right behavior and whatnot, but it's they they tried to make a point there with like, they're saying this is so widespread. Even we got some of it. But anyway, go on Scott letter. what's true, what's not? Yeah. All right. So that one's the Oh, right. The the lawsuit over? Gupta. So the former MSE business Dean, right, this is the whole saga was was fired or ousted for, you know, not reporting this title nine violation. Scott said that Vassar tried to single handedly settle a lawsuit related to that. Because he ends up this Dean sues the university and says, like, you're fired for not reporting that secondary misconduct. He actually alleges that it's part of this presidential success rate scheme by which they're trying to force them out. But anyway, Scott alleges that master tried to make that go away and put together a settlement for the dean and appear a pretty big thing. And the report actually did corroborate that that allegation. They said that she did. act without the proper authority to to do to do that to settle it.
(Alex) And what about the you know, because another huge part of Scott's letter was this allegation that Vassar had accepted gifts from MSU donors, these private jet flights to and from March Madness, basketball games, which of course, you know, that allegation ends up putting MSU accreditation in jeopardy, because part of the accreditation is that, you know, the board is supposed to be free from undue influence from donors. What is the what are the consultants make of that allegation?
(Theo) Yeah, well, that one's you kind of went into that. Really?
(Owen) Yeah. So it did ultimately corroborate that it was inappropriate, it was violating, you know, conflict of interest rules that the board has, in sort of, you know, it was to, there was two separate basketball games that Basler accepted courtside seats for in that was, you know, they basically the board has a process where they can request tickets for these games, but they're not courtside and they would be like grouped in with other MSU people, right? Yeah. And so it's all like on the books but Vassar had these two separate occasions where she accepted tickets to these courtside games. And then also, there was two separate private jet flights that Scott initially said were inappropriate. Only one of them was ultimately determined to be truly inappropriate, but it was with his donor who, what really makes it complicated as that specific donor was in ongoing negotiations with the university and Vassar. At the time related to an NFL deal, which I think we'll we'll talk about a little bit more.
(Alex) Let's talk about that right now. It's good to know. So this is, you know, Steve, St. Andre, he's, you know, prom, and he's a billionaire. He's a big MSU grad MSU donor. And he's, you know, taking her on this private jet to the games, but at the same time, he has this NIL collective, which is this, it's sort of a complicated thing. It's like, you know, fans are paying into this collective, then the money goes to the player, it's a very indirect way to basically pay college athletes. But anyway, he's trying to get MSU trademark rights to start this and he's selling this merch and Spartan dogs for life. Is the brand what is the report say about masters involvement in that?
(Theo) Yeah, it really says that she kind of interfered with negotiations between this the Stoner and and the universities that she kind of inappropriately put herself into that and encouraged them to accept the deal with
(Alex) Because it seemed from the report, you know, I must use what General Counsel trademark office didn't want to do this deal with the owner to give them the trademark rights. But she I think her wording was we have to get to yes. And like we have to find a way right to give him these rights, so he can sell this this merchandise. Anyway. And then what about also in, Scotts letter is these allegations about if you remember, back in April, there's this whole mess with MSU board where the Attorney General sends a letter saying, you know, you gotta release these now kind of infamous, the NASA Docs is there not one of these documents MSU has withheld for years relating to the university's handling of Larry Nasser, and it looks at the board's gonna release them at the last minute they don't. The Attorney General says that, you know, Vassar went to her and said, we're going to do it and then backed out of last minute and didn't do it. Scott alleges that Vassar tried to orchestrate this whole thing and wasn't able to. And, you know, it's all been a very public mass that we've observed. What are the these lawyers who investigated it? Say really happened?
(Theo) Yeah, she said that basically, you know, vaster claims that she had the consensus of all these trustees before going to the attorney general, that it was supposed to be expected, etc. But the report found that that's not true that she didn't, the trustees weren't expecting this, that she kind of did this on her own independently that she, you know, unilaterally intervened in discussions about this, which did violate board policies.
(Alex) All right. So we've talked about, you know, what's the Scotland are true, untrue. All that, but talk me through I think the most fascinating part of this report, the parts has been discussed the most, is these completely new allegations are not really allegations, proven actions that were done after the release of the Scott letter in the aftermath of that, to create this sort of, you know, retaliation campaign with the student groups. Talk me through everything that went on there.
