Lansing — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Monday described her alma mater, Michigan State University, as “rocked by scandal after scandal with no clear unified leadership or direction” as the call for the resignation of the MSU board chair divided leaders in the African-American community.
Whitmer’s remarks — among her strongest public criticisms of the university yet — came a day after Trustee Brianna Scott publicly accused Rema Vassar, the first African American woman elected as chair of the MSU board of trustees, of bullying fellow trustees and university administrators and violating codes of conduct.
In a Monday statement, Whitmer said the allegations advanced by Scott were “deeply concerning.” If accurate, the Democratic governor said, Vassar’s actions would represent a “huge breach of the public’s trust.”
Scott, who is African American, cast the swing vote that helped Vassar to get elected as board chair in January. On Sunday, the Muskegon-based lawyer called on Vassar to step down in a seven-page letter to the board, accusing Vassar of violating the board’s rules of conduct and ethics, and bullying board members and administrators.
Scott also asked fellow trustees to remove Vassar, an education professor at Wayne State University who resides in Detroit, as chair and if she doesn’t to refer her to Whitmer for removal. Scott also said it was difficult to write the letter because Vassar allegedly threatened to turn the Black community against her.
“Right now, there are too many questions and not enough answers,” Whitmer said in her statement. “The university owes it to students, alumni and our entire state to get to the bottom of this and take appropriate action.”
Vassar could not be reached for comment. Other MSU’s board members also could not be reached. But on Sunday, Trustee Dianne Byrum said she supported Scott and joined her call for Vassar to resign, while Trustee Dennis Denno said he was “disappointed some trustees are grandstanding with false accusations due to a personal grievance.”
Scott, Vassar, Byrum and Denno are Democrats, like the governor, on a board where the Democrats hold a 7-1 advantage. Whitmer earned a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from MSU.
More:MSU trustee calls for board chair to resign, cites bullying and overstepping authority
Scott outlined 10 reasons for why Vassar should resign or be removed as board chair. Among them were that Vassar has not allowed her phone to be reviewed as part of an investigation into an allegation that a board member leaked during an investigation the identity of Brenda Tracy, the rape survivor activist who accused former MSU football coach Mel Tucker of sexual misconduct.
In addition, Vassar was accused of traveling on university business on two occasions on an MSU donor’s private jet with Tucker; posing with former MSU trustee Brian Mosallam in an ad for his business, Spartan Wealth Management group, congratulating her on being elected as chair; and allegedly attempting to negotiate a settlement of a lawsuit against the university by former MSU business school dean Sanjay Gupta without the authority from interim President Teresa Woodruff or board members.
The Michigan Constitution allows the governor to remove a member of the university board for “for gross neglect of duty,” “corrupt conduct in office” or “any other misfeasance or malfeasance.”
Whitmer’s statement came 26 days after MSU officially fired Tucker in the wake of sexual-misconduct allegations levied against him by Tracy.
Divisions among Black leaders
Scott’s call for Vassar’s resignation prompted one prominent leader to call the accusations “plantation-style politics.”
Keith Williams of Detroit, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus, sent out a Monday statement saying MSU has been in crisis for almost a decade since the sex abuse scandal involving the now-incarcerated Larry Nassar to the Hitler display on the MSU score board during Saturday’s football game and now this.
He said he supports Vassar.
“Since she has been on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, Dr. Rema Vassar has been a leader and a healer,” Williams said. “She has tried to unite a fractured and wounded community and help lead one of our nation’s great academic institutions.”
He called Scott’s attacks as “beyond appalling” and “plantation-style politics that our African American community has been working against for generations.”
“Those who stand with Brianna Scott are not only demonstrating their ignorance but that they don’t care for MSU, there only goal is to create havoc to aid in an attempt to snatch ‘power,'” Williams said.
But Joel Ferguson, a longtime Lansing-based developer, high-profile Democrat and the first African American to serve as a Michigan State board chair, agreed with Scott and said Vassar needed to step down.
“I am troubled by the recent inappropriate actions of the current Board Chair, Dr. Rema Vassar, which clearly violate the Board’s code of conduct, ethics and conflicts of interest,” said Ferguson, who was elected four times to serve 32 years on the MSU board and served as chair for 18 of those years.
Ferguson and Scott have been allies in the past, partnering in 2019 to buy a Muskegon building and rehab it.
“I am proud of my over 60 years of involvement as a civil rights leader on both a national and community level,” Ferguson continued. “I respect that Dr. Vassar is the first Black woman to chair the MSU Board of Trustees, but her inappropriate leadership is disruptive and destructive to Michigan State University. I advocate to the Board of Trustees that Dr. Vassar be removed as Chair of the Board and be referred to the Governor for removal from the Board of Trustees.”
In her letter Scott alleged, Vassar “has developed a pattern of violating our codes of conduct, ethics, and conflict of interest, including engaging in repeated undue influence, and bullying of Board members and administrators.”
She said she found the letter difficult to write.
“I have been threatened by Dr. Vassar that speaking out against her decisions would result in her turning the Black community against me — and I myself am a Black woman,” Scott wrote. “I have also been warned that speaking out will cause unwanted attention to the Board of Trustees and will harm the university and interfere with our current Presidential Search. But of the many values I’ve developed as a Black person, as a woman, and as a Spartan, chief among them is standing up for what’s right and what is in the best interest of the university I love so dearly.”
In September, the MSU board approved 5-2 a change to the bylaws of who gets to be board chair and vice chair based on seniority for one-year terms in those roles beginning in Jan. 2025. Before the change, the chair and vice chair were elected by board members. Scott made the motion for the change, prompting Vassar later to suggest that the move was racially motivated, as reported by the Lansing State Journal.
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