Ken Kollman, a professor of
political science, is familiar with
constitutional law and believes
it’s best for free speech to be
uninhibited until it becomes
threatening.
“I think like most faculty I’m
generally in favor of free speech
unless it’s dangerous and incites
violence,” Kollman said. “When
possible, when there’s no threat
to the people or the public order,
then it’s better to allow people to
speak on campuses.”
The second bill, the “College
Campus
Intellectual
and
Expressive
Freedom
Act,”
provides standards to ensure
protections
for
free
speech,
with nine different statements
with which universities would
have to update their policies. For
instance, anyone who is brought
in by an organization or faculty
member would be allowed to
speak.
This would allow controversial
figures — such as conservative
commentator Ben Shapiro, who
spoke at the University in March
— to visit campus with fewer
obstacles.
Vidhya Aravind, School of
Information graduate student,
worked on the #StopSpencer
campaign when white nationalist
Richard Spencer attempted to
visit the University last year.
Aravind said she finds the bills
ridiculous and believes they
would only allow for more hate
speech on campus.
Aravind had invited Alice
Walker, an American novelist
and activist, to speak on campus
back in 2013, but her visit was
canceled due to her involvement
with the Boycott, Divestment
and
Sanctions
movement,
a
Palestinian-led
campaign
seeking “justice in Israel.”
“The University does not give
platforms to marginalized view
points,” Aravind said. “It doesn’t
give platforms in particular to
Palestinian students and the
University does give an ear to
conservative white students far
more regularly.”
Aravind
said
she
finds
the second bill in particular
extremely
ineffective
and
ignorant of the real reason
behind student protests.
“Part of the point of student
protests is to be disruptive,”
Aravind said. “When we protest
we’re
drawing
attention
to
things that people are otherwise
ignoring and typically that’s
after trying to fight for change in
other avenues.”
Ultimately,
Aravind
said
she doesn’t think the bills will
be effective and would not be
surprised if the bills did not
make it past the governor’s desk.
State Rep. Yousef Rabhi,
D-Mich., told The Daily in a
previous interview on April
3 that members of the House
are concerned with outside
organizations
using
public
universities to share their
hate.
“I
think
at
least
(for)
Democratic
politicians,
it’s
definitely
been
something
that’s high on the radar and
that people are aware of,” Rabhi
said. “Especially for folks who
represent
campuses,
because
a lot of these hate groups are
coming to university campuses to
spread their hateful messages.”
Rabhi told The Daily that he
personally is involved in crafting
civil rights legislation that would
fight hate speech, as well as the
hate organizations themselves.
Rabhi is worried, however,
that some representatives are
protecting hate speech by filing
it under free speech.
“Some
of
the
negative
legislation
coming
up,
it
generally is under the guise of
free speech,” Rabhi said. “So
often times people who are
wanting to support and defend
these organizations like the
American Freedom Law Center
and others are doing it with
the guise of free speech and
saying
that
universities
and
other
organizations
denying
the opportunity for hate speech
to occur is a violation of free
speech.”
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, April 18, 2019 — 3
DISC DISTINGUISHE D LECTURE
RUCHITA IYER/Daily
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed speaks on politics, empathy, and Muslim identities at the DISC Distinguished Lecture in Weiser Hall
Wednesday afternoon.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
BILLS
From Page 1A
Njee demanded the com-
pany provide her with back
pay to compensate her for
the hours she worked with
lower
wages
than
those
given to her coworkers. She
said she filed complaints
with the Michigan Depart-
ment of Civil Rights and the
Equal Employment Oppor-
tunity
Commission
and
planned to reach out to “as
many employment discrimi-
nation and wage and hour
departments and agencies
as I can.”
“At that point, I was like,
‘I’m sorry but I don’t work
here because I like you, I
work here for money, to be
able to pay my bills,’ so I
decided to walk out, to leave
my job,” Njee said. “... I was
just not comfortable what-
soever at that point. It was
making me physically ill to
be in that space and to be
around them.”
According to VICE, Njee
hired a lawyer and Mighty
Good agreed to a settle-
ment at the end of 2018. In
an interview with The Daily
on Thursday, Njee said she
had signed a nondisclosure
agreement
with
Mighty
Good and declined to com-
ment further.
In a statement posted to
Mighty Good’s Twitter on
Aug. 4, the day after Njee
quit the job, the company
said if changes were needed
to improve the business for
employees and customers,
they would make them.
“We are deeply concerned
about serious and disturb-
ing allegations of race dis-
criminations that have been
made about our family busi-
ness,” the statement read.
“Our value system drives
our decisions and how we
operate at every level. We
have always strived to be
inclusive,
supportive
and
invested in our staff’s suc-
cess and professional devel-
opment.”
The company said they
did not plan to make any
further public postings, and
have not posted on their
Twitter account since then.
The letter sent to Mighty
Good’s employees on Mon-
day offered them the oppor-
tunity to discuss a closing
agreement
with
Mighty
Good’s owners and their
attorney on Tuesday.
