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Thursday, March 12, 2015 — 3A

the faculty grievance monitor 
raised concerns about the lack 
of due process in OIE’s proce-
dures. The faculty grievance 
monitor is responsible for mon-
itoring grievance procedures, 
but has no power in the process. 
They report their findings — 
specifically unacceptable delays 
— to the director of Academic 
Human Resources.

SACUA raised these con-

cerns to the director of Aca-
demic Human Resources and 
the director of OIE in Novem-
ber 2013, according to the 
report. They also included 
their concerns in an April 
report to Pollack.

Shortly after that report was 

filed, SACUA received a formal 
complaint from a faculty mem-
ber who had been the subject of 
an OIE investigation. Because 
SACUA considers faculty mem-
bers as under its jurisdiction, the 
group asked the Faculty Hear-
ing Committee to investigate 
and report on the complaint’s 
allegations. Two subsequent 
faculty complaints about OIE 
policies were also filed to the 
FHC on August 4, 2014, and Sep-
tember 8, 2014, respectively.

More broadly, Wednesday’s 

report recommended that all 
OIE decisions and actions be 
subject to immediate review 
under the current faculty griev-
ance procedures until new 
ones are adopted. It also rec-
ommended that all OIE inves-
tigations that would result 
specifically in the termination, 
dismissal or demotion of a fac-
ulty member should be con-
ducted under the auspices of 
Regents Bylaw 5.09, which gov-
erns how faculty are dismissed, 
demoted and terminated.

Additionally, in regards to 

the three faculty members 
who submitted complaints to 
SACUA about OIE proceed-
ings, the report recommend-
ed that the verdicts in their 
cases be reversed until they 
could be “reconsidered in a 
forum with appropriate due 
process protections.”

The report cited minutes 

from an August 26, 2013 SACUA 
meeting where the chair read 
several responses from OIE to 
questions from SACUA, includ-
ing a response that held that OIE 
proceedings against faculty are 
not subject to standard griev-
ance proceedings, protocals for 
challenging a University action.

According to SACUA’s web-

site, any University faculty 
member can file a complaint to 
SACUA within 90 days of the 
date the grievance first took 
place. The parties at which the 
faculty complaint is directed 
are responsible for making a 
decision at the departmental 
level. If the grievance cannot 
be resolved at the departmen-
tal level, it is brought in front of 
the Grievance Hearing Board. 
The GHB is only to be attend-
ed by the grieving parties and 
their advisers, who can be 
attorneys. Witnesses are only 
to be present at the GHB when 
they are testifying.

In an e-mail interview, SACUA 

Chair Scott Masten, a professor 
of business economics and public 
policy, wrote that the next step for 
SACUA is to present the report to 
the Senate Assembly Committee 
where representatives from the 
University’s departments will 
have an opportunity to comment 
on the proposal.

“Beyond that, we expect 

to work with the University 
administration 
to 
explore 

ways to improve OIE pro-
cedures to address our due 
process concerns, including 
the establishment of a cred-
ible appeal process,” Masten 
wrote. “All of this, of course, 
will be done with recognition 
of the University’s commit-
ment to maintaining a work 
environment free of discrimi-
nation and harassment.”

Masten added that for most 

faculty members, the report 
will have little effect because 
the majority of University fac-
ulty will not be accused of the 
types of behavior OIE is respon-
sible for investigating.

“But for those who do, the 

addition of basic due process 
protections — of the type that 
students are already guaranteed 
— should help to assure that out-
comes are fairer and less prone 
to error,” Masten wrote.

University 
spokesperson 

Rick Fitzgerald wrote in a state-
ment that the University plans 
to review the recommendations 
detailed in the report.

“We stand behind the pro-

fessionalism of the staff in 
Academic Human Resources 
and the Office for Institutional 
Equity,” he wrote. “We also 
note that the SACUA report 
has some good suggestions 
about enhancements to our 
processes that we are look-
ing into implementing, and we 
will carefully consider what 
SACUA has provided.”

Coalition for Open Government 
and former director of Michi-
gan State University’s School 
of Journalism, said many pub-
lic institutions interpret the 
response period as applicable 
to the production of the docu-
ments as well.

