Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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) Welcome to the 1909 your home at the state news for everything happening on campus and around Lansing. I'm Lily Guiney . It is officially spring. This is our first 99 of the month of April. So I'd be remiss if I did not mention the huge storm we all weathered in Lansing last week. If you want to see some photos and videos of the crazy flooding that happened on campus, head to the state news website and check it out. So this week we'll be recapping the Reopenings of buildings on campus to stay disabled students experiences during the February shooting, and a review of MSU investment connections to the gun industry. We'll also look at some quick City campus and state government news. Then we will hear from one of our administration reporters Alex Walters to help unpack the highly anticipated results of the third party report commissioned by the university after the controversial firing of former Broward College of Business Dean Sanjay Gupta. So let's get into it.
The MSU union welcomed the community of students and staff back into the building at 8am on April 3. Counselors from counseling and psychiatric services faculty, priests and student employees delivered speeches during the reopening ceremony. The first foreign lounges computer labs and Smarties are now open. On the third floor there is a reflection room for any community member to visit where 1000s of messages from schools and communities across the country show their support and love for MSU. Following the tragic events of February 13, Chief Communications Officer for student life and engagement cat Cooper said the union was built to honor students and with the difficulty of reopening being present it's needed for the community. The very foundation of this building is our students Cooper said with graduation approaching and summer programming approaching. It was important to the team and the staff to be here if students are ready to be here. If we're ready, we are here for them.
On the night of the February 13 Shooting social sciences sophomore Amber's old when a student with a mobility impairment got up to move her dresser in front of the door but realize she wasn't able to that moment it hit me I'd be screwed because I couldn't move our furniture to barricade the door Oakland said and then the students in Bercy who were going out the window? Would that even have been a possibility for me? Where would that have left me. Emergency guidelines posted inside classrooms at MSU give guidance under five emergency categories. Active shooter situations secure in place orders, evacuation seeking shelter and hazardous material leaks or spills. Only the evacuation section gives specific instruction for students with disabilities. The evacuation guidelines offered for persons with disabilities are to assist to the nearest safe stairway inform the nurse, police or fire personnel of a person's location for assistance to not use elevators and that deaf and hearing impaired individuals may not realize the evacuation alarm is sounding and may require alerting and guidance to the exit and rally site. But according to Environmental Science and Management senior Madeline Toko a student with a neuro disability, the somebody who is going to come and help a disabled person is nobody. Plain and simple. Toko said Toko and Oakland both serve as representatives for the ASMFC Council of Students with Disabilities. They're quote unimpressed with the guidelines offered for disabled students. Some disabled students are not able to run hide or in the worst case scenario fight someone off. But there are no distinctions in the protocol for disabled students during an active shooter situation or other emergencies.
Toko said this oversight and protocol leaves disabled students as an afterthought and relies on surrounding people to help which is unreliable. The reality is is an able bodied students will usually help themselves before they even think to help disabled peers who will have extra difficulties because they'd rather save themselves. Toko said not all disabilities are visible students with mobility hearing or vision impairment that don't use the visible aids are left at a further disadvantage. Aldwin said it puts the onus on the disabled student in that case to draw attention to that Oakland said, pointing out that you need accommodations in a setting where no one cared to ask in the first place, especially in an emergency situation where everyone is panicking is going to be a difficult situation. active threat training will become mandatory for students in the fall of 2023.
Additionally, active threat training was optional and provided upon request by the university MSU department of police and public safety spokesperson Dana White said the department never received requests from any specific groups including disabled student groups for this training. Over White said they will recognize that there is room for improvement moving forward and MSU will strive to include all perspectives and the mandatory trainings. In the meantime, training will still be provided upon request and MCPD is open to make plans with anyone who feels it's necessary. We would recommend that disabled students know their own physical capabilities and know how to best physically defend themselves in that situation and make that plan in place beforehand by contacting our department why till the state news will go and said not only should the university implement mandatory all inclusive shooter training but they should also maintain consistent contact with groups on K At bits that represent disabled students. Additionally, Toko said the university needs to have accessibility in mind from start to finish with any plan or project they're doing, to not leave disabled students as an afterthought. If you're disabled, you can't hop through windows like everybody else, you can't do what you need to do to survive like everybody else, whether in normal life or in an emergency sometimes Toko sad. So we've got to make this better. That's all there is to it.
