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A list of organizations, public officials and University of Michigan leaders calling for Ron Weiser, a University of Michigan regent, to resign is growing after a video surfaced showing Weiser refer to Michigan’s governor and two other state officials as "witches." Weiser said Tuesday he is suspending his social media accounts amid threats.
At a North Oakland Republican Club event, Weiser, who is also chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said that Governor Gretchen Whitmer, state Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson are “three witches.” He also said the GOP needs to make sure “they are ready for the burning at the stake,” MLive reported.
Mark Schlissel, president of the university, called Weiser’s remarks “particularly abhorrent.”
“It is never appropriate to raise the specter of assassination or perpetuate misogynistic stereotypes against anyone in any setting,” Schlissel said. “Elected officials must adhere to a higher standard regardless of the context of their remarks.”
Other University of Michigan regents, including Mark Bernstein, Jordan Acker and Paul Brown, have called on Weiser to resign. So has the Michigan Democratic Party, and the Leaders of the Congregations of Catholic Sisters in Michigan added its name to the list. Several university deans wrote a letter condemning Weiser's remarks, and university provost Susan Collins said she supported the deans' letter. (This paragraph has been updated to reflect that the university deans and Collins condemned Weiser's remarks but did not call for his resignation.)
Weiser has since apologized for his comments.
“I have never advocated for violence and never will,” he wrote in a statement Sunday.
Weiser said Tuesday he has temporarily suspended his social media accounts after receiving multiple threats of violence, MLive reported. His email is no longer listed in a university database or on its regents website. A university spokesperson told MLive Weiser prefers to be contacted through his office and that he decided to stop using a university email address a month or two ago. A regent bio website listed contact information for him at a real estate company he founded.
University of Michigan regents are statewide elected officials.
