Matt Diamond
sonia shekar
jessica stewart

anna he
HUSSEIN HAKIM

 to the seniors of the Michigan Daily Business Staff! 
Thank you for your companionship, guidance, 
and unwavering dedication to this paper. 
Best of luck in your future endeavors! 
Love, your TMD family

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, April 18, 2017 — 3

especially with depleting storage 
space, ongoing efforts of digitization 
and a desire to distinguish fact from 
fiction — it seems these libraries 
will continue to be strongholds of 
history for students, faculty and 
historians to come. 

Though non-Bentley staff are 

not allowed in the official storage 
space of the archives, students, 
researchers and alumni can sign 
up online to request materials using 
the online database Mirlyn. Once 
the physical materials are brought 
up from storage, they can only be 
viewed at the library. Photographs 
can 
be 
taken 
of 
authorized 

materials, and placeholder cards are 
given when there are multiple files 
in order in an archive box.

My English 221 course, Literature 

and Writing Outside the Classroom, 
taught by Lecturer James Pinto, 
traveled to the Bentley this semester 

in search of old letters for analysis. 
The class — centered around the art 
and significance of letter writing — 
was able to look at former students’ 
letters, letters from the civil war 
and scrapbooks of letters from a 
woman — Lulu B. Middleton — 
affectionately named Aunt Lulu.

Bentley director since 2013, 

Terrence McDonald said the most 
significant and unique collections in 
the library include a collection of the 
work of architect Albert Kahn, who 
designed and constructed many 
prominent buildings — including 
the Detroit News and Detroit Free 
Press buildings, numerous Ford 
Motor Co. plants nationwide, the 
University’s Angell Hall, Ruthan 
Natural History Museum and the 
Clements library itself — books 
written by University faculty and 
staff and notebooks from students 
who took courses taught by famed 
philosopher John Dewey. These 
collections attract historians and 
students from about 60 courses 
per year, in programs across the 

University.

The Bentley takes in materials 

that hold value for researchers and 
students on information relating to 
the University and state. Recently, 
the archives have added materials 
related to Detroit’s underground 
magazines, and also showcase 
a 
number 
of 
student-made 

scrapbooks from the late-19th and 
early-20th centuries.

However, because of a recent 

shift toward online research and 
the University’s bicentennial, the 
Bentley has taken a number of steps 
for digitization and has contributed 
many materials to the celebrations, 
thought not all with ease.

“The digitization is challenging 

in that it requires all of the expenses 
of curation and storage of a paper 
collection, and then adding onto 
that the cost of digitization,” 
McDonald said. 

ARCHIVES
From Page 1

Forsythe, a computer science 

major, said he originally created 
the 
program 
to 
assist 
his 

girlfriend, who had to handwrite 
postcards for her job. Later, his 

market became apparent when 
watching students labor over 
sending mail to representatives in 
bulk. He then set on automating 
the process in “five clicks.”

“I 
was 
in 
the 
(Shapiro 

Undergraduate 
Library) 
in 

January, right after the election, 
and there were 50 some women 

sitting in the back of the UGLi who 
had literally printed out a big stack 
of postcards and were writing 
addresses of representatives on 
the back,” he said. 

WEBSITE
From Page 1

and drug use. Still, Black students 
assert that their functions are 
hyper-patrolled, to the extent that 
every predominantly Black party 
gets shut down by police officers. 

AAPD Sgt. Thomas Hickey 

leads 
the 
department’s 

Community Engagement unit, and 
emphasized “party patrol” officers 
are indiscriminate in policing off-
campus parties, as officers only 
respond to phone calls. Public 
Policy junior Stephen Wallace took 
issue, however, with the frequency 
of 
the 
alleged 
complaints, 

especially as many students live 
around other students.

“You ask them, ‘Why is our 

party being shut down,’ or ‘What 
can we have done differently,’ 
and it’s just like ‘Oh, people are 
calling,’ ” Wallace said. “I just don’t 
believe it’s all coincidence, I refuse 
to believe every time we throw 
a party someone just happens to 
call.”

