for the first time,” the complaint 
read. “Indeed, in many cases, these 
laws have resulted in a chilling 
effect that has kept eligible young 
voters in Michigan from voting 
and registering to vote entirely 
due to widespread confusion about 
the laws’ requirements and legal 
effects.”

Marc Elias, a partner at Perkins 

Coie, is one of the plaintiff’s 
lawyers. Elias, who served as 
general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 
2016 presidential campaign, also 
represented a group of college 
students 
in 
Florida 
in 
their 

successful suit to remove a ban on 
early voting on college campuses. It 
was the first time a judge ruled that 
a policy constituted discrimination 
under the 26th Amendment.

Ingham County Clerk Barb 

Byrum supported the plaintiffs 
in the suit, declaring in a press 
release Michigan has “some of the 
toughest and unnecessary voting 

restrictions in the country.”

“These restrictions have had a 

devastating impact on the ability 
of students voters to exercise 
their right to vote for more than a 
decade,” Byrum wrote.

MSU student Eli Pales, president 

of 
MSU’s 
College 
Democrats, 

addressed specific ways the suit 
files believe the aforementioned 
laws negatively impact voters on 
their campus. Pales said the “First 
Time/In-Person 
Requirement” 

directly inhibits students who 
moved long distances to attend 
MSU from voting in their home 
precincts.

“This is obviously a huge 

detriment to a lot of students who 
registered at home, maybe at a 
high school registration drive or 
whatever it is, come to Michigan 
State University and can’t vote 
unless they drive home,” Pales 
said. “Here at Michigan State 
University, for the first year, you’re 
not allowed to have a car on campus 
which essentially means if you’re 
registered at home and you need to 
get home to vote, you need a parent 

to come to the University, pick you 
up, bring you back to vote, and then 
drop you back off which would take 
hours and hours of a parent’s day.”

Public 
Policy 
senior 
Kellie 

Lounds, 
president 
of 
U-M’s 

College Democrats, agreed, adding 
that in addition to the logistical 
hurdles the laws placed in the 
way of student voters, they made 
the 
process 
confusing, 
which 

ultimately discourages voting.

“I myself have encountered 

complications while registering 
voters in seeing other students 
be unsure as to whether they 
can actually register with their 
campus addresses and what the 
consequences of changing their 
driver’s 
license 
address 
are,” 

Lounds wrote in an email to 
The Daily. “It’s a fairly common 
confusion and this law makes it 
unnecessarily complex for students 
to exercise their right to vote.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, September 4, 2018 — 3A

will be prepared for key senior 
roles in a variety of governmental 
institutions and public agencies, 
in the non-public sector and in the 
private sector as well.”

The 33-credit degree will be 

open to individuals with five or 
more years of experience in public 
administration, government affairs, 
the military or the nonprofit sector. 
The Public Policy School has 
developed new courses specifically 
for this program, in addition, these 
MPA students will enroll in courses 
which are part of the school’s 
current Master of Public Policy 
program, including Economics for 
Public Affairs and Leadership in 
Public Affairs. In order to complete 
the degree, students must also 
complete a capstone project for a 
client. The new program builds 
upon the former Master of Public 
Administration 
by 
combining 

the previous degree’s focus on 
analytical policy analysis with 

new curriculums for public and 
nonprofit entity management.

This 
curriculum, 
combined 

with a faculty of experts in fields 
ranging from economics to social 
work, will focus on refining the 
skills of professionals in the field 
and prepare them for leadership 
positions within and outside of the 
government. 

“The new degree program builds 

upon the strengths of the Master 
of Public Administration degree 
while providing some new and 
innovative learning opportunities 
that are tailored to experienced 
professionals,” Barr wrote. “We are 
grateful to our alumni of the Master 
of Public Administration degree for 
their input as we develop this new 
program.”

Paula 
Lantz, 
professor 
and 

associate dean for academic affairs 
at the Public Policy School, said 
the school decided to update their 
program to strengthen it and 
broaden their reach to domestic and 
international students.

“The impetus behind this new 

degree was the desire to strengthen 

our reduced-credit master’s degree 
offering for people with significant 
work experience,” Lantz said. “We 
are very excited about this new 
degree offering, which we believe 
will attract people with work 
experience and an interest in public 
affairs around the world.”

Lantz 
explained 
the 
new 

program has the potential to expand 
into an executive learning format.

“Eventually we are going to 

take this degree into an executive 
format which will combine online 
and in-person learning,” Lantz 
said. “In the future, it will also be 
in an executive format and will be 
available to people working full-
time.”

Lantz said though this program 

is one of at least seven other Master 
of Public Administration degrees in 
Michigan, the Public Policy School 
will be the only Master of Public 
Affairs in Michigan and one of few 
in the country.

said Potts made reference to her 
breasts, saying she was “blessed,” 
and used the N-word. In an earlier 
instance, when she was 14, Held 
said Potts prohibited her father 
from being present in the room 
during a piercing, though nothing 
else inappropriate occurred.

