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Tuesday, November 10, 2015
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
INDEX
Vol. CXXV, No. 27
©2015 The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A RT S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
NEW ON MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Q&A with journalist Clarence Page
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WEATHER
TOMORROW
HI: 58
LO: 46
Former faculty, staff
discuss similarities
between past,
present climate
By ALLANA AKHTAR
Daily Staff Reporter
Though the event’s original
intent was to convene a group of
leaders to speak about the history
of campus activism and diversity
efforts, a panel discussion Monday
afternoon instead largely focused
on the fact that past grievances
related to many issues of race and
gender at the University continue
to hold true today.
“It’s sad to think it is 2015 and
we’re talking about the same stuff
we talked about in ’49 when the
first Black woman was allowed to
live in a dormitory,” said panelist
Charles
Moody,
vice
provost
emeritus for minority affairs.
Along
with
Moody,
four
other panelists discussed their
experiences working to foster an
inclusive community for minority
students on campus: Associate
Prof. Maria Cotera, former director
of the Latina/o Studies Program;
University alum Cynthia Stephens,
a judge of the Michigan Court of
Appeals; Abigail Stewart, director
of the ADVANCE program, which
aims to advocate for female
faculty in science and engineering
fields and the former director of
the Women’s Studies Program;
and James Toy, co-founder and
former director of the Spectrum
Center, then known as the Human
Sexuality Office.
Lester Monts, a professor of
music and former senior vice
provost
for
academic
affairs,
moderated the conversation.
The panel was part of the
University’s
campus-wide
diversity summit, which is to
be headlined by an interview
between
University
President
Mark Schlissel and Pulitzer Prize-
winning journalist Clarence Page
Tuesday morning.
The summit is a piece of
Schlissel’s ongoing Strategic Plan
for Diversity, which he launched in
September by asking each campus
school or department to design
its own internal programs for
enhancing diversity.
Robert Sellers, vice provost for
President says
rhetoric must be
matched with
progress
By GENEVIEVE HUMMER
Daily Staff Reporter
Ahead of Tuesday’s diversity
summit,
University
President
Mark
Schlissel
attended
Monday’s
Senate
Advisory
Committee on University Affairs
meeting to discuss the impending
school-wide diversity plan and
the importance of balancing
rhetoric with substantive action.
Monday marked Schlissel’s first
time at SACUA since appearing
there last November. During that
visit, Schlissel spoke candidly
about the University’s athletics
program — a conversation that
drew both praise and criticism.
On Monday, Schlissel said
gathering input from as many
people as possible will give the
University’s diversity plan the
greatest likelihood for success.
However, he also acknowledged
that it will take time to complete
and implement.
“The thing I like about this
process is that it’s the most
bottom-up thing I’ve ever done,”
he said. “It would be an easier
and faster process if we took a
group like this, sat in a room 10
times and issued a plan for the
University of Michigan. Strangely
enough, that’s too easy.”
While encouraging patience
during the long-term planning
process, Schlissel also pointed to
diversity initiatives the University
has already implemented.
He pointed to the HAIL
scholarship
and
the
new
Wolverine Pathways program,
as
well
as
the
increased
numbers
of
underrepresented
minorities in this year’s freshman
class, as evidence of tangible
improvement.
Schlissel
noted
the administration’s talk about
increased diversity must continue
to be supported by “concrete
actions” like these.
“Any time that we devote a
significant amount of time to
talking, then we really do have to
prove to people that talking leads
to substance,” he said.
Following the discussion on
diversity, SACUA chair Silke-
Maria Weineck, a professor of
comparative literature, asked for
Schlissel’s thoughts on Tim Wolfe
— the University of Missouri
system president who resigned
Monday
amid
allegations
of
mishandling incidents of racism
on the school’s campus.
“I don’t really understand
enough about the circumstances
in Missouri to have an opinion on
it, I’ve only been following it for
the last couple of days,” Schlissel
said. “What was interesting was
at the end of the series of events
that led to his resignation, there
were some pretty forceful student
#StandWithAlex
draws support
for grad student
terminated from job
By ALYSSA BRANDON
and EMMA KINERY
Daily Staff Reporters
On Monday, the University’s
Graduate
Employees’
Organization filled a hallway
of
the
Taubman
College
of
Architecture and Urban Planning
and tweeted #StandWithelx to
protest the firing of a graduate
student instructor.