“U of M has obviously not 

interpreted it that way,” she said.

University 
spokesman 
Rick 

Fitzgerald said the Daily has 
requested very sensitive docu-
ments, and University officials 
need to ensure the release doesn’t 
violate the Family Education 
Rights and Privacy Act, for exam-
ple. He said two months is not an 
unreasonable time frame for the 
University to respond to such a 
request.

Certain types of information 

are exempt from FOIA, and offi-
cials must review every document 
to redact information not permit-
ted for release. He also said docu-
ments wouldn’t likely be released 
as they become available — per 
the Daily’s request — but they 
would most likely be produced as 
a full package.

“It’s far more important to do 

this right than to do this quickly,” 
he said.

Fitzgerald also said he couldn’t 

speculate on the length of the pro-
cess, but said the review has start-
ed.

“We just don’t know how long 

some of the things will take,” he 
said.

In February 2014, the U.S. 

Department 
of 
Education 

announced it would launch a feder-
al investigation of the University’s 
handling of sexual misconduct, 
prompted by two Title IX com-
plaints submitted to the Depart-
ment’s Office of Civil Rights.

One of these complaints, lodged 

by Douglas Smith, a former pro-
fessor of pathology at the Univer-
sity, alleged that the University 
mishandled sexual misconduct 
allegations against former Michi-
gan kicker Brendan Gibbons. In 
January 2014, the Daily reported 
Gibbons had been permanently 
separated from the University for 
violating the student sexual mis-
conduct policy.

The University supplied hun-

dreds of pages of documents 
related to sexual misconduct 
on campus to the Office of Civil 
Rights, including its policies 
governing sexual violence, any 
changes to those policies and the 
names of personnel responsible 
for 
investigating 
complaints. 

It also provided all formal and 
informal 
complaints 
of 
dis-

crimination, and all e-mail cor-
respondence regarding sexual 
misconduct.

In 
September, 
the 
Daily 

requested access to many of the 
documents the University pro-
vided to the U.S. Department of 
Education, which the Univer-
sity’s FOIA office appraised at 
$1,720.

The Daily revised its request in 

December to include only a por-
tion of the documents involved 
in the investigation, which the 
office said would cost $890. The 
Daily paid the first half of this 
fee in January, but the University 
has not yet produced the docu-
ments.

“There are a number of uni-

versities that seem to have a 
culture of obstructionism, and 
Michigan is certainly among 
them,” LoMonte said. “We’ve 
had recurring problems over the 
years of a culture of non-trans-
parency.”

Briggs-Bunting, who noted 

that two months “is more than 
adequate” for the University to 
produce the documents request-
ed by the Daily, said the Univer-
sity seems to be “dragging its 
feet.”

“They’re also playing a game 

because it’s not necessarily infor-
mation that (they) want to go out 
in the public,” she said. “Cer-
tainly that’s not something that 
other public institutions haven’t 
attempted to do in the past.”

Under a revised version of 

FOIA, effective July 1, public 
bodies will be required to pro-
vide an estimate of when records 
will be provided. Though the time 
estimate will not be binding, pub-
lic institutions will be required 
to “provide the estimate in good 
faith and strive to be reasonably 
accurate.”

Fitzgerald said the University 

will comply with state law when 
the revisions take effect, but for 
now the University does not have 
processes in place to provide a 
timeline estimate.

how much of an impact could be 
made on education at the federal 
level.

“We’re continuing to just chip 

away at this problem — there’s 
no silver bullet,” Obama said 
Wednesday. “We’re going to 
have to do things at the federal 
level, the state level and the uni-
versity level to really mobilize 
the entire country around the 
issue of college affordability.”

The Student Aid Bill of Rights 

reads as follows:

“Every student deserves access 

to a quality, affordable education 
at a college that’s cutting costs 
and increasing learning.

Every student should be able 

to access the resources needed 
to pay for college.

Every borrower has the right 

to an affordable repayment plan.

And, every borrower has 

the right to quality customer 
service, 
reliable 
information 

and fair treatment, even if they 
struggle to repay their loans.”

