After seeing the drastic move made by U-M and hearing increased opposition to DEI both locally and nationally, some students are voicing their support for programming at the University, despite no moves having been made to follow U-M footsteps. The Lanthorn reached out to Robert Shorty, the vice president for People, Equity and Culture, and the Inclusion and Equity Institute but neither were able to provide comment at time of publication.

At GVSU, DEI comprises departments, offices, events and educational initiatives. The Office of Multicultural Affairs, Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center, the Division of People, Equity and Culture and the Inclusion and Equity Institute are similar examples to higher-ed efforts being targeted nationwide.

On Friday, March 28, Ottawa County Commissioner Joe Moss wrote a letter to President Philomena Mantella decrying campus DEI initiatives and requesting the closure of both the Division of People, Equity and Culture and the Inclusion and Equity Institute. Moss also requested the University to comply with federal law and guidelines surrounding transgender women in sports, as well as an update to the Weapons Policy. The letter came after Moss was found to be in violation of the policy by carrying a concealed firearm on campus.

The Lanthorn reached out to Mantella but has not received comment.

Both large and small-scale attacks on DEI have been criticized by students and community members, leading to a protest Thursday, April 3 in front of James H. Zumberge Hall. The protest was organized by the Progressive Student Union (PSU), Nourish Black Women and Voices for Justice. The student organizations aimed to persuade administration against any demands to eliminate DEI initiatives. 

“We felt it was important to rally students to show (the) GVSU administration we won’t tolerate any policy changes on DEI similar to what happened at the University of Michigan,” said Owen Frassetto, a PSU member.

Further, Frassetto stated he believes administration has not adequately opposed President Trump’s policies or the push for more conservative guidelines, mentioning the University’s rollback of certain Title IX protections in its harassment policy.

“Students uniting and making our voices heard can make administration think twice before making changes (to) DEI,” Frassetto said. 

Critics of DEI feel it is discriminatory against those that are not part of marginalized communities. Nevertheless, in a workplace setting, many studies have indicated that DEI initiatives lead to more productivity and general satisfaction. A 2023 study by the Pew Research Center showed that a majority of workers agreed DEI efforts are good and create a more hospitable work environment. According to the University of Washington’s College of Medicine, DEI initiatives give institutions new perspectives, foster equitable environments and help provide opportunities to those who have been traditionally disadvantaged.

Senior Emily Christianson feels DEI on campuses is important in making students feel secure while they pursue an education.

“Without this (DEI), many (students) won’t feel comfortable staying at GVSU or even coming to GVSU.”

While it remains to be seen if any further changes will be mandated, many community members remain wrought with concern.

The GVSU freshman was last seen visiting his friends at Michigan State University on Friday, Oct. 29. 

MSU Police and Public Safety said that shortly before midnight, Santo was seen leaving Yakeley Hall. Police said it’s possible he was planning to walk a half-mile to the Brody neighborhood. There is no indication that he left the East Lansing area. 

According to the most recent press release, foul play is not suspected in Santo’s disappearance and investigators are focusing on the Red Cedar River. Two miles of the Red Cedar River runs throughout the MSU campus.

“The investigation has led us to focus on the Red Cedar River which is in very close proximity to Brendan’s last known location,” according to the press release. “However, we continue to investigate other possibilities.”

In order to facilitate the water search, police are using specialized resources from the Michigan State Police Marine Services Division, Ingham County Sheriff’s Office and the Capital Area Dive Team. The search is being conducted on foot, by helicopter, drone and boat.

“The investigation has included everyone who last had contact or spoke with a review of surveillance cameras, and advanced techniques such as reviewing cellular, smartphone, and GPS data,” MSU Police and Public Safety said.

GVPD Assistant Director of Public Safety Captian Jeff Stoll said GVPD has been in contact with MSU Police and Public Safety regarding Santo. However, because the incident occurred on MSU’s campus, GVPD is not highly involved. 

“The incident occurred squarely on their campus, and it involves people who live on their campus, so there hasn’t been a huge need for our involvement,” Stoll said. “If MSU called us, or needed us to do something, or there was evidence or information related to the investigation that would be helpful for them, we would be more than happy to help.”

In addition to searching Red Cedar River, Stoll said law enforcement has been investigating his cellphones’ location and have located Santo’s car.

“They did a detailed investigation related to his cellphone, in that they tracked his cellphone pinging location, which was consistent with where he was observed to be on campus,” Stoll said. “In addition, his car is still parked at MSU, so it does not appear as if he would have left, or if he did, he did not leave in his car.”

Data from Santo’s cell phone ping location is being reviewed by the FBI, along with the MSU Police Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime Unit. Records show no current activity on Santo’s phone. Although police haven’t found his phone, they are confident that they have obtained information from his digital footprint. 

Santo was last seen wearing gray sweatpants, a black t-shirt, black baseball cap and white Vans. He is described as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 160 pounds.

On social media, posts from Santo’s friends and family as well as MSU Police and Public Safety have been shared widely asking anyone with more information to come forward.  