Alex Chen, a third-year dual
degree master’s student in the
Taubman College and the School
of Engineering, was hired as
a Taubman GSI in August and
signed an employment contract,
before receiving an e-mail a day
later stating she was not fit for the
position. The reason — according
to protest organizers — cited by the
University was that she was not a
Taubman student, as the majority
of the classes she was enrolled in
were for her Engineering program.
Because she was fired from her
position as a GSI, Chen lost her
tuition waiver, health care and the
salary she anticipated. According
to GEO President John Ware, an
Engineering graduate student, the
loss has resulted in nearly $50,000
in debt for Chen and a hold on her
account so she cannot graduate.
Young Americans
for Freedom mimic
Berlin Wall, 26
years after its fall
By ANNA HARITOS
Daily Staff Reporter
Twenty-six years after the
Berlin Wall fell in Germany,
the first blows were delivered
to the make-shift wall on
the
Diag
constructed
by
the
University’s
Young
Americans
for
Freedom
chapter. The wall, created
to honor the anniversary of
the real wall’s destruction,
was built to protest political
correctness,
according
to
YAF chairman Grant Strobl,
an LSA sophomore.
“Right now the bias hotline
is
against
free
speech,”
Strobl said. “You can report
a bias crime just because it’s
offensive. That’s not in the
constitution.”
Strobl is referring to the
University’s telephone hotline
and online forms available for
directly reporting hate crimes
on campus.
Members
of
the
organization passed around
a mallet, each taking a turn
to smash the wall, which
was covered with words like
“safe space” and “trigger
warnings.”
However,
the
display
was not perceived well by
many of those who passed
by, including LSA freshman
Kevin Sweitzer.
“It ignores all the progress
we’ve made on promoting
political
correctness,
and
social
justice
across
the
University,”
Sweitzer
said.
“It just puts it on some wall
for some people who are
privileged
to
take
turns
beating at. It’s unbelievable.
This is a bias incident, and it
needs to stop.”
For many of the students
who stopped to watch the
display, confusion centered
around what YAF was aiming
to
accomplish.
Additional
oppositions
were
voiced,
particularly by one student,
LSA
sophomore
Fahim
Rahman.
On anniversary of
Rosser death, locals
continue to advocate
for change
By ISOBEL FUTTER
Daily Staff Reporter
After more than a year of
national protests calling for an
end to police brutality, Matthew
Lassiter, an associate history
professor,
decided
University
students might be interested in
learning more about criminal
justice issues in the United States.
“I think there are a lot of
undergraduate
students
and
graduate students who have
gotten really involved and really
interested in the history of mass
incarceration … so I wanted to
bring in two scholars who have
written a lot about this topic,”
he said.
On
Monday,
Lassiter
moderated a discussion between
guest panelists Donna Murch,
associate professor of history at
Rutgers University, and Heather
Ann Thompson, professor of
Afroamerican
and
African
Studies, to discuss these issues
in depth.
Sponsored
by
the
Metropolitan History Workshop,
the Department of Afroamerican
and African Studies, and the
Program in Race, Law and
History, the event drew about
80
undergraduates,
graduate
students and faculty members.
Both Murch and Thompson
are leading historians on topics
such as race, incarceration, black
power, civil rights, criminal
justice and the war on drugs, and
both have forthcoming books on
these topics.
One important topic discussed
was the difference between mass
incarceration and the carceral
ROBERT DUNNE/Daily
LSA freshman Raenell Williams marches against police violence on the one year anniversary of the shooting of Aura Rosser by Ann Arbor Police Officer David
Ried. The march was organized by Ann Arbor to Ferguson and took marchers from Ann Arbor City Hall to Liberty Plaza for a candlelit vigil.
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Business graduate student Gautham Madhira tears down a mock Berlin Wall at an event organized by the Young
Americans for Freedom on the Diag on Monday. The wall was decorated with phrases like “safe spaces,” “trigger
warning” and “Political Correctness: the Iron Curtain of the University.”
See DIVERSITY, Page 3
See GEO, Page 3
See WALL, Page 3
See SACUA, Page 3
See PROTEST, Page 3
Panel talks
history of
diversity at
University
Ann Arbor activists march
to oppose police brutality
Schlissel visits
SACUA to tout
diversity plan
GSI union
protests ‘U’
handling of
new hire
ADMINISTRATION
FACULTY
ACADEMICS
Demonstration on Diag
fights ‘political correctness’