4 - Friday, November 15, 2013 L74e iig~'*an ilg The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 0 The real-lfe impacts ofscrapping Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@nichigandaily.com MELANIE KRUVELIS and ADRIENNE ROBERTS MATT SLOVIN EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR ANDREW WEINER EDITOR IN CHIEF Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Transparency through information freedom Bill provides citizens with realisitic access to government records The Michigan Freedom of Information Act was created to guaran- tee public access to state-level government records. However, based on the law, the public bodies holding documents can unilaterally control information through delays, unreasonably high prices and dubious denial of requests. In response to these problems, the recently proposed House Bill No. 4001 marks the latest attempt at FOIA reform. Journalists have a lot at stake with FOIA, but the bill deserves attention from anyone even moderately concerned with Michigan's governance. Passing the bill would provide Michigan's citizens with realistic access to FOIA documents, upholding the expectation of government transparency and accountability. T he Detroit Free Press recently published an edi- torial about the devastating effects of scrap- ping on Detroit neighborhoods. The article aptly discusses the need for - hope- fully impend- ing -- legislation, that will make it difficult for ALEXANDER scrappers to sell HERMANN obviously stolen materials, one of the biggest issues facing the bank- rupt city today. No surprises here - I couldn't agree more with the Freep's incred- ibly uncontroversial opinion. what, then, is missing from their otherwise on-point analysis? Some- thing - anything really - that grounds scrapping, and its processes and effects, in reality. Let's be real, scrapping and the fear of scrapping, squatting and other related crimes don't regu- larly instill fear in most University students and Ann Arbor residents. When we leave our homes for class during the day, or even when we leave them unoccupied for longer periods of time over breaks, hardly a thought is given to the potential burglarizing of our TVs, gaming consoles and personal possessions. Even less consideration is given to the possible theft of furnaces, plumbing and copper wiring that probably earns much less cash on the black market. These are fears many Detroit resi- dents face every day - even though scrapping is associated most with recently abandoned homes. Unless vigorously protected, a newly vacant home in Detroit will be completely vandalized within 48 hours. Although I can never claim to understand the true effects of scrap- ping - neither the strain nor the cost encumbering individuals - working at a Detroit-based human- services nonprofit prior to graduate school exposed me, somewhat, to these daily horrors. The Detroit Rescue Mission, the organization I worked for, had a program that received donated homes from individuals, banks and the city of Detroit and, provided we could repair the homes at an afford- able price, deeded the fixed-up properties to homeless families we served. In my capacity, I frequently ventured out to different parts of the city to inspect homes under consideration. There isn't adequate space in this column to do justice to what I saw, but, almost exclusively, unless the home was currently occupied, there was no chance we'd acquire the property. Not only are Detroit homes among the oldest in the met- ropolitan area - a common plight in central cities across the United States - but poorer occupants are often financially incapable of invest- ingintheupkeep ofthese properties. As neighborhoods deteriorate fur- Rescue Mission accepted a donated home, we relocated a client to the property immediately. They kept the premises secured at night while we finished the rehab work. The only marginally effective counter to scrappers targeting abandoned homes is the diligence of neighbors - but even then, the limitations of such measures are obvious when you consider the per- vasiveness of abandoned structures in Detroit - as many as 78,000 according to some estimates - and the need for residents to, you know, actually sleep at night. Once, when looking at a home near Grandmont on Detroit's west side, a neighbor confronted me upon hearing someone enter the house. After explaining my orga- nization's intentions, he told me how he regularly had to chase away squatters and scrappers alike in the home. A college student in his early, maybe mid-twenties, he was attending the University of Detroit- 0 Michigan's FOIA, enacted in 1977, hardly delivers the "free" information it promises. In reality, public bodies can maneuver around FOIA requests with relative ease. Officials can withhold requested information up to five days - sometimes longer when granted extension - and don't necessarily have an incentive to speed up the process. While this might appear reason- able, it allows significant conflicts