University of Michigan president fired over inappropriate relationship with subordinate, including flirty knish emails
University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel speaks at a news conference announcing the resignation of Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon, Oct. 31, 2014 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Loshua Lott/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The University of Michigan Board of Regents fired the school’s president, Mark Schlissel, over an alleged relationship he conducted with a subordinate employee at the university. The news was announced Saturday in a letter posted to the university’s website along with a trove of emails and texts between Schlissel and the employee from recent years.
Among those exchanges was a flirtatious email from Schlissel, who is Jewish, to the employee involving a box of knishes he received as a gift. The savory, doughy pastries, which are typically filled with potatoes, are a classic Ashkenazi Jewish food.
“[I] can lure you to visit with the promise of a knish?” he wrote to the employee on Oct. 10, 2019.
Schlissel assumed the role of president in 2014 and had his contract renewed in 2018 for another five years. In fall 2021, Schlissel announced he would step down one year early, according to the Detroit Free Press. According to the letter from the board posted to the school’s website Saturday, the board began an investigation into Schlissel’s conduct after receiving an anonymous complaint on Dec. 8, 2021.
“After an investigation, we learned that Dr. Schlissel, over a period of years, used his University email account to communicate with that subordinate in a manner inconsistent with the dignity and reputation of the University,” the board wrote.
Before coming to the University of Michigan, Schlissel served as the provost at Brown University. According to the Detroit Jewish News, Schlissel, who had a bar mitzvah but was not religious, became the school’s second Jewish president when he assumed the post in 2014.
—
The post University of Michigan president fired over inappropriate relationship with subordinate, including flirty knish emails appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
