Despite having refused to allow students to receive in-person instruction, Michigan State University has been holding basketball games at 100% capacity.
Each game has had at least 14,797 in attendance. This continues to happen as the University’s President reports “an all-time high in cases per day” as a justification for starting the spring semester off with remote learning.
“Given this intense surge in cases, we now feel the best decision for our campus is to start classes primarily remotely on Jan. 10 and for at least the first three weeks of the semester,” President Samuel Stanley Jr. said in a statement
The University requires full vaccination and mask-wearing to attend basketball games, but it’s abundantly obvious that these things do not always prevent the transmission of COVID-19 especially in the form of the Omicron variant.
It would seem as though the University really doesn’t care about their students and community at all. It would appear that the staff and faculty care about maximum profit for minimal effort. During the 2018-19 season, MSU brought in a whopping total of $140,010,865 in athletic revenue.
“I agree with the MSU Students testimony stating that the decision by Stanley is hypocritical. But it’s also infuriating. When you take into account the massive amount of money that Stanley received from the state government ($80 million), the massive amount from tuition which has not been altered despite the change to online courses – which are wildly less expensive, and revenue gained from things like MSU sports. Then you look at the conditions of student life on campus, all you can be is disappointed by our leadership.” MSU student leader PJ Sarotte told Merica Now!
Sarotte described President Stanley as being “drunk with money” to a sickening degree. He also indicated that any sane person would have a difficult time pointing to something that Stanley has done right amid an alleged epidemic of drug and mental health issues. The school is also apparently riddled with staffing issues and problems with advising according to Sarotte.