MSU Faculty Athletic Rep Resigns
"I no longer have the desire or the heart to support this administration"
Sue Carter, Faculty Athletic Representative for @michiganstateu resigns. She says she lost the heart and desire to support MSU's administration after a phone call with president Simon about #LarryNassar. pic.twitter.com/Zhginc7gfz
— Brian Abel (@BrianAbelTV) January 24, 2018
January 24th, 2018 at 6:13 PM ^
Sue Carter, Faculty Athletic Representative for @michiganstateu resigns. She says she lost the heart and desire to support MSU's administration after a phone call with president Simon about #LarryNassar. pic.twitter.com/Zhginc7gfz
— Brian Abel (@BrianAbelTV) January 24, 2018
January 24th, 2018 at 6:18 PM ^
I have a ton of respect for this woman!
January 24th, 2018 at 7:17 PM ^
On the one hand, I agree with you.
On the other hand, it can’t help but feel hollow in the wake of national media attention.
Where was her (and others) moral leadership in the past? This Nassar stuff is not new. I recall seeing it for the first time on this board at least a year ago.
So, where was her moral leadership then, at a time that would’ve shined a light on all this sooner, when that was most needed, when no one was paying attention?
To all the sudden do this now that *everyone* is paying attention isn’t brave and it’s not leadership, it’s merely adding your voice to the already large chorus.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:33 PM ^
Who knows what, if anything she knew, between then and 2016 when all of this became known. According to DetNews, this was her responsibility:
"She was the chairperson for the Athletic Council, which functions as the faculty voice in intercollegiate athletics on issues of academic policy related to student-athletes."
There's a good chance that the Nassar allegations were something that never crossed her desk.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:40 PM ^
But at least she did something when we've already seen what others like Izzo won't do. Credit where credit is due.
January 24th, 2018 at 8:29 PM ^
I agree with you in part, but not necessarily in principle. She may have had - and voiced - reservations in the past. But her voice isn't one we would hear outside of the faculty, itself. And it appears that she did make public statements that were contrary to what the BoT and Simon have doled out as the talking points. We know this from her letter - the phone call sounds like it was from Simon telling her to shut up.
Good for her. It takes courage to resign immediately while subtetly calling out your boss. Retirement age, or not, she left on principle. And that I can get behind.
January 24th, 2018 at 11:28 PM ^
Let it be known, she is a great and couragous person for:
Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters, for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves we collude with it through our apathy.
-J. K. ROWLING, speech, Jun. 5, 2008
Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.
-Rollo May
The world will not be destroyed by evil men, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
-Einstein
January 24th, 2018 at 6:22 PM ^
Very impressive
January 24th, 2018 at 6:22 PM ^
It sounds like she is giving up a title/ position. Good on her for doing that.
It also sounds like she is still on the faculty - good for her there, too. I double-dog dare Lou Anna Simon to fire this woman!
January 24th, 2018 at 6:23 PM ^
Unpaid position?
January 24th, 2018 at 6:27 PM ^
It probably does not add to her bottom line, but in the university setting titles matter even if they're not paid. This is a pretty big public "fuck you" to Lou Anna Simon, and took some courage for Professor Carter to muster.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:39 PM ^
Probably zero courage. You have to have fear to have courage. This was Values and Integrity.
January 24th, 2018 at 9:42 PM ^
It's an unpaid position for a woman who is a Journalism professor and a minister at the Episcopalian Church in Lansing. It's these people at Michigan State (and there are many of them) that brought Simon down.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:23 PM ^
And a few others are hearing that LAS will resign on Friday or Saturday. There is a BOT “working session” schedule for Friday, presumably to go over succession planning.
She gone.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:35 PM ^
Must be trying to do this late Friday afternoon to avoid major publicity. Don't think that will work.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:26 PM ^
I have no idea what a faculty ahtletic representative does, but she is showing some true leadership with her actions.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:32 PM ^
We don't do anything lol.
January 25th, 2018 at 7:20 AM ^
I am as well. Mostly we listen to the AD talk about how awesome he is.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:22 PM ^
Kudos Dr. Carter! Hopefully lak and the rest of the BoTs step down.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:42 PM ^
You guys and your stepping down and resigning stuff. I want to see her pull a Budd Dwyer.
January 24th, 2018 at 9:52 PM ^
What's the difference between Bud Dwyer and a Bud light?
January 24th, 2018 at 11:11 PM ^
I give up, what is it?
January 25th, 2018 at 12:00 AM ^
Get your bullshit onto some other board.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:44 PM ^
others need to join this group to keep the pressure on.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:45 PM ^
I'd love to find out what Simon said in that conversation, or what her press response was that initiated that phone conversation.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:46 PM ^
Someone get this woman a job...