And other campus news two finalists for the vice president of the Office of Civil Rights and title nine coordinator role will visit Canberra campus on April 10, which is the day this podcast airs so today, community members will have the opportunity to ask questions and provide provide feedback later in the week. The position is an elevation from the former position of assistant vice president for the Office of Civil Rights and Title Nine education and compliance. MSU deputy spokesperson Dan Olson said the role was implemented to reflect the importance of the position. We made the determination given the significance of this role and the important role that plays within our Title Nine Office and the Office for Civil Rights that it needed to be elevated from an assistant vice president to a vice president role. Wilson said. President Emeritus Samuel L. Stanley Jr. Created an eight member search committee with an executive search firm Isaacson Miller to conduct a national search for the position last fall. When the finalists visit campus they will meet with stakeholders and deliver a public presentation which will be live streamed according to an email from interim president Teresa WOODRUFF And question and answer session will choked on them. A question and answer session will follow the presentations community members will be able to provide feedback on the first finalist on April 11, from 10 to 11am, and the second finalists on April 14 from 8:15 to 9:15am. Both feedback sessions will be held in room 443 of the Hannah administration building as well as over zoom.
Two individuals were pronounced dead at the scene of a multi car accident on April 5, near the lake Lansing and Coolidge intersection according to the East Lansing Police Department, six other individuals were transported to a local hospital to in critical condition and four in stable condition at the time we recorded this episode on April 6. The investigation surrounding the crash is ongoing.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a series of bills on April 5 repealing Michigan's 1931 ban on abortions, crossing off another key promised by Michigan Democrats from the 2022 campaign trail. In a press statement Whitmer said the repeal of the ban makes Michigan a leader in the fight for reproductive freedom. In November Michiganders sent a clear message we deserve to make our own decisions about our own bodies. Whitmer said today we are coming together to repeal the extreme 1931 law banning abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, rape or incest and criminalizing nurses and doctors for doing their jobs. The bills to repeal were among the first introduced under the Democrats legislative Trifecta in January. Upon the bans repeal Michigan becomes one of 11 states to codify abortion rights in the months following dobs V. Jackson decision by the US Supreme Court that remove protections provided by Roe v Wade for abortion at the national level. The signing of the repeal follows the passage of proposal three last November when voters overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment which enshrines rights around reproduction, including the right to an abortion into Michigan's constitution. We're joined at the signing of it in Birmingham, by the sponsors of the bills and representatives from various abortion rights groups, including Planned Parenthood and Emily's list.
Since the mass shooting on the MSU campus in February, students have demanded that Michigan lawmakers and ask stricter gun control. To continue this fight some students are now turning their attention to the university itself. Students demand action MSU is leading this conversation. In January its nationwide parent organization called on colleges and universities to divest from the gun industry. The gun industry rakes in 9 billion each year. Our Communities pay the price with our lives the organization wrote on social media. Our colleges and universities shouldn't support that. Now MSU investments are under scrutiny, including the university's $205.4 million of investments in Blackrock funds. According to MSU deputy spokesperson Dan Olson MSU has invested in five Blackrock funds, BlackRock, systematic, China, absolute return fund, black, Blackrock Strategic Fund, Blackrock obsidian fund, Blackrock emerging companies, and BlackRock multi alternative opportunities. BlackRock,
