Is former SBU president being shown the door by Michigan State?

Daily Point

Ex-SBU president could be looking for a job

Former Stony Brook University President Sam Stanley, who left Long Island in 2019 for the top job at Michigan State University, could soon be looking for a new job.

Media reports out of Detroit say that there is friction between Stanley and the school’s board of trustees over the handling of the resignation of the popular dean of Michigan’s Broad School of Business. The stories said he was told on Friday by some trustees to retire with two years left on his contract. The board has asked outside legal counsel to review the handling of the resignation of Sanjay Gupta from the business school in light of Title IX rules on sexual discrimination.

Emily Gerkin Guerrant, a spokeswoman for Michigan State, told the Detroit Free Press that Stanley and the board were currently “in discussions” about his contract. The Free Press said Stanley was given an ultimatum to resign by Tuesday or he would be fired but Guerrant said there was no deadline.

Dianne Byrum, chair of the MSU trustees, said there was “bewilderment” and “outrage” at the reports and that the effort to push him out was misguided. “It is my belief these board members should apologize, reverse course and refocus on their proper role as Trustees of this amazing institution. President Stanley should be allowed to complete his service to MSU without undo [sic] interference by the Board," Byrum said in a statement.

Stanley, a biomedical researcher specializing in infectious diseases, took the helm at Michigan State which had been reeling from the scandal over former campus doctor Larry Nassar's sexual abuse of female gymnasts. Stanley had a five-year contract that paid $800,000 a year with a bonus and other perks.

Stanley, 68, served as the head of SBU for 10 years, succeeding Shirley Strum Kenney.

— Rita Ciolli @ritaciolli

Talking Point

Getting the map band back together

With Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie pushing for a kind of offseason revival for the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw his chamber’s district map, one key roster change stands out for Long Island: Ex-State Sen. Jack Martins is off the panel.

Martins served as the vocal vice chairman on the bipartisan commission, which deadlocked. Ultimately, the courts rewrote congressional and Senate lines. Martins, formerly a state senator and mayor of Mineola, resigned the IRC before announcing a desire to return to Albany from the reconfigured 7th Senate District. He is challenging incumbent Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-North Hills) in November.

But the Assembly lines remain to be redrawn and Heastie is pushing in state Supreme Court in Manhattan to have the IRC convene and initiate the task. Also, until a judge dismissed a separate case in Albany on Monday, Democratic-aligned plaintiffs sought to have the Congressional lines redone through the IRC as well.

Martins said “it would be great to see the committee reach a consensus” on district maps after the Democrats last time, as he sees it, overreached in their majority efforts to dominate the process and gerrymander in their favor.

Plaintiffs pushing the Assembly case, however, argue that the IRC deadlines in New York's Constitution have passed and the only proper method left to rewrite lines now is through a court-appointed special master as was done earlier this year.

Lisa Harris, a Republican lawyer from upstate, succeeds Martins on the panel, which now has its 10 slots filled. Among them are two Democrats, newly added, who also are serving on the New York City Council’s redistricting panel — John Flateau and Yovan Samuel Collado.

The IRC process as settled on in 2014 by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and both legislative houses, then approved by voters, gives the Assembly and Senate approval power over the panel’s recommended maps. Democrats hold supermajorities now in both houses. That’s why they prefer the IRC route at this point and Republicans oppose it.

Presiding over the Manhattan case is Justice Laurence Love, a Democrat who once was an Assembly staffer.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison

Pencil Point

Once upon a union

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Quick Points

All kinds of races

• Not only can’t members of Brookhaven Town’s redistricting committee agree on new town board maps, they can’t agree on when and how to meet about the maps — taking an early lead in the heated competition for the region’s most dysfunctional redistricting committee.
• Asked about the status of the Southern border, which she was tasked with overseeing by the administration in which she serves, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “There are still a lot of problems that we are trying to fix,” making a powerful bid for understatement of the year.
• Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said of the quality of GOP candidates as his party tries to retake the Senate, “So the truth is, who we have on the field is who we’re gonna play,” showing that he’s a contender for best obfuscation.
• Gun rights advocates are protesting Visa’s decision to separately categorize sales at gun shows to help thwart mass shootings, saying that would unfairly segregate legal gun sales when most don’t lead to mass shootings. But unlike sales of any other product, some do.
• Chief Justice John G. Roberts says the legitimacy of the Supreme Court should not be called into question just because people disagree with its decisions. He’s right, as long as he understands that’s not the only reason people are questioning its legitimacy.
• As Ukrainian forces were retaking swaths of land previously occupied by Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin was at a Moscow park opening a Ferris wheel. Which was an apt metaphor for the moment in that one minute you’re up and the next you’re down.
• After winning the U.S. Open at age 19, Carlos Alcaraz said, “This is something I have dreamed of since I was a kid.” Which was, basically, yesterday.
• Former Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte said sports are one way to unify a politically divided United States. He must have amnesia about all those years of Yankees vs. Red Sox and Yankees vs. Mets.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie