Young Guns; Michigan Edition: An Interview with Rising Political Star, Dennis Lennox

I first crossed paths with Dennis Lennox more than two years ago. At the time, he was a junior student at Central Michigan University. By the time I first spoke with him, he had engineered a near year long battle with the faculty at CMU over Gary Peters. At the time, Peters was running for the U.S. Congress and concurrently he was holding the distinguished Griffin Chair. (Peters eventually won his Congressional election) The Congressio nal district was about 400 miles from campus. If, and now when, Peters won, he would have had to give up Chairmanship. Furthermore, the Griffin Chairmanship was supposed to be non partisan and a Congressional candidate was hardly that. Subsequently, emails and other leaked correspondence showed evidence of a corrupt process in choosing Peters for the Chairmanship.

Lennox waged a battle to have Peters choose, the Chairmanship or his Congressional race. By May of 2008, Lennox had effectively won his battle and Peters was asked to resign and he did. Lennox was not unscathed from his battle. The administration threatened sanctions against Lennox on a number of occasions. Eventually, a letter of reprimand was put into Lennox’ university records. In fact, the school attempted to hold a number of disciplinary hearings at which the potential punishment of Lennox could have been expulsion. At one hearing, Lennox showed up flanked by no less than six members of the media. The administration quickly cancelled that hearing and held another in secret over Spring break a couple weeks later.

(more…)