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You sort of have to brace yourself for an article titled “The Moral Catastrophe at Michigan State.”

Are you braced?

Then let’s go.

[One of dozens of lawsuits against MSU] contends that [now-jailed MSU athletics physician Larry] Nassar raped someone — a former MSU field-hockey player who was 18 years old at the time — in 1992 and filmed the act while doing so. [I]t alleges that MSU — and, specifically, George Perles, a current member of MSU’s board of trustees who served as the university’s athletic director at the time of the rape — went “to great lengths to conceal this conduct.”

The article cites ESPN’s extensive reporting on a university-wide culture that for years enabled Nassar’s student-rapes.

***************

Ask yourself. Why is Perles on a university board of trustees? What sort of a university puts an AD/football coach on their board?

The sort of university that believes its athletics program is the most important thing about it, and wants the hushing up of the program’s many scandals to take place at the highest levels. MSU chose to give an AD/coach who already had a record of significant infractions a position as a trustee. Think about that.

Think about the long reign of Auburn’s Bobby Lowder (background on Lowder in these posts). The model, at these and other morally catastrophic jockshops, is a virtually all-male culture of sexual entitlement, cronyism, and secrecy. It’s how you get Penn State and Baylor and the University of Kansas and too many other catastrophes to mention.

Margaret Soltan, September 13, 2018 2:05AM
Posted in: sport

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5 Responses to “You sort of have to brace yourself for an article titled “The Moral Catastrophe at Michigan State.””

  1. dmf Says:

    like the Catholic Church inc. these need to be treated as criminal enterprises.

  2. Anon Says:

    Do you think the Captains of Industry who usually make up university boards are more ethical?

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Anon: Not at all. But it’s not impossible to assemble a board of trustees NOT made up exclusively of former football players, political hacks, and captains of industry.

  4. Elizabeth Rodriguiz Says:

    Re: Perles on the board of trustees. Michigan State is one of three universities in Michigan where the board is selected by a statewide election. People get nominated at party conventions for these positions. If you want to know which people will be elected to the boards, watch the governor’s race or the Senate race. Most voters in the state will vote for the board nominees of their preferred party. There was a newspaper columnist years ago who said that he could be elected to any statewide office he chose because his last name was a variant on Fitzpatrick/Fitzgerald. There are very few of us who pay attention to individual candidates for these boards. The year that the Republicans nominated Perles was, I think, the same year that Rick Snyder got elected governor.

  5. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Thanks for those details, Elizabeth. It confirms my sense that there’s simply no good way to appoint/elect/whatever trustees.

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