Double warning - Freep and Rochelle Riley on Simon
This is a fantastic editorial calling on Simon to resign.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/rochelle-riley/2018/01/24/l…
January 24th, 2018 at 4:22 PM ^
Maybe she’ll be put on double secret probation.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:06 PM ^
Redlock?
January 24th, 2018 at 4:28 PM ^
Not to post any Freep on here? Good article or not
January 24th, 2018 at 4:33 PM ^
You thought wrong. If it wasn’t for journalistic entities like the Freep and their coverage of the Nassar investigation, it’s possible he’d still be in a doctor’s office assaulting women.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:50 PM ^
You misspelled "Freep" when you meant to say "Indy Star".
http://interactives.indystar.com/news/standing/OutOfBalanceSeries/index2.html
(Not neggin' you, since the Fourth Estate is critically important to our democracy. But the Indy Star story is what finally got the attention of the powers-that-be on the loathsome Larry Nassar. The Freep limits their hard-hitting investigative journalism to matters such as stretching and whatnot.)
January 24th, 2018 at 5:20 PM ^
He's been reporting a lot of stuff for the Lansing State Journal. It should also come as a surprise to no one that he's not an MSU grad (Tennessee and Augustana College grad).
The FREEP basically posted the LSJ's work on their site.
January 24th, 2018 at 5:30 PM ^
LSJ & Freep are part of the USA Today network, so that's why. But the Freep hasn't been ahead of the curve on this story.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:46 PM ^
The Freep once requested some information and research from the organization I worked for.
Their "reporting" was to put two sentences in front of it, and then copy/paste my information verbatim into an article.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:47 PM ^
I think it was more of a Drew Sharp ban. Banning an actual news outlet would be silly and petty.
January 24th, 2018 at 5:41 PM ^
I feel like you're subtweeting a certain someone with this post. :)
January 24th, 2018 at 7:37 PM ^
Don't worry. Shawn Windsor will balance this out tomorrow with a column praising Mike DelTemmio for his recruiting class or his quarterback or his ... pretty eyes or ... the gas milage on his car or ... something.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:15 PM ^
I hear he gets better mileage with worse cars. In fact, he kicked the high-efficiency vehicles out of his garage (because they were raping other cars) and his gas mileage actually improved.
January 24th, 2018 at 5:06 PM ^
Wrong. People need to move past it already.
January 25th, 2018 at 9:26 AM ^
No man, don't you know? 10 years ago they wrote a factually correct article detailing actual violations committed by the University of Michigan under Rich Rodriguez and therefore we must never read them again because it was so unhelpful to our now twice disgraced ex-coach!
That people want to continue this vendetta indefinitely is surreal to me. I don't even believe either of the principal writers or the editor of the paper at the time still work for the Free Press.
January 25th, 2018 at 6:37 PM ^
Factual correct? I must have missed the part that explained to the reader that all of those "extra" hours were in fact not considered to be countable hours and that every other college football team in the country has their football players doing the exact same thing because it's not illegal to do so.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:37 PM ^
She nailed it. Well-written piece.
Simon's days there are numbered. And pieces like this are making that number much smaller.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:41 PM ^
I don't like Sparty any more than anyone else around here, but right now I feel badly for many of them. My friends from State are uniformly pissed, ashamed, and confused. Fuck Ms Simon and let's hope it's a good long while before we hear stories like these again....emanating from any institution.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:54 PM ^
Ms. EM's best friend from college was on faculty at the College of Osteopathic Medicine with Nassar, and she is a wonderful person with a well-calibrated moral compass. Ms. EM is also a Spartan. Along with a number of my other friends. Sparty brahs grate, but MSU is a fine school run by an ass clown administration.