Many students point to the 

vicious cycle of the imbalance: 
Black student groups simply do not 
leverage the institutional resources 
on 
campus 
to 
accommodate 

and control activities like those 
of older, predominantly white 
fraternities and sororities. Nearly 
every chapter affiliated with the 
Interfraternity Council or the 
Panhellenic Association has a long-
standing address registered with 
their respective council — none 
of the “Divine Nine” historically 
Black chapters of the National 
Pan-Hellenic Council, on the other 
hand, have a long-term address on 
campus. Black parties hosted at off-
campus locations, then, are rarely 
registered with the University’s 
Office of Greek Life.

“We cram the whole Black 

community into a three-room 
apartment,” Toxey quipped.

“Minorities don’t have enough 

stuff for people on campus,” 
agreed LSA senior Javon Shell. 
“It’s rare for a frat like us, or let’s 
say like Alpha or Que, would be in 
the same house two years in a row. 
We pretty much go house to house, 
and call that house our house. We 
don’t have big houses, we don’t 
have these luxuries. But yet, every 
time we try to have fun it gets shut 
down. Literally every time.”

Shell, leader of historically 

Black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, 
recalled an incident of aggression 
with officers at the frat’s annual 
Christmas in July party last 
summer. Shell said KAP threw 
the party in a white fraternity 
house on Hill and State Streets 
to account for the large crowd. 
After admitting over 1,000 people 
arrived at the venue, he said 
police used unnecessary force and 
roughness when shutting the party 
down.

“Christmas in July was very 

aggressive,” Shell said. “You could 
tell they didn’t know how to handle 
that many people — Black people 
specifically — and the way they 
handled it was so bad.”

Police from seven different 

districts, he added, were called 
to shut down the party. Though 
University Police spokeswoman 
Diane Brown told The Michigan 
Daily in a December interview 
that 
police 
from 
multiple 

jurisdictions are usually brought 
in on game days to account for the 
large amount of partying, she did 
not say the same happens during 
regular weekends or over the 
summer.

According to a police report 

detailing 
the 
party 
attained 

through a Freedom of Information 
Act request, the officers on the 
scene included the entire AAPD 
night shift, all available units 
from DPSS, at least four Michigan 
State 
Police 
troopers, 
one 

Chelsea sergeant and a Pittsfield 
Township officer. The Washtenaw 
County Sheriff’s department also 
redirected 
Dexter 
Township 

squad cars to assist, but canceled 
the order before their arrival. The 
report states over 500 people were 
in attendance and over 200 people 
were on the road near Hill Street.

Though Shell said no major 

altercations 
occurred, 
AAPD 

Officer James Boylan provided 
a written statement that he 
observed a large fight breaking 
out, then overheard radio traffic 
that there had been gunshots 
fired — though police later found 
no evidence of guns at the party. 
Nonetheless, Boylan deployed his 
department to issue pepper spray 
in areas where crowds were not 
dispersing. Boylan wrote he was 
“unsure how many people were 
hit with the mace.”

Shell highlighted Christmas in 

July as one prominent example of 
AAPD unnecessarily monitoring 
Black parties. KAP functions are 
usually shut down by 1 a.m. or 2 
a.m., he said, and police officers 
enter date parties to check 
identification and cups, and he 
once finished cleaning up a party 
at the University Sports Coliseum 
only to find two squad cars still 
idling in the parking lot.

“Not every event is going 

to break into a fight,” he said. 
“We don’t have that established 
foundation that these other people 
do have. And we can’t (often) get 
venues like (the Sports Coliseum) 
because we’re Black.”

LSA sophomore Gracie Dunn, 

a member of the majority-white 
Zeta Tau Alpha, wrote in an 
email interview the Panhellenic 
Association party registration 
system ensures her contact with 
the police — outside high-profile 
daytime parties or tailgates — 
remains limited.

“In the year and a half I’ve been 

here, I haven’t been to one mixer 
that’s gotten shut down,” she 
wrote.

The Office of Greek Life 

declined to comment on this story.

The police scrutiny isn’t limited 

to the time and place the of event 
itself: Black students say they’re 
more likely to be stopped before, 
after and even completely outside 
the context of partying at all.

