FEATURED
ANALYSIS: Just six professors supported Mike Rogers
The Michigan faculty lounge overwhelmingly favors Abdul El-Sayed in his hotly contested Senate race against Mike Rogers.
The College Fix looked at Federal Election Commission data for Michigan professors who donated to El-Sayed and Rogers.
The data include all donations this campaign cycle through Sept. 30, the most recent reporting period available, for anyone in Michigan who listed their occupation as “professor.” It does not include out-of-state professors who may have donated to either candidate.
There were 188 donations from 49 different professors totaling $39,965.44 in support of El-Sayed, compared to just six separate professors who donated a total of $2149.49 to Rogers. This means 95 percent of faculty donations from Michigan professors went to El-Sayed over Rogers.
Notably, almost half of the amount to Rogers came from Michael Witt, a University of Michigan-Flint business professor who said he is now retired.
“I’ve been a longtime Mike Rogers supporter,” Witt told The Fix on a phone interview.
Witt said he has known Rogers for a long time, and donated to him because he is a “serious, competent, accomplished professional.”
He cited Rogers’ background as an FBI agent. “He’s not reactionary. He’s policy-oriented, knowledgeable and he’s just careful and he’s interested in representing the people.”
The business professor, who is also a practicing attorney, contrasted Rogers to El-Sayed.
“We need good, solid, serious people who will take questions as they come to him based on what’s good for the citizens he represents,” he said. “El-Sayed is not that.”
Witt said there are likely other Republican professors at University of Michigan but they fear retribution. However, he speculated many of his business school peers are conservative but are more focused on their work.
“I also don’t think many of them are very involved in politics,” he said. “They’re all just trying to do their work and teach students.”
Witt also said El-Sayed may have won because Republicans crossed over to support him in an effort to boost Rogers.
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Professor Ronald Larson also supports Rogers.
He stated in an email to The Fix:
Mike Rogers is more qualified, because he has not campaigned with avowed Marxists, or those who have openly supported violent attacks on the United States, or have championed dictators responsible for mass slaughter of innocents, or who despise the American system of government, as El-Sayed has campaigned with.
He added: “The vast majority of Univ. of Michigan faculty likely support El-Sayed.”
El-Sayed received a total of $7,750 from his dad, Mohamed El-Sayed, an engineering professor at Eastern Michigan University.
The Fix emailed and called Professor El-Sayed to ask for comment on the election, including his son’s association with controversial commentator Hasan Piker. He did not respond to multiple inquiries in the past week.
The Defense of Freedom Institute questioned why professors would support El-Sayed, given his statements about Israel, Hamas, and antisemitic violence.
He has tried to walk back saying “hurt people do hurt people,” when commenting on an attack on a Jewish school in Michigan. The attacker reportedly lost family in Lebanon from an Israeli airstrike. Intelligence officials say the attacker’s family had ties to Hezbollah.
“Campus antisemitism seems to grow the deepest roots in places where conservative views are least welcome,” Angela Morabito told The Fix via email. “It is troubling that these faculty members were not dissuaded by El-Sayed’s admission that he ‘struggles’ with whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state or his campaign’s financial ties to CAIR and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Morabito, a spokeswoman for Defense of Freedom Institute, concluded: “Faculty members who accept – or worse, celebrate – these views in a candidate are very likely to propagate the same harmful views on campus.”
MORE: El-Sayed’s professor sister says family has ties to Muslim Brotherhood