(Theo) Yeah, it's really I mean, it's intense. They're basically they found that they are using student groups to orchestrate these attacks on colleagues, political rivals, yeah, that they don't like. Yeah, exactly. And there are two examples of that very thing. You know, the first one is encouraging a student to write a letter to the Higher Learning Commission that kind of denounces in a way, another rival of Vassar and dinos, Faculty Senate Chair Jack Lipton, right. So basically, this letter kind of talks about this, you know, black students experience at MSU, and specifically talks about how Jack Lipton at a board meeting called students supporters of Vassar, a mob described him as a mob and you know, talking about how that language sort of derogatory in different ways and plays into the stereotypes, etc. You know, the report found that Vassar encouraged that student to write the letter, the Vassar in demo kind of played into that a little bit. But as as Owen found out, the person who actually write that wrote that letter says the report is wrong, she's denied, right? She said, No, I did that on my own volition. It's not that it was the bathroom genocide. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about that.
(Owen) Yeah. So I talked with the author of that letter. Her name is Missy Chola. She's a black student leader here at MSU. And she told me that that she did that. In fact, she she feels she said she feels insulted by the implication that, you know, she was someone had to tell her to do that. Because she said she was genuinely was concerned by the language that Lipton had used and thought that it was you know, in dangering to black and brown students on campus, and that she did that completely independently. In so she contested like some of the evidence that the report uses as well to prove it. I don't know how much we want to get into the weeds, but there was a text that was used an anonymous source and the report was had some text messages. Were this the author, Missy Chola. And she told me that yeah, I wrote that text she wrote, Dr. Vassar is quite pissed, too, about the Higher Learning Commission not investigating Exactly. Yeah, they chose not to that skinny, right. And so she says that, and then the reporters use that basically to say, look, that means she was pushing for this report and telling these students, but then, you know, Missy Chola told me that no, it's just that I reached out to Vassar after hearing that there wasn't going to be an investigation. And I wanted to talk about next steps for what we can do. And and Vassar responded to her and said, I think it's unfortunate that the HLC isn't taking these allegations more specifically. But nothing about that, in from, from what Missy Chola said nothing about that was her saying that she you know, was behind it from the start was behind the complaint from the start.
(Alex) Yeah. And then, you know, outside of that specific, the HLC example, right. There's sort of this broader, and it's kind of incredible what's in this report, because you know, Vassar and dental have this meeting with all the student leaders, specifically from a lot of black campus groups, and also leaders in sort of the Palestinian campus groups in solidarity with Palestine, that kind of thing. And the meeting was recorded secretly. And the investigators got a hold of that from a source. Yeah. And so they have this tape of Basaran dental talking to the students. What advice or dental say to these students what went on in this meeting that was secretly recorded?
(Owen) Yeah. So basically, in this conversation, the the pretext of the or the pretense of the meeting was in this is what the report said, was that the students, were going to meet with Vassar and Denno, as a preview of a meeting they were going to have with Woodruff to talk about their concerns. So it was almost like Vassar and Donald were like, We're gonna sit down with you and like, tell you what your strategy should be with this with how to deal with the administration drift the interim president. Exactly. And so ultimately, what the recording is turned up, though, is that, you know, Vassar and Denno. Were specifically saying to try to embarrass, embarrass the administration and Baris Woodruff there was this whole campaign. Hashtag not a Spartan. And Dan Oh, even volunteered to pay for T shirts. But but keep my name out of it. Right. Yeah. But let's say crucify the interim president is their language. Yeah, yeah, pointed language, and then also specifically to publicly smear Lipton, Jack Lipton, who is the chair of the Faculty Senate, who we mentioned earlier publicly smear him as a racist, the playing off of his comments, the mob comment specifically, it's important to note Lipton his apologized for those comments and said that when he made the mob comment, what he was trying to say was, there was a lot of chaos at this board meeting. And, you know, the leadership of the board who would have been Basler had the power to, you know, kind of with, I don't know if they have an actual gavel, but basically, it's her authority to, you know, rein everything in and call order. Yeah. And so he's saying, that's why he made that statement. And it said that he needs to be more careful this language. But yeah, so basically, dinos said, you know, the other thing you can do to help to help me out is called lift and a racist. And then he ultimately gives the name of Detroit News reporter who had published the mob statement gives the name and email to a student that he was meeting with here, and says to reach out to them, and that student asked, What should I say? And lips and replies lips are dental, dental replies, Lipton equals racist. So it was kind of just this, this section of the report was was definitely, I think, kind of jarring to a lot of people and just the sense that these colleagues were really trying to are these these vet veteran Dental, we're really trying to get these students to go after, you know, people that have veteran dental work with people in the administration.