What this is tripping me up. BlackRock Incorporated is the largest asset manager in the world, and manages 1000s of fund. BlackRock fund advisors has stakes in leading firearm manufacturers approximately 16% in Sturm Ruger and company incorporated 7% in Smith and Wesson brands incorporated in 15%. In Vista outdoor Incorporated. Black Rock has faced criticism in the past for investments and firearms industries after a mass shooting killed 17 People at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida black rock rule least a statement that said responsible policies were critical for manufacturers and retailers of civilian firearms. BlackRock wrote that it was engaging in discussions with civilian firearm manufacturers, and that it did not have any say and were its investments in the index funds when. Despite this black rock holds over $452.6 million worth of shares in these three companies, two of which are among the largest gun manufacturers in the US. However, MSU funds do not contribute to these shares as Olson said that the Blackrock funds in which MSU invests do not own any part of gun manufacturing companies claims that MSU invest in gun manufacturers through its investments with these Blackrock funds are inaccurate Olson said in an email. Furthermore, we have no direct investments with gun manufacturers and we don't have direct or indirect investments in the three publicly traded civilian firearms manufacturers for students demand action MSU
This isn't enough, comparative cultures and politics Junior sailor Reynders, the organization's president said the university should not support the gun industry in any way. Guns are the leading cause of death for children and young people today. So it's very important that we are not supporting that in any way Reynders said. And so I think it would be wise for MSU to consider removing Black Rocks investments. But the organization has not yet taken action. Reiter said that the group is currently conducting research and will likely form a campaign once it's done further planning. The campaign will likely call on the university to create a clause or pledge not to invest in the gun industry in the future. Reclaim MSU a group advocating for university transparency also told the state news that it would like to see MSU publicly commit to not make any direct or indirect investments in the firearms industry in the future. renders said students demand action MSU has been considering calling on the university to make this commitment for quite some time. However, after three students died and 1000s of others have been traumatized on February 13, the issue became more pertinent and time sensitive.
A group of MSU faculty has begun circulating a petition demanding an end to the University Athletics department's controversial $9 million partnership with Caesars sportsbook. It's come shortly after new rules from the American gambling industry's internal regulatory group which threatened the deal. The petition was first posted around 10:15am On Tuesday, April 4 by 4:30. It had 154 signatures. The vast majority of those signatures came from current and former faculty with the rest
coming mostly from current students and parents. Community Sustainability Professor John Kerr who ret who led the petition said that they were inspired to act by the mental health issues they were to accommodate falling the mass shooting on MSUs campus. He said that while he and his colleagues were working to help struggling students, he said the deal is quote doing the opposite by sponsoring online gambling, which can be addictive and unhealthy for developing brains. With our partnership with Caesars this is who MSU is selling out for profit at the expense of our students well being the position says Kara shared it with colleagues including Ms. Hughes, Director of Global Ideas Alad Huesca, who further shared it with administrators including Interim Provost Thomas jets go and just goes email response to the petition. He said the petitions aim is exactly what is being worked on now by the President, as she indicated in her remarks the faculty senate interim president Teresa Woodruff's remarks occurred at a January faculty senate meeting where she questioned the Caesar's partnership and said she would be ordering her staff to look into the matter.
The deal with Caesars was not negotiated by Woodruff and it is overseen by the MSU. That's what the deal was. The deal with Caesars was not negotiated by Woodruff. It's overseen by the MSU Athletics Department specifically athletic director Alan Howler. The deal includes broadcasts and video advertisements for Caesars during games, emails to MSU is database of students, free tickets to games and seats on teams private planes for Caesars employees, as well as the nonspecific clause which allows the company to Cesar eyes the tailgating spaces outside of Spartan Stadium. Beyond that the specifics of the deal are unclear, as a sports marketing firm acts as a middleman between MSU and Caesars to ensure the contract is not subject to public records requests. So that is it for our news roundup today. Now I'd like to welcome back to the 1909 administration reporter Alex Walters. Hi, Alex.
(Alex) Thank you for having me feel underdressed to be at the video.
(Lily) Hey, first time for both of us. It's cool. So we're here today to talk about the Quinta manual report. And I'll before before getting into any of that. Let's just start with an overview of how this all came to be. Tell us you know why the university commissioned this report and what they were hoping to learn from it.