Wallace remembered a night 

of his Welcome Week in 2014, he 
was returning to his dorm on the 
Hill from a friend’s house when 
suddenly, a bright light stopped 
him in his tracks. A DPSS officer 
demanded Wallace put his arms 
up and proceeded to violently 
frisk him, even tugging on his 
insulin monitor. The officer finally 
stopped, and when Wallace asked 
if he needed to show ID, the cop 
refused.

“He said ‘you fit the description 

for a gun crime in the area, but 
there was no place on your body to 
conceal a weapon,’ ” Wallace said. 
“It was over the top.”

As with Toxey, DPSS dropped 

the issue. 

“There was no police report 

filed,” he said. “I called for the 
next couple of days … but there 
was no follow up; nothing really 
came of it. Almost like saying, ‘you 
can go here, but never said you can 
enjoy being here’ — that’s the way 
it feels sometimes.”

III. Good Cop, Bad Cop
With 
these 
collective 

experiences 
and 
memories, 

it’s not a stretch to understand 
why, as countless hashtags and 
protests have exposed by 2017, 
Black communities are reluctant 
to place their trust in law 
enforcement agencies. As Black 
LSA junior Priscilla Huddleston 
pointed out, students coming 
from 
predominantly 
Black 

communities arrive with very 
different outlooks on relationships 
with police forces. 

“I have a trust for police officers 

in Detroit that I don’t have here,” 
she said of her hometown’s police 
force, which was 62 percent Black 
as of 2013. “You can’t protect who 
you fear. You fear what you don’t 
know.”

University Police Chief Robert 

Neumann 
doesn’t 
shy 
from 

criticism about his force, and 
admits he hasn’t been in close 
contact with Black students on 
campus. Both AAPD and DPSS 
participated 
in 
two 
annual 

Pancakes & Policing dialogues put 
on by the Black Student Union and 
Students of Color of Rackham. 
DPSS drew on the feedback 
in part to craft its sub-plan on 
diversity, equity and inclusion; 
initiatives currently being piloted 
include 
division-wide 
implicit 

bias 
training, 
microagression 

workshops and a plan to recruit 
more diverse officers. 

“I never had a sense (race 

relations) were bad,” Neumann 
said. “I can’t tell you about a 
time where we’ve had a bad 
relationships … but like to think 
it’s 
improving. 
Better 
than 

average. If those questions are 
unresolved, I’d like to know more 
about that.”

Hickey, 
however, 
pushed 

students to consider their own 
stereotypes about police officers, 
especially for those “transitory 
citizens” coming from other 
communities. He admitted the 
pancake breakfast was the first 
significant 
dialogue 
between 

Black students and AAPD, but 
claimed the department has 
been practicing diversity and 
de-escalation training “for years.” 

Racial profiling, he insisted, is 

not an issue in Ann Arbor.

“What did you do that brought 

unfair treatment on?” he said he’d 
ask students. “Because an officer 

would lose their job over racial 
profiling. That hasn’t happened 
here. If you’re saying that because 
it happened in another city … it’s 
not going to happen here.”

Hickey pressed further, at 

times questioning the credibility 
of students’ accounts.

“When you have a student 

that’s underage and intoxicated, a 
large majority of them are mean 
or aggressive, but sober, they’re 
the nicest person and apologetic,” 
he said. “If you’re throwing 
alcohol into the mix, you’re not 
making good choices. If police did 
100 percent of what you wanted 
them to do, would the problem go 
away?”

He agreed, though, community 

relations between AAPD and 
students in general could stand to 
be improved. Efforts to establish 
a civilian review board have 
stalled, as a $200,000 audit of the 
department is still underway.

“If students don’t reach out, we 

can’t get this clarified,” Hickey 
said. “I’ve been aware of race 
relations my whole life. How do 
you think this makes me feel? 
We continue to battle negative 
perceptions. We have to step up 
our game in areas other police 
officers don’t even touch.”

James, 
who 
was 
stopped 

years ago by an AAPD officer 
who couldn’t believe she worked 
at the University, suggested the 
dialogue for city officers move 
beyond annual breakfasts.

