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Tuesday, April 9, 2019 — 3

In an interview with The Daily, 
LSA freshman Andrew Gerace 
suggested that while this was 
an important step to address 
concerns over sexual misconduct, 
more should be done by SMTD to 
address this issue.
“I think it will help students 
feel more comfortable. And that’s 
an important step to take,” Gerace 
said. “But I think what the music 
school needs to grapple with is the 
gray, squishy areas.”
Gerace also expressed surprise 
at how this policy was being 
implemented thus far. Despite 
being a member of the Jazz Lab 
Ensemble, he said he had heard 
nothing about this policy from 

faculty or students around SMTD.
“I am baffled by the fact that the 
music school continues to try and 
talk about transparency, and even 
with a policy that is literally trying 
to augment physical transparency, 
they’re still going behind the 
students’ backs,” Gerace said. 
Besides this new door policy, 
SMTD has taken multiple steps 
recently 
to 
address 
sexual 
misconduct 
concerns. 
They 
announced the formation of a 
Faculty and Staff Allies Network 
(FASAN) 
intended 
to 
change 
campus culture by improving 
communication and transparency 
regarding sexual misconduct and 
gender bias.
“The Faculty and Staff Allies 
Network … is a volunteer effort by 
SMTD faculty and staff to discuss 
and address issues across SMTD 

concerning 
sexual 
misconduct, 
equality, and safety. To date, it 
has supported dialogue, faculty 
and staff training efforts,” Clague 
wrote. “We expect FASAN to 
continue into next academic year 
and beyond. Its efforts are vital for 
the SMTD community.”
As part of this effort, SMTD 
also held a panel discussion in mid-
November featuring University 
administrators 
around 
sexual 
misconduct. In late-February, the 
school held another event around 
sexual misconduct. Yet despite 
pledges at these events of increased 
transparency between students 
and faculty, Gerace expressed 
surprise that SMTD administrators 
had not announced these changes 
being planned SMTD buildings.
“I think the dialogue needs 
to be continuous,” Gerace said. 

“After that panel we were told we 
would be informed about steps 
that would be taken regarding this 
issue, but here we go, learning from 
hearsay, instead of getting direct 
messaging from the University. 
… it’s connecting back to letting 
students know what’s going on, 
recognizing mistakes are made in 
both the way this was handled, in 
the way the situation was allowed 
to occur, recognizing the fact that 
situations have occurred, not just 
that this is ‘heightened awareness 
around sexual assault.’ ”
The Daily spoke with a current 
SMTD faculty member about this 
change. They requested anonymity 
in order to speak candidly about 
the new policy without fear of 
profession repercussions.
“My priority is that our students 
feel safe,” the faculty member 

said. “If having a larger window in 
the door of our studios helps our 
students feel more safe, I believe 
we should spare no expense.”
The faculty member noted that 
while SMTD has seen many public 
allegations 
recently 
of 
sexual 
misconduct, these concerns are 
not unique to the University of 
Michigan.
“It does feel a little bit to me 
like an optics reactions to the 
accusations that we have seen at 
our school,” the faculty member 
said. “And my hope is that what this 
does is sparks a larger conversation 
across the country because this 
bad behavior is not exclusive to 
the University of Michigan, by 
any means. And my hope is that 
we can have more broad actions 
in academia with regards to what 
systems are in place that enable bad 

behavior.”
Clague 
also 
wrote 
of 
the 
changes that need to take place 
both at the University and in the 
larger performing arts community 
as it works to address heightened 
concerns 
around 
sexual 
misconduct.
“It’s also important to note that 
the changes needed at SMTD and 
in the performing arts industry as 
a whole will not be solved by any 
one action or person. It will take 
a commitment from everyone,” 
Clague wrote. “At SMTD, we see 
all faculty, staff and students as 
vital and necessary partners to 
make our community stronger and 
safer. We need everyone’s help to 
address issues of sexual justice 
with courage and action.”

