"To ensure real accountability, the university’s Board of Trustees, which picks the university’s president, oversees its administration and sets policy, should resign to make way for new leadership unencumbered by the Nassar scandal and the recent report by ESPN that the university concealed allegations of sexual violence by members of its prized football and basketball programs," the Times wrote. "If the trustees refuse to do so, Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, and its Legislature ought to remove them."

The editorial touched on Trustee Joel Ferguson's radio show comments, former MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon's resignation letter, MSU's hiring of an attorney to both represent and investigate the university and student and faculty opposition to Wednesday's appointment of former Michigan governor John Engler as interim president.

"Many young Americans probably cannot remember a time when sports did not play an outsize role in campus life and university administration," the Times writes. "But the federal and state governments created Michigan State, Penn State and other land grant universities more than a century ago to extend higher education to more Americans. Now more than ever, the leaders of these universities need to place that core mission at the top of their priority list, above winning championships and signing lucrative TV contracts."

The Times' full editorial can be read here.