Mary Sue Coleman regarding the harassment of student body president as discussed in this diary posted yesterday.
Andrew Shirvell, assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan has made it his personal mission to attack the openly gay, elected president of the Ann Arbor campus student body. Shervell and his boss, Attorney General, Mike Cox were interviewed on Anderson Cooper 360, where the very strange, overly obsessed Shirvell continued to verbally attack Chris Armstrong to the point of actually having stalked his home in Ann Arbor to take videos of Chris and his friends to post on his blog.
Mike Cox was all wishy-washy when questioned by Cooper, saying pretty much he has the right to do stuff like this on his free time - you know, first amendment rights etc. I applaud Anderson Cooper who really kept hammering away at both attorneys about the obvious lack of any kind of concern about the civil and human rights of the victim of these attacks.
Evidently, I was not the only person to bring this to the attention of University of Michigan President, Mary Sue Coleman, who promptly sent out a statement to all staff and students and the press, that when one of us is attacked we will all rise up to stop it. Security has been offered to Chris, Andrew Shirvell has been banned from the campus and best of all, The Detroit News announced today that Mike Cox has suspended Andrew Shirvell from his position. Yeah - people power works! Good job folks for bringing this issue to our attention, for the swift outrage and communication to people who actually responded in an adult, professional way to end this obvious discrimination. It gives me hope!