SMTD
From Page 1

“And many people within 
GEO hold such positions, so in 
addition to being GSIs (graduate 
student instructors), they might 
have other paid positions that are 
affected by this … you know, all of 
us as GSIs as GSSAs, as graduate 
students taking courses, are part 
of a broader U of M community. 
And it’s important for us to show 
solidarity invested in creating 
an equitable, safe and inclusive 
University community.”
The 
working 
group 
is 
a 
collaboration between GEO and 
other 
student 
organizations, 
including UMich Behind Bars 
and the Carceral State Project. 
While the working group is still 
in its founding stages, Helps 
said the goals of the group 
are to amplify what work is 
already being done, to draw 
more attention to the policy and 
to foster an environment for 
productive dialogue about the 
effects of the policy and others 
like it.
The felony disclosure policy 
has garnered a lot of criticism 
from 
different 
groups 
on 
campus. Some say it violates due 
process and disproportionately 
targets minority communities 
through flaws in the criminal 
justice system. The Carceral 
State Project released an open 
letter to the University on the 
policy, and it currently has 
1,867 signatures. In addition, 
the University administration 
has 
been 
criticized 
by 
the 
Senate Advisory Committee on 
University Affairs for not asking 
for their input on the policy 
before its implementation.
Helps echoed these concerns 
and said the University has other 
policies regarding people who 
have a criminal history that is 
not made public. He said the 
University should be moving 
towards banning the box and 
stopping 
background 
checks 
rather 
than 
implementing 

policies like the felony disclosure 
policy.
“In addition to the most recent 
policy, the University also has 
a number of policies, many 
(of) which are not public, that 
prevent people with criminal 
convictions or felony convictions 
or felony charges from attending 
the University and working for 
the University,” Helps said. “It’s 
my hope, personally, to see them 
actually align the set of policies 
that exist at the University more 
with the best practices of the 
Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, the Department of 
Education and what many other 
universities are doing.”
Helps said he hopes the 
University administration will 
become more transparent and 
make all policies regarding the 
criminal justice system available 
to the public. He feels policy 
should be rescinded and replaced 
with a new one that does not 
further criminalize those with a 
criminal history.
“We 
know 
what 
policies 
would actually address sexual 
harassment and sexual assault, 
and this policy isn’t that, you 
know,” Helps said. “So, my 
hope is that we would be able to 
have the University first make 
those policies publicly available, 
because many of them are not, 
and then begin to address those 
policies and make them much 
more in line with what the 
general trend amongst employers 
and 
institutions 
of 
higher 
learning is.”
University 
President 
Mark 
Schlissel addressed the policy at 
the University’s Board of Regents 
meeting on March 28. He said 
the policy was created with the 
intention of keeping the campus 
safe. He noted the University has 
been doing background checks 
during the application process for 
six years and this policy does not 
mean an employee who disclosed 
a felony charge or conviction 
would face consequences.
“University 
leaders 
believe 
that information about a faculty 
or 
staff 
member’s 
criminal 
activity helps us maintain a 

safe 
community,” 
Schlissel 
said. “We’ve been obtaining 
such information on most new 
employees by way of a pre-
employment background check 
since 2013. The new policy 
requires disclosure of current 
felony charges and convictions 
by current employees. To be 
absolutely 
clear: 
History 
of 
a felony conviction does not 
automatically 
prevent 
an 
applicant 
from 
working 
at 
the University, nor would it 
necessarily result in a current 
employee losing their job.”
Schlissel 
then 
cited 
an 
example of a situation when 
the policy would be useful. 
He addressed aspects of the 
controversy 
surrounding 
the 
policy and stated the University 
will review the cases closely to 
assure it does not have a stronger 
impact on minority groups.
“Knowing about a serious 
criminal 
charge 
allows 
the 
University to take timely action 
in instances where there could 
be a significant risk of harm in 
the workplace,” Schlissel said. 
“For instance, if a staff member 
who works with or near children 
is being prosecuted for or is being 
convicted of felony assault of a 
child, a disclosure would allow 
us to remove the individual 
from that environment. We will 
carefully monitor the results of 
this new policy to make sure it 
does not have disproportionate 
effects on specific subsets of our 
community.”
LSA junior Hannah Agnew, a 
student organizer with UMich 
Behind Bars, said despite what 
the University says about this 
policy, it will inherently impact 
minority 
populations 
more 
significantly due to the nature of 
the criminal justice system.
“Inevitably, 
even 
if 
the 
University is saying that they’re 
not going to target people of color 
or low-income status, that is what 
the carceral state does in the way 
that it functions,” Agnew said. 
“Inevitably, people that have 
convictions are people of color or 
low-income communities, those 
are the communities that tend to 