January 24th, 2018 at 7:02 PM ^
She's still a professor of journalism there. And extremely well regarded by her students based on what I'm seeing with a cursory scan. Even Lindsey Lemke likes her.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:48 PM ^
And Hollis? Has he come out of hiding?
January 24th, 2018 at 8:09 PM ^
The target is now believed to have crossed the border into Pakistan.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:49 PM ^
who is disappointed that it took the public reading of graphic victim impact statements for them to do ANYTHING???
Great that she is standing up to Lou Ann now, but the victims needed all of these people to do something years ago. They didn't.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:52 PM ^
Good for her. Very classy, and the best kind of example.
January 24th, 2018 at 6:53 PM ^
The focus needs to be 100% on Hollis to step down next.
That athtletic department has been a mess for far too long now.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:17 PM ^
Except MSU has had unprecedented success under Hollis, when considering hockey, basketball, and football.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:50 PM ^
Joel Ferguson, is that you?
January 24th, 2018 at 7:14 PM ^
that makes a few million of us
January 24th, 2018 at 7:21 PM ^
Well what does that bring the score of good deeds vs bad deeds from MSU on the Nassar thing?? 1-1,500 or so?? Good for this fine lady to take a stand.
I suspect the cruel irony here is that she truly had no idea about what Nassar had been doing until it hit the news, nor the cover-up along the way and yet she is the first off the ship.
EDIT: I guess she is remaining in her role as faculty, but still, symbolically she jumped off this boat. Hope it starts a trend to increase the pressure from all sides.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:34 PM ^
She is as upstanding and honest a person as you'll ever meet. I've had the pleasure of speaking to her sports journalism class a few times (they always make this Wolverine feel welcome), and there is no bigger Spartan fan on that campus. She ends every class by yelling "GO GREEN!" and then all the students yell "GO WHITE!" (I always added a "GO BLUE!")
So her MSU credentials are impeccable. She is universally loved and respected on that campus, so for her to do this speaks volumes.
January 24th, 2018 at 7:44 PM ^
I always felt that Penn State got off too lightly, in the end. This is worse than Penn State, or at the very least, just as bad.
The girls who complained to no fewer than 14 folks at MSU were actually dissuaded from pursuing their complaints with implied threats. It’s sick.
Simon is self-absorbed, Ferguson is a sick fuck, and who knows who else should be gone. But that’s not enough. There should be hell to pay.
I’ve said elsewhere that PSU should have been booted from the Big Ten. So should MSU, because they took no action whatsoever to protect their students, as well as little girls, hundreds of them; because they dissuaded the kids filing complaints from pursuing them; because they emailed Nassar that they “had his back;” Because the administration and their board are impossibly tone-deaf and uncaring.
By allowing these kinds of events to come down to “We’re sorry, it won’t happen again,” as with Penn State, we have a repeat at Michigan State. There do need to be hard consequences. If the NCAA doesn’t bring them, then the Big Ten should act.
I’m sorry to say this. I don’t hate MSU or PSU for their sports programs; that rivalry nonsense is childish. This is serious stuff. Here are institutions that make tens of millions off their sports programs, and that are helped in so doing by the Big Ten. That’s just plain wrong.
January 24th, 2018 at 9:14 PM ^
This goes way beyond sports. Their actions are indefensible. Both schools should be kicked to the curb. Maybe years ago (meaning decades) that could have happened. But realistically (whether right or wrong) they will not be kicked out of the B1G
I wish they would. They deserve it. At least 5-10 years. But it won’t happen so we have to think of other forms of punishment to change the culture and dissuade others from putting money and public appearances ahead of kids
January 24th, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
The lack of leadership and appropriate action taken by the MSU Athletics Department in most scenarios seems to maintain consistency. The cowardice didn't just start with the handling of Nassar and Simon.
January 24th, 2018 at 8:38 PM ^
But resigning today is the emptiest of empty gestures.
Once she heard in 2014 that the Title IX invesigation had been a sham, she should’ve raised holy hell if she cared about her students she was supposed to advocate for.
The fact she did and said nothing when in a position of some oversight of the athletic department would put her on my list of those that needed to be fired for cause.
January 25th, 2018 at 9:46 AM ^
...is charged with discussing academic policy related to student athletes and intercollegiate athletics. It is an advisory role, not one of oversight.
There shall be an Athletic Council with composition and bylaws subject to approval by the University Council. The Athletic Council shall function as the faculty voice in the intercollegiate athletic program.
The Athletic Council serves as the deliberative body for the discussion of academic policy related to student athletes and intercollegiate athletics.
The Athletic Council advises the Director of Intercollegiate Athletics on matters of policy, procedures, and organization related to intercollegiate athletics.
January 24th, 2018 at 8:47 PM ^
wonder if she regrets resigning now that Simon is stepping down.
January 24th, 2018 at 9:26 PM ^
All Michigan State athletics should be sent to purgatory until the end of time.