Anyone that has information on Santo’s whereabouts is asked to contact MSU police detectives at 517-388-6291 or TerrilJ@police.msu.edu.

DeRosa’s body was originally found near the intramural athletic fields, south of West Campus Drive, Saturday morning, kicking off a multi-department investigation into the incident. 

The Grand Valley Police Department has been in contact with local law enforcement in the investigation into DeRosa’s death and has been waiting for several reports to come back before making any definitive statements regarding the incident. 

GVPD Captain Jeffrey Stoll said that as of right now, there are no suspects in DeRosa’s death and that they will be sharing new information if they get any in the future. Stoll also clarified that when investigations classify deaths, they are labeled as unknown, accidental, homicide or suicide. 

“Accidental highlights the fact that there was no other person directly involved in her passing,” Stoll said. “Accidental means there were circumstances outside of the body that contributed to the death. The accidental death ruling came directly from the medical examiner.”

Stoll said that the investigation into DeRosa’s death was extensive and that the department had over 50 witnesses they connected with. The investigation leaders included a GVPD detective and two other primary detectives from the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office. 

The lengthiness of the investigation was due in part to the number of people that GVPD needed to interview for additional information, as well as the time it took for toxicology reports to come back. Stoll said that although many were skeptical about how long the report took, the timing of the report’s release was normal to any other investigation. 

“The time frame was actually pretty comparable to what we would normally expect in terms of what chemicals, if any, were in the body,” Stoll said. “So that just takes a little while to get, it’s not an instantaneous result. We needed to make sure that that information was consistent with the information we were getting from the witnesses.”

With many students and parents concerned for campus safety, Stoll said that a main concern of the department is reiterating that there is not — nor was there ever — any safety risk to the campus associated with the event.

Currently, GVSU and GVPD have several safety measures in place on campus like the GVSU Alerts emergency notification system and their “Safe Walk” program, a free service in which Department of Public Safety employees will accompany students, staff and visitors who feel unsafe walking alone, across campus. 

Universities are required by federal law to notify the campus community whenever there is a continuing or ongoing threat to members of the campus community so they can protect themselves from harm. Examples include but are not limited to; criminal homicides, sexual assaults, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, arson, or any other crime fitting the criteria.

“I would continue to reiterate that we found no evidence of any other people being involved resulting in her death and that was highlighted there were no safety concerns for Taylor, there were no safety concerns for the University,” said Stoll. 

Mantella urged GVSU community members to seek support services if they are struggling and that employees in need of counseling services may use the employee assistance program. Mantella, who was in attendance at the community vigil for DeRosa, said that the DeRosa family is in the GVSU community’s continued thoughts and prayers. 

“Taylor’s death is a terrible tragedy for her family and all those close to her,” Mantella said. “We know her fellow students, as well as our faculty and staff, have been affected. We are a caring community and our hearts go out to all who knew and loved Taylor. We respect their need to grieve and honor Taylor’s memory. Our routines during COVID have put physical space between us, but we should work to stay emotionally connected, especially as we grieve the loss of a promising young woman who was part of our campus community.”

One of the few pieces of hope that Americans can find at this time, with many losing their job and running out of money, is pulling into a gas station, walking up to the cashier and purchasing a lottery ticket in hopes of winning big in this time of crisis.

Thankfully for Americans, the lottery in this country is not run by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC). The NLC is the only National Lottery Regulator and License holder in South Africa, and NLC regulates various lotteries including sports pools, society lotteries, raffles and competitions.

Not only have the NLC regulated the lottery, but they have also been involved in some shady practices, which may be explaining it lightly.

The minister of Trade and Industry in South Africa has requested a criminal case investigating the NLC partially due to the 2014 fraud warnings that we’re blatantly ignored. They paid millions from the Lottery directly into the foundation founded by the COO’s cousin and even more millions to the COO’s wife’s company. They gave R13 million to a museum that doesn’t exist. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to corruption.

The NLC has made some questionable payments for years now, and as you could expect, they haven’t been so kind to Raymond Joseph, an experienced investigative journalist who has been featured in CNN, The Guardian, AllAfrica, the Daily Maverick and GroundUp.

Joseph discovered that investigating the NLC would his main focus surrounded by his colleguages at a conference.

“Back in 2016, we were all at an investigative journalism conference in Johannesburg, and one day we were sitting around drinking wine and think of a story we could do that cross borders, boundaries, and be translated everywhere in the world,” Joseph said. “Looking at the lottery seemed like a bloddy good idea, so I took on the South African end of it, and I didn’t know at the time that the lottery was corrupt.”

Joseph started his investigation by looking into the annual winnings report. When he was confused by the organization of the findings of his findings, he turned to his daughter to help the project get off the ground.

“One of the big problems we faced was that every year, the lottery would publish a list of all the grantees who got money in that financial year,” Joseph said. “It was hard to find unless you get a way to extract it, and the naming protocol was all messed up. I sent it all to my daughter, who is a data journalist, and without her this project might not have legs.”