In support of the Bill of 

Rights, the memorandum is also 
meant to create policy solutions 
that will provide support for stu-
dents repaying loan debt, Obama 
said. According to a White 
House report, more than 70 per-
cent of today’s bachelor degree 
graduates leave with a debt, 
which is on average $28,400.

In the state of Michigan, 

there are currently 1,516,000 
student borrowers with about 
$40.1 billion in outstanding stu-
dent loans.

“I believe that America is not 

a place where higher education 
is a privilege that is reserved for 
the few,” Obama said Tuesday in 
Georgia. “America needs to be a 
place where higher education has 
to be available for every single 
person who’s willing to strive for 
it, who’s willing to work for it.”

During his speech, the presi-

dent outlined three major com-
ponents of his program: creating 
a “responsive” student feedback 
system, promoting more afford-
able monthly payments and bet-
ter meeting the needs of student 
borrowers.

Under the memorandum, by 

July 1, 2016, the Department of 
Education is charged with cre-
ating a website for students to 
file complaints and feedback on 
federal student loan lenders, ser-
vicers, collections agencies, uni-
versities and colleges.

The system aims to improve 

the timeliness of the Depart-
ment of Education’s response to 
student borrowers. The presi-
dent also said he wants to work 
with the Department of Educa-
tion to study better responses to 
potential illegal activity pertain-
ing both to loan regulation, and 
to how colleges and universities 
market themselves to students.

Other components of the 

memorandum include ensuring 
that borrowers are able to meet 
their monthly loan payments. To 
achieve that objective, the gov-
ernment will work to increase 
transparency in the student loan 

process by informing borrowers 
when their loans are transferred 
to a different service, as well as 
informing borrowers when they 
lag in their payments or do not 
complete applications to adjust 
their payment plans.

Additionally, the memoran-

dum calls for the creation of 
“centralized point of access” to 
help students pay back federal 
student loans, as well as require-
ments for loan providers to allow 
students to pay back loans with 
the highest interest rate.

During Wednesday’s confer-

ence call, Arne Duncan, the U.S. 
secretary of education, detailed 
the thinking behind providing 
these “centralized point of access.”

“One is an integrated com-

plaint system, where we want 
borrowers to be able to report 
to us on difficulties that they are 
having. That will help us resolve 
difficulties better and under-
stand better how our servicers 
are performing,” Duncan said. 
“The other is an integrated data-
base that will allow borrowers, 
in one spot, to look at the balanc-
es of all of their student loans, 
and begin there to make choices 
how to allocate payments among 
those loans.”

The president also announced 

several partnerships to create 
programs aimed at facilitating 
payment of student loans.

The White House Office of Sci-

ence and Technology Policy will 
work to improve communication 
between lenders and borrowers 
and create payment plans with 
borrower habits in mind. The 
Office of Management and Budget 
will study payment plan trends to 
create policies better adjusted to 
the student borrowers.

The president will also ask offi-

cials from all areas of government 
to improve lending practices and 
implement 
performance-based 

metrics to evaluate them.

While Obama’s memoran-

dum introduces several new 
plans, it builds on several piec-
es of legislation passed during 
his administration.

The first point of the Bill of 

Rights is to allow every student 
access to a low cost post-high 
school education. To accomplish 
this, Obama cited his proposed 
two years of free community 
college education, as well as 
his administration’s First in 
the World Grants, to which the 
Department of Education allo-
cated $75 million in September. 
Obama has since proposed an 
increase to $200 million.

To ensure that every student in 

America can afford to go to col-
lege, the Obama administration 
has also increased the maximum 
Pell Grant award to $5,730 in the 
2014-2015 academic year, which 
is almost $1,000 more than the 
2008 maximum. The president 
has also proposed additional 
increases so the Pell Grant maxi-
mum keeps up with inflation.

The necessity for the increase 

in grants was highlighted by 
Stephen Culbertson, the com-
munications director for the 
University’s chapter of the Col-
lege Democrats, as especially 
pertinent in Ann Arbor.