of interest to develop. Freezing information when the need is urgent, such as during elections or policy votes, has the potential to distort the democratic process. But most people don't even reach that point, lacking the robust finances necessary for fees. Joe Sontag of the National Federation for the Blind was charged $2,400 for a request in regards to a cafeteria's closing. Sontag called the fee "outrageous," and couldn't appeal a case without alegal staff to supporthim. Public bod- ies also can contrive reasons to deny the pro- cess outright, often without much explanation. Fulfilled FOIA requests can make an important difference in public issues, but the current stat- ute does little in accomplishing its duty. The prosed policy would rectify current FOIA issues by imposing new rules and lower- ing fees. Officials would be required to present information free of charge, and if individuals require copies of the documents, the charg- es couldn't be more than 10 cents per page. Requests delayed past the five-day deadline would be deducted 20 percent of their total cost every day; after five days. And repercussions for arbitrary delay or denial, as judged by a circuit court, would result in higher damages, now $5,000 instead of the original $500 penalty. These changes would shift the current legisla- tion toward a more public-oriented policy that counteracts bureaucratic attempts to circum- vent FOIA. Legitimate concerns would gain traction, and the paralysis caused by the cur- rent system would be eliminated. FOIA's premise of open information uses the agency of proactive residents to maintain a transparent, responsible state. But under the current law, faulty protocol precludes most inquiries' success before a request is even made. This undermines not only the freedom of information but the justice and protection of citizens. ther, crime spreads and adja- cent hous- ing declines as well. The result- ing desire to leave the neighbor- hood further disincentivizes e nance, creating hood deterioratio Adding to the lems, scrappers t to get at the plu and steal all app and needlessly de structure. They cheaper to raze a rehabilitate the p Even boardin homes is a f Beyond signaling "Hey, this proper pied 24/7," most board-up metho cumnavigated.N Mercy and had grown more fear- W hy has it taken ful recently after his neighbor on the lawmakers so other side of the lo gvacant home had long to combat been burglarized while at work just scrappers? days before. He said he felt like the van- dals were moving ven basic mainte- house-by-house down the block, cycles of neighbo- and that his house was next on the n. hit list. He even asked if we had ese existing prob- homes in other neighborhoods he ear apart the walls could live in while finishing school. imbing and wiring I know it's uncontroversial to say liances, senselessly - scrapping, squatting and home estroying the infra- burglaries are bad. But why, then, quickly make it has it taken lawmakers this long to and rebuild than to do more to minimize the potential roperty. financial benefit of the already-ille- ig up unoccupied gal practice? ruitless endeavor. Maybe they, like us, simply to scrappers that, aren't aware of scrapping's real-life rty is now unoccu- impacts on real-life people. reasonably priced ds are easily cir- When the Detroit - Alexander Hermann can be reached at aherm@umich.edu. ManI (talk) like a woman EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Kaan Avdan, Sharik Bashir, Barry Belmont, James Brennan, Eric Ferguson, Jordyn Kay, Jesse Klein, Melanie Kruvelis, Maura Levine, Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Adrienne Roberts, Paul Sherman, Daniel Wang, Derek Wolfe KATHERINE LELITO Ilsuring all aspects of health Health insurance plans for University employees - including faculty, staff and graduate students - cover almost all aspects of reproductive health and family planning, including contraceptives, pregnancy ter- mination, elective adult sterilization, male sexual dysfunction treatments, and sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment. However, there is one troubling omission in this coverage: fertility treatments. Not only are fertility treatments omitted from stan- dard coverage, but University employees also do not even have the option to purchase addi- tional coverage for fertility treatments on any of the 2014 plans offered in the state of Michigan by Blue Cross Blue Shield, Health Alliance Plan or Priority Health. The unavailability of access to fertility treatments is much more than just a personal issue: It can affect the University's competi- tiveness when recruiting faculty and gradu- ate students. Other Michigan universities, most notably Michigan State University, offer insurance plans that cover these treatments. In recent meeting of Senate Advisory Com- mittee on University Affairs, faculty mem- bers raised concerns that the University's benefits package could keep us from recruit- ing top researchers. In the United