“I see AAPD trying — but 

I don’t think just one or two 
officers can,” she said. “When 
you have this many people saying 
the same things, it’s a systemic 
problem.”

IV. Between Two Worlds
Add in the racist flyers, the 

threatening 
emails 
and 
the 

ever-dwindling Black student 
body population, and a fractious 
campus becomes even more 
divided 
by 
disproportionate 

policing. 
Whether 
students 

experience 
police 
aggression 

firsthand or secondhand, the 
result for many is arguably the 
same. An already alienated Black 
community 
sequesters 
itself 

even further from seemingly 
unwelcoming spaces.

Black 
students 
even 
stop 

themselves from seeking the 
outlets most students would 
otherwise avail themselves of. 
According to a self-survey by the 
Black Student Union, 34 percent 
of students feel uncomfortable 
approaching officers in uniform. 

“I shouldn’t have this distrust 

or this disdain in my heart every 
time I see someone in a uniform, 
but due to what’s going on, due 
to how they police our events 
and police us on this campus, I 
don’t have much of a choice in the 
matter in how I see the police,” 
Wallace said.

Huddleston, 
one 
of 
the 

only Black members of the 
cheerleading team, said she’s 
turned heads at predominantly 
white parties she’s attended for 
being “too loud.” Shell looks back 
on his Black friends who pledged 
IFC frats, and laments their 
separation from the larger Black 
community.

James, however, related the 

more jarring story as proof of the 
toll on Black students’ mental 
health. As she entered a Haven 
Hall elevator two weeks ago with 
three of her Black students in 
DAAS — an academic space — the 
two white people already in the 
elevator appeared unsettled. No 
more than a minute later, they all 
exited, one remarking to James, 
“we’ll take the stairs.”

“I want to believe this place is 

for me, but … it does get to prey 
upon you,” James said. “So why 
not stay safe? I feel safer around 
other people of color.”

Many 
of 
the 
University’s 

DEI efforts hinge on successful 
collaboration between students 
of all races and ethnicities. With 
a strategic plan that largely fails 
to engage with the implications 
of disparate law enforcement 
begs the question: If Black 
students don’t feel comfortable 
around white students because 
predominantly white institutions 
are not yet attuned to Black 
needs, who can break the cycle? 
How much of the burden should, 
or can, be placed on the students 
themselves?

Toxey is slower to smile in 

public these days, and entire 
cohorts of Black students subject 
to overpolicing aren’t far behind 
him.

Hickey—with 
the 
full 

force of AAPD’s three-person 
Community 
Engagement 

department behind him—wound 
up asking the question at the 
heart of the matter.

POLICE
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

housing shortage in Ann Arbor.

“If I vote no on this, would 

I be willing to sit on the phone 
Tuesday and call people on the 
Housing Commission, on the 
waitlist and say, ‘we’re down on 
money on affordable housing 
and I couldn’t help you guys’?” 
Warpehoski said. “I couldn’t 
imagine doing that.”

However, 
public 
polling 

has shown majority support 
for a public space. A 2013 Park 
Advisory 
Commission 
survey 

showed that 76.2 percent of 
respondents 
thought 
Ann 

Arbor would benefit from more 
downtown open spaces, like a 
park or town square, and 41.5 
percent of respondents chose the 
Library Lot as the best place to 
build such a space.

Last year, the Ann Arbor 

Committee for the Community 
Commons delivered a petition 
to put the future of the lot to the 
November election ballot, but it 
fell just short of a few hundred 
signatures because of technical 
mistakes.

The 
crowd 
became 
increasingly 

restless as councilmembers urged 
compromise and attempted to 

quell concerns about floor-area 
ratio, as an Internal Revenue 
Service 
audit 
of 
the 
Build 

America Bonds was issued to 
create the parking space under 
the Library Lot, and other salient 
details. 

The tension reached a tipping 

point 
when 
Councilmember 

Julie 
Grand 
(D–Ward 
3) 

charged 
that 
anti-high 
rise 

advocates were ignoring the 
realities 
of 
compromise 
and 

resisting stubbornly against a 
democratically decided process.

LIBRARY LOT
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

