The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, April 3, 2018 — 3

City Council amends Greek house ordinances

Startup app allows local students to 
mix party playlists with upvote system
Human rights lecture 
highlights global view

UpNext platform created by students across schools debuts on mobile app stores
Academics from around the country convene to 
endorse data-driven policies in int’l conflicts

New rules revoke zoning for chapters who lose University recognition, $4.2 million purchase also discussed

In Monday night’s meeting, 
Ann 
Arbor 
City 
Council 
amended housing ordinances 
for fraternities and sororities 
in Ann Arbor and a $4.2 million 
empty lot repurchase.
The 
council 
passed 
an 
ordinance on the Ann Arbor 
housing code to modify the 
definition 
of 
fraternity 
or 
sorority housing in Ann Arbor 
and to amend special exception 
use standards.
The ordinance will not allow 
any fraternities or sororities 
that are not sanctioned by 
a university — namely the 
University 
of 
Michigan. 
As 

a result, if a fraternity loses 
its recognition, that property 
would have to be replaced by a 
recognized group or the zoning 
will be revoked. The council’s 
ordinance 
comes 
after 
the 
Interfraternity Council imposed 
a ban on social activities due 
to several incidents of hazing 
and sexual assault. The ban 
was lifted at the beginning of 
the winter semester, but even 
after the ban was lifted, one 
fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, had 
their charter revoked due to 
sexual assault allegations.
Councilmember 
Zachary 
Ackerman, D-Ward 3, said the 
ordinance is another step in 
discouraging rape culture on 
campus.
“It’s another tool to curb the 

culture of sexual assault and 
hazing,” Ackerman said.
Furthermore, 
with 
new 
“special 
exception 
use” 
standards the ordinance will 
further control the density and 
population of the houses. Under 
this new ordinance, the initial 
special exception use standard 
would 
define 
how 
many 
individuals could live in the 
house. In order to increase the 
maximum population allowed 
in the house, the fraternity 
or sorority would be forced 
to apply for another special 
exception use standard.
Capitalizing on the theme of 
zoning, the council also focused 
on a $4.2 million repurchase. 
During an hour-long closed 
session, the council discussed 

the repurchase of the former 
YMCA lot on 350 S. Fifth Ave.
Amid 
controversy 
over 
the repurchase and due to a 
stalemate in the voting process, 
the council was forced to table 
the discussion and moved the 
decision to the next council 
meeting.
The repurchase was part 
of an agreement created four 
years ago. Under this agreement 
the council was given the right 
to repurchase the site after 
four years if the agreed upon 
development didn’t come to 
fruition by April 2018, the city 
could buy back the lot for either 
the appraised value or $4.2 
million — whichever would be 
lower.
As a result of the council’s 

consideration of repurchasing 
the site, the property’s current 
owner, Dennis Dahlmann, is 
currently in the process of suing 
the city over the property in 
hopes of getting four more years 
to bring the project to fruition 
within the specifications of the 
council for affordable housing 
development.
Many 
members, 
including 
Mayor 
Christopher 
Taylor, 
Councilmember 
Ackerman 
and 
Councilmember 
Chuck 
Warpehoski, D-Ward 5, argued 
the purchase would be a simple 
decision.
“There is a lot of public good 
for affordable housing, for street 
lights, even for road repair we 
could do with that money,” 
Warpehoski said.

While Councilmembers Jack 
Eaton, D-Ward 4, and Sumi 
Kailasapathy, D-Ward 1, argued 
against the purchase.
“It’s a huge risk,” Eaton said. 
“We’ve known for quite some 
time that this building would 
not be done today, yet here 
we are discussing what we 
are going to do. I don’t think 
it’s responsible for us to use 
that reserve account for this 
purpose.”
The 
resolution 
needed 
eight 
votes 
to 
pass. 
With 
Eaton, 
Kailasapathy 
and 

Councilmember 
Annie 

Bannister, D-Ward 1, voting 
against 
the 
resolution, 
the 
council was forced to table the 
discussion until the next council 
meeting.