“The perfect example of [the 

need for financial aid reform] is 
here at the University of Michi-
gan,” Culbertson said. “The lack 
of economic diversity on the 
campus is kind of indicative of 
how prohibitive the cost of high-
er education is becoming, and 
particularly higher education 
is becoming at high-level public 
institutions. There’s not enough 
being done. Federal programs 
can only go so far, a lot of the 
problem lies at the state level. 
There’s not adequate funding.”

The University’s chapter of 

the College Republicans did not 
respond to a request for com-
ment Wednesday.

Mark Kantrowitz, the publish-

er of Edvisors Network, a national 
organization that assists students 
find financial aid opportunities, 
said he was optimistic about the 
latest proposals, but felt that there 
was still more to be done.

“It’s a step in the right direc-

tion,” Kantrowitz said. “It gath-
ers together several interesting 
proposals that, on the whole, will 
provide some benefits, such as 
the proposal to require federal 
loan servicers to apply prepay-
ments to the highest rate loan.”

Though he said he was happy 

to hear that financial aid was a 
topic of discussion, he added that 
he was unsure if all the presi-
dent’s proposals were feasible 
without congressional action.

“I think it’s going to provide 

some good, but it’s not going to 
be earth-shaking in its effects,” 
Kantrowitz said. “It’ll help some 
students — borrowers who are 
struggling — but it’s not increas-
ing the amount of money for 
grants, for example. It’s not 
teaching people to borrow only 
what they can afford, and I think 
those are key problems that need 
to be addressed.”

Culbertson also said there was 

a need for student financial aid 
reform, but was unsure about how 
much could be done about student 
financial aid at the federal level.

“In and of itself, the Student 

Aid Bill of Rights is not so much 
a policy solution,” he said. “It’s 
kind of broad directives that 
President Obama has released 
to kind of signal that ‘this is an 
issue we are looking at more 
closely on the federal level and 
we as the government care 
about, that we want to make col-
lege more affordable, we want to 
make taking out a student loan 
more clear and simplified.’ ”

In the conference call with 

reporters, the president urged 
readers who agreed with the 
proposal to sign a statement of 
support at whitehouse.gov/col-
legeopportunity.

“We want to mobilize the 

energy and focus the attention of 
everybody nationally around the 
basic principles to make it easier 
to get young people to have the 
education they need,” Obama 
said. “We don’t want to allow 
higher education to become a 
luxury. It’s an economic impera-
tive that every American family 
should be able to afford.”

Daily Staff Reporter Isobel 

Futter contributed reporting.

WHITE HOUSE
From Page 1A

FOIA
From Page 1A

children are there,” said Dawsey.

Education 
Prof. 
Eliza-

beth 
Moje, 
associate 
dean 

for research and communi-
ty engagement, agreed with 
Dawsey that the current school 
system lacks stability.

“There is a lack of stabil-

ity and a bounty of confusion, 
which makes the work of build-
ing leaders and teachers incred-
ibly difficult,” she said.

This is the second “The 

Future of Education in Detroit” 
event. According to Mahima 
Mahadevan, project manager 
in the Public Policy School, the 
first talk made it clear that more 
discussion about Detroit educa-
tion was needed.

“We felt an ongoing discus-

sion was the most appropriate 
format to bring in the many voic-
es and perspectives on this topic, 
having started with three panel-
ists for the first event,” Mahade-
van said. “We started planning 
soon after for a following event.”

Mahadevan said she ensured 

each of the speakers had a strong 
tie to Detroit.

“Our focus is to invite speak-

ers with a personal stake in the 
education system in Detroit in 
order to share their understand-
ing of the issues with our audi-
ence,” Mahadevan said.

Detroit native Tawana Petty, 

another 
panelist, 
said 
she 

brought her own perspective to 
the topic of education in the city.

“I am representing as a mom, 

an organizer, author, poet — 
someone who has come through 
… Detroit Public Schools, and 
raised a son through Detroit 
Public Schools,” she said.

As a graduate of the DPS, 

Petty stressed the current strug-
gle she finds between so many 
subcomponents of the district.

“The struggle between char-

ters, between public schools, 
between 
board 
members, 

between 
coalitions, 
between 

foundations — pretty much any 
entity that feels that they have a 
vested interest in the education of 
young people in Detroit,” she said.