LSA
sophomore
Elias
Khoury,
a
member
of
Democratic
Socialists
of
America and a former staff
member for The Daily, said
he attended the meeting out
of solidarity. He said about
10
union
members
were
present, in addition to Sims
and Ryan. He called the
atmosphere “tense,” noting
the two parties agreed that
if Mighty Good were ever
to reopen, there would be
preferential hiring for cur-
rent employees. However,
according to Khoury, the
consensus ended there.
“That was something that
the lawyer was totally on
board with, but the main ask
was the severance and they
were not agreeing on that
at all, and the workers were
getting pretty upset and I
could tell that the lawyer
was getting kind of squea-
mish because it was him
versus these 10 disgruntled
workers,” Khoury said. “He
wasn’t
comfortable
with
that at all. Like I said earli-
er, the meeting was tense. It
was not as if as though there
was a lot of agreement, no
one was saying kumbaya.”
Gallegos said severance
pay was one of WACWA’s
primary demands.
“All we can do is spread
the word about unions, let
people
know
that
union
busting is a real thing and
work for equal treatment,”
Gallegos said. “We’re just
trying to get severance for
the employees that are being
laid off immediately.”
Alice Tracey contributed
to reporting on this story.
SMTD
From Page 1
“If you’re not thinking that
there’s
not
some
inherent
risk in the ‘Big Brother’ in a
machine doing things to you,
then we’re doing you a misser-
vice,” Bermann said.
Business
freshman
Ian
Cooper attended the Disso-
nance panel to take part in the
exploration Bermann fears
students are missing. Cooper
is enrolled in an engineer-
ing course where he has been
forced to think critically about
AI. He told The Daily after the
event that he came across an
announcement on the Hap-
pening at Michigan webpage
for the Dissonance event and
thought it would be a proper
supplement to his classwork.
“AI
is
basically
chang-
ing the world as we know
it,” Cooper said. “All of these
distinguished
professionals
in different fields can really
inform the way we think about
it.”
Cooper appreciated Disso-
nance’s attention to interdis-
ciplinary exploration of the
issue.
“It seems like a lot of people
are just saying AI is going to
ruin the economy and automa-
tion is going to make everyone
jobless,” Cooper said. “I’m
wondering if maybe some of
these people will have more
optimistic viewpoints.”
Panelist Ella Atkins, an
aerospace engineering pro-
fessor,
addressed
Cooper’s
concern about job loss during
her presentation. From the
perspective of her work with
autonomous
aircrafts,
she
has seen a reorganization of
labor rather than a loss of jobs.
She said there are the same
amount of people being hired,
but the jobs they are doing
require a more advanced edu-
cation and elite technology.
“A lot of people are work-
ing together to solve prob-
lems that will make money for
the company and hopefully
benefit society,” Atkins said.
“They’re just doing different
jobs.”
Atkins presented on the
neutrality
of
technology,
explaining it is not inherently
good or bad. Atkins said tech-
nology serves the purpose of
those humans who employ it,
no matter whether it is con-
structive or regressive to soci-
ety.
“It’s more complicated than
not liking the AI, because peo-
ple have a long history of also
doing some pretty good and
some scary things,” Atkins
said. “We expect the same
thing from the AI agents … If
we begin imagining all of the
scary things that AI can do,
maybe we forget two things.
One, the scary things people
can do, and the second thing is
how the AI on the things like
drones can help stop the scary
things.”
Panelist
Kentaro
Toya-
ma,
professor
of
informa-
tion, began his presentation
by
emphasizing
the
other
perspective
of
technology
being neutral and malleable
by human beings. Toyama
presented a graph detailing
how although technology has
expanded rapidly over the
course of the past decade,
the poverty rate in America
has remained stagnant. He
said technology exacerbates
inequality due to the human
promotion of inequality.
“Technology, for the most
part, amplifies other human
forces,” Toyama said.
Toyama
said
he
thinks
technology has also deepened
the country’s political divide
because it provides a platform
on which the conflict can
brew.
“It’s entirely up to the
human beings in terms of how
the technology gets used,”
Toyama said. “It could be
positive, it could be negative.
If we’re really confident it’s
always going to be positive, I
don’t see any reason why we
shouldn’t develop more tech-
nology. On the other hand, if
you have some doubts about
that, we should be very care-
ful.”
Toyama equated the power
of AI to the danger a nuclear
bomb
presents
to
society.
Toyama said AI could be even
more dangerous — there are
only nine countries across the
world with nuclear weapons,
but AI is ever-present and
growing more ubiquitous as
technology continues to prog-
ress.
“There’s always going to be
a cat and mouse game in terms
of security versus people doing
bad things online.” Toyama
said. “...The law always tends
to be behind the technology,
and so for that reason, I think
we need to have regulation in
place that is actually a little
conservative.”
Bermann said the purpose
of Dissonance is to spark
thought and conversation.
“When I was a child and
watched cartoons like The
Jetsons, they were science fic-
tions shows,” Bermann said.
