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.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