(Alex) Yeah. And you, you know, because it's interesting, because, you know, the student groups have publicly in the past been very supportive of aspen dental on this, you know, the first allegations in October and everything that's followed. But now you remember, these student groups are turning over secret recordings to investigators and showing them the tax and talking about this. You talk to the student who recorded the meeting, who talked to the investigators about all this and you got her perspective on you know, what is it that changed that, you know, changed your Outlook talk to me about that?
(Owen) Yeah, so the person is referred to as interviewee 10 In the report and their name is Tamas, Saeed, sort of a prominent Palestinian student activists here on our campus. You know, she's been very vocal about like divestment issues and just generally supporting Arab students with the ongoing violence in Gaza this semester. In so basically, you know, she's been she told me I interviewed her she told me she's really been working with with Vassar in general and just the school in general going back for a while. had to try to bring some of these concerns. But kind of what started to happen is that suicide gradually started to grow a little bit suspicious, she told me she was like, suspicious from the start just because she's dealing with people who are in a position of power, but those suspicions started to mount. And she basically said, you know, they seemed to really kind of say one thing, and then the actions wouldn't back it up. So they would seem to really say like, you know, we support you guys. But she started noticing that they were most enthusiastic about the conversations when they centered around smearing one of their opponents, namely, the lifting conversation. Yeah, that comes up in the report. So Saba said in that conversation was was November 1, Saba said on winter break, she had a lot of time to kind of reflect and she started realize that a lot of her anger about this whole situation was really being directed at certain, you know, sort of certain individuals like WOODRUFF And like Lipton. And sopas, said she even met with whipped and and realize and had a really productive conversation and realize he, she sort of said she hadn't even read the article, The Detroit News article and was really just going off of what Basaran done or saying is that this guy's racist. So Sava sort of, you know, said she had some time to reflect, and then decided she was going to reach out to the investigators and share concerns
(Alex) Well, there's this great quote in the article to where you know, because you asked somebody you said, Well, why are you, you know, recording these meetings with them? And she says, she says, but she had these suspicions. And she says, you know, this quote, If I wasn't sussed out about them, I wouldn't have recorded meetings, how could it be talking so much crap about the people you work with? So she has these recordings that become sort of like, you know, the the nail in the coffin for Vassar and no, investigators, you know, conclude like, this is not appropriate behavior of Trustees. And so talk about that the investigators conclusions, they've, you know, turned up all of you know, this, you know, corroboration of some Scott's allegations, these wholly new, you know, it's wholly new information about these other, you know, kind of forms of misconduct that have been going on, what do they say should be done about these two trustees?
(Theo) Yeah, I mean, so for Vassar and Denno, they say that it should be reviewed to the governor under a Michigan law. So under the Michigan Constitution, the governor has the right to remove any publicly elected official, and that includes, you know, members of university governing boards. They say under this law, the governor needs to make a decision. Yeah, basically, they're saying, yeah, the governor needs to decide whether to remove Asteron general from the positions altogether. In addition to that, they found that Scott, who originally wrote the letter that started at all, she should be censured for releasing sort of confidential information.
(Alex) Talk of you know, some of these settlement discussions violates attorney client privilege, they said, and so and so anyway, so then the board announces after they get their hands on this report, that they're going to have a meeting to consider these recommendations. You know, are we going to Senator Scott, are we going to, you know, vote to, you know, ask the Governor to remove these two trustees. But before that meeting happens, something changes.
(Theo) Right. This is huge, faster, resigns as board chair. She's still a trustee. She's still on the board. But she's no longer board chair
(Alex) And talk me through, you know, cuz she said publicly, I think she after the Detroit News, yeah. About what motivated that decision.
