John Engler (Wikipedia photo by Chuck Grimmett)
MSU President John Engler
(From Detroit News video)
A drumbeat intensifies as prominent critics of John Engler say he should leavce the interim presidency of Michigan State, a crisis management role he assumed five months ago.
Calls for his resignation come from Republican Congressman Justin Amash and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, among othgers.
A Michigan State University trustee, Brian Mosallam, is one of those who've had enough.
"It has become abundantly clear to me that this crisis will not truly settle until John Engler steps down as interim president," he says in a statement Friday. The board member feels that "Engler’s tenure as interim president has continued the bleeding rather than stem it."
The call follows another embarrassing email, revealed earlier this week, in which Engler speculated that Rachel Denhollander, a survivor of Dr. Larry Nassar who emerged as a leader of the hundreds of female athletes similarly assaulted, would receive legal referral "kickbacks" from her lawyer.
A Democratic congressman from Michigan tweets Friday:
It is impossible for @MichiganStateU to move forward from this tragedy with Gov. John Engler continuing to serve as interim President. His comments are inexcusable and show a complete lack of empathy for the survivors of Nassar’s horrific actions. https://t.co/YgSsBXuBU3
— Rep. Dan Kildee (@RepDanKildee) June 15, 2018
MSU trustees unanimously picked the ex-governor as interim president on Jan. 31. He succeeded Lou Anna Simon, who led the university for more than a decade and quit Jan. 24, the day former university doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for sexual assault.
Now State Senate GOP Leader Arlan Meekhof and two of his party's senators also question Engler's leadership.
"Once again, John Engler has embarrassed Michigan State University," says Sen. Rick Jones. "He was hired to try to heal the university, to end the culture of silence and to make sure people are reported so we don't have another Larry Nassar situation. And instead, he is constantly belittling victims. It absolutely is embarrassing to the university. He has not improved the image of MSU, he is actually hurting the image of MSU, and I am hearing that loud and clear from my constituents."
Sen. Margaret O'Brien says: "It’s time for his job at Michigan State to come to end. It's time for the board to step up and take responsibility for all of this. . . . As a Spartan, we are better than this. We should act better than this. It's time for the Michigan State board to do their job. They need to find a new leader."
On the Democratic side, two candidates for governor weigh in Friday:
Democratic governor candidate Gretchen Whitmer: “Engler lacks the judgment, empathy and basic human decency that is needed to lead the university during this difficult period... If Engler won’t resign, the MSU Board of Trustees should do the right thing and fire him immediately"
— Jonathan Oosting (@jonathanoosting) June 15, 2018
Just in: Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic candidate for governor, joins list of people calling for Engler to step down. "Former Governor Engler was never the right choice, and now stands in the way of needed change at MSU. It's time for him to step down and for MSU to move on."
— David Jesse (@reporterdavidj) June 15, 2018
