She attempted to pass it 

off as a menstrual period 
to her GSI and her family. 
However, Taylor does not get 
her periods regularly and the 
bleeding became the biggest 
red flag of a potentially violent 
experience 
to 
her 
mother. 

Taylor’s mother then reported 
the incident to the University.

Now, 
it’s 
October. 

Taylor’s 
evidence 
is 
in, 

and 
her 
statements 
have 

been collected. But she still 
doesn’t have a verdict in her 
case. And she has no idea 
when she might receive one.

***
According 
to 
the 

University’s 
student 
sexual 

misconduct 
policy, 
here’s 

what should have happened 
when Taylor’s mother first 
reported 
the 
incident 
to 

the 
Office 
of 
Institutional 

Equity 
on 
June 
20, 
2018:

Once a situation is reported 

to OIE, the Title IX coordinator 
makes an initial assessment 
of the report and ensures the 
claimant receives a written 
explanation of resources and 
options 
available 
to 
them.

After the initial assessment, 

a 
coordinator 
will 
decide 

whether to investigate the 
case, 
and 
move 
toward 
a 

formal resolution, or whether 
to move directly into finding 
alternative 
resolutions 
and 

additional 
remedies. 
The 

claimant’s wishes, the evidence 
and the code of conduct all 
play a part in the decision.

If 
the 
coordinator 

decides the case should be 
investigated, they’ll assign an 
investigator, usually a member 
of the Title IX staff, to the file. 
The investigator meets with 
the claimant, the respondent 
(the alleged abuser) and any 
relevant witnesses on separate 
occasions 
to 
offer 
them 

the opportunity to present 
information 
and 
evidence. 

During these meetings, the 
policy 
dictates 
both 
the 

claimant and the respondent 
can have an “adviser” of their 
choice — that’s code for a lawyer.

According to the policy, the 

University tries to complete 
every investigation within 60 
days, though it acknowledges 

extenuating 
circumstances 

might lengthen the timeline. 
Regardless of the length, the 
policy stipulates both parties 
will 
be 
updated 
regularly.

After 
the 
interviews 

have 
been 
conducted 
and 

the 
evidence 
collected, 

the investigator will write 
what’s called a “preliminary 
investigation 
report” 
that 

includes 
all 
the 
known 

information. 
Both 
parties 

can 
review 
the 
draft 

report, and they have five 
days 
to 
submit 
comments.

But 
in 
practice, 
the 

process isn’t so regimented.

After 
Taylor’s 
mother 

called OIE, the investigation 
officially commenced on June 
20. Taylor said she immediately 
requested a no-contact order, 
which 
meant 
neither 
she 

nor her GSI could initiate 
any 
kind 
of 
contact 
with 

each other — not in person, 
over text or on social media. 
 

As per the U-M policy, OIE 

senior 
investigator 
Daniel 

Ferency was assigned to be 
the investigator in the case. 
Taylor said Ferency reached 
out to her to ask if she wanted 
to give a statement. They 
exchanged emails to find a 
time to meet, and like the 
policy 
mandates, 
Ferency 

alerted 
Taylor 
to 
support 

resources on campus she could 
access if she wanted. He also 
said she had the right to bring 
a lawyer or any other support 
person 
to 
their 
meeting.

When she got to the meeting, 

though, Taylor was caught 
off-guard. A note-taker was 
present at the meeting, taking 
down her comments while 
Ferency questioned her on her 
experience. She said she wasn’t 
given any warning there would 
be a stranger in the room.

Shortly after the meeting 

with Ferency, she left for a 
summer study abroad trip. 
It was taking a while for 
her medical records to be 
submitted 
to 
Ferency 
as 

evidence, and she emailed him 
about it on June 27 to remind 
him she was still working 
on 
getting 
them 
to 
him.

“You should look out for your 

statement 
either 
tomorrow 

or Friday,” he replied to her 
via 
email 
that 
same 
day.

However, Taylor didn’t hear 

anything else from Ferency 
until July 16 — over three weeks 

after he said he would pass 
along her statement for review.

