Trustees Ferguson and Mosallam have failed MSU. Their time is up. Democrats should not nominate them again. They need to go! They need to step down.

We call on Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel, Party Chair Lavora Barnes, and members of the Michigan Democratic Party:

Do not renominate any of the legacy trustees who have failed MSU!

In 2018, MSU trustees Brian Breslin and Mitch Lyons chose not to run for re-election. In 2020, trustees Joel Ferguson and Brian Mosallam should do the same. 

The legacy trustees – Joel Ferguson, Brian Mosallam, Dianne Byrum, Dan Kelly, and Melanie Foster – have failed MSU. 

• They failed to respond to the sexual assault of hundreds of women by Larry Nassar and to the broader sexual assault crisis across campus. A damning report from the Department of Education shows that MSU hid Nassar’s crimes, broke federal law and failed to keep MSU students safe, then levied a record-breaking $4.5 million fine against MSU for these failures.
• They supported former President Lou Anna K. Simon to the bitter end, then gave her a $2.4 million payout. 
• They unanimously voted to hire John Engler as interim president — a position of power to which he was completely unsuited — then did nothing as he insulted sexual assault survivors, hired his cronies on outrageous contracts and further damaged MSU’s reputation.
• They shut down the MSU healing fund established to help survivors with counseling and resisted calls to reopen the fund, forcing survivors to go six months without support for their healing.
• They neglected their fiduciary responsibilities, leading to Moody’s downgrading MSU’s bond status.
• They requested an investigation using public funds from the Michigan Attorney General and then stonewalled it by refusing to release over 6,000 documents under dubious claims of attorney-client privilege.

Over the past two years, Reclaim MSU has called for the resignation of every one of the legacy trustees. Now we call on leaders and members of the Michigan Democratic Party to tell Joel Ferguson and Brian Mosallam: Your time is up! Ferguson and Mosallam must make way for new trustees who can create real change and restore MSU’s reputation.

Reclaim MSU is a nonpartisan alliance of students, staff, faculty, and alumni demanding transparency, accountability, equity and justice at Michigan State University. We are reaching out to the Democratic Party because both legacy trustees whose terms end in 2020 are Democrats. In 2022, we will call on the Republican Party to choose new candidates in place of legacy trustee Melanie Foster.