Msu Won't Say Whether Any Deans, Top Officials Have Been Investigated for Misconduct

By Matt Mencarini
Lansing State Journal
June 13, 2018

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/2018/06/13/michigan-state-title-ix-investigations-public-records/689970002/

Michigan State University has refused to release records that would show whether any of its deans or top administrators have been the subject of misconduct investigations. MSU also failed to meet a statutory deadline in an appeal of that decision.

On May 4, the university denied the release of records relating to any open or closed university investigations of 38 of its top officials, including deans, some vice presidents and high-ranking athletic department staffers. The request covered Title IX investigations, which look into sexual misconduct and relationship violence, or any other internal inquiries.

The Lansing State Journal made the request under the state's Freedom of Information Act following the arrest of former dean William Strampel in March and the revelation that he had been subject of a Title IX investigation since December.

The university said that any closed investigations were denied as an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Any open investigations were denied as potentially interfering with ongoing law enforcement investigations and as an unwarranted invasion of privacy. MSU did not specify whether no such records exist for some of the 38 individuals.

The State Journal appealed the denial on May 21, citing previous instances when similar records had been released and the recent statement by university Trustee Brian Mosallam that the university has a "cultural problem."

The appeal went to interim MSU President John Engler, as set in the university's FOIA policy. Both state law and the MSU policy give Engler 10 business days to respond.

That 10-day deadline expired on June 4.

On June 11, MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant apologized for the lack of response but said she wasn't sure when Engler would respond to the appeal.

Under the law, Engler had the option of requesting a 10-day extension for his response, but did not use it. His choices in responding to an appeal are to affirm the denial; overturn the denial and grant access to the records; or to partially grant and partially deny the request.

Guerrant said, in general terms, the university will deny the release of the type of records sought if providing them would violate federal education privacy laws, impede an ongoing investigation or if the investigation found no policy violation.

An attorney who represents the Lansing State Journal was critical of the university's approach.

"Public employees and officials have no privacy interest in records relating to their public jobs, including performance appraisals, disciplinary actions and complaints," Herschel Fink wrote in an email. "That has been Michigan law since a Supreme Court ruling in 1997.

"The purpose of FOIA is to make government, and its officials and employees, accountable through transparency. Sadly, the lessons of this sorry chapter in MSU’s history have still not been learned. The university continues to be anything but transparent. FOIA also requires public bodies to respond to appeals within 10 business days."

The university has been scrutinized for several years over its handling of sexual assault and harassment claims on campus, including a U.S. Department of Education investigation released in 2015, a federal lawsuit filed by four women and state lawsuits by male students accused of sexual assault.

The criticism began to intensify in September 2016, following the first public sexual assault allegations against disgraced former MSU osteopathic physician Larry Nassar, and reached a fever pitch in January when his sentencing hearings in state courts began.

The past several months have been marked with resignations of high-ranking university officials — including MSU President Lou Anna Simon, Athletic Director Mark Hollis and the top two attorneys in the Office of General Counsel — and calls for wide-ranging university reforms.

In December, the university launched a Title IX investigation of Strampel, one of Nassar's former bosses and the former dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Guerrant said in an email on Tuesday that the investigation remains open.

Strampel, 70, of DeWitt, faces four criminal charges of his own, including two related to Nassar's 2014 Title IX investigation and one for what the Michigan Attorney General's Office has described as him using his position to "harass, discriminate, demean, sexually proposition, and sexually assault female students."

The university has admitted that it received allegations about misconduct by Strampel as early as 2003 and as recently as 2015, but continued to reappoint him as dean.

Scott Westerman, associate vice president for alumni relations and executive director of the MSU Alumni Association, will resign from the university at the end of July and plans to move to Florida to be closer to family, according to his resignation letter. The university confirmed in April, around the same time Westerman submitted his resignation, that a complaint against him had been filed with the Title IX office in February.

John Lewandowski, the former associate athletics director for communications, resigned in May 2016 after the athletic department received "serious allegations" about his conduct and referred the matter to university departments for investigation. The university previously denied the release of a police report relating to Lewandowski and cited the personal privacy exemption.

The university has said that the allegations against Lewandowski weren't related to sexual misconduct and that no criminal conduct was found.