EAST LANSING — Six months after the Michigan State University Board of Trustees referred Trustees Rema Vassar and Dennis Denno to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for potential removal, the governor has not publicly announced any decision.
Wednesday, her Press Secretary Stacey LaRouche said Whitmer was still reviewing the request.
The request from the trustees came on March 3 after a report by the law firm Miller & Chevalier found Vassar and Denno had bullied other MSU officials and acted outside the boundaries of their roles. The firm recommended the trustees request that Whitmer remove the trustees because of its findings.
For their part, Vassar and Denno have maintained that Miller & Chevalier's investigation, paid for by MSU, was incomplete and misleading.
"I refute most of the allegations in the Miller & Chevalier (MC) report," Denno said in a March email to the State Journal. "I will accept a censure but contest any other form of punishment. What has been proposed is overly-punitive in nature."
Through her attorneys, paid for by MSU, Vassar released a statement calling the report “profoundly flawed.”
MSU, University of Michigan and Wayne State University are the only three universities in Michigan where governing boards are elected in a statewide election. The governing boards of the other schools in the state, and most schools in the country, are appointed by the governor.
Whitmer is able to make appointments to the MSU board if there is a vacancy. Most recently, she appointed Sandy Pierce, D-Northville , to fill the vacancy of Pat O'Keefe, R-Bloomfield Hills, who resigned in 2022 over the board's lack of transparency .
Whitmer is the only one with the power to remove trustees from the board. Despite pressure from the board and other groups on MSU's campus, like the Faculty Senate, she has not indicated if she would remove Vassar and Denno from the board. Like Whitmer, both Vassar and Denno are Democrats.
In October of 2023, Trustee Brianna Scott sent a letter to her fellow trustees and local media accusing Vassar, then chair of the board of bullying and misconduct. At the time, Whitmer said the allegations would be a "serious breach of conduct," if accurate.
Whitmer has never committed to taking any action or to a timeline for a potential decision. LaRouche told the State Journal in a text message after the March 3 vote that the governor's office was aware Vassar and Denno had been referred for potential removal.
"As we have done in similar instances, we will take the time to carefully review this request upon official receipt of the formal communication of the board," LaRouche wrote.
It's extremely rare for an elected official to be removed by the governor , so much so that there isn't a defined process, said Eric Lupher, president of the Citizens Research Council, in March.
The last high-profile effort to remove an elected official by a Michigan governor was more than a decade ago, he said. And the official in question, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, resigned before Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced a decision.
Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com. Follow her on X @sarahmatwood .
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: 6 months later, Whitmer still mum on whether she'll remove 2 fellow Dems from MSU board
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