There has been more negative news about the Board of Trustees in the past few years than anything I’ve heard since I graduated from Michigan State in 2014. The past month should be the tipping point.
It’s been roughly two weeks since we wrote about the news of President Guskiewicz leaving Michigan State for Clemson and things keep getting worse. There has been constant instability at the top for MSU as they’ll be looking for their seventh new President in seven years. Guzkiewicz was responsible for bringing
in Athletic Director J Batt, and losing his right-hand man won’t leave anyone feeling confident about the future of Michigan State Athletics. With the men’s basketball team looking like championship contenders and a brand new head football coach, stability is needed now more than ever.
And yet, Tom Izzo is the only thing stable about this university lately. It appears the Board of Trustees was the main reason for Guzkiewicz leaving Michigan State – even taking a pay cut to go to Clemson. In his statement from May 27th, he said:
“Effective university leadership requires a shared commitment to collaboration, trust, and a forward-looking vision. While many across this university community have embraced that spirit, it has become increasingly clear that there are differing perspectives within the Board of Trustees regarding how best to move MSU forward. At times, too much energy has been spent revisiting past conflicts and internal disagreements rather than focusing collectively on the opportunities and aspirations ahead of us.”
This part felt the most damning:
“What is perhaps most troubling is the actions of some to abuse their access to privileged and confidential information to misrepresent facts, manipulate situations, and selectively use and leak that information to promote personal agendas.”
That leads us to yesterday’s news of Trustee Rema Vassar’s plan to sue the very university she governs for a reported $25 million. Vassar claims to have been racially discriminated against throughout her tenure on the Board and believes her fellow trustees have consistently violated board policy by attacking her.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of issues between Vassar and the Board of Trustees. Back in 2023, another trustee pushed for the resignation of Vassar after several troubling reports:
This prompted Michigan State to hire a law firm to investigate the allegations against Vassar, along with fellow trustee Dennis Denno, a few weeks later. The report’s findings, shared by The State News, found that Vassar violated board policies by:
- accepting gifts from donors
- interfering in negotiations of an NIL deal between MSU and the same donor
- intervening in the release of the Nassar documents
- acting alone in negotiating the terms of a settlement with a former Board College dean
- encouraging students to embarrass the interim president
- retaliating against Faculty Senate chair Jack Lipton
Vassar announced her resignation as board chair after the investigation, but said, “Rest assured: I’m not going away.” Governor Whitmer would eventually deny Michigan State’s request to remove Vassar and Denno, despite the findings from the investigation.
Just one month later, she was put under investigation again for making an alleged “explicit hand gesture” towards other trustees on a Zoom call (LSJ):
Jack Lipton, listed in Vassar’s misconducts above, was also a professor for the university, and was awarded $300,000 in a lawsuit against Michigan State and two of its Trustees, Vassar and Denno. Not only did Michigan State pay out the lawsuit, they also paid for Vassar’s legal team — costing more than the lawsuit itself. The investigation found that both trustees urged students to call Lipton “racist.”
If Vassar’s allegations of racism from her fellow board members are true, that would be incredibly disturbing and I hope she’s awarded the money she’s looking for. At the same time, Vassar has had her fair share of misconduct that has hurt the university. Hell, she continues to hurt the university.
It’s hard to reach this level of dysfunction, but Michigan State’s Board of Trustees really hasn’t struggled on its way to failing upwards. How can any alumni or fan feel confident in the university’s leadership? How can Vassar continue to actively sit on the Board while preparing to take even more money from the university? How is the Board supposed to get meaningful work done to put Michigan State back in the national spotlight when their trustees don’t even have trust in one another?
Football season can’t come soon enough.
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- Improved notifications system!
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
