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INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 105
©2019 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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GOVERNMENT
ALYSSA MCMURTRY
Daily Staff Reporter
Panel discusses artificial intelligence in
daily life at Dissonance Event Series
Speakers analyze social implications of digital innovation on humans, society
Writer talks
history of
educational
integration
CAMPUS LIFE
Ford School book talk
series hosts UC Berkeley
Professor Rucker Johnson
ANGELINA LITTLE
Daily Staff Reporter
See BILLS , Page 3
Follow The Daily
on Instagram:
@michigandaily
Bills could
affect free
speech on
campuses
Legislation would change
guidelines for disinviting
controversial speakers
MELANIE TAYLOR
Daily Staff Reporter
An
interactive
audio-visual
installation
aiming to bring attention to opera singer
Samuel Schultz’s healing after an alleged
assault by School of Music, Theatre & Dance
professor David Daniels was unveiled in the
SMTD Soderquist Atrium this morning. The
installation is comprised of three speakers
playing recordings of Schultz sharing his side
of the story and a rolling counter projection
estimating Daniels’s pay by the University of
Michigan since he was placed on administrative
leave in August 2018.
Schultz’s allegations of rape against Daniels
and his husband Scott Waltersin 2010 broke
in a New York Daily News article published in
August 2018. Daniels was placed on leave from
the University later that month, shortly after the
allegations became public.
Further reporting by The Daily uncovered
multiple attempts by Daniels to solicit sex from
University students on Grindr, a dating app for
gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. The
Daily also found evidence the University was
made aware of sexual misconduct allegations
by University students against Daniels in March
2018, though they awarded him tenure in May.
In an email to The Daily, University
spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen wrote that
Daniels is on paid leave.
michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, April 18, 2019
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Installation
of art details
healing after
alleged assault
CAMPUS LIFE
Experience of man who accused
prof. of misconduct unveiled in
SMTD Soderquiest Atrium
CLAIRE HAO &
SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Staff Reporters
When the baristas at Mighty Good
Coffee formed a union last fall, they
intended to stop their employers from
discriminating against workers. Now
the members of the Washtenaw Area
Coffee Workers’ Association are nego-
tiating severance pay as the owners of
the local specialty coffee chain prepare
to shutter all of Mighty Good’s stores
across the city by the end of August.
The first location to close its doors will
be the Main Street location in Kerry-
town, which is slated to close Friday.
An April 15 letter from Timothy
Ryan, an attorney representing the
chain’s owners, Nic Sims and David
Myers, informed employees they were
being terminated.
“Nic and David have concluded
that they are not well suited to oper-
ate a retail operation,” the letter states.
“They have found the experience to
be overly stressful. It has created an
unworkable burden on their relation-
ship and their family.”
On Tuesday, baristas at Mighty
Good Coffee protested the termination
notice, which informed some workers
they would be losing their jobs in less
than a week. The employees demon-
strated outside of Mighty Good’s loca-
tion on South University Avenue, which
will close on May 5.
Mandy Gallegos, a barista at Mighty
Good’s Arbor Hills store, which is set to
close Aug. 31, said the workers wanted
to draw attention to what was happen-
ing at the company.
“We’re trying to let people know that
union-busting is a real thing,” Gallegos
said. “The unfortunate part in all of this
is that the Arbor Hills location will still
be open, and so the unionized baristas
will be working there, which will be
very awkward for a lot of us.”
Sims and Ryan did not respond to
multiple requests for comment. Mul-
tiple Mighty Good employees told The
Daily the owners were not responding
to any press inquiries.
The letter informing employees of
Mighty Good’s intention to shut down
all of its stores came exactly one week
after the employees’ union filed an
unfair labor practices complaint against
the company with the National Labor
Relations Board.
Gallegos said the cause of the com-
plaint was due to the fact that Mighty
Good Coffee was “short staffing their
workers.”
“Recently, we filed a ULP — which
is an unfair labor practice — against
them due to short staffing us chroni-
cally for the past few months,” Gallegas
said. “And after they got that ULP they
sent us an email via the lawyer saying
that they were closing up all four of the
shops and laying off all of the employ-
ees.”
An initial letter informing Mighty
Good of the complaint against the com-
pany was sent on April 9, according to
the NLRB case docket.
One source close to WACWA, who
asked to remain anonymous due to
ongoing negotiations with Mighty
Good, said the owners’ decision to close
seemed to be related to the filing of the
NLRB case.
“It could seem that way definitely,”
they said. “That’s one of those things
that you can never be certain about but
you’ll pretty much always suspect.”
Gallegos said the union formed in the
fall to bargain for better conditions and
equal treatment after a fellow barista
quit over accusations of racial discrimi-
nation, adding that Myers and Sims,
the company’s owners, were not happy
with the workers’ decision to form a
union.
“We
union-
ized
because
of a racial allegation against our work
where one of our coworkers — a Black
co-worker — was being underpaid com-
pared to all of our white co-workers,
so we unionized so we could just have
opportunity and equal treatment in our
workplace — better working conditions
— and unfortunately, they did not like
that,” Gallegos said. “They thought it
was retaliation, and we’ve been work-
ing toward our union contract for the
past few months with them, with the
Mighty Good owners and their lawyer.”