(Theo) Yeah. Well, she says, you know, she's broken, no law. You know, they tried to silence me and all sorts of ways they tried to frame me, that's what she told the Detroit News. So I decided to be fiscally responsible and stepped down from the chair position. I have another another life to live outside the university and frankly, MSU doesn't need this. So it's a very, yeah, very strong statement.
(Alex) And then but then actually, at the meeting, she kind of she says even more and she says that she thought doesn't she say she thought resigning with what cool the temperature of the board. Right? Right. And though she says that she doesn't think that it actually has but I guess maybe like resigning as a way to kind of keep her board seat, but just not her chair seat. But obviously, spoiler alert. It's not how it goes. Right. Let me on spoiler that's what I don't know if that's right. Talk about what happened. Right.
(Theo) So the special meeting, we should know it's 10pm on a Sunday night. Yeah, Pastor bedtimes and right. Yeah, exactly. So they decide to basically follow the report's findings, recommends them to the Treasurer to Governor Whitmer for removal, but also stripped them of their duties. So you know, Chair Vasser she's was on the Henry Ford steering committee heavily
(Alex) partnership between Henry Ford Hospital and Su she was on that board. But there's also the committee's right, kind of does its actual work in these and so they're off the committee's, which is student affairs, I believe, academic affairs service. Yeah, so it's interesting because like the board doesn't have the power to remove a trustee. They can't say that they're not trustees anymore. But at that meeting, they did vote to stripped them of all the duties and powers of Trustees. Yeah, and it's still unclear. It's an MSU spokesperson just today was telling LSJ like, they don't even really know 100% what that means. Right board is still figuring it out. out. But on paper dough investor, they are trustees, but they can't do anything a trustee can do, right. It's unclear what that actually will look like in practice, but that's what the board voted on. And they voted six to write Vassar and Denno are against that decision. Everyone else is on board and Scott censure that passed as well. Right. as well. Vassar voted no Scott votes. Yes, for sure. Yeah. She accepts it. Vassar dresser explain the no vote.
(Theo) She did not know. Interesting, even though you know, before she released a statement saying that she agreed that she's got to be censured, but I guess she changed her mind at some point.
(Alex) But anyway, so now, that's where we're at. Right? We're waiting for the governor. We're, it's it's Tuesday, we're recording the 1909. If this comes out on Thursday, the governor's already done something I don't we're gonna have to scrap the whole lots gonna be such a lame podcast. Yeah. It'll be like a time capsule to this moment. Right before that thing happened. Anyway, so we're waiting on the governor. But also, as all of this is going on, starting yesterday morning, we've got a new president, he started. He is MSU is the 22nd. President, Kevin Blaskowitz. He is starting the job. I imagine that's complicated to start as president after reading this report about how the board tried to encourage students to crucify your predecessor. Right. What is he said about? What does he make of all this? Is he okay?
(Theo) Yeah, I mean, I think he wrote a community letter, sent it to all the students and basically said that he's excited to start and obviously, he's got all these initiatives. But the results of the report, he said, were concerning, I believe. And I think that was the wording there. I mean, he didn't say much more. But yeah, I mean, he emphasized this whole idea of finding a true north for everybody to follow in the trustee, circle, and kind of leading MSU out of this history of interference. Yeah.
(Alex) And that's something that was discussed a lot during the search for him as prime. I mean, we have those documents who remember, when you know, the faculty, as they were searching for the next president asked the candidates, you know, what are you going to do? How are you going to deal with this board, and he writes that he will only take the job if the board promises not to interfere in his work. And then when they appoint him, they all they sign these pledges, basically. And they pass them as a resolution and a meeting that say, We will not interfere in Kevin gaskets, his work as president, his administration. So it seems, on paper at least, and they're sort of hopeful view of what's to come, you know, might look a little bit different. Right? Who knows if that'll happen? Who knows? You guys will be covering it with this stuff. Great to have both of you on the show. As always, you guys are so knowledgeable about this stuff. It's awesome to be able to kind of break it down. More conversationally. Yeah, I'm excited to have you on again when something else happens. Yeah. Thanks. All right. Well, that's all for this week. We will be back next week with fresh reporting from the great minds here at the State News. Until then, the stories we the stories we discussed and a bunch more are available state news.com Thank you to my guests, Bo and Owen, our podcast editor Anthony Brinson, our video producer, Brad the plant. And most of all, thank you for listening for the 1909 I'm Alex Walters.