The ASMSU Academic Assembly's decision to close its meeting to the public Tuesday night has left some people wondering about the legality of the move, and whether it is considered a public body.
The assembly, part of MSU's undergraduate student government, closed the meeting and asked about 10 people to leave so the representatives could discuss candidates for its executive board.
Matt Weingarden, chairperson of ASMSU's Student Assembly, said the organization has a right to close the meeting because they aren't bound by the Michigan Open Meetings Act.
"We have done this for so long and it's never caused a major problem," Weingarden said. "When you have a system that's efficient, why change it?"
ASMSU has closed its meetings to deliberate about candidates every year for the last 20 years, Weingarden said - a necessary move given the sensitive discussions that take place.
"Traditionally, some things are said in the heat of the moment and people don't want those words to be placed in print," he said. "Everyone deserves the opportunity to express themselves without the paranoia of being printed in the paper."
Henry Silverman, president of the Lansing branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he fails to see the reasoning behind closing the meeting.
"If they're saying things that would create paranoia among them, then they shouldn't be saying them," he said, adding that Weingarden's defense of "we've always done our elections that way," was faulty.
"If they've always done it, then they've done it wrong," Silverman said. "That's not justification for behavior that is dishonest."
A State News reporter was among those who were asked to leave the meeting, and Kevin Hardy, editor in chief of The State News, said he is considering, with the newspaper's lawyer, whether to take future action against ASMSU.
Hardy spoke at the meeting to protest the decision to clear the room.
"It's an unsettled point of law whether or not they are a public body," said Dawn Phillips Hertz, The State News' lawyer and general counsel for the Michigan Press Association.
"But as a matter of principle, they should consider themselves to be a public body. A strong argument could be made that ASMSU is a public body."
ASMSU legal counsel declined to comment.
Angela Galardi, president of the Michigan Student Assembly, the University of Michigan's main undergraduate student government, said all of their meetings are open to the public and they have never closed any of them.
"It's really important to a lot of the students to be here so they can see what's going on," she said. "It makes everything that happens very out in the open and allows students to have the voice the student government is supposed to provide."
