Freep Article: "Free Press sues MSU over donor gifts to fund Mel Tucker's salary"
MSU objects to Freep's state FOIA request. article link
Argh, creating the link didn't work. Here's another try. Detroit Free Press sues MSU over donations to fund Mel Tucker's salary
I couldn't tell from the article if freep had a specific reasons for wanting to see the contract.
But the New York Times had an article today that suggests one possible reason—and why MSU is resisting. The article, about private lawsuits being used to enforce Title IX rules, discussed an aspect of Title IX I hadn't realized: colleges not only have to fund men's and women's sports equally, the funding equality includes donations.
So if someone donates big bucks to a football coach—taking an example at random—that counts as the school's funding for men, and it must allocate the same amount to women's sports.
I think the article's paywalled but maybe you can access the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/22/sports/title-ix-gender-parents.html
FWIW, usually MSU gets around this by having donors give to women's basketball.
Does this mean the women's basketball team at MSU is getting $4M / year? How do they spend it all?
as far as i can tell, it's bags for the thuggiest bigs you can find.
On Suzy Merchant's hair extensions.
(I'm too lazy to post a picture. Trust me.)
sweet holy freaking crap on a cracker, is that her? if it's not sooz, it's her twin sister.
I don't know the answer to this question, but am curious if this applies to coaching salaries. The article does say that private donations can considered under Title IX. However, the context in the piece is focused on the quality of faclities, fields, equipment etc. I assume that at most schools the impact of football and men's basketball coaching salaries alone meant that men's coaches overall were making more than women's. I have no idea if courts have ruled, but I assume the defense to a Title IX challenge would be that schools might argue that quality of the men's/women's coaching staffs are equal even if the cost isn't.
Sounds like this is somewhat standard practice when FOIA requests get blocked. Definitely has a lot of angry Spartan replies on twitter though.
I lowered myself and took a look at rcmb today. The sparties are in full blown meltdown mode. My favorites are the "Blue Wall", screech!
The “Blue Wall” shtick is so stupid but funny. Yes the same news outlet that led stretchgate is part of the Blue Wall.
Freep's attorney is Herschel Fink from Hertz Schram, he's quoted in the article. He went to Wayne for journalism and got his JD from Detroit College of Law, which is now MSU College of Law.
This is also quite obvious and predictable response to pretty poor FOIA response by MSU.
Better article title from the future.. "MSU sues Ball State for poaching head coach Mel Tucker. School trying to recover $82M of $95M owed."
You spelled buy the wrong way ;)
Paragon of transparency MSU? I don't believe you.
As much as I know we want to poke fun at MSU, fans in glass houses should not throw stones. Michigan has been at least as bad about stonewalling FOIA requests as MSU. Brian, Seth, and Ace have all posted about and recounted the Herculean efforts needed to have simple and noncontroversial requests answered.
We're talking about msu at the moment. Michigan's problems may be discussed in another thread.
As much as I know we want to poke fun at MSU, fans in glass houses should not throw stones
Is it really a glass house if, as you state, Brian, Seth, and Ace have all thrown stones at our own school?
That said, the Freep ain't wrong, imo (IANAL). A donation to the school is a business transaction.
Is it really a glass house if, as you state, Brian, Seth, and Ace have all thrown stones at our own school?
Yes, because those critiques have no bearing here. I could not call out Brian, Seth, or Ace as glass house dwellers. They have acknowledged and critiqued Michigan's lack of transparency. But here, NeverPunt lives in a glass house (by being a fan of Michigan, which has its own problems with transparency, and apparently failing to acknowledge those problems) and started throwing stones (by criticizing MSU for a lack of transparency).
Shows what you know, I don't even have a house, Wallaby.
MSU sucks at transparency. UM does too. Institutions gonna institution. I'll remember to note all Michigan FOIA foibles on future posts.
Yeah, because we're criticizing MSU's lack of transparency, when Michigan's got the same damn problem. Just because we're willing to point it out doesn't mean it's changed.
I don't know how I'd feel about my school though if it was just handing over information to blog sites.
I would feel pretty bad if my public university was deliberately ignoring a state law that required it and other public entities to make their records open and available to the public.
Are we sure that the Free Press isn't a blog at this point?
That's throwing a lot of shade at blogs.
Clickbait title. They are suing over the FOIA request, not the gifts themselves. So misleading and all the derps out there already saying "BLUE WALL!"
How come weez don't got no Green Wall bitch thread?
We're not as pathologically insecure as sparty. No "green wall" conspiracies required.
This blog/readership has been anti-FREEP for years due to a perceived anti-UM bias.
I agree with the Free Press on this one. MSU is a taxpayer-funded institution whose mission is to serve the people of the State of Michigan, and the taxpayers of the State of Michigan have a right to see the terms of the contracts that MSU enters into (with some narrow exceptions, none of which apply here).
Having said that, I have zero doubt that U-M would also stonewall such a FOIA request, so I don't think this is an issue on which we can wag our fingers at Sparty.
I have zero doubt that U-M would also stonewall such a FOIA request, so I don't think this is an issue on which we can wag our fingers at Sparty.
Sure we can, as long as we treat our own university objectively and wag our fingers at them in similar situations.
Based on what I've seen, most of the commenters were fairly objective and harsh w/r/t Bo, Anderson, et al, as an example.
I work for a large government organization and we occasionally get FOIA requests (2-3/year). It’s part of my job to formulate the official responses (not a lawyer, but I work closely with our in-house attorney).
Some of the FOIA’s are from legit crazy M-F’s with conspiracy theories that we still respond to, but those are a blanket “thank you but we can’t help you.”
It’s incredibly easy to redact and withhold information you don’t want public in a FOIA, and I bet most institutions would delay, delay, delay just like UofM, MSU, and countless other bodies.
There really is no recourse for the requestor if the agency just sits on the request besides a lawsuit, and most people don’t have the means and/or the time to fight it.
"Having said that, I have zero doubt that U-M would also stonewall such a FOIA request, so I don't think this is an issue on which we can wag our fingers at Sparty."
The University of Michigan is notorious for being the worst to FOIA from among all universities in Michigan, and the worst among B1G universities.
MSU is a target because they threw so much money at Mel. Michigan turned around and cut Harbaugh's salary. I agree in principle that FOIA requests are there for a reason and everyone should honor it. Will not be surprised if UM stonewalls it, but MSU is a target for the big dollars they wanted to spend on a coach.
Not only did they throw a boatload of money at Mel - they touted the fact that it was primarily funded by private donations so that "the taxpayers" could not raise a stink. That is a good strategy unless they did not realize the possible title IX implications of that.
For those familiar...would this (if true) be a obvious infraction of the statute or is it something that would rely on interpretation?
Anyone else read this reply in Justice Murphy's voice?
Or am I the only centenarian on the blog?
Pretty sure Michigan would be doing this too....
It isn’t just universities that do this. It is routine for cities, schools, government agencies etc. of all stripes to stonewall FOIA requests. It’s almost as if the employees of those entities, who work for the taxpayers, consider them a nuisance when they want to see records of what is going on in the entities. FOIA litigation is expensive and it is hard to achieve a timely result, so the stonewallers often get away with it.
My last job was with a contractor for the State of Michigan. I was required to get FOIA requests turned around and back to the State within 5-7 business days per our contract. We were fined if the requests were not done in time. I can’t tell you how many times I was contacted by the person, company, etc. who filed the request when it wasn’t honored in a timely fashion. I would get them them to the appropriate office on time, what happened to them after that was usually a mystery. If the State didn’t want the info released, they were very creative with their response.
Love to see it.
I don't really care.
Sorry, I am still not going to click on any freep links!
And, why would any institution subject to FOIA have any basis to object to production to a binding contract between a major donor and the U? What terms bind the state subsidized institution as a condition of the donation? Inquiring minds want to know.