be over policed and surveilled, so, 
inevitably it is those people and 
those groups that the University 
is going to deter through this 
policy and target. There is no 
way to really separate those 
communities from this policy 
because they’re the ones that 
disproportionately have prior 
convictions and records.”
GEO President Emily Gauld, 
a Rackham student, said GEO 
is 
a 
union 
that 
advocates 
for 
all 
University 
students 
to make the University the 
most 
conducive 
environment 
for 
higher 
education. 
Gauld 
discussed how GEO decided to 
get involved regardless of the 
policy’s impact on members of 
the union because it does impact 
graduate students not part of 
GEO and other members of the 
University community due to 
the disproportionate effects the 
criminal justice system has on 
people of color and those of lower 
socioeconomic status.
“We recognize that the policy 
has a lot of reasons, a lot of 
concerns, that kind of revolve 
around the existing biases in 
the 
criminal 
justice 
system 
and the implications that a 
policy like this could have for 
not only our members but the 
broader University community,” 
Gauld said. “And we are really 
dedicated to finding a solution 
that would avoid putting an 
unwanted or unnecessary extra 
barrier for graduate student 
workers that are already facing a 
difficult system, so we recognize 
the problems with it.”
Gauld 
said 
while 
GEO 
understands why the University 
administration 
created 
this 
policy, they also believe there 
is a more effective way for the 
University to achieve its goal.
“We 
also 
recognize 
that 
our members and many others 
have said that they recognize 
that there are reasons that the 
University might create a policy 
like this and we’re also interested, 
you know,” Gauld said. “We want 
to acknowledge those reasons 
but also find a better solution for 
what exactly it is the University’s 

trying to achieve and we don’t 
feel like this policy is the best 
means to do that.”
Helps 
discussed 
the 
importance of collaborating with 
other organizations on campus 
through this working group. He 
said the felony disclosure policy 
impacts everyone on campus and 
claimed the University did not 
ask for any input from the expert 
faculty and staff or students who 
would be affected by it.
“We are the flagship public 
university in the state, and 
so this is an opportunity to 
overcome all sorts of silos that we 
end up in, and to actually points 
to a way in which this policy, 
which was, you know, totally 
arbitrarily and un-transparently, 
undemocratically, 
and 
very 
quietly forced through,” Helps 
said. “This is the type of policy 
that affects all of us in that it’s 
an opportunity to think about 
what we have in common as 
people who play different roles 
within the University but who 
are all, nonetheless, affected by 
this policy that’s being forced 
upon us without any of our input 
in telling the University what 
policies would actually make us 
feel safe.”
Gauld 
said 
GEO 
has 
an 
obligation to advocate for the 
well-being 
of 
all 
graduate 
employees at the University 
of Michigan. She said having 
multiple student groups come 
together 
to 
pressure 
the 
University to rescind the policy 
magnifies the strength of their 
voices.
“I think that it’s important for 
all of the student groups to get 
involved because it’s very much 
the reason that organizations like 
GEO and other student groups 
exist because we have a better 
chance of having a voice when we 
all voice that together, when we 
come together,” Gauld said. “So 
I think that, especially GEO as a 
labor union, has a responsibility 
for us to stand up for our 
members who might be facing 
unnecessary discrimination in 
the workplace because of a policy 
like this.”

