Around 50 people gathered
in the Vandenberg Room of the
Michigan League on Thursday
for
the
Communication
Studies Department’s annual
Howard R. Marsh Lecture
in
Journalism,
delivered
this year by investigative
journalist Will Potter.
Potter’s talk, titled “From
Protester
to
Terrorist:
The Mechanisms of State
Repression,” highlighted his
own career as a journalist
and the ways he discovered
the United States government
systematically
discredits
activist movements in order
to protect corporate interests.
He said he became obsessed
with investigating the FBI’s
tactics after he was arrested
for hanging leaflets against
animal testing on doors. The
FBI then offered him career
help in exchange for becoming
an informant.
“Two FBI agents came to
my home, and they knew all
about where I worked, and
how my dad had to cosign
for our apartment at the time
because I didn’t have enough
money, and I had a Fulbright
(scholarship)
pending,
and
my girlfriend at the time had
some Ph.D. funding, and they
said they could make all this
go away, unless I helped them
by spying on protest groups,”
he said. “And they made a
point of emphasizing you
know, you have this upward
career trajectory, you’re doing
everything right, just make it
all easier on yourself, or you’re
going to be put on a domestic
terrorist list. It scared the
daylights out of me.”
The majority of Potter’s
talk was spent breaking down
his “10 easy steps to turn
protesters
into
terrorists”:
using the power of language,
waging
media
campaigns,
holding government hearings,
dividing,
conducting
surveillance, advocating for
disproportionate
sentences,
creating informants, passing
laws against dissent, creating
special prisons and expanding
to the mainstream.
Many
of
the
laws
criminalizing dissent, Potter
pointed
out,
were
passed
without the knowledge of
many
people,
including
lawmakers.
To
pass
the
Animal Enterprise Terrorism
Act, which makes causing a
loss of profits to an animal
enterprise an act of terrorism,
Congress used an obscure
procedure called “suspension
of the rules” to get the bill
through with the minimum
oversight possible.
“This is how a lot of bills
Economic
Prof.
Edward
Cho was teaching his Econ
102
class,
macroeconomics,
Thursday afternoon when a
student raised his hand to ask
a question. When called on by
Cho, the student asked: “Do
you like apples?”
Cho appeared confused and
the student reiterated, “What
about a golden apple?” The
doors at the back of the lecture
hall then opened to reveal the
other members of the Golden
Apple committee, the graduate
student instructors for the
class and other members of
the Economics department, all
holding balloons and flowers.
This was how Cho was
awarded the Golden Apple
Award.
After
the
award
selection committee received
a
record-breaking
1,136
nominations this year, the
committee members were very
excited to present this award
to Cho.
Cho appeared overwhelmed
with emotion when he realized
that he would be the recipient
michigandaily.com
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Friday, March 10, 2017
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 42
©2017 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
See AWARD, Page 3
Econ prof.
gets a taste
of Golden
Apple
ACADEMICS
Dr. Edward Cho given
student-nominated award
in Economics 102 lecture
MOLLY NORRIS
Daily Staff Reporter
JEREMY MITNICK/Daily
Investigative journalist Will Potter gives a lecture entitled “From Protestor to Terrorist - The Mechanisms of State
Repression” in the Michigan League on Thursday.
University professor lectures about
repression of investigative reporting
50 gather at Michigan League to hear visiting prof. and journalist, Will Potter
ANDREW HIYAMA
Daily Staff Reporter
michigandaily.com
For more stories and coverage, visit
See POTTER, Page 3
The Michigan Legislature is
currently addressing expansions
and limitations to the Freedom
of Information Act in Michigan
through two bills: Senate Bill
0069 and House Bill 4149.
FOIA, a federal law that took
effect in 1967, allows individuals
in Michigan to submit requests
to access public information.
Michigan has ranked poorly in
issues of transparency, in part
because of weak or absent state
laws about public records and
disclosures.
HB
4149
would
expand
FOIA requests to include the
governor’s office and the state
legislature. The Committee on
Michigan Competitiveness is
currently evaluating the bill in
the House of Representatives.
In a phone interview, state
Rep.
Yousef
Rabhi
(D–Ann
Arbor) said he believes the
legislation is a priority and feels
encouraged to see bipartisan
support on the issue.