Nya Njee was the barista who quit.
She worked at Mighty Good for two
years, but said she left after she discov-
ered she was being paid less than her
white coworkers.
In an interview with The Daily in
August, Njee said her wages did not
increase while she worked at Mighty
Good despite receiving complementary
performance reviews. Njee said she
realized something was “kind of weird”
when she mentioned not getting a pay
raise to her owner and manager and
they looked like “deer caught in head-
lights.”
“It just kept staying with me and it
was bothering me the whole time and
so when I found that my coworkers,
like junior coworkers, some of whom
didn’t have any coffee experience, had
gotten raises before me, I was immedi-
ately like, well, that’s interesting since
I’m literally the only Black woman
in the whole company, and it was
just unfortunately pretty obvious
as soon as I heard that my junior
coworkers — non-Black coworkers
— were receiving raises before me,”
Njee said.
DESIGN BY CHRISTINE JEGARL
On
April
9,
legislators
introduced
two
bills
into
the
Michigan
House
of
Representatives
that
could
impact free speech on college
campuses.
The first of the two bills,
called the “Campus Free Speech
Act,” could affect the number
of public areas for free speech.
If a demonstration or exercise
goes against the four justifiable
reasons to limit free speech,
which are demonstrators who
are deemed a public threat,
other platforms for expression,
assembly and distribution of
literature can still occur and
the campus has no free speech
zones. If all of these criteria
are met, public universities will
have the right to intervene.
Currently, the University of
Michigan is not legally allowed
to ban speakers who use “hate
speech” from their facilities
unless they pose a threat to
the community. In February,
the University concluded that
housing staff are not allowed
to remove hate speech from
student doors.
See SMTD, Page 3
See COFFEE, Page 3
Wednesday night, more than
100 people attended a panel dis-
cussion titled “Understanding
the Social Implications of AI.”
The panel, part of the Disso-
nance Event Series, was held in
the Michigan League.
Organizing
Committee
Member Sol Bermann, chief
privacy officer and interim
chief information security offi-
cer for the University of Michi-
gan, explained Dissonance lies
at the intersection of many dif-
ferent areas of study.
“Dissonance is what I like
to call a grassroots faculty and
student effort to take a multi-
disciplinary approach to issues
at the confluence of technology,
policy, privacy, security and
law,” Bermann said.
Bermann said Dissonance
makes an effort to incorporate
perspectives from many dif-
ferent schools and organiza-
tions housed at the University.
He listed LSA, the College of
Engineering, the School of Pub-
lic Health, the School of Public
Policy, the Medical School and
the Law School as a few of the
many past participants.
“As we were putting the
series together, we wanted to
get a range of perspectives,”
Bermann said. “We didn’t just
want it to be coming from a pro
perspective or a con perspec-
tive. When you put the pro and
con together you get a sort of
clash: dissonance.”
Bermann said he believes
the University provides the
unique capacity as a world-
class research institution to
pull in-house speakers together
and provide informative panels
such as the panel on Artificial
Intelligence. He explained Dis-
sonance focuses on issues that
relate to current events, a cat-
egory in which he believes AI
falls.
“AI is increasingly a known
commodity in your daily life,
but do you even think about it
anymore?” Bermann said. “Do
you think about the way you’re
seeing the things you see on
Amazon, or on Facebook, or on
the news? Do you think about
who’s presenting those things
to you? Do you think about
what it means to have autono-
mous vehicles versus having the
responsibility of driving a car?
Do you think about the algo-
rithms and how transparent
they are or aren’t because those
algorithms, again, are influenc-
ing our daily life.”
Bermann said because col-
lege-age students are on the
cusp of the “digital age,” never
having known a time before cell
phones or the Internet, they are
less likely to question the merits
of AI.
See AI , Page 3
See EDUCATION , Page 3
KEEMYA ESMAEL/Daily
Information professor Kentaro Toyama speaks at the University Information and Technology Services-hosted event titled “Dissonance: Social
Implications of Artificial Intelligence” at the Michigan League Wednesday evening.
Spilling the
Beans
Union created after discrimination
claim fights for severance pay
following local coffee chain closure
LEAH GRAHAM
Daily News Editor
Wednesday,
Rucker
C.
Johnson,
associate
professor at the Goldman
School
of
Public
Policy
at
the
University
of
California,
Berkeley,
spoke to approximately 50
students about his new book,
“Children of the Dream: Why
School Integration Works.”
The talk was held at the
Ford School of Public Policy
as a part of the Book Talks
@ the Ford School series.
Johnson’s book, published
Tuesday,
advocates
for
school
integration
as
a
policy critical to promoting
equality.
Public
Policy
Dean
Michael
Barr
introduced
Johnson, emphasizing the
relevance of his book to
current policies.
“We’re really at a critical
moment in many ways in
our
country’s
history
as
policymakers
and
others
debate not only the future of
public education but really
the kind of society we want
to live in,” Barr said.