GEO
From Page 1

2016 LSA graduate Arnold Reed, 
who was president of BSU during 
the #BBUM movement, said the 
opening of the new Trotter Center 
exemplifies the power and reach 
of students’ voice on campus. 
However, he cautioned that it may 
be too early to understand what 
the development of the new center 
means in terms of the University’s 
responsiveness to Black students’ 
needs.
“It shows that students coming 
together are extremely powerful 
and so if you come together and 
unite, you never know what’s going 
to happen,” Reed said. “... I think 
it shows that the administration, 
they pledged the money, they got 
this thing built, and it’s right on 
State Street. So I think that they are 
responsive to student needs, but like 
I said again, that was something 
that came after years and years of 
activism. We’ll see what it means. 
It could be too early to tell, we’ll 
have to see how the building is used, 
who’s using it, for what purposes. 
If it fulfills its mission of Trotter 
Multicultural Center, I think that’s 
the biggest thing.”
LSA sophomore Thomas Vance, 
the Seba on BSU’s e-board, said the 
best metric to use when measuring 
the University’s responsiveness is if 
they have met the demands, or are 

attempting to meet them.
“Having our records in the 
Bentley and more transparency 
around conversations that were 
happening during Black Action 
Movements, that’s a plus, and the 
new Trotter on State Street is also 
a plus,” Vance said. “But things like 
trying to increase Black recruitment 
and retention … are pretty damning, 
and very telling, because they reflect 
this possible resource disparity, 
or possible lack of attention to the 
needs of Black students.”
Vance 
said 
he 
can’t 
say 
definitively whether the University 
has met the needs of Black students 
on campus.
“While student organizations are 
doing what they can to advocate for 
the community that they represent, 
at some point that all needs to come 
from the University, and I’m not 
sure if there’s a solid answer as to if 
are they are meeting the needs (of 
Black students),” Vance said.
Reed said he was surprised the 
new center was built so soon.
“When you’re a group of students 
and you’re trying to make change, 
you definitely expect the University 
to listen to you, to have some 
dialogue,” Reed said. “But then, 
for the change where it’s multiple 
millions of dollars and involves 
breaking ground and building a new 
building … In my wildest dreams 
and expectations, I still don’t know 
if I necessarily imagined the new 
building being built so quickly. I 

knew this was the type of demand 
where I wouldn’t necessarily be on 
campus to see it through to fruition, 
but I didn’t think it would happen 
within 10 years.”
2018 LSA graduate Haleemah 
Aqel, 
program 
coordinator 
at 
the 
Program 
on 
Intergroup 
Relations and an activist in the 
Arab-American 
community, 
toured Trotter with her office and 
noticed a collage dedicated to the 
#BBUM movement. Aqel said that 
those who enter the building can 
“automatically 
understand” 
the 
history of the history of the BBUM 
movement, as well as other activist 
movements featured on separate 
walls. 
Aqel 
said 
she 
appreciated 
#BBUM’s important role in securing 
a centralized location for Trotter. 
She also noted how Arab-American 
activism, such as the #WeExist 
and #UMDivest campaigns, was 
not featured on the walls, although 
she said this may be updated in the 
coming years.

“I think one of the things they 
were trying to push is that activism 
will always grow on this campus, so 
we want to adjust our walls to reflect 
the history,” Aqel said. “I was kind 
of surprised that #UMDivest wasn’t 
on there, or #WeExist, but at the 
same time I recognize how #BBUM 
was really the big push to have this 
space over here on State Street.”
Cardena said the images adorning 

the walls are current through 
October 2017 and the center intends 
to update the graphics on a regular 
basis.
“To address potential concern 
over inclusion of images from 
#WeExist or #UMDivest, there will 
be opportunities as materials from 
those important student movements 
as well others are chronicled by 
the Bentley Historical Library and 
are available to us to include in 
future wall graphic iterations in the 
Sankofa Lounge,” Cardena said.
LSA junior Dim Mang, incoming 
co-chair for the United Asian 
American Organizations, said the 
new location will make it easier for 
new students to attend events and 
participate in the activities offered 
by Trotter.
“I’m really excited just to be able 
to walk a couple of minutes to new 
Trotter, instead of having to go 
all the way down South U,” Mang 
said. “I think that when you have a 
centralized location, more people 
are bound to show up because 
you can just see the building. 
Even people who aren’t in those 
communities are able to show up to 
events.”
Aqel said the new location may 
attract students who would not 
usually visit the center.
“I think it will be interesting, 
one, to see who goes into the space,” 
Aqel said. “Because the Trotter 
on Washtenaw, it was always just 
people of color. But now that you 

