Michigan State is being sued after a pregame trivia segment at Spartan Stadium showed a question about Adolf Hitler during the 2023 season.
The Dutch-based operator of The Quiz Channel filed a federal suit against the school on Friday alleging that Michigan State didn’t have authorization to use its quiz on the stadium video board before the game against Michigan on Oct. 21. The trivia question that appeared on the video board was asking where Hitler was born.
From the Lansing State Journal:
In the lawsuit, [company owner Floris] van Pallandt accuses the university of attempting to place the blame on his company despite not obtaining permission from the company to use the quiz.
“Once this story became national and international news, Michigan State University’s first response was to attempt to place the blame on Plaintiffs, stating that the use of Hitler in the quiz was the fault of the company who created the quiz,” the lawsuit said.
Michigan State issued a statement during that loss to Michigan and said a “inappropriate content by a third-party source” was displayed on the video board.
The statement went on to say that the school was “deeply sorry for the content that was displayed, as this is not representative of our institutional values. MSU will not be using the third-party source going forward and will implement stronger screening and approval procedures for all video board content in the future.”
Additionally, van Pallant states in the suit that the quiz shouldn’t have been used for “mass market use at an American college football game and Plaintiff does not believe it should have been used at such an event, especially in light of current events.” He wants damages to be determined at a trial and for Michigan State to not use his company’s quiz questions again.
The game against Michigan was the penultimate home game of the season for Michigan State.
