Be careful where you put
your Zingerman’s sandwich this
summer — you might just watch
it get carried away by a group of
children and their human-sized
ant leader.
Tuesday,
the
Ann
Arbor
Summer Festival announced the
2018 month-long event would
include performances by eVenti
Verticali’s 2-D and 3-D show
“Wanted,” as well as Australia’s
Polyglot Theatre production of
Ants.
EVenti Verticali is an Italian
multimedia
aerial
theater
company that involves visual
comedy projected onto a large
outdoor screen. The group travels
the world showcasing their art
and will be in Ann Arbor for the
Top of the Park festival on June
19 and 20.
Polyglot Theatre’s Ants will
also be in Ann Arbor this June.
Their
show
includes
actors
dressed as giant ants leading
children through an activity
of placing breadcrumbs into
artistic designs. The Polyglot
Theatre, based in Australia, is
internationally
regarded
for
their “interactive spectacle for
children.”
“Faced with hundreds of giant
bread crumbs and three big
insects, children are irresistibly
drawn in to discover what the
ants want them to do,” the AASF’s
website
states.
“Gradually
a
world
of
meaning
unfolds,
illustrating the human desire for
order by transforming any public
space with wavering lines and
patterns, crossing adult lines and
disrupting the everyday.”
The AASF will take place
June 8 through July 1, with Ants
making a special appearance
June 26 through June 28.
WASHINGTON - Six years
ago, Barbara Grutter was
looking over a letter of rejec-
tion from the Law School.
Today, she will look over nine
Supreme Court justices as
they hear her lawyers argue
that she was denied admission
because of an illegal system of
racial preference.
The hearing today is the
result of a lawsuit she filed to
challenge the school’s use of
race in its admissions policies.
“We all feel very much a
sense of ‘We need to be, here,
and it’s time for us to be here,”’
Grutter said at a press confer-
ence yesterday with Jennifer
Gratz and’ Patrick Hamacher,
the two plaintiffs suing the
College of Literature, Science
and the Arts for its race-con-
scious admissions policies.
All three applicants said
they were feeling a wide range
of emotions in the hours
preceding the start of the oral
arguments that the court will
hear at 10 a.m. today. They
added that these cases are
more about discrimination by
the University on the basis
of their skin color than the
methods or actual policies of
the Law School or LSA.
“We are taught in our
schools and in our homes
and in our churches that you
should never judge another
person based on her skin
color,” Gratz said at the con-
ference, which was organized
by the Center for Individual
Rights, the law firm represent-
ing the plaintiffs.
“Patrick, Barbara and I are
asking only that everyone be
judged according to the same
standard, regardless of race.
That’s what the Constitution
requires, and that’s what we’ll
ask the Supreme Court to reaf-
firm tomorrow.”
Hamacher said his 3.3 grade
point average, a score of 28 on
the ACT and numerous extra-
curricular activities merited
acceptance into the University.
“Like Jennifer Gratz, and
many hundreds of other white
and Asian applicants, I wasn’t
treated fairly by the Univer-
sity of Michigan because they
explicitly considered our race
to be a negative factor,” Ham-
acher said.
Although they said the Uni-
versity’s policies discriminated
against them, all three appli-
cants said they want to pursue
graduate-level education and
would still consider attending
the Uni-
versity. Grutter, a 49-year-
old mother of two and health
care information technology
consultant in Michigan, said
she plans to reapply
to the Law School if
the court requires it
to use a race-neutral
policy.
“I have not relin-
quished the desire to
combine the practice
of law with health
care information
system management,”
she said.
Hamacher, a
24-year-old ac-
countant from Flint,
said he hopes to
apply to the Gerald
R. Ford School of
Public Policy if the
court rules in his
favor. Gratz, who is
25 years old and a
software trainer in
Oceanside, Calif., said
she would consider
attending a Univer-
sity graduate school
but may choose a
school closer to her
current home.
CIR President Terence Pell
also spoke at the conference,
saying he believes the Univer-
sity has “operated blatantly
segregated, two-track admis-
sions systems designed to
boost the number of minori-
ties.”
Although he refused to pre-
dict the court’s ruling, which
is expected to be announced
in June, Pell said he considers
a clear, sweeping ban on race-
conscious admissions policies
a victory.
If the court upholds both
policies, “there will be no end
to (the University’s) type of
racial engineering,” Pell said.