“When we met on June 19, 

2018, I mentioned that the 
next step in the OIE process 
would be for me to send you 
a summary of your interview 
statement for your review,” 
Ferency wrote in his email. 
“A copy of the summary is 
attached. As we discussed, you 
are not required to review this 
summary. If you choose to 
review it, it can be helpful to 
have a support person present 
… If you decide to review 
this summary, the deadline 
to provide any comments or 
suggestions you may have is 
July 18, 2018. If I don’t hear 
from you by July 18, 2018, I 
will assume you approve of the 
statement as drafted, and will 
move forward with the review.”

During 
this 
process, 

Taylor 
was 
out 
of 
the 

country, 
in 
another 
time 

zone, 
without 
anyone 

who could be an effective 
“support 
person” 
for 
her.

Taylor said she found 15 

mistakes in the report and 
sent her corrections to the 
investigator. 
Eventually, 

Ferency did grant her extra 
time 
to 
make 
corrections, 

and 
she 
turned 
in 
her 

revised copy of the statement 
as soon as she was able.

The next time she heard 

from Ferency was at the end 
of August, just after the 
60-day mark, when she shared 
him on a Google document 
containing screenshots of her 
text messages with her GSI.

Shortly after, the school 

year started. Taylor, who is 
studying music performance, 
had to audition for different 
ensemble classes. One of them 
is a required two-credit class. 
To her horror, she was placed 
in the same GSI’s band class.

After a back and forth with 

OIE and SMTD administrators, 
it 
was 
determined 
Taylor 

could get a waiver for the 
performance 
class, 
which 

meant 
she 
wouldn’t 
need 

to 
fulfill 
that 
graduation 

requirement. 
She 
said 
it 

was a devastating solution.

“That’s six hours a week of 

rehearsal,” she added. “That’s 
four or five concerts in a 
semester. That’s opportunity 
to perform your pieces, work 
with current composers, to 
go play other schools. I’m 

losing all of that while he gets 
to keep that and they don’t 
see anything wrong with it. 
(This is) my only option.”

According to Taylor, there 

are other orchestras or bands 
that need extra players, but she 
hasn’t been asked to participate.

“Instead of asking me, they’re 

asking other students that are 
also not in orchestra but I don’t 
know why they’re not asking 
me because I have nothing,” 
she 
said. 
“Those 
students 

are in band or something ... 
The guy who is head of bands 
here is, like, best friends with 
him and he has made it very 
clear that he does not like me 
and does not support me.”

The director of bands is 

Music prof. Michael Haithcock 
— the GSI’s direct supervisor. 
The Daily reached out to 
Haithcock 
for 
a 
comment. 

He declined to comment via 
email, and said he hoped the 
GSI would sue The Daily 
“if he is found innocent.” 

***
The waiver meant Taylor and 

her GSI would no longer have 
to be in the same classroom. 
But she still had other classes 
in the music school, so she ran 
into him around the building.

She recalled changing her 

shoes in her car one morning 
before class. While she was 
sitting in the car, he pulled up 
right next to her and sat there 
staring for long enough that 
Taylor became uncomfortable.

“I was pretty freaked out 

so I called [SMTD Diversity, 
Equity and Inclusion officer 
Freyja Harris] … she found 
me in my car and she actually 
walked me all the way to a 
practice room,” Taylor said.

She 
also 
had 
a 
piano 

class 
in 
the 
basement 
of 

the music school, and said 
the GSI would sit outside 
her 
class 
for 
two 
weeks.

“I 
told 
(SMTD) 
Dean 

(Mark) Clague and I know 
that 
Dean 
Clague 
had 
to 

say something to him more 
than 
once,” 
Taylor 
said. 

“But eventually he stopped.”

Throughout 
these 

experiences at the beginning 
of this school year, she was 
not in regular communication 
with 
Ferency 
or 
anyone 

from OIE. She and Ferency 
exchanged emails on Sept. 5, 
and he gave her directions on 
how to enable her lawyer to 

release medical forms on her 
behalf. But Taylor still had a 
lot of questions about how her 
case was being handled, and no 
one was offering her answers.

She finally turned to SMTD 

administrators and informed 
them of the situation. They were 
upset to find OIE had given 
administrators essentially zero 
information on the situation 
going into the school year.

Taylor said once she and 

her mom got Clague up to 
speed, they found him to be 
very 
helpful. 
However, 
he 

could only do so much, and 
by mid-September, the lack of 
communication and the drawn-
out process finally prompted 
her to request a different 
investigator. On September 18, 
Ferency emailed the student 
to let her know her case had 
been transferred to another 
OIE 
senior 
investigator, 

Suzanne 
Quinn 
McFadden. 