Claims of fake news have 
pervaded American news media 
in the year and a half since the 
2016 
presidential 
election. 
Yet as the LSA Donia Human 
Rights Center at the University 
of Michigan aimed to illustrate 
Monday, the accuracy of facts 
and data is under question 
abroad, too. A human rights 
conference 
Monday 
titled 
“Frontiers of Human Rights 
Research: 
Methodological 
Innovations and New Rights 
Issues,” organized by Center 
Director 
Kiyoteru 
Tsutsui, 
associate professor of sociology, 
gave audiences a broad picture 
of human rights in the world 
today.
“The 
idea 
behind 
the 
conference is looking at what’s 
going on in the world today,” 
Tsutsui 
said. 
“Fact-based 
policymaking is under threat 
— there’s a lot of fake news, 
alternative facts and all that, 
so reports on human rights 
violations are often questioned 
in a way that really undermines 
the legitimacy of claims by 
the victims. So we wanted to 
present some methodological 
innovations that have been 
taking place in the field of 
human 
rights 
research 
to 
showcase that there are ways to 
collect data that produce good, 
solid empirical research that 
is very strong in terms of its 
evidentiary basis.”
The 
talk 
featured 
four 
different 
panels 
discussing 
developments in human rights 
research and human rights 
issues in general. Discussions 
revolved around new ways to 
collect data on human rights, 
as well as new human rights 
challenges that we have to face 
now such as drones.
Tsutsui said he hoped people 
in attendance would be able to 
learn about techniques in the 
field they didn’t know about 
before.
“I want people who attend to 
take away from the conference 
that there are all kinds of 
exciting research that is being 
conducted by scholars who 
study these things,” Tsutsui 
said.
Author 
Beth 
Simmons, 
professor of law and political 
science at the University of 
Pennsylvania, gave the keynote 
speech. Simmons talked about 
the future of human rights, and 
said she was impressed by the 
papers and theories presented 
by the panel members.
“I 
think 
the 
future 
of 
international rights is going to 
be a good one based on what 
I’ve heard today,” Simmons 
said.
Simmons said the world is 
at a juncture in the area of 
international 
human 
rights, 
and discussed some theories as 
to why this was the case. Her 
talk focused on the economic 
effects of human rights, as 

well as the fragility of many 
of the democracies in the 
world that are meant to ensure 
these human rights. She also 
discussed the effects the media 
and reports of human rights 
issues have on public opinion of 
these issues.
“So much of what passes 
for 
research 
on 
human 
rights is headline changing,” 
Simmons said. “Human rights 
researchers will often just start 
off by talking about everything 
that is wrong in the world and 
tell you that the world is on an 
irretrievable decline and that 
human rights are at the end of 
times.”
She 
also 
mentioned 
human 
rights 
activists 
as 
unintentionally contributing to 
this issue of perception.
“Human rights activists need 
to keep us aware of the negative 
developments in the world, 
and because it’s their job, and 
because they’re so good at it, 
we get such a negative sense of 
the world,” Simmons said.
To counter this, Simmons 
showed 
some 
major 
improvements 
that 
have 
occurred within the realm of 
human rights. She brought up 
the decline in infant mortality 
rates, the decrease in the 
disparity between men and 
women’s wages, the percentage 
of countries that are under 

democratic 
governments 
and the evident decline of 
human deaths in international 
conflicts in the past 50 years.
“We seem to be killing each 
other less than we have done in 
the past,” Simmons said.
However, 
Simmons 
also 
acknowledged while progress 
was happening, it was certainly 
no easy feat, and it also isn’t 
permanent.
“International human rights 
progress has been real, and 
slow, it has been selective, and 
it is also fragile,” Simmons said. 
“There is absolutely nothing 
inevitable about what I showed 
you.”
LSA junior Jonathan Aue 
attended the talk, and though 
he said it was not as interesting 
as others he has attended, he 
was still interested in the topic.
“Right 
now 
we’ve 
got 
problems with Cuba, China and 
Iran taking away their women’s 
rights, and that is against 
our Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights,” Aue said. “It’s 
a global problem so everyone 
should be stepping in to figure 
out why exactly they’re getting 
away with it.”

Less 
than 
six 
months 
ago, 
Business 
sophomores 
Raymond Sukanto and Victor 
Mahdavi 
bonded 
over 
a 
frustration many University 
of Michigan students have 
at parties — feeling helpless 
over a bad music playlist. 
In a matter of a few weeks, 
they 
partnered 
with 
LSA 
sophomore 
Dan 
Kaper 
to 
create a music queuing app 
called UpNext to assist fellow 
music-minded 
students 
on 
their nights out.
The app is run by a team of 
devoted University students, 
across LSA, the Ross School 
of Business and the College of 
Engineering, whose mission 
is to unite students at social 
gatherings over the aux cord. 
UpNext serves as a platform 
for creating a collaborative 
playlist, where users are given 
the power to suggest songs and 
“upvote” or “downvote” tracks 
on the queue.
Though the app primarily 
functions 
as 
a 
playlist 
generator, the team’s vision is 
to consolidate party planning 
by transforming UpNext into 
a social app, where users can 
locate nearby events.
“The main thing now is us 
focusing on being a music-
sharing app, but the end goal 

