MSU President M. Peter McPherson approved an undercover investigation of a campus activist group soon after police infiltrated it, he told The State News on Thursday evening.
“To me it’s almost a classic issue in a democracy,” said McPherson, who had not publicly admitted his involvement in the investigation. “I think you can write a history of civilization based on freedom versus order and security.
“You balance those in a free and open society.”
McPherson said he learned of an undercover investigation by campus police of Students for Economic Justice, then known as United Students Against Sweatshops, from Fred Poston, vice president of finance and operations. Poston could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Poston, who oversees the Department of Police and Public Safety, had been alerted of the investigation before it began, MSU police Chief Bruce Benson said. Both men OK’d the procedure.
McPherson said Benson “made the judgment that they should proceed to have the young police officer go to these meetings. Then, not too long but probably a couple weeks or so after, Poston said to me this is what has happened.
“I said get Benson on the line and we talked about it. He laid out his argument - an argument to which I concurred was appropriate.”
That argument included discussion of the impact of protests in Seattle, Washington, D.C., and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that turned violent.
Officials feared a May 2000 commencement speech by World Bank President James Wolfensohn could bring similar incidents to campus.
The three men also discussed how to balance the issue of public safety with civil rights and liberties, Benson said. But the high-ranking administrators never played a direct role in the operation of the investigation, he said.
“They never were aware of many details or anything,” he said. “I didn’t share the details. I talked about the philosophy.”
But members of Students for Economic Justice say they believe McPherson played a more heavy-handed role - a charge he denies.
“I confronted him at our last meeting” March 27, said history senior Michael Krueger, a member of the group. “I specifically brought up that at a meeting and he flat-out laughed at me and denied it. We were under the impression he really didn’t know.”
McPherson said he was asked if campus police officers gathered information about the political views of Students for Economic Justice. He told Krueger that they had not.
“Undercover policemen are not to investigate politics,” he said.
But the investigation could land the university in a court battle with American Civil Liberties Union attorneys, some say.
“It’s a terrible thing for a university to be in this position,” said Henry Silverman, president of the Lansing-area ACLU. “I know some people say it’s legal, but it certainly isn’t moral for a university to spy on its students under any circumstances.”
Silverman, a retired MSU history professor, said the undercover tactics are against the purpose of a university, adding he was ashamed for MSU and for McPherson.
“It’s disgraceful that he’d approve this kind of thing and he’s a man who claims to have concerns for student civil liberties,” he said. “I certainly think he opens himself to charges of hypocrisy on this particular issue.
“He shouldn’t have approved it.”
McPherson said he recognizes that many people don’t support the investigation and the university’s position that the operation was done because there was “a reasonable basis given the facts and circumstances.
He said the Department of Public Safety Oversight Committee, an independent review board of students, faculty and staff members, will look at the investigation. McPherson also vowed to assemble a panel during fall semester to create a standard for such investigations.
“There is clearly a question of trust that needs to be built,” he said. “I am looking to this independent review and process after that to build confidence and trust.”
Jeremy W. Steele can be reached at steelej7@msu.edu.
