By Dr. Rema Vassar
Michigan Chronicle
https://michiganchronicle.com/
In the last few weeks, I have learned an old lesson in a new way: powerful institutions will work harder to defend their image than to confront the harm they inflict on Black people. Michigan State University’s reaction to my recent commentary in Bridge Michigan proves the point.
Instead of squarely addressing Black students’ outcomes and experiences, MSU issued internal memos and public statements accusing me of “misinformation,” quibbling over semantics, and rebranding its diversity infrastructure. All of this energy could have been spent on a different project: making sure Black students are safe, supported, and able to graduate without carrying disproportionate debt and trauma.
The university would like this conversation to be about language. I insist it must be about lives.
The Numbers Tell a Consistent Story
If MSU’s leaders want to argue with my characterization of their record, there is a simple way to do so: release longterm, disaggregated data and let the public see the trend lines.
Across multiple years, Black students at Michigan State have:
- The lowest graduation rates.
- The longest time to degree when they do graduate.
- The highest rates of academic probation.
- The heaviest student loan debt.
- The lowest sense of belonging on campus.
These are not isolated blips. They form a pattern in which Black students are consistently positioned at the bottom of nearly every measure of “student success.”
Black enrollment has remained stagnant for roughly three decades. In a state where Black communities have borne the brunt of economic restructuring, environmental racism, and educational disinvestment, MSU’s failure to significantly expand access and completion for Black students is not an accident. It is a choice.
You do not need a PhD in statistics to read this pattern. You only need the courage to name it for what it is: an institutionalized structure of antiBlack outcomes.
Beyond Metrics: Everyday AntiBlack Harm
Behind every datapoint is a student, a family, and a set of daily indignities and dangers that rarely make it into official reports.
Black students at MSU have endured overt racial violence and threats over the past eight years. They have organized protests, penned open letters, and met with administrators who promised change. They have watched building names, statues, and slogans matter more than their safety in lecture halls, residence halls, and streets.
When Black students report harassment to the systems that are supposed to protect them, they often enter a maze with no exit. In one case, a Black trans student submitted nine complaints to the Office of Institutional Equity. Not a single one was investigated.
When a system can receive nine reports from one vulnerable student and take no action, that is not a matter of “process.” It is a statement of values.
Rebranding Is Not Repair
In response to a shifting legal and political landscape, MSU has rushed to emphasize “compliance” and cosmetic changes. Offices have been renamed. Strategic plan language has been rephrased. Longstanding funding streams for Black and other marginalized student organizations have been rerouted and made more precarious, all in the name of legal risk management.
We are told the vice president for diversity role was merely retitled, that the office was simply rebranded, that the work “continues.” We are told that identitybased student organizations are not under threat, they are simply being brought in line with policy language. Words matter. Titles and job descriptions ensure continued work beyond the current leader.
But Black students do not experience these moves as neutral. They experience them as erosion.
There is a profound difference between stable, dedicated funding for Black student organizations and telling them they can apply for the same small pool as every other group if they petition hard enough. There is a difference between a clear, empowered equity office and a rebranded unit whose primary public mandate is “compliance.”
Rebranding is not repair. It is, at best, maintenance of the status quo.
What Reckoning Would Really Look Like
I do not raise these issues because I delight in “calling out” a major public university. Accountability is not antagonism. It is stewardship. Michigan cannot afford to pretend that Black students’ outcomes are a side story. This moment calls for clarity, not defensiveness.
Accountability strengthens institutions. Silence weakens them.
If Michigan State University is serious about confronting its legacy of antiBlack racism, here is what that would look like:
- Radical transparency.
Publish 20–30 years of disaggregated data on enrollment, graduation, time to degree, academic probation, student debt, and climate for Black students. Make it easy to see what has improved, what has worsened, and where progress has stalled. - Restoration and expansion of support.
Restore and increase stable funding for Black student organizations and Blackserving programs, adjusted for inflation and the expanding scope of their work. Stop treating them as legal liabilities to be managed and recognize them as essential infrastructure for student survival and thriving. - Real accountability for harassment and violence.
Transform the complaint and investigation process so that students can trust it. That means timelines, transparency, independent oversight, and consequences for inaction—not just an online dashboard and mass emails after the fact. - Structural, not symbolic change.
Tie executive performance evaluations and budget decisions to measurable progress on Black student outcomes. As long as leaders can be praised and promoted while Black students lag on every major metric, nothing fundamental will change. - Powersharing with Black communities.
Establish binding, communityaccountable bodies—including Black students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community leaders—with real influence over policy, resource allocation, and climate priorities. Listening sessions are not enough; Black communities must have a say in how their futures are shaped.
This Is Bigger Than MSU
Michigan State is not unique. Universities across Michigan and the nation have perfected a script: celebrate diversity in marketing materials, offer carefully worded statements after each crisis, and treat the suffering of Black students as unfortunate but inevitable.
What makes MSU’s moment different is that the mask slipped. In its rush to defend itself, the university showed that it is more offended by the suggestion of antiBlackness than by the reality of antiBlack outcomes.
I do not accept that.
Black students are not a public relations problem. They are sons and daughters, firstgeneration trailblazers and multigeneration Spartans, Detroiters and Benton Harbor graduates, caregivers and community leaders. They deserve a university that is as ambitious for their futures as it is for its rankings.
Michigan’s future depends on whether Black students can move through our flagship institutions with dignity, support, and a fair shot at graduating on time and debtlight. That is the scorecard that matters.
President Kevin Guskiewicz has affirmed MSU’s commitment to access and student success. That affirmation now presents an opportunity. This is a moment for the university’s leadership to demonstrate that “Access, Opportunity, and Excellence” are not rhetorical substitutions but measurable commitments — particularly for students who have historically experienced the greatest disparities.
Access without equity is hollow. Excellence without accountability is incomplete. And Black students deserve both.