The 
student 
was 
hopeful 

that things would speed up. 
Instead, it was more of the 
same. She didn’t hear anything 
from McFadden until Oct. 5.

“I am writing to let you 

know that I am now working 
on your investigation with 
OIE as your case was recently 
transferred to me,” McFadden 
wrote in an email on Oct. 5. 
“I just wanted to check-in 
with you and offer an update. 
I am currently drafting the 
preliminary 
report 
which 

will be sent to you shortly.”

There was no follow-up to 

let the student know what, 
exactly, 
McFadden 
meant 

by “shortly.” At the time of 
publication of this article, the 
student still has not received 
the 
preliminary 
report.

“I don’t know. It’s been a 

while and I just haven’t seen 
it,” she said. “I haven’t even 
seen 
his 
statement, 
which 

like, it started in June — we 
should 
at 
least 
have 
each 

other’s statements by now.”

On Oct. 12, Elizabeth Seney, 

deputy Title IX Coordinator 
for 
Investigations, 
emailed 

the student to tell her the 
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
Sixth Circuit’s recent decision, 
which determined that public 
universities have to give accused 
students the opportunity to 
cross-examine 
the 
accuser 

and witnesses at an in-person 
hearing, will apply to her case.

According 
to 
an 
email 

interview 
with 
Jeffery 

Frumkin, 
the 
newinterim 

Title 
IX 
coordinator 
and 

senior director of OIE, the 
University is still developing 
the process for these hearings. 
But this likely means this 
particular investigation will 
continue to be drawn out.

Taylor is wary of what 

this process will look like.

“I don’t trust any process 

coming from this school,” she 
said. “I don’t want to do ‘the 
cross-examination.’ But I also 
don’t want him to get away free.”

SMTD is also becoming a 

hostile environment for Taylor. 
She said one of her professors 
dismissed her sexual assault 
claims during class when she 
was absent during the first 
few weeks of the fall semester. 
She 
also 
said 
Haithcock 

blocked 
her 
on 
Facebook.

But 
she 
did 
have 
some 

positive 
interactions 
with 

faculty. She confided in her 
private music teacher about 
her situation and also felt 
like she had strong contact 
with Clague. Clague referred 
The Daily to Public Affairs 
when reached for comment.

She is sometimes escorted 

from her car and to classes 
by Harris, SMTD Diversity, 
Equity 
and 
Inclusion 

officer, who Taylor said was 
also 
a 
comforting 
figure 

in 
the 
administration. 
 

Harris is unable to comment 

on specific investigations due 
to FERPA rules. She explained 
to The Daily, however, that 
while 
her 
role 
rapidly 
is 

becoming a support system for 
SMTD students and faculty, 
she needs to remind them that 
she is not always the point 
person to go to because she 
does not investigate claims.

“In order to be able to 

support someone in my ongoing 
role, I need to let them know 
who is the right person to share 
to,” she said. “I don’t want to 
muddy the water — I want to 
support them. So, it’s what I 
tell them up front — you can 
tell me anything but I am not 
going to be the one to take you 
to the rest of the process. It 
depends on the situation. I am 
trying not to create issues (for 
the students) in their process.”

facing many students today is they 
seem to orient themselves in the 
absence of adequate historical 
knowledge,” North said.

The culprits of this lack of 

knowledge 
among 
youth, 
in 

North’s view, are the educational 
institutions in which they are 
taught.

“There is an utterly reactionary 

climate that prevails in many of 
the humanities departments of 
many universities, such as the 
University of Michigan,” North 
said. “The prevailing philosophy is 
postmodernism, which … is culled 
from the basement of bourgeois 
thought. It is the most backward, 
reactionary 
and 
dishonest 
of 

all approaches to the study or 
consideration of the past.”

North 
also 
criticized 

the affirmative action policies 
of many universities, which he 
portrayed as “quota systems.” 
He said the systems facilitate 
competition among students and 
divide society while competing for 
access to higher education. The 
Supreme Court upheld the state 
of Michigan’s ban on affirmative 
action policies in 2014, claiming the 
U.S. Constitution does not give the 
judicial branch the power to decide 
whether race can be used as a fact 
in the admissions process without 
voter input.