(Alex) Yeah, well, it's a long one. So it starts almost a year ago now. At the end of the year, the Broad College MCs Business School for MBA students, they have sort of an end of the year party, open bar and at that party, one of the professor's he becomes intoxicated. And a finalized Ovi report which we've obtained shows that he was non consensual touching students right Asking students throughout the night. And so Sanjay Gupta, who was dean at the business school at the time was kind of at the center of all this. He wasn't at the party, he was out of town. And in the days that followed, he would get calls from two administrators who said, you know, something happened at the party, there was inappropriate stuff going on. And this is where the complex starts, where Gupta is a mandatory reporter. So if he hears about something like that, he has to report it to MSU Oh, yeah, office, but he doesn't. He has since said that the reason he didn't is because he didn't know that the people calling him were talking about something sexual. Like they use the word grinding. He said he didn't know what the word grinding meant. They said like inappropriately dancing, he didn't understand ERD. He'd know that that meant something sexual. And then when he's asked, you know, well, you didn't think something sexual occurred because both of those people did report it. He said that they were just kind of playing it safe. So the event was reported and investigation happened had luck, as since he left MSU. He's now a professor at Pitt. He's teaching undergrad students. But the record did conclude that he was guilty in a way of actions he was accused of. Yeah, so Gupta fails to report this. And in August, he has a meeting with Teresa Woodruff with the time was the provost of Michigan State. Now she's the interim president. And she asks him to resign. She says, you know, your actions, they're inappropriate, we can't have that. You need to resign. And this has become a giant conflict at MSU, where Gupta, many of his supporters, especially some very wealthy broke college donors, have said and pointed out that the the appropriate punishment for a mandatory reporting failure isn't necessarily termination. Whereas Woodruff and her supporters have argued that, you know, he was an at will employee and that it's greater. She actually says in this report, and also a letter that we've obtained that she sent to the board in August. It's not necessarily just about mandatory reporting. It's a greater concern. Her exact written, she says she has a zero tolerance policy for that kind of thing. She hasn't high administrative standard for DNS. And that I think, her words were, she saw a constellation of factors that led her to say that he should no longer be serving as dean. So he's since sued Woodruff and a bunch of other MSU administrators in their personal and professional capacities for defamation, saying that they kind of tarnished his name. Many people have called for his reinstatement, people have called for Woodruff to resign over it. And in August, just days after she asks him to resign the board, the board of MSU, who oversees it, their statewide elected officials, they decided they were going to hire a law firm to look into it and sort of find, you know, the truth of it to look at both parties to just examine it. And they've justified this by part of the board's bylaws say that they have to sort of oversee employment decisions to make sure that it's in accordance with the university policy and state law and federal law. And yeah, and so this week, that investigation was released. Now this is, you know, months after the investigation was ordered. So a lot has been learned and changed since then. But yeah, it was released Saturday or Friday night.
(Lily) So this report, the Quinton manual report was over 100 pages long, it took around 1000 Build hours to complete, costing the university around $1.6 million. What in your judgment were the biggest takeaways from the report?
(Alex) Well, it's not necessarily. I think there was an expectation that this report was going to contain, you know, some sort of smoking gun or giant new fact that was going to change the whole thing. And I don't think that's necessarily what it does, if you read it. I think the debate still stands Woodruff still maintains? You know, it wasn't about mandatory reporting. The report confirms the criticism that like the punishment was disproportionate with what Gupta did, but it really it's less about big takeaways, big things that have come out of it and new facts and more. So I think it's just confirming and cementing things that are known and being said, it also makes recommendations, which is it's really, I think, the what the board wanted out of it was recommendations for how we can go forward and how we can change things.
(Lily) Yeah. So moving into that. So we know the bulk of the report focused on the Gupta case, but Quinn Emanuel also made recommendations on MSU has Title Nine policies and reporting approaches. Can you walk us through what exactly the report said on that topic?
