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Michigan State University board chair Rema Vassar stepped down late Sunday night and was stripped of her duties—as was fellow trustee Dennis Denno—over alleged violations of board bylaws and ethics, The Lansing State Journal reported.
Now the fate of the two trustees will be decided by Governor Gretchen Whitmer after members voted to refer them to the governor’s office for removal. MSU board members are elected for eight-year terms; Vassar joined the board in 2021, and Denno has served since last year.
Michigan State has been beset in recent years by a series of scandals, often involving the board. In 2022, for instance, then president Dr. Samuel Stanley Jr. was pushed out over alleged missteps on Title IX processes, which he blamed on trustees.
A recent investigation—prompted by a letter loaded with allegations by board member Brianna Scott—found that Vassar had engaged in numerous instances of misconduct, including accepting benefits from donors and overstepping her authority by meeting privately with former MSU business school dean Sanjay Gupta in an effort to settle a lawsuit over his departure.
The investigation, conducted by an outside law firm, found that both Vassar and Denno had “encouraged student actions intended to embarrass and unsettle” interim president Teresa Woodruff. Vassar and Denno were also found to have “encouraged a campaign of personal attacks against” MSU Faculty Senate chair Jack Lipton that were “motivated by personal animus.” Investigators pointed to Lipton’s call for Vassar’s resignation as the likely motivation for those attacks.
The board voted to censure Vassar and Denno as well as Scott, who sent a letter to trustees and the student newspaper in October accusing Vassar of “a pattern of violating our codes of conduct, ethics, and conflict of interest, including engaging in repeated undue influence, and bullying of Board members and administrators.” The investigation found that in bringing Vassar’s alleged behavior to light, Scott violated board nondisclosure policies.