“Students are forced to compete 

for a limited number of positions, 
with applications asking for race 
and ethnicity … We know that 
quota systems are being set up,” 
North said. “There is no way a 
quota system can ever be fair.”

North posited these campus 

issues have much to do with the 
economic standing of professors. 
He said these wages for professors 
make the educators unable to 
understand 
the 
problems 
of 

students.

“If you’re a tenured professor … 

your wealth is in the top 10 percent 

and probably closer to the top 5 
percent,” North said.

As a response, North encouraged 

students to challenge this status 
quo both at the University and 
nationwide by engaging with 
socialist theory.

“I think as young people 

are drawn into social struggle 
they will come to recognize 
the incompatibility of what is 
presented 
on 
campuses 
from 

genuine revolutionary scientific 
theory,” North said.

North’s 
criticisms 
also 

targeted 
organizations 
such 

as 
the 
Democratic 
Socialists 

of America and contemporary 
figures on the American left, 
including Sen. Bernie Sanders, 
I-Vt., and congressional candidate 
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He said 
his criticisms stemmed from their 
insufficient opposition to American 
foreign policy, as well as their focus 
on identity politics.

“A 
socialist 
who 
preaches 

national 
defense 
is 
a 
petty 

bourgeois reactionary at the service 
of the king capitalism,” North said. 
“When Bernie Sanders goes around 
defending America (and) praising 
Trump for defending America’s 
borders, he exposes himself as 
a petty bourgeois charlatan and 
reactionary.”

North decried the inadequacy 

of 
today’s 
leftist 
parties 
in 

promoting a worldwide socialist 
revolution, claiming the parties 
veer from campaign promises 
once elected.

LSA freshman Noah Streng 

said he found the event interesting 
and said engaging with socialist 
theory has changed his worldview 
since arriving at the University.

“I wish more people would 

have come out to come see it,” 
Streng said. “I started … learning 
about socialism a lot more since 
I got to college, and it’s really 
changed my perspective on the 
world pretty much upside down.”

Ang’s colleague on the study, 

Tuo-Yen 
Chen 
of 
Nanyang 

Technological 
University 
in 

Singapore, was also interested 
in how social media could alter 
pain’s role in depression.

“Social media has not been 

considered 
as 
a 
potential 

intervention 
strategy,” 
Chen 

said. “So, Shannon and I were 
wondering 
whether 
utilizing 

social 
media 
could 
lessen 

depression 
among 
individuals 

with pain.”

With 
the 
onset 
of 
such 

discomfort 
among 
elderly 

individuals, 
social 
interactions 

outside of the household naturally 
become limited. Ang and Chen 
sought to study how those affected 
could potentially be influenced by 
virtual interaction through social 
media.

Before the study, Ang and Chen 

hypothesized that social media 
usage would be helpful in relieving 
depression amid pain and that 
people might already be using 
social media to supplement their 
own social networking.

The 
basis 
of 
Ang 
and 

Chen’s research emerged from 

the National Health and Aging 
Trends Study, a publicly available 
data set that gathers information 
from more than 8,000 senior 
citizen Medicare beneficiaries.

“The purpose of NHATS is to 

foster research to guide efforts to 
reduce disability, maximize health 
and independent functioning and 
enhance quality of life at older 
ages,” Vicki Freedman, a research 
professor 
at 
the 
University’s 

Institute for Social Research’s 
Survey 
Research 
Center 
and 

a 
co-principal 
investigator 
of 

NHATS, said.

The survey asks its participants 

general questions on if they 

are 
experiencing 
feelings 
of 

depression, pain or have trouble 
falling asleep. In addition to queries 
on depressive symptoms, NHATS 
also inquires about senior citizens’ 
online activities.

For the purpose of their study, 

Ang and Chen focused mainly on 
the responses to the single question 
of if respondents had used a social 
media site in the past month. 
According to the survey, 17 percent 
of respondents had used a social 
networking platform in the past 
month.

The Michigan Daily — www.michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, October 23, 2018 — 3

THE DR AFT

SARAH KUNKEL/Daily

The Draft, an exhibition by Esmaa Mohamoud, investigates the intangibility of Blackness through issues surrounding black represenation at the South Thayer Building. 

DEPRESSION
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TITLE IX
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SOCIALISM
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