Petty is a member of the 

James and Grace Lee Boggs 
Center board, an initiative that 
works to better Detroit commu-
nities, in part through advocat-
ing for changes in education. She 
said the board is pushing to take 
Detroit away from what she calls 
a binary system of education, 
meaning people are either edu-
cated or they are not. Petty said 
they do this by fostering educa-
tional opportunities outside of 
the traditional classroom setting, 
as well as by exploring alterna-
tive educational systems.

“When we look at alterna-

tives, we look at re-spiriting 
young people’s inherent gifts 

and nurturing their imagina-
tions,” she said. “We’re looking 
at providing them an opportuni-
ty to envision what their future 
can look like whether or not they 
go to college, whether or not 
they get a ‘good job. ’ ”

Moje said she finds panels 

exceptionally important for fos-
tering educational reform, partic-
ularly in a city like Detroit, where 
the school system is frequently 
known for “systematic failure.”

“We need to hear from people 

who live and work in Detroit 
about what they see as the edu-
cation needs of their children 
and youth,” Moje said.

During his speech, Lamont 

Satchel, chief innovation officer 
for DPS, placed his focus on fund-
ing within the district. He said 
the financial issues Detroit faces 
are also faced by other districts.

Particularly in Detroit, pan-

elists said funding issues and 
a growing number of charter 
schools caused massive cuts 
throughout the system. With 
students shuffled from school 
to school as they close, many 
children end up leaving the dis-
trict to attend another school or 
drop out altogether. Satchel said, 
when children leave the district 
for schooling, DPS loses even 
more funding.

“You reach a point where 

you have to ask yourself: is this 
working?” Satchel said.

SACUA
From Page 1A

DETROIT
From Page 1A

many of us have been raised and 
socialized and taught to believe 
that it’s OK?” she said.

To build a positive climate 

on campus, LSA junior Micah 
Griggs said students shouldn’t 
depend on others to take action.

“We can’t just wait for the 

next class and hope they want 
to make change,” Griggs said.

LSA sophomore Steven Hal-

perin, the Make Michigan vice 
presidential candidate in the 
upcoming Central Student Gov-
ernment elections, spoke about 
how the classes that fulfill the 
University’s race and ethnicity 
requirement do not adequately 
teaching students about the 
challenges faced by minori-
ties today because they largely 
focus on the past.

“A lot of the time with these 

short conversations, it’s easy to 
take out of it a message,” Hal-
perin said. “But you’re not real-
ly getting deep into the topic.”

Simpson asked students if 

they felt the president of the 
University of Oklahoma was 
right in expelling the fraternity 
leaders of that university’s SAE 
chapter responsible for a racist 
chant.

Responding to the argument 

that students were expressing 
their right to free speech, Rack-
ham student Portia Hemphill 
said she believes OU’s president 
handled the situation well, as 
the idea of free speech is con-
ditional and should not impede 
the civil liberties of others. Fur-
thermore, she said because the 
president was an older white 

man from a southern state, he 
set the tone for how future situ-
ations of this nature should be 
handled.

Other students felt, though 

these particular students were 
expelled, the measure may have 
been ineffective at getting at the 
larger problem of racism within 
the OU community.

LSA senior Joshua Thur-

man said the video should be a 
call for all college students to 
address the issue of racial preju-
dice on campuses, even if it does 
not feel pressing because the 
instance only occurred at OU.

“It’s about making the con-

nection of how that video 
relates to our campus climate,” 
he said, “And even though we 
don’t have people on video 
right now singing songs like 
that, there are other instances 
and other manifestations of the 
same thing happening here.”

A racially insensitive party 

theme created by the University 
Theta Xi chapter played a role 
in spurring the Black Student 
Union’s Black Student Union’s 
#BBUM 
Twitter 
campaign, 

which launched a campuswide 
conversation about race on 
campus.

When asked about what a 

diverse 
campus 
community 

means to her, Harper said it is a 
community that fosters a sense 
that the people around you mat-
ter. She said both communities 
and individuals lose when peo-
ple do not learn from those with 
different backgrounds.

“The gift is to yourself, 

because I better understand me 
when I’m trying to understand 
you,” Harper said.

DIVERSITY
From Page 1A

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