they worked there, or they 
work with populations –– 
women specifically –– that 
were incarcerated, and we 
just thought it was a really 
important 
conversation 
to 

bring to campus and something 
that a lot of people don’t have 
a lot of understanding about.”

 

The goal of MPDI is to 

“provide 
comprehensive 

childbirth 
education 
and 

professional doula services 
to women in Women’s Huron 
Valley Correctional Facility.” 
It collaborates with various 
organizations and encourages 
volunteer participation.

 Many of the panelists 

shared intimate experiences 
about their times in prison 
in which they felt personally 
impacted by injustices within 

the system. MPDI Executive 
Director Jacqueline Williams 
described 
the 
impact 
she 

hoped the panelists had on the 
attendees.

 “I hope what the panelists 

said 
today 
changes 
their 

perceptions of what people 
actually have to go through 
in prison,” Williams said. 
“There’s 
this 
conception 

that, 
‘Oh, 
they 
get 
fed 

three meals a day and all 
of their needs are attended 

to.’ And as you heard, 
it can sometimes take 
an 
enormous 
amount 

of 
agency 
and 
self-

advocacy 
to 
get 
even 

the 
most 
baseline 

accommodations.”

 Currently, the U.S. 

makes 
up 
about 
5 

percent of the world’s 
population. At the same 
time, 25 percent of the 
world’s prisoners reside 
in the U.S.

 In women’s prisons 

in the U.S., 85 percent 
of inmates are mothers 
and 
25 
percent 
were 

pregnant on arrest or 
gave birth within the last 
year. Based off of these 
statistics, Williams spoke 
about the most effective 
manner in which the 
U.S. should approach the 
issues within the prison 
system.

“When 
we 
think 

about health care and 
reproductive justice, it’s 
just 
unsustainable 
to 

think that we can provide 
adequate 
health 
care 

and progressive reproductive 
justice 
when 
we 
have 
so 

many people in prison and so 
many of those people are in 
prison for non-violent drug 
offenses,” 
Williams 
said. 

“There are alternatives to this 
that countries participate in 
like… more actual safety nets 
before people actually end up 
in prison. Those would be the 
most 
effective 
investments 

that we could make.”

Based 
on 
her 
own 

experiences 
incarcerated, 

panelist 
Asia 
Johnson 

highlighted the large positive 
impact students within the 
audience 
could 
make 
by 

volunteering at the prison.

“The students at U-M have 

been so instrumental in me 
becoming the woman that I am 
today,” Johnson said. “Even 
though I went to prison, I spent 
nine years of my life away, I 
feel like this is the best me that 
I’ve been in my whole life, and 
it’s only because people gave 
me their time.”

LSA 
senior 
Michele 

Laarman 
emphasized 
the 

importance 
of 
University 

students being aware of both 
reproductive 
injustice 
and 

mass incarceration.

 “Incarceration is a huge part 

of this nation,” Laarman said. 
“Not to know about stuff that’s 
going on all over the country and 
on such a massive scale, that’s 
not okay after you come out of 
a 
four-year 
degree 
program 

–– especially if you’re in social 

response to the comments.

According 
to 
Rackham 

student 
Kamaria 
Porter, 

whose research focuses on 
reporting 
sexual 
assault, 

this new proposal drastically 
limits the places that can 
be investigated to strictly 
on-campus sites.

In 2015, the University of 

Michigan 
Climate 
Survey 

found that 41.2 percent of non-
consensual sex occurred off 
campus for undergraduates 
and 72 percent for graduate 
students. Porter said limiting 
the 
scope 
would 
exclude 

the majority of cases and 
continue to perpetuate sexual 
misconduct and violence. She 
also claimed such restrictions 
open up opportunities for the 
University to avoid liability 
and put multiple harmful 
cases on the backburner.

Another 
big 
change 

in 
the 
new 
regulations 

was 
the 
definition 
of 

sexual 
harassment. 
In 

previous years, the Obama 
administration 
worked 
to 

broaden the definition, as 
well as increase guidelines 
to 
include 
the 
rights 
of 

transgender 
students. 

However, the new reforms 
roll back the safeguards for 
transgender student rights 
and narrow the definition. 

Now, only incidents that are 
deemed “severe” enough can 
be investigated. 

According 
to 
Sandra 

Levitsky, 
an 
associate 

professor in the Department 
of Sociology, the line for 
severity 
follows 
a 
very 

strict legal standard which 
eliminates many cases.

“Almost no cases will fall 

under the new definition — 
it’s really rigid,” Levitsky 
said.

According 
to 
Porter, 

the new proposal seeks to 
legalize the hearing process. 
All cases will now include a 
live hearing where both sides 
are mandated to go through 
cross-examinations. A similar 

decision was made by the Sixth 
Circuit Court last September 
which 
mandates 
the 

University 
adopt 
similar 

practices 
to 
the 
new 

regulation.

“It’s making it look like 

even more of a criminal 
trial-like 
procedure 
than 

an 
educational 
procedure 

you would find in a student 
conduct 
hearing,” 
Porter 

said. “The people running 
it 
— 
higher 
educational 

professionals — aren’t trained 
to be lawyers, be judges and 
operate in a criminal legal 
space. 
They’re 
educators, 

they want to help students 
go beyond their worst act. 
And they want to support 
students to heal in order to 
access education. The process 
doesn’t match the people that 
will be doing it.”

Porter 
said 
the 
move 

towards 
mandating 
cross-

examinations also introduces 
new problems of inequality 
and 
accessibility, 
claiming 

discrepancies between legal 
representatives and advisers 
in a misconduct case may 
make the decision process 
unfair.

“The 
new 
regulation 

doesn’t account for the power 
and 
resource 
differences 

between the parties,” Porter 
said. “This affects both sides.” 

In 
the 
wider 
political 

sphere, the opportunity to 
comment on a policy is not 
unique to the Department 

of Education. But due to the 
legal obligation the agency 
has to read every comment 
that is sent, Porter said it 
is essential for students to 
participate in the notice and 
comment process.

LSA 
sophomore 
Quinn 

Riley said the new regulations 
were mentioned in class but 
she wanted to actively work to 
reverse the new policies.

“My 
women’s 
studies 

course touched briefly on 
the new regulations,” Quinn 
said. “And I felt like it was 
my responsibility to be more 
informed 
as 
opposed 
to 

skimming the surface of a 
subject. They highlighted the 
fact that certain groups are 
marginalized by the proposed 
regulations and that’s what 
I’m going to be focusing my 
comment about.”

In 
the 
last 
hour, 
the 

event transitioned into an 
open space where audience 
members were encouraged to 
talk among each other and ask 
questions as they formulated 
their 
comments. 
Levitsky 

said the event hoped to create 
a strong voice against the 
regulation proposal that the 
Department 
of 
Education 

can’t ignore.

“This 
opportunity 
is 
a 

collective 
action 
to 
make 

sure that voices are heard by 
the Department of Education 
and our federal government,” 
Levitsky said.

2 — Tuesday, December 4, 2018
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TUESDAY:
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“The new 
regulation 

doesn’t account 
for the power 
and resource 
differences 
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parties”

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