“We live in one of the
worst states when it comes to
transparency in government, we
See FOIA, Page 3
Legislature
takes on
new FOIA
expansions
GOVERNMENT
Michigan ranks among
last in state Freedom of
Information Act laws
CALEB CHADWELL
Daily Staff Reporter
One former University of
Michigan faculty member and
one current University faculty
member are joining together
to bring a lawsuit against the
University under the Michigan
Elliott-Larsen
Civil
Rights
Act, making claims of racial
discrimination and harassment.
The
Elliott-Larsen
Civil
Rights Act, passed in 1976,
prohibits discrimination based
on “religion, race, color, national
origin, age, sex, height, weight,
familial
status,
or
marital
status,” in employment and
education, among other areas.
The
plaintiffs
—
Scott
Kurashige,
an
assistant
professor in the History and
American Culture Departments
from 2000 to 2014, and Emily
Lawsin,
a
lecturer
in
the
Women’s Studies and American
Culture
Departments
since
2000 –– are seeking over
$25,000 in damages in the form
of lost salaries and emotional
harm. Kurashige and Lawsin
have been married since they
began teaching at the University
in
2000,
and
are
being
represented by attorney Alice
Jennings and Carl Edwards of
the Detroit law firm Edwards &
Jennings, PC.
According to Jennings, the
University violated the Elliott-
Larsen Act in multiple ways,
including discrimination based
on the plaintiffs’ marriage.
“The
primary
issue
is
disparate treatment,” Jennings
said. “They have been treated
differently than others who
are
not
similarly
situated
for racial reasons. Secondly,
there’s an issue of hostile
work
environment,
meaning
that individual is made to feel
different in a way that is painful
both intellectually as well as
emotionally.”
The
lawsuit
claims
both
Kurashige and Lawsin were
consistently passed over for
promotions and raises, despite
each receiving high acclaim in
their respective fields.
Current and
former profs
file lawsuit
against ‘U’
Students4Justice demands center
dedicated to minorities, justice
See LAWSUIT, Page 3
Students4Justice
Center
Baker-Mandela
Center
provides a
space for
activists to
work
created
alternative
anti-racist
curriculums
facilitated
dialogue on
campus about
social issues
provided space
for students to
plan anti-racist
events
organizes
social justice
literature for
activists
archives past
University
activism work
physically and
online
DESIGN BY AVA WEINER
ADMINISTRATION
Scott Kurashige and Emily Lawsin sue
under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act
ANDREW HIYAMA
Daily Staff Reporter
S4J wants activism space separate from Trotter, similar to former Baker-Mandela Center
In response to the racist and anti-
semitic email hackings last month,
the University of Michigan student
organization
Students4Justice
published a public list of demands for
University President Mark Schlissel,
one of which was the creation of
a physical space for students of
color on campus to organize and
enact social change. The request
has since gained traction. S4J Core
Organizer Lakyrra Magee, LSA
junior, has confirmed the group has
found a temporary space for student
activists to work, but has no official
funding or physical center as of yet.
In its demands, S4J said the new
activism center should be separate
from the Trotter Multicultural
Center and should be specifically
for students of color — allowing
students
access,
with
special
recognition toward minorities.
Magee said S4J wants the
center’s budget to include a library
for social movement literature for
activists. She also said the use of
the library as an archive for the
University’s activism history is
crucial to the group’s plan.
“We also want archived past
University work, so we want it to
have access to previous movements
from students, both online and
in paper and news articles and
things like that, that documents
all of the activism that’s happened
throughout
the
years
at
the
University of Michigan,” she said.
“We also just want it to be a space
for students to get together in order
to better prepare themselves to do
said work.”
S4J Core Organizer Vikrant
Garg, a Public Health student,
said a new activism center would
spark more social innovation on
campus. He cited institutions such
as the Sexual Assault Prevention
and Awareness Center, minority
cultural lounges and others as ideas
that have been created by students.
“If you think about it ideologically,
what a student activist center would
be would be a center that really
fosters a lot of what has made this
University better over time,” Garg
said. “There are so many things that
have been created at this University
MATT HARMON
Daily Staff Reporter
See CENTER, Page 3