Nary a one of them supports the administration at MSU on this bullshit. Drip drip drip - Lou Anna Simon's time is coming.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^
Former gymnast Rachael Denhollander, who in September 2016 became the first to publicly accuse Nassar of molesting her, said: “A monster was stopped last year, after decades of being allowed to prey on women and little girls, and he wasn’t stopped by a single person who could have, and should have stopped him at least 20 years ago. He was stopped by the victims, who had to fight through being silenced, being threatened, being mocked, by the officials at MSU who they appealed to for help. And now the very people who should have been protecting us all along ... have thumbed their nose at any semblance of accountability.”
Reading that quote made my blood boil. They all should be out yesterday. After PSU I don't get how this isn't already done.
January 24th, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^
More for the tire fire:
MIchigan House votes overwhelmingly for Simon to resign:
http://www.wilx.com/content/news/House-vote-calling-on-MSU-President-to…
January 24th, 2018 at 5:51 PM ^
I want to know who the 11 assholes in the state house are who voted against her removal...
Maybe they need to be removed as well?
January 24th, 2018 at 6:09 PM ^
Even aside from this I'm sure there's plenty of reasons they should be removed since we are a no term limit state.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:27 PM ^
I don't care if my local person is a Republican or a Democrat but can I get a good/competent human being? Brutal....
January 24th, 2018 at 7:56 PM ^
6 years in the house, 8 in the senate. There's been some call to change them, but currently they are among the strongest of any state.
January 25th, 2018 at 7:28 PM ^
There is a push to *switch* to no term limits is likely what I heard and confused the two. I usually stay out of politics so my bad.
January 25th, 2018 at 9:56 AM ^
was one of them. Same rep that didn't think John Conyers should resign. She always wants the "process to take its course" blah blah blah. Never action, just words from this one.
January 24th, 2018 at 8:30 PM ^
Who were the 11 no votes?
January 24th, 2018 at 4:58 PM ^
I don't know about Riley so maybe this is the time she gets it right, but this was a good piece that properly focused attention on Simon and her failings at the helm for MSU.
And from a practical sense for MSU, I don't know why you keep Simon or why she'd like to stay. They talk about her as an amazing money-raiser, but that's (seemingly) based on a positive reputation. Well, she's now been dragged through the mud for the school's mishandling of Nasser, she has personally come across as aloof and disinterested, and that's only going to continue for weeks and months to come as the NCAA investigates. So she's going to be damaged goods in all likelhood on the fund-raising trail, and people are rightfully not going to want to give to a school whose leader apparently was too busy to listen to some impact statements of sexual assault victims.
So move on, or at least stop defending her so vociferously. It's not admitting complicity, but it keeps the story in the front of people's minds, and from an outsider's perspective all it does is piss off your staff and students so that a couple of Trustees don't have to look for a new President.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:11 PM ^
That's what I don't get. Even if she was a great fund raiser before, she (and the rest of the MSU admin) is so tainted that she'll never get another penny. The first thing every donor should, and lilkely will, ask is "so what the fuck happened with Nassar?" I don't know what makes them STILL think they can sweep this under the rug.
January 24th, 2018 at 8:43 PM ^
Yeah. This isn't something people are going to forget any time soon, and the response from the student and faculity is pretty uniformly negative. She's not protecting anyone but herself, and when the base of your community is against you that's going to affect how people respond. And MSU doesn't have an extremely wealthy alumni base, so the couple of big-money donors they have are going to hear about it if/when they donate to the school. I just don't get what Simon provides that someone who didn't ignore clear signs of a sexual predator at your school doesn't.
January 24th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^
Don't resign...I wanna see a Cedar River Perp Walk
January 24th, 2018 at 5:35 PM ^
This is a powerful read. Is Hollis next, or does he skate? People should start going to prison - Klages for sure. But 14 staffers were told, you can't tell me that 3-4 times that many knew. This is a complete cover-up so far.
I bet they off Simon to just try to sweep this under the rug. They are turning this thing into a goat rodeo.