(Alex) Yeah.And you know, it's important to consider two, they go about that in two ways. Obviously, you know, going through the invoices, seeing what topics different hours were billed on by the attorneys, what the what the university paid for, and it came out to about $1.6 million was the total cost of this report. You know, the focus was 90% of the time and money was just on the case. Another sorry, let me look, another 4% went to PR consulting for the Board's messaging and stuff. And then 6% did go to a broader look at Title Nine and certification issues. And so it makes a number of recommendations just about Title Nine, but it also sort of as you go through the Gupta case, it's sort of a treat It is a case study where at certain points, it'll say this kind of thing happened is what we recommend. And so you know, I've got to recommendations in front of me and you can read all this in more detail on state news. I can't but no. So some of the a lot of the recommendations just revolve around improving the OSI process altogether. So, you know, more staff more funding because the timeline, as we learned from reporting from USA Today, in fall last year, it takes about 361 days on average for OSI to complete investigation. And so a lot of it was just about refining that process. They recommend more communication between these different agencies. So MSU has the FBI office that investigates these kinds of things. There's another office called Fassa, which is faculty and academic staff affairs, which is sort of like an HR department for faculty. In this particular case, there were matters being handled by Fassa about the retirement agreement and the leave agreement that had like had, and there was obviously the investigation into his conduct. Those investigations were going on at different rates at different points, that communication between them. And so a lot of the recommendations revolve around that kind of making sure that these processes work in tandem. And that's one of the findings too, is that the timing of Woodruff's meeting with Gupta before either those had been completed might have been problematic. Yeah, so that's a lot of the more overall investigations, one particular one or two specific new things that are less sort of overall, but just in the Gupta case. One is that and this is actually a new piece of information we learned from this report that wasn't previously reported, is that had luck was the only non student at that party by the time it ended. So everyone else had left. And one of the recommendations these recommendations they make is that if MSU is going to be having these events, these Gala, especially events that involve drinking, there'll be two mandatory reporters there at any given time, because the way that this happened, half of the students had to say the next day to staff and faculty is what happened with had like last night before it reached, you know, a mandatory reporter in those faculty members. The other specific recommendation when Hadlock went to Pitt in the fall, pit didn't know they didn't know about his conduct and past conduct. And in fact, they didn't know about it when the report was when Quinn Emanuel reached out. You know, it's believed that the only time they knew about it was actually about a month ago when the pit news pit student newspaper reached out to them about it for an article they're reading what Houselights conduct in Michigan State and so it recommends more communication between universities. And you know, MSU is the only school they're looking at. But it's it I guess, ideally, it'd be a broader system, where universities communicate about people's past and fractions. And there's a great Chronicle of Higher Education investigation about this called I think it's called past the harasser about how that's a problem common in higher education, which is good Further reading, if you're interested.
(Lily) Yeah. And just to clarify for our listeners, Hadlock is the Broad College of Business faculty member who was involved in the inappropriate conduct. Yeah, the MBA event. Yes. So kind of our last question. In your coverage of the report, you mentioned, there was some pretty significant opposition to the report and participation among staff and faculty. Why might that have that?
(Alex) Well, and not only was there opposition to the report, but that opposition actually manifested itself. In the findings were sometimes you know, the report will say, this is what we found. But it may not be wholly complete, because I think they reached out to 33 people to interview them. 22 of those people declined to be interviewed or ignored it altogether. And publicly in the fall. So when the board first authorized this Woodruff at the time as provost, and then President Samuel L. Stanley, publicly opposed it. And I think the reasoning for that on their part was winomania, was directly reaching out to MSU staff, saying, Hey, can we interview we talked to you for that report, and they felt like that staff, it should go through some sort of office. And also, I think it puts staff in an uncomfortable position where it's like, you probably want to have an attorney present for that kind of thing. So they felt like it was moving a little bit too aggressively at MSU. They also said that it was conflicting with a then ongoing investigation into title and certification issues, which is done by a Michigan firm Honigman Miller, and that firm. They concluded the report in November, and it found that some trustees, Breanna Scott and Rene, Kentucky, Jefferson, were not doing their mandatory duties, reviewing Title Nine reports. And so yeah, there was opposition to this probe by both. It seems staff who were concerned about it, and then that was sort of voiced by at the time, Provost WOODRUFF And President Stanley.
(Lily) So that kind of wraps this all up our interview segment for the day, Alex, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.
(Alex) Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yeah. If you're listening to make sure to listen for read the manual stories. We've got another one coming on Tuesday that will go in state news and the pit news.
(Lily) Oh, exciting. Collaboration, if you will.
(Alex) Yeah, that'll be when does this comes on Monday.
(Lily) This comes out Monday. This won't be tomorrow. Yeah. So you hear this? It'll be coming out tomorrow. And that's, that's our episode of the 1909 for this week, so be sure to tune in every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. And signing off from East Lansing. I'm Lily Guiney. Thanks for tuning in