The sentencing of former CMU football player Spencer Lewis marks the end of a dark time in CMU’s history.

Now we just have to learn from it.

Lewis was sentenced Monday to one year in the Isabella County Jail and five years probation for the role he played in the beating death of DeMarcus Graham, a Flint native, in 2004.

When Isabella County Trial Judge William T. Ervin read Lewis’ fate, he was ending the last trial of a former CMU student involved in the case.

Finally, it is over.

Graham was beaten outside Shaboom Pub Club, 106 Court St., by a group of students after a fight between him and former CMU football player James King. The fight involved several football players, who kicked Graham after he fell in the street during the fight.

He died of his injuries in a Saginaw hospital about three weeks later.

What followed was a despicable display by numerous people on this campus. Initial police investigations turned up little – students with information refused to come forward.

The situation was disgusting, if only because the fight, taking place as the bar closed at about 2 a.m., was witnessed by everyone who had been at the bar at the time – as many as several hundred people.

A year-long grand jury investigation into Graham’s death led to indictments of several members of the CMU football team. It was a black mark on the program, with more than one player pleading to charges of second-degree murder and going to prison for years.

Lewis was the last of those suspected of the crime. With him sentenced and his case closed, all those considered responsible for DeMarcus Graham’s death have been punished in some sense or another.

Finally, CMU is free to move on.

But going forward in the aftermath of the Graham case does not mean forgetting the lessons it taught us.

The beating death of Graham showed that even CMU’s local heroes could be dark. It showed that everyday students could choose to remain silent and not get involved rather than help bring those responsible for another person’s death to justice.

It showed just how far CMU has to go, and just how bad a community we could be.

Today it is hard to tell if this campus has improved. Recent incidents of racism and a lack of leads in those cases beg the question – are we any better than we were three years ago?

CMU’s environment of keeping to oneself, of not coming forward, of letting questionable or immoral acts continue no longer is tolerable. DeMarcus Graham taught us that. Students, administrators, faculty, parents, community members – we all have a responsibility to stand up and say, “Justice will not be absent at CMU.”

Hopefully it won’t take another person’s death for that to be the case here.

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