States from 2006 to 2010, 6.7 million women were unable to get pregnant after trying for one year or could not carry a baby to term, while more than 600,000 men were medically diag- nosed with an infertility problem. We cannot assume that fertility treatments will be an insignificant factor in a prospective faculty member's to come to the University. Furthermore, infertility affects a number of marginalized groups and should be seen as a social justice issue within the larger debate about reproductive rights. Although much of the debate has focused on a woman's right to prevent and terminate pregnancy, we have largely ignored a person's right to have chil- dren, especially when he or she requires assis- tance to do so. Professional women who must delay having children to be competitive with their male counterparts, young women diag- nosed with premature infertility, gay couples, cancer patients treated with radiation, and people with traumatic injuries to their repro- ductive organs are all disproportionately affected by infertility. Infertility also dispro- portionately affects African American and Hispanic women, and those women are less likely to receive fertility treatment. In response to my own diagnosis of infer- tility, I petitioned top-level administrators and women's issue groups at the University advocating for coverage of fertility treat- ments for employees. Currently, the question of whether or not to add coverage is under the consideration of Laurita Thomas, the associate vice president of human resources for both academic and medical campuses. Thomas will base her decision on guidance from the Medical Benefits Advisory Com- mittee, a voluntary committee of 10 men and six women employed as doctors, lawyers and academics. MBAC will finalize their recom- mendation to Thomas at the committee's meeting on Nov. 19. Although I am pleased that the Univer- sity is considering adding fertility treatment coverage to our benefits plans, I remain con- cerned that they will not support the cov- erage based on feedback from University President Mary Sue Coleman's President's Advisory Committee on Women's Issues. A representative of that committee reporting from its last meeting said that few members saw any hope of increasing health benefits to include fertility treatments. Members of the University community may object to adding this coverage on the grounds that fertility treatments are expen- sive and experimental. First, while increases in cost to the University may be a concern for some, addingcoverage for University employ- ees is not likely to increase health care pre- miums. States like Massachusetts that have mandated fertility coverage from insurance plans have not seen costs associated with infertility increase after adding the coverage. Second, while fertility treatments used to be novel and experimental, most disease treatments, regardless of cost, become cov- ered after the technology becomes standard practice for effective treatment of the dis- ease. In the case of fertility treatments, the national average for success rate is an almost 50-percent chance of pregnancy from one cycle of in vitro fertilization. This success rate is higher than many other covered treat- ments for other diseases. My hope is that the University community will recognize that access to fertility treat- ments is not just important to our institution, but it is also a social justice issue-spanning gender, class, race and sexuality. Katherine Lelito is a Rackham student. ver since I re-embraced the warm, sometimes sweaty arms of singlehood a few months ago, my roommate Margaret and I have talked a lot about boys. Guys. Men. Everything in- between. Last year, these KATIE conversations STEEN wouldn't have been very inter- esting, and probably would have centered on "30 Rock," pizza, spooningor a com- bination of the three. Now, it seems every other day or so, I'm giving ol' Marge some sort of an update as I navigate through singlehood. But since these conversations are not to be discussed outside of the walls of room eight of Minnie's Coopera- tive House, I'll just sum up what we share with two words - girl talk. The funny thing about girl talk is that it usually centers on ... not girls. A quick look in the trusty Urban Dictionary defines "girltalk" - not to be confused with the mash-up artist - as, "Deep conversation between members of the female sex. Contrary to popular believe, it is not always about boys." But if you have to say "it is not always about boys," it's probably going to be about boys for the vast majority of the time. Like, 90 per- cent of the time, with the other 10 percent being talking about how your period has synched up with your roommate's. Or something. Anyway, this newfound bond- ing over guys colloquially known as girl talk got me thinking: If my life were a movie - hah - and Marge were in it, too, we would totally fail the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test requires that a movie has at least two women