is to be something more, like 
a social media platform where 
we could essentially help a 
user decide and plan out their 
entire night, from where they 
go, who they go with, and then 
eventually what music they 
listen to,” Kaper said. “The 
idea is to become a more of an 
all-inclusive way to connect 
and 
experience 
parties 
together.”
Since its launch on the Apple 
App Store in January, UpNext 
has been downloaded by over 
500 users, including Business 
freshman Alana Gartenberg.
“Before, you could have 
been fighting over the aux or 
fighting over the music and 
it took away from the time 
you could have been spending 
talking about other things,” 
Gartenberg said. “This app 
makes it so much easier to just 
put in what you want.”
UpNext’s 
current 
users 
have accumulated organically 
through word-of-mouth and 
small publicity stunts, like 
sponsored 
Snapchat 
filters. 
The team paid for Snapchat 
filters 
in 
Puerto 
Vallarta, 
Mexico over Spring Break, as 
well as multiple party spaces 
over St. Patrick’s Day weekend.
However, 
Mahdavi 
said 
the team has strayed away 
from depending on marketing 
strategies to promote the app 
and instead are focusing on 
letting the product sell itself.

“We 
didn’t 
put 
enough 
emphasis 
on 
the 
actual 
design,” 
Mahdavi 
said. 
“I 
think 
most 
successful 
companies that make social 
media products really focus on 
the product. Then it speaks for 
itself. People will use it if they 
like it.”
Kaper, 
who 
worked 
on 
developing 
the 
app, 
said 
the 
team 
recognizes 
app 
design is vital in attracting 
users. In recent weeks, the 
app’s developing team has 
concentrated 
on 
cleaning 
the user interface design by 
minimizing 
screens 
users 
must 
swipe 
through 
and 
introducing a “home” screen, 
which 
is 
widely 
used 
in 
popular apps like Snapchat 
and Tinder.
“The main idea is to create 
simplicity,” Kaper said. “It’s 
easier to retain the user if the 
appearance on the app is pretty 
easy and straightforward.”
One of UpNext’s selling 
points is that it was created 
for college students, by college 
students. The team spends 
every week updating the app 
based on students’ reactions to 
it with a hearty goal of 1,500 to 
2,000 downloads by the end of 
the semester.
The hardest part of the 
process, according to Sukanto, 
is getting those users.
“You 
never 
know, 
at 
this 
stage, 
what 
people 

really want,” Sukanto said. 
“Everything is still a guessing 
game. That’s why every week 
we push to test and see if it 
improves. It’s a cycle.”
According 
to 
Sukanto, 
UpNext is putting Ann Arbor 
first this semester, focusing on 
reaching out to students in the 
area, but next semester’s plans 
foresee a push to other college 
towns. 
“Our goal this semester 
is truly about learning what 
product features work and 
what 
marketing 
strategies 
work,” Sukanto said. “Right 
now, our only focus is Ann 
Arbor.”
Members 
of 
the 
team 
have 
gotten 
support 
from 
CHISL Design, a student-run 
branding group, as well as 
from Entrepreneurship 412, a 
University course modeled on 
real-world startup incubators 
and 
accelerator 
programs. 
However, 
Mahdavi 
said 
what helps drive the app’s 
development the most is the 
support they get from each 
other.
“School is super important, 
that’s why we’re here and 
learning so much, and that’s 
how we met each other,” 
Mahdavi said. “But there’s 
something very exciting about 
having your own app and 
having something to your own 
name and seeing people have 
fun with it.”