January 24th, 2018 at 5:53 PM ^
Graham Couch wrote a very good column of the same ilk today as well. Similar "caveat emptor" issue as with the Freep, but I think it's worth a look:
But the real reckoning for LAS appears to be this Friday:
January 24th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^
If anyone is curios, here is Jemele Hill's response to this:
January 24th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^
I am a humble Spartan, I can report to you that there is virtually zero support for Simon, Hollis or anyone else that may have had an inkling of the problems that were certainly known and refuted by Klages and Joseph at the very least. Most have been clamoring for leadership accountability since the IndyStar article came out, and as more layers have been peeled, I can tell you that all of the Spartans that you guys hate join you in your feelings for the lack of accountability by administration and the BOT for the last year. It is disgusting, and should not reflect on the graduates, athletes and students at MSU. We didn't do this, we don't defend this, and we are looking for heads to roll. But mostly, we are united in our contempt for Nassar and in our support for the girls and women who were his victims.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:35 PM ^
Thank you for posting, rivalry aside we know that there are a lot of good and decent MSU alums. Stand tall and I know that you all will force the right things to happen.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:55 PM ^
In all seriousness nobody believes that all the normal people at MSU or their alumni would not be horrified by what the administration has been doing. It's obvious Simon & the regents have been living in a bubble worrying more about financial & legal culpability than the victims.
Can't help but wonder if their fear of personal prosecution played a part in the wagon circling for the last few months.
January 24th, 2018 at 8:29 PM ^
However, I do not let the general Spartan population off the hook for this.
For many years, MSU has been a renegade outfit who thumbed their collective noses at standards and decency in favor of winning at any cost. There are numerous examples of this. Picking up players from jail on the way to the airport for road games. Ninja attacks on dorms by football players that go basically unpublished. We don’t need to elaborate the entire list.
My believe that this laughing at the rules and conventions of decency permeated the university to the point that someone like Nassar could also easily operate outside the rules.
The money quote from Simon in all this was “I told them to play it straight.” No journalists seemed to ask the obvious question of her “why do your folks need instructions to not bias an investigation? Is this a departure from your usual instructions?”
I suspect the answer would be, “yes.”
It was also shocking how swiftly and efficiently the football sex scandal was handled last year at this time. It was very unMSUlike to take swift action against perpetrators and not have players sit out the first quarter of a game against EMU.
This was the first “Nassar effect” at MSU. I suspect that the administration decided that if they could change their ways a bit, they might ride out the Nassar scandal.
They appear to be wrong about this, but the MSU community needs to insist on a higher standard across the board going forward, and not merely for women’s non revenue sports.
Neg away if you want.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:05 PM ^
great comment Brandimore lots to unpack
January 25th, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
Spartan administrative heads need to roll. But I also want to get beyond the 'MSU' part of this a bit, at least for me. MSU can and should take the shame in this. But this is the second instance of a major university having a system that supported a pedophile. I've seen it happen (albeit different circumstances) in my own Catholic Church.
In all of these instances we've seen institutions that many trusted, and had people we trusted (doctors, coaches, priests) utterly fail. The system around them failed seemingly out of a desire to cover asses and avoid punishment, or through utter indifference.
This isn't just an MSU issue, it's a human issue. It's an issue with our culture here. And I think we have to find ways to fix the root causes, if we can.
We cannot prevent pedophiles. We cannot prevent rape. but we can try to fix the institutions that allowed it. We can't allow 'I told them to play it straight up' anymore. It has to be 'I took this in hand, informed the police, and investigated the shit out of it'.
Maybe taking MSU staff down with jail time is part of that. But we also need to make that message damn clear at all universities and institutions. UM as well.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:55 PM ^
Can’t stand RR but it’s hard to be on the wrong side of this issue.
January 25th, 2018 at 6:20 PM ^
Ironically, the only folks on the wrong side of this issue seem to be MSU administrators.
January 25th, 2018 at 8:50 AM ^
Well worth the read.