After looking over the data, Joseph realized that he had a potential gold mine at his finger tips from an investigative journalist’s perspective, especially with the hypocrisy on display by way of the NLC’s advertisiting.

“As it turns out, the people running the national lottery commission have got a lot to hide,” Joseph said. “They keep talking about their transparency, and they are anything but. As one of my colleagues famously remarked, ‘there’s transparency in the toilet water’.”

When first starting to conduct the investigation, Joseph and his colleguages found it suspicious that a few key we’re getting the majority of the winnings, and when they kept pressing for more data, the NLC refused to budge.

“We started looking at the bigger picture, saw who was winning money, and looked at the outliers,” Joseph said. “With each story, we gained more knowledge on what to look for. The more we began digging, the more we found out, the less information (the NLC) would give us.”

As soon as Joseph and his team had enough to publish, the NLC started attacking him personally, claiming that he was just bitter because he was no longer receiving funding for his role as an editor at a previous job at The Big Issue, a street magazine that Joseph had resigned from after 20 years.

“That’s when it started to get personal,” Joseph said. “Throughout this entire thing, the closer and closer we started to getting to proving the corruption, and once we published findings with leaked sources, the guy on the newsbox (from the NLC) started getting really aggressive. They started attacking us very aggressively. They put out that I was a disgruntled former receipt of lottery funding.”

As soon as Joseph was able to prove corruption within the lottery, we was threatened by lottery officials and had to run from them, attempted to lock him, and dragged his character and reputation through the mud

“We kept proving nepotism, and if it wasn’t corruption, we certainely proved conflict of interest,” Joseph said. “They weren’t dealing with the facts of what we were reporting, they couldn’t rebuke past facts, so they attacked the reporter.

“When looking into some of the businesses in the northern part (of South Africa), I was on the run, got locked in a place, and the people phoned for reinforcement,” Joseph said. “The cavalry came charging past me. The NLC put out an email saying that I was misrepresenting myself as working for the lottery commission. It was a consistent assault, and they kept claiming that me and my wife were benefactors of lottery money, which was far from the truth.”

Joseph was not afraid of these attacks, and for the first time in his life, he started blocking those coming after him on social media. It also proves his strength as a reporter that he never even contemplated the idea of suing the NLC for all these attacks.

“They would trash us and the whistleblowers on social media, but I had a policy that I don’t block people, I follow everyone because if you only follow people with people you agree with, you’ll be stuck in an echochamber,” Joseph said. “I just started blocking people cause the constant attacks and accusations became debilitating. One thing I believe is that reporters should never sue because it’s a tactice used against reporters all the time, and we speak with our pens.”

Constant threats, constant attacks on social media, potential arrests, constant pressure and invstigation from institutional powers, and attempts at damaging his reputation hasn’t stopped Joseph to this day. He has earned grants from journalism forums to keep him going, as he continues to fight the NLC everyday to get justice for those who have been wronged due to the corruption.

“I’m too thick skinned and maybe too stupid to walk away from a good story,” Joseph said. “You need a strong editor who is committed to the story, which I have one. I have a luxury that most journalists don’t have of being able to stick to a story for two and a half years. For all the hate a lot of people have supported me, and I’m thankful that I get to keep doing this investigation.”

When asked about what advice he would give to young journalists facing threats, Joseph preached to have thick skinned, be honest, and let the words you print do the talking.

“Along the way, people will pressure you,” Joseph said. “I have been threatened by gangsters ask me to leave these things alone or there will be consequences, and I wrote about that. The thing about threats is that when it happens to you, publish it in the paper and be honest. When people threaten you, it’s scary, but writing about it can diffuse the threat, and you can always come back to a story if you become uncomfortable. It’s all about stamina, if a story is worth doing, you have to fully commit to it. It will consume you, but look forward to an ending sooner than later.”

“Grand Valley State University is committed to the editorial independence of the student newspaper, The Lanthorn. The administration is reviewing events surrounding the Berger story to determine if there was behavior inconsistent with that commitment.”

Update – 2:20 p.m. A representative from GVSU’s Athletic Department responded to the Lanthorn’s request for comment. The department has no additional comments to share aside from the University’s official statement.

Newly announced football offensive coordinator Morris Berger has been suspended, according to a Grand Valley State University Statement provided to the Lanthorn. The University added that a “thorough investigation” into Morris’ conduct is ongoing.

Morris recently attracted public attention following an interview with the Lanthorn where he referred to Adolf Hitler as a historical figure he’d like to dine with. He also cited President John F. Kennedy and Christopher Columbus as other answers.

“This is probably not going to get a good review, but I’m going to say Adolf Hitler,” Berger said in the interview. “It was obviously very sad and he had bad motives, but the way he was able to lead was second-to-none. How he rallied a group and a following, I want to know how he did that. Bad intentions of course, but you can’t deny he wasn’t a great leader.”

The Lanthorn published the piece Thursday, Jan. 23. This story will be updated.