JUDGE ORDERS Reluctant UMichigan President Mark Schlissel to Appear in Federal Court for Campus Sex Assault Case
A federal judge has demanded that the University of Michigan’s president appear in his courtroom to address a lawsuit by a student accused of sexual assault. Michigan officials argued Mark Schlissel, the president, should not have to attend a hearing in June, saying that such duties have historically been delegated to other administrators, that Schlissel is not primarily responsible for the university’s sexual assault rules and that his time was better spent running the state’s flagship institution. The judge, Arthur J. Tarnow, disagreed.
“Yes, he can delegate,” Tarnow said in a conference call on May 1 with Deborah Gordon, the lawyer representing the accused student, and Josh Richards, the university’s counsel. A transcript of the conference call was included in court documents. “Obviously, with such a large institution, there are all sorts of delegations made. But I don’t think he would characterize himself as a figurehead. And I think he would, and I would agree, that the person down the line in charge of discipline or however it’s structured knows more about the day-to-day operation and so on. But that person reports to the president, and the president will be here.” During the conference call Tarnow insisted that Schlissel appear. When U-M’s attorney Josh Richards asked if Schlissel could participate in a phone call instead, Tarnow shot him down immediately…Richards tried again, asking Tarnow to clarify why Schlissel had to be there. Tarnow obliged. “I don’t have to explain myself, but I will … I think the president, part of his qualifications for the job when he was hired and when he continued in the job, is the public (scrutiny) that the university is regularly under and he should be a part of this … so that he can defend whatever is (agreed) to and explain to the media, to the public, and perhaps most importantly to the faculty and the students. So he shall be here.” “If you want me to put it in writing so the media has it, it will be something like, the president has been requested to participate in a discussion of a proposed rule and has chosen not to appear. Therefore, I order that he appear.”..”Let me say this. This should be more important to him than almost anything going on at the university. But I am not sure I would understand anything else being more important than resolving what is a hot-button issue at every university in this country.”
Five days later, Richards tried again to keep Schlissel out of the courtroom, arguing that Tarnow should overturn his order and had overstepped his discretion. “The University’s president is the chief executive officer of an extraordinarily complicated three-campus enterprise with annual budgeted revenues of more than $8 billion, including more than 61,000 students, roughly 28,000 employees, a nearly $4 billion academic medical center, and a $1.5 billion research budget….”The court asserts that the university president’s responsibilities require him to ‘defend’ the university’s sexual misconduct policy, but, respectfully, the court does not define the president’s responsibilities: the regents of the University of Michigan do. The court’s conscription of the university’s president — an officer of the state — to perform a task the president would not otherwise be required to perform by the regents is ‘fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty’ and violates the 10th Amendment.”
The judge didn’t buy the argument. In a ruling Wednesday afternoon, he reiterated his command for Schlissel to appear. Judge Tarnow set the hearing for 11 a.m. June 11.
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