2A — Wednesday, April 4, 2018
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ON THE DAILY: ANTS IN ANN ARBOR
the School of Information,
which does not have a Race and
Ethnicity course requirement,
he said he still views the
requirement as problematic.
“Race and Ethnicity is not
the forefront purpose of the
course,” Rasheed said. “Right
now, Race and Ethnicity, it’s
like the second addition, or
the add-on. It’s a bonus. You
don’t take Race and Ethnicity
courses with the intention of
thinking deeply about race and
ethnicity. You take it for the
subject, and it just so happens
that it gets qualified as being
a Race and Ethnicity course.”
Rasheed
is
not
alone.
Many students, particularly
students
of
color,
have
expressed
they
take
issue
with the requirement. Most
cite the watering down of
what
constitutes
a
Race
and
Ethnicity
course,
as
well
as
the
inconsistency
regarding which colleges at
the University require it, as
a problem. Currently, LSA,
the Ford School of Public
Policy and the Stamps School
of Art and Design require
Race and Ethnicity credit for
undergraduates.
The Race and Ethnicity
requirement
was
formed
after student activists lobbied
the University to institute a
requirement following racial
tensions on campus. Public
Policy junior Allie Brown,
a contributor to The Daily,
helped LSA Associate Dean
Angela Dillard complete a
public history project on the
requirement,
and
believes
the requirement has been
“watered down” and does not
live up to its mission.
“The purpose of the Race
and Ethnicity requirement is
to get white people to be a little
less racist, for people to be a
little bit more knowledgeable
about the world they live in,”
Brown said. “That’s really
what it came about after the
activism. Not just, ‘Oh, learn
about race and ethnicity in
general.’ That’s not really the
purpose behind it. A lot of
the courses that are counted
as R&E today don’t require
cultural competency, that’s
the problem. It’s just like, ‘Oh,
we mention race and ethnicity,
thus we should be counted as
Race and Ethnicity.’ ”
Like Brown, Rasheed thinks
the requirement should focus
on cultural competency and
on
helping
students
make
present-day
connections
to material learned in the
classroom.
“I didn’t learn from (The
History of Islam in South
Asia) what the intention of
R&E is meant to be, which is
empathizing
with
others,”
Rasheed
said.
“I
simply
interpreted it as a history
course, not as an R&E course,
which is supposed to help
me grow as a person. I’m
not familiar with how a
course qualifies as an R&E
course, but I would say that
it wasn’t a course that made
me think deeply about race
and ethnicity as a whole and
how we’re supposed to take
lessons from then and apply it
to right now, which I think is
the intention of the race and
ethnicity course.”
Public Policy junior Kyra
Hudson agrees and thinks
it’s important for students to
realize that race and ethnicity
issues occur in “real-time.”
“The Race and Ethnicity
requirement was born out
of student activist demands
in response to racism and a
turbulent racial climate on
campus and also in society and
the world,” Hudson said. “And
so the fact that somebody can
take the class that doesn’t ever
touch on the current racial
climate, your place within
it, it doesn’t ever mention
how its affecting students
real-time. I don’t think it’s
acceptable to call it something
that will fulfill your Race and
Ethnicity requirement if it
doesn’t engage with race and
ethnicity in a real capacity. I
think it needs to do more to
teach people how to engage in
those difficult conversations.”
Hudson said as a Black
student at the Public Policy
School, she often finds it
difficult to separate her racial
identity from her political
beliefs. This is something she
said her more privileged peers
do not have to do.
“For me particularly, when
I got to the policy school, it
became really challenging to
know when it was appropriate
to bring my personal racial
identities up when talking
about
policy
and
politics,
because my outlook on life,
my perspective on issues and
policies that are enacted in
our nation and the world,
I look at those through the
lens of my racial identity,”
Hudson
said.
“Sometimes
we’re encouraged to not mix
the personal with political and
it’s hard for me to be able to do
that for myself, but also to be
in classes where other people
do have the privilege of being
able to separate their personal
from their political or policy
beliefs.”
However,
both
Hudson
and Brown cite Intergroup
Relations
Dialogues
as
“definitely
comprehensive”
in
discussing
problems
surrounding
race
and
ethnicity.
“It really required us to
engage in very intentional
conversations about race, and
to look a little deeper than just
racial climate, but systems and
structures that created the
racial climate and how your
R&E
From Page 1A
See R&E, Page 3A