“I’m very involved in the body 

modification 
community 
in 

general, and I want that to be a very 
safe place, and it’s not with this guy 
being in business,” Held said. “So, 
my biggest goal is I obviously don’t 
want him to be piercing in Ann 
Arbor or anywhere, so making 
sure –– keeping tabs on where he 
goes next is probably my biggest 
thing that I wanna focus on.”

University doctorate student 

Abby Lamb also said he brought 
up 
topics 
she 
considered 

inappropriate 
during 
the 

procedure.

“JC started out with polite, 

normal small talk about my 
work,” Lamb said. “But as soon 
as he discovered I’m a genetics 
researcher he started going on 
about ‘the genetic correlation 
between aggression and skin 
pigment,’ which is complete non-
scientific nonsense peddled by 
white supremacists to justify their 
views.”

Lamb emphasized Potts put her 

in a “creepy and uncomfortable 
situation,” 
where 
she 
didn’t 

feel like she could respond to or 
challenge his beliefs.

“He was in the process of 

changing 
my 
piercing 
when 

this came up, and I didn’t feel 
comfortable or safe objecting 
while he was handling my facial 
piercing,” Lamb explained. “He 
basically took advantage of my 
vulnerability and his position of 
relative power to both mansplain 
my field of research to me while 
trying to preach that dark skinned 
people are naturally violent.”

Following 
the 
viral 
posts, 

protesters showed up at Pangea 
Piercing 
with 
printed 
copies 

of victim statements and signs 
accusing Potts of being a Nazi. Potts 
then posted a video statement to 

Pangea Piercing’s official Youtube 
channel defending his views and 
announcing the business’s closing.

“I’ve talked about challenging 

topics and for the ultra-sensitive 
activist types, I’m sure that I 
can sound like some ‘Trumpian’ 
figure,” Potts said in his statement. 
“With a little twist and some 
embellishment, it might finally be 
the ‘actual racism’ that Ann Arbor 
has been so desperately searching 
for.”

Since Potts confirmed the 

business would be closing, Jessica 
Prozinski, 
a 
founder 
of 
the 

grassroots activist organization 
Stop Trump Ann Arbor, has talked 
with people from local businesses 
like Gamma Piercing and Eternal 
Ink about opening a new piercing 
gallery or tattoo parlor in the 
space.

“Initially I was thinking it 

would be cool if it was another 
piercing place with an owner that 
would be almost the reverse,” 
Prozinski said. “Obviously we 
don’t have the legal power to 
decide what goes next there, but 
socially we have a lot of power.”

Stop Trump Ann Arbor is 

also proposing additions to the 
Association 
of 
Professional 

Piercers’ “Piercee’s Bill of Rights,” 
which would assert that people 
undergoing piercing procedures 
have the right to not be sexualized 
or otherwise objectified in the 
piercing environment, and to have 
a friend or relative present in the 
same room during the piercing.

 “The person I talked to was 

shocked that J.C. discouraged 
people from having somebody 
come into the piercing room with 
them, including, in at least two 
cases, minor women,” Prozinski 
said.

According to Potts, his own 

career “is over.” In his video 
statement, 
however, 
Potts 

indicated 
he 
would 
continue 

posting videos to Youtube to 
discuss the topics surrounding his 
allegations.

“I’ve said quite a few times 

that I wish we, as white people, 
could ever have anything like 
representation for our interests 
that wasn’t Richard Spencer or 
David Duke,” he said. “Well, my 
career is over, so I will not be 

bringing you any more piercing 
content, but seeing as how I guess 
some of these conversations need 
to happen, then I guess we’ll be 
probably checking in with more 
videos in the future, just definitely 
not on this channel.”

Prozinski said the video made 

her worry Potts might try to turn 
himself “into some sort of white 
nationalist figure.”

Potts 
has 
also 
threatened 

legal action against some of the 
customers who have made claims 
against him, though Prozinski and 
Held don’t believe the threats are 
serious. Replying to the original 
viral tweet, Held posted an eight-
second video sent to her by another 
customer, in which Potts can 
be heard saying, “A lot of really 
powerful folks out there doing 
what they can to convince white 
folks not to breed. Okay? And if 
they do, breed with a black man…”

In response, Potts tweeted, 

“RELEASE THE REST OF THE 
VIDEO OR LAWYER UP. This is 
part of a 2 minute monologue that 
I KNEW YOU WERE FILMING. I 
remember you guys.”

Held 
said 
the 
situation 

reminded her of another in which 
dozens of people accused Detroit-
area tattoo artist Alex Boyko of 
sexual assault and harassment. 
Boyko then filed a defamation suit 
against another tattoo artist who 
he said was responsible for the 
flood of accusations.

Last month was not the first 

time Potts’s behavior has been 
called into question, however. 
Yelp reviews dating back as 
far as 2010 describe Potts as 
“bizarrely rude,” “shady,” and 
“intimidating,” 
recommending 

future customers avoid him. 
Several reviews also indicate 
customers experienced Potts as 
being racist. In a review from 
April 13, 2010, a customer wrote, 
“... my best friend told me that 
while she was there she heard 
the owner and one of the piercers 
guffawing over the fact that the 
piercer had messed with a couple 
of Indian women who had come 
in recently.”

PANGEA
From Page 1A

MASTERS
From Page 1A

LAWSUIT
From Page 1A

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