Rules are rules and whoever breaks them should face the consequences irrespective of their status and the positions they hold. Now, the president of the University of Michigan, Mark Schlissel, has been fired from his $927,000-a-year job over a romantic affair with a female subordinate.
The Daily Mail says that Mark Schlissel in July 2021, introduced rules banning sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates and he ended up breaking the very rule he made.
Mark Schlissel, 64, was informed in a letter on Saturday that he was being fired from the role he has held since July 2014.
Schlissel – a married father of four – and his lover, who has not been identified, exchanged emails on their work email addresses which were ‘inconsistent with promoting the dignity and reputation of the university’, the regents of the university wrote. It is unclear how the affair came to the attention of college bosses.
Schlissel himself had, in July 2021, introduced the very rules banning sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates, which he broke.
In the emails, sent between September 2, 2019 to December 3, 2021, the pair discuss reading, recipes, travel and ordering takeout together.
Full of double entendres and longing, the emails show Schlissel lamenting that he is ‘lonely’ – his wife, Monica Schwebs, a 65-year-old environmental and energy law attorney, lives near San Francisco.
In September 2019, he sent her a link to a spoof New Yorker article entitled: ‘Sexual fantasies of every New Yorker’. At one point, in November 2019, Schlissel and his lover discuss trying to coordinate traveling together – but Schlissel warns her that ‘M will likely join me on the return from FLA to DTW (Detroit), but that’s it’.
At another, in September 2019, Schlissel sends her the schedule for his flight to India, and notes: ‘What if we miss our connection and get stuck in Paris…’ She replies: ‘I know a bistro…’ He responds: ‘I’m so there.’
You would think someone who is the President of a University would be smart enough to have a burner email account for something like this.
Flip to the next page to see screengrabs of emails between Schlissel and his subordinate female lover.