in it and these women talk to each other about stuff beside men. It also got me thinking about a conversation I had last summer in the humid, crowded kitchen of a Michigan House summer party. "What makes you feel like a man," I had asked a friend for who knows what reason. He thought about it for a second, then referenced a summer hiking trip he took that involved all kinds of manliness - not shaving, not showering, using muscles, drinking beer, farting... After he answered, my friend asked in response, "What makes you feel like a woman?" "Umm... " I thought of various forms of activity that can be placed under the umbrella term of hanky- panky. "Uhh?" I really had no idea. While my friend was reminisc- ing upon hiking up north, inhaling and farting into fresh Midwestern air like a true man, the only thing I could think of in terms of defining my womanhood ... required a man? Recently, I decided to throw this question around some more. To my friends and housemates who iden- tify as male, I asked, "What makes you feel like a man?" "Barbecuing. Bacon," "Working on the car," "Sports," "Definitely everything sexual," "Whenever I drive," "Being outside," "Drink- ing two fingers of whiskey, pints at the pub" - the pub? Some were a little more general - "I feel like a man when I'm around women because I'm strong," "If a situation needed someone to take control of it, I should be the default," "When I need to act rationally." As one of my housemates said, "A lot of things that make me feel like a man make also make me feel like an adult." To my housemates who identify as female, I asked, "What makes you feel like a woman?" Like before, the question could be interpreted in different ways, but the results were pretty similar: "Putting on lip- stick," "Wearing heels," "Lacy, fun underwear," "When I go on a date. When a boy pays for me." Others were fairly straightforward - "My boobs." "When I get my period." The generalizations I'm about to make with this small, not ran- domized sample of responses is by no means applicable to everyone. But I think it's worth pointing out that the majority of the answers I received were based off of stereo- types and socially constructed ways that we're raised to think about our gender, our sexuality and ourselves. The first magazine I ever sub- scribed to was "Girls' Life," or "GL." My much cooler neighbor who was a year older than me had con- vinced me that it was necessary to my ability to survive middle school - which was admittedly a little bit true, looking back. Within two months of being a "GL" subscriber, I gained lots of important knowledge like how to apply liquid eyeliner and what foods to eat at lunch in order to attract hott - with two ts - guys. For the record, finger foods are highly recommended, especial- ly grapes - cute and healthy. It appears "GL" hasn't changed much since. A quick skimming of the magazine's website shows that it's all still there - fashion, makeup, gossip, adorable cupcakes - pre- sented in an array of pinks, purples and baby blues. And what's the first tab at the top of the "Girls' Life" website? "Guys," which includes sections like "Get a BF," "Ask Bill and Dave" and "What Guys Think." On a website specifically devoted to the lives of girls, we have a whole section focused on dudes. Hmm. I headed over to the website for "Boys' Life," a magazine created by the Boy Scouts of America. Its homepage was jam-packed with things like "make a pingpong ball launcher," "weird science projects," aguide tobuying just about any out- doorsy piece of gear you can imag- ine, "hobbies, projects, and other fun stuff you can do," and abso- lutely nothing about girls. In other words, while we're learning how to eat grapes cutely over at "GL," the "Boys' Life" boys are actually doing things! Hobbies! Projects! Expe- riences! Stuff that's a hell of a lot more fun than putting on lip-gloss. Of course, "Boys' Life" is just as guilty of pushing boys into fulfilling the stereotypical expectations of being a male - science, outdoorsy stuff, physical activity. And I sup- pose that's expected given that the magazine is run by Boy Scouts peo- ple. But damn it, at least the boys are encouraged to do things instead of just shop and worry about how to attract a significant other. And these expectations and ste- reotypes persist into adulthood, even if we recognize the stupidity or untruthfulness of them. Accord- ing to the responses of my house- mates, "being a man" means doing things, while women are supposed to care about appearance and guys. Sigh. I'm not saying that my house- mates' responses to my questions affirm that they follow the expect- ed gender roles. And I'm not trying to tell people of any gender to not buy makeup or talk about guys or whatever else is "GL"-certified. I am trying to remind everyone that gender roles exist, and are perpetu- ated by what we read and watch and listen to and click on, and that they begin at a young age. - Katie Steen can be reached at katheliz@umich.edu. s . . 4 -