have this Trotter on State Street, I’m 
wondering if more white students 
will go into the space, how inclusive 
it’ll be. I think so long as students 
recognize the history of the space 
and why the space moved to State 
Street, I think it’s fine. But I also 
see this space being for students 
of color and students who have 
worked effortlessly within different 
activism 
movements 
on 
this 
campus.”
Aqel said she appreciated the 
thought put into the space. As 
a student, she worked toward 
increasing the number of reflection 
rooms on campus, which many 
Muslim students use to pray. When 
Aqel toured Trotter with the IGR 
office, she was happy to find a 
reflection room, along with a station 
for wudu, which Muslim students 
use to wash themselves before 
prayer.
“It’s small, there could be more, 
but it’s something, because there 
isn’t anything on this campus, or 
other campuses in general, that 
have something like that,” Aqel said. 
“So I was just like, ‘Wow.’ And I was 
going with the rest of my coworkers, 
and they were just really happy to 
see my reaction, because we had 
been working so hard to create more 
reflection spaces, and then Trotter 
really spent a lot of time thinking 
about what Muslim students would 
need, or other students who would 
be using this space.”
LSA sophomore Ronnie Alvarez, 

co-director of La Casa, said he 
appreciates how Trotter prioritized 
student needs.
“They 
have 
specific 
rooms 
that cannot be reserved at all by 
offices, so it’s just for students,” 
Alvarez said. “And they also always 
prioritize us — student events — 
over any other reservations. The 
director of Trotter, he let a lot of the 
cultural student orgs know, ‘Yo, this 
is a space for you, and as soon as the 
Trotter opening week begins, we 
want to include all of you.’”
The opening will be followed by 
the Trotter Grand Extravaganza 
— two weeks of events to celebrate 
the new space. Vance said the 
Extravaganza seeks to remind 
students that Trotter is not just a 
study space, but a space with a hard-
fought, unique history.
“One of the things we were 
concerned about is, well, we don’t 
want Trotter to just become a 
new study space,” Vance said. 
“The history of it, and how hard 
organizations have had to work for 
it, we didn’t want that history to 
be lost by students thinking it was 
just another study space, which 
is why we engaged in intentional 
programming to make sure that, 
at least during the grand opening, 
it’s not used as a study space, but 
rather used as a place that these 
organizations can get together and 
have a place for their communities.”

TROTTER
From Page 1

According 
to 
Sergeant 
Kevin Gilmore, a Novi police 
detective, police brought in 
Ackerman around 5:30 p.m. 
on Jan. 2 after he got in an 
accident in stop-and-go traffic.
“He rear ended someone 
near Beck (Road) and 10 Mile,” 
Gilmore said. “The officer 
got there and noticed that 
Mr. Ackerman’s eyes were 
bloodshot and glossy and he 
had slurred speech. Talking 
to him, he had the odor of 
intoxicants coming from his 
vehicle and from his person.”
Gilmore also explained that 
while Ackerman’s actions were 
reckless and dangerous, such 
arrests are made relatively 
frequently in law enforcement.
“It was nothing out of the 
ordinary in our line of work — 
a car accident where someone 
ended up being intoxicated, 
we 
arrested 
him, 
held 
him, released him the next 
morning,” Gilmore said.
In the weeks following the 
arrest, 
however, 
Ackerman 
neglected 
to 
inform 
his 
constituents and fellow Ann 
Arbor councilmembers, only 
disclosing 
information 
to 
fellow 
councilmembers 
on 
March 27, followed by an April 
1 City Council statement.
“This happened nearly three 
months ago,” Ackerman said in 
the statement to City Council. 
“I did not disclose any of this to 
anyone at this table until this 
past Wednesday. I recognize, 
that as public officials, we walk 
a fine line between what should 
and should not be private. I 
considered this a private part 
of my life because these events 
were a wake-up call. They 
were a wake-up call that I had 
a serious, and now diagnosed 
health issue — Severe Alcohol 
Dependence.”

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

DUI
From Page 1