GRACE KAY
Daily Staff Reporter

MOLLY NORRIS
Daily Staff Reporter

NATASHA PIETRUSCHKA
Daily Staff Reporter

back and forth, and sometimes 
they would be almost equal.”
Reverend 
Lindasusan 
Ulrich, an assistant minister 
at First Unitarian Universalist 
Congregation of Ann Arbor, 
acknowledged this struggle, 
but also said she was able to 
find ways to join her religious 
and queer identities.
“For me, I see definitive 
connections having a non-
monosexual 
identity 
and 
being a Unitarian Universalist 
in that there’s an openness 
to different possibilities and 
a curiosity about different 
possibilities,” 
Ulrich 
said. 
“I realized how much that 
openness has influenced me in 
my ministry. For me, they are 
very intertwined.”
Panelists also described the 
issues they had in being open 
about their queer identities 
in religious settings, or vice 
versa. These two communities 
have a history of negative 
interactions — a recent one 
being accusations against a 
church in Detroit of planning 
conversion therapy workshops. 
Incidents 
of 
discrimination 
like the church in Detroit 
cause 
animosity 
in 
both 
communities.
A Public Health graduate 
student, 
who 
requested 
to 
be anonymous due to her 
sensitive identity, said many 

may believe the stereotype of 
Muslims being homophobic, 
which can make it hard for 
her to interact in queer spaces. 
She also said while her Muslim 
group of friends is very open, 
conversations 
about 
gender 
and sexuality are more closed-
off in mosques.
“Most of my Muslim friends 
never really had to say, ‘It’s 
cool to be gay’ within our 
friend circles, but if we went to 
mosques or we went to Sunday 
school, there was a kind of 
hesitation with being so open 
and expressive about it,” she 
said.
An undergraduate student 
who also requested anonymity 
felt 
similarly 
about 
her 
queer and orthodox Jewish 
communities. She highlighted 
the unwillingness to discuss 
sexuality within the Jewish 
community, as well as the lack 
of 
awareness 
surrounding 
Judaism in LGBTQ+ spaces.
“It’s hard to find ritual 
spaces that are meaningful 
for me because when you go in 
and your identity isn’t there, 
or it’s erased, or it’s invisible,” 
she said. “In the wider LGBTQ 
spaces, I encounter a lot of 
ignorance about Judaism, what 
it is, what its rituals are like. 
This can be hard when you 
want to start to talk to people 
about things, and have them 
understand where you come 
from.”
Both 
Jewish 
and 
Muslim 
students 
talked 

about the genderedness of 
their 
respective 
religions, 
particularly in their rituals and 
traditions. The Muslim student 
discussed the gender divide 
between men and women in 
mosques, and how this has a 
harmful effect on members of 
the LGBTQ+ community. The 
Jewish student expressed her 
pain in acknowledging because 
of her sexuality, she won’t 
be able to partake in certain 
traditions.
“It’s hard, the knowledge 
that in some ways I won’t 
really be able to participate in 
the milestones and rituals that 
are important to me because 
of my sexuality, because of the 
possible gender of my future 
spouse, and because of inherent 
gender 
separation 
in 
the 
rituals,” she said.
To 
work 
through 
these 
struggles, the religious leaders 
among the panelists emphasized 
education. Ulrich said she uses 
her position as a minister to her 
advantage in terms of teaching 
her 
congregation 
about 
LGBTQ+ issues.
“Sometimes the teaching is 
really vital because I have the 
privilege of a pulpit from which 
I can say things like, ‘How can 
this open our minds?’” Ulrich 
said. “‘How about we think 
about this?’”
The Jewish student offered 
up 
a 
different 
viewpoint, 
questioning whether she has 
an obligation to educate her 
peers on these issues.

“On 
the 
one 
hand, 
we 
shouldn’t have to, but on 
the other hand, if you don’t 
advocate for yourself, who’s 
going to?” she asked.
In response to a question 
posed by an audience member 
on how to approach coming 
out, the panelists had differing 
perspectives. The Muslim and 
Jewish 
students 
expressed 
how it’s unnecessary to come 
out to everyone while Spencer 
emphasized the importance of 
doing what feels comfortable.
“If I may give you a bit of 
advice: Do it at your pace, 
at what feels right for you,” 
Spencer said. “Don’t let other 
people tell you how fast you 
have to go.”
Alyssa Cozad, an academic 
advisor at the Stamps School 
of 
Art 
and 
Design, 
felt 
enlightened by the perspectives 
and opinions of the panelists. 
The difficulties the panelists 
expressed in trying to live 
authentically 
and 
exist 
in 
either spiritual or LGBTQ+ 
spaces resonated with her. She 
expressed her hopes for events 
of a similar nature.
“There’s room certainly for 
more of this on campus and in 
the Ann Arbor community,” 
Cozad said. “We’re an open 
community, I hope, for a lot 
of people and a resource for 
people. So I like to come to 
these sorts of events so that 
I can let them inform my 
work and how I relate with 
students.”

LGBTQ+
From Page 1

We seem to be 

killing each other 

less than we have 

done in the past.

