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MSU Student Body President: 'We're Worse Than Penn State'

Lorenzo Santavicca photo
Scott Pohl
/
WKAR-MSU
MSU student body president Lorenzo Santavicca (sitting center in green tie)

Michigan State University student body president Lorenzo Santavicca said the resignation of Lou Anna K. Simon is "shocking." He also said the university must worker harder on behalf of sexual assault victims. 

WKAR's Reginald Hardwick talked with Santavicca hours after President Simon's announced resignation. Simon is stepping down in the wake of a scandal involving Larry Nassar, who worked at Michigan State as a medical doctor. Nassar was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young girls and women under the guise of medical treatment. Many of the victims accused the university of mishandling past complaints about Nassar.

“For a lot of students, particularly undergraduate students here, we’re trying to figure out where we go from here," said Santavicca. "This is going to be a big change for the institution and we have to be critical partners, the administration and the faculty going forward.”

“We keep saying this conversation of, this isn’t Penn State. Quite frankly, in my opinion, I think we’re worse than Penn State right now. We have some incredible eyes watching us right now. We have to ensure that we’re talking with the survivors going forward to make sure that whoever was involved with this, we’re bringing them into light and asking them the hard questions. We’re also asking them if they have advice or ways in which they can say ‘Michigan State here’s how you can do this.’ We need to be able to listen to that empathetically and genuinely and say we need to make change on this campus.”

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