Michigan State Faculty Senate passes no confidence vote against Board of Trustees

The Faculty Senate at Michigan State University on Tuesday passed a vote of no confidence resolution against the school’s Board of Trustees.

The resolution, approved by a 55-4 vote, slams the Board of Trustees amid their investigation into the former Broad College of Business Dean Sanjay Gupta and their treatment of university staff in the issue.

Gupta was forced to resign in August after he did not properly report sexual misconduct accusations against an official in the Broad College of Business who reportedly got drunk at a gala and was acting inappropriately toward students, the Lansing State Journal reported. 

After the Board of Trustees began investigating the issue, they faced criticism that they were overstepping into academic management issues.

The resolution targets the actions the board has made toward university staff amid their investigation into the situation. 

The resolution says the board has “continued to destabilize the university” since a resolution the Faculty Senate made in Sept. and the trustees “have compounded their intransigence, intimidating faculty administrators through a retained law firm investigating the resignation of Sanjay Gupta which is both outside of the Board’s administrative purview and a violation of their Code of Ethics.”

The first issue relates to a resolution passed on Sept. 13 where the Faculty Senate defended university President Samuel Stanley Jr., who the Board of Trustees was looking to oust for his actions related to Title IX reports and how he handled Gupta’s Title IX resignation. A university can lose state funding if proper Title IX compliance processes are not followed. 

The resolution defended Stanley, saying more information needed to be shared about the situation. 

A letter was also sent by a Faculty Senate official to the Board of Trustees on Oct. 5, with the letter slamming the board for hiring an outside group for the investigation that was directly contacting staff for interviews into legal matters. 

The hiring of an outside group to handle the matter was met with pushback, but the firm contacting individual staff members further inflamed the accusations that the board is overstepping in matters of academic management.

“I also ask that you do not send inquiries of a legal matter directly to members of campus. The Board is in possession of specific knowledge about people in roles who are working on behalf of the university. These aggressive and unparalleled actions are causing harm to individuals and creating a chilling effect over work that is difficult,” Dr. Theresa Woodruff, Provost and Executive Vice President For Academic Affairs, wrote in the letter. 

The no confidence vote has no real weight since the trustees are voted for in a statewide election. 

A spokesperson for the university said the school has no comment on the matter. 

The Hill has reached out to the Board of Trustees for comment.

Updated at 2:32 p.m.