michigandaily.com
Thursday, May 10, 2018

INDEX

Vol. CXXVII, No. 116 | © 2018 The Michigan Daily 
michigandaily.com

NEWS ....................................
OPINION ............................... 
ARTS ......................................
MiC.........................................
SPORTS................................

MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Defend DACA
Immigrant protections 
are at risk under Donald 
Trump

>> SEE PAGE 9

NEWS
Racist list update

University investigation of 

crass and racist Elite Bar 

Crawl list is at a stand still.

>> SEE PAGE 2

OPINION
Let’s Make a Pact 

Hannah Harshe explores how 

different standards are set for 

men and women at work. 

>> SEE PAGE 5

ARTS

‘This is America’ 
Childish Gambino 
releases confrontational 
new single. 

 >> SEE PAGE 7

SPORTS
Softball prevails 
over Ohio State

On Senior Day, the 

Michgan softball team 

defeated its biggest rival

>> SEE PAGE 12

inside

2
4
6
9
10
See RESEARCH, Page 3

U-M sued by Speech First
over Bias Response Team

Organization files 
injunction against 
“U” over free speech 
 

By GRACE KAY

Summer Managing News Editor

The University of Michigan is 

the first university in the nation to 
receive a federal lawsuit regarding 
the effect the U-M Bias Response 
Team might have on speech 
freedom on campus. 

On Tuesday, Speech First, an 

organization of students, citizens 
and alumni advocating free speech 
on college campuses, filed a federal 
lawsuit against the University, 
challenging the Bias Response 
Team’s accordance with the U.S. 
Constitution and calling for a 
permanent injunction prohibiting 
the Bias Response Team from 
investigating students.

Speech First President Nicole 

Neily said the organization is 
filing the injunction against the 
University based on three main 

factors.

“We have multiple members of 

the organization at the University,” 
Neily said. “The University of 
Michigan also has a combination 
of a very bad speech code that 
is very vague, a very active bias 
response team that is very proud of 
its achievements because it keeps 
a log and we have numbers there, 
though not all were listed in the 
complaint. These were the three 
things we needed.”

This is not the first time the 

University’s 
speech 
code 
and 

freedom of speech has been called 
into question. In 2017, hundreds of 
students flooded into the Michigan 
League to voice displeasure with 
the Michigan Political Union’s 
decision to debate the Black Lives 
Matter movement as harmful to 
racial relations, causing many 
people outside of the University 
to question whether unpopular 
voices or perspectives can be 
heard at the University. Similarly, 
when Charles Murray, author of 
“The Bell Curve,” a book which 
argues for the concept of racial 

differences in intelligence, spoke 
at the University, several students 
attempted to shut down the event.

The University has experienced 

controversy on the speech code 
as far back as 1989. A 1989 case, 
Doe v. University of Michigan, 
determined the University’s 1988 
hate speech law violated the 
constitutional right to free speech. 

Neily claims freedom of speech 

and the campus atmosphere are 
stifled by vague and subjective 
speech codes and bias response 
teams. 

“It is very difficult to have a 

system in place (like a bias response 
team) without having a mechanism 
that kills speech,” Neily said. “I fail 
to see how you can have that kind 
of system without entirely stifling 
free speech.”

According to the University’s 

Bias Response Team website, 
a bias incident is anything that 
discriminates against a community 
based on their identity.

New pill
can detect
breast cancer
Researchers at “U” 
develop pill to reduce 
overtreatment 

By NATSAHA PIETRUSCHKA 

Daily Staff Reporter

Researchers at the University of 

Michigan are developing a new diagnostic 
pill that improves conventional detection 
methods and reduces the overtreatment 
of breast cancer. The U-M research 
team, led by Greg Thurber, chemical 
engineering 
assistant 
professor, 
is 

refining an oral pill that dissolves in the 
bloodstream and illuminates tumors 
under infrared light.

According to Thurber, many women 

who have breast cancer tumors would 
never suffer from the disease but are 
treated 
anyway. 
Mammography, 
a 

common form of breast cancer detection, 
determines the existence of a tumor but 
not if the tumor is cancerous or benign. 
Chemicals in the new pill are able to bind 
to cancerous tissue and light up under 
infrared light to inform physicians where 
cancerous tumors are located.

Thurber 
says 
that 
knowing 

information at the molecular level is at 
the core of effective cancer detection.

“We’ve known from decades of 

research in cancer biology that it’s really 
a molecular disease, so what’s nice about 
our approach is that you’re actually 
getting molecular information,” Thurber 
said.

The 
pill 
is 
an 
alternative 
to 

mammograms or other methods such 
as magnetic resonance imaging and 
ultrasounds. According to Thurber, 
mammograms 
can 
sometimes 
be 

inaccurate, as they may miss tumors in 
women with dense breast tissue.

Thurber believes his team’s method 

would be useful at spotting tumors in 
patients where mammograms don’t work 
well.

See LAWSUIT, Page 3

DANYEL THARAKAN / DAILY

ONE-HUNDRED-TWENTY SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

RESEARCH