“If you had told me that the
world today would be full of
AI and autonomous this and
that, I would have thought
that was the most wonderful
thing ever, but it’s not been as
bright and rosy a scene as the
cartoons and movies depict-
ed it to be. Instead, there are
many dystopian things that
are related to artificial intel-
ligence.”
Bermann said he hopes
the panel event encouraged
attendees
to
question
AI,
believing it is both a problem
and a solution.
“I don’t think any of us,
particularly in the AI space,
presume to know the out-
comes yet, but we want to get
people thinking about are we
comfortable having machines
making
decisions
on
our
behalf?” Bermann said.
COFFEE
From Page 1
AI
From Page 2
“David
Daniels
remains
on paid leave,” Broekhuizen
wrote.
“How
long
a
U-M
employee stays on paid leave is
determined by the individual
situation in each case and when
facts may develop that have
an impact on an employment
decision.”
The installation has been
approved to remain up until
April
25.
Titled
“Pulling
Strings,”
it
features
three
speaker boxes with strings
dangling
from
them.
The
speakers play many overlapping
recordings of Samuel Schultz
reading his statement on the
alleged rape, which is published
on Schultz’s website. When one
pulls on the strings, the other
recordings fade away until only
a single voice is left.
In an interview with The
Daily, Music, Theatre & Dance
senior Fisher Diede, the creator
of the installation, explained
how
the
interactive
aspect
highlights the abuse of power
by large institutions through
the metaphor “pulling strings.”
“The
title
of
the
piece,
‘Pulling Strings,’ plays off the
metaphor of pulling strings in
positions of power and that is
represented in the piece through
hanging strings that the user is
invited to pull on,” Diede said.
“The way pulling strings affects
the audio is directly playing on
a metaphor that when certain
strings are pulled certain voices
are quieted or eliminated.”
In front of the speakers and
above the entrance to McIntosh
Theatre, a projection updates
Daniels’
salary
since
being
placed on paid leave. The figure
has reached over $114,000 as of
the date of publication. Diede
said the figure was calculated
based on how much Daniels
made in 2018.
Although Diede expressed
understanding
of
the
classification of his piece as
a protest, he stated the main
purpose of the installation was
to emphasize Schultz’s strength
and healing, as well as create a
space for discussion.
“It’s
less
so
focused
on
(Schultz’s) allegations and more
so focused on his healing,”
Deide said. “I think the whole
intent of this piece is to share a
story from a voice that has been
hushed quite a bit already and
I think while I don’t disagree
with the idea of this being a
protest piece I don’t want that
to undermine the story because
that’s why this installation was
created: to share that story.”
In an interview with The
Daily, Schultz explained he
did not know Diede before he
reached out to Schultz about the
project. According to Schultz,
the installation was entirely
Diede’s idea — Schultz’s only
involvement in the project was
recording an already released
statement.
Schultz said he hopes his
recovery process shows that
survivors can find hope after
assault, as assault does not have
to become one’s identity.
“One of the things that I’ve
had to find in my life is how to
think of myself as more than
someone
who
was
gravely
abused,” Schultz said. “And in
finding meaning, in finding
hope, in seeking kindness and
empathy as guiding forces in
my life, I have been on a journey
of recovery that has allowed me
to find beauty in life. What I
hope from my statement, what
I hope people takeaway is that
there is an alternative to anger
and bitterness as the lifelong
choice in reacting to difficult
circumstances.”
Reflecting
on
the
installation’s theme of the abuse
of power, Schultz expressed
the importance of institutions
recognizing individual dignity.
“Leaders of institutions have
an obligation to understand
reputation and making money
pale
in
comparison
to
an
individual’s worth in terms
of the dignity of the human
soul,”
Schultz
said.
“When
institutions fail to recognize
the dignity of those who are not
in positions of power, they do a
great disservice to the world at
large.”
Music, Theatre & Dance Dean
David Gier declined to comment
on the installation, explaining
he does not know the specifics
of
this
class
project.
Gier
redirected The Daily to Michael
Gurevich, associate professor
and chair of performing arts
technology, for comment.
Gurevich
confirmed
the
installation is Diede’s final
project for his interactive media
design course. In an email to
The Daily, Gurevich said he
is proud of Fisher for tackling
relevant student issues.
“Interactive art installations
act as mirrors, so I suppose these
pieces are inevitable reflections
of the climate these students
are living in,” Gurevich wrote.
“With ‘Pulling Strings,’ not only
has Fisher brilliantly addressed
the themes we address in the
class and designed an elegant
interactive system, he has also
done an incredible amount of
careful and diligent background
work on the ethical and social
considerations
involved
in
creating a piece in a public
space that addresses such a
thorny topic. I’m proud of him
for doing so.”
According
to
Diede,
the
installation was conceived in
February as a project for class,
though it ultimately expanded
beyond the scope of the class.
Diede
explained
he
went
through standard bureaucratic
channels to clear his installation
with Music, Theatre & Dance
administration. In his design,
Deide said he intentionally tried
to make sure there would be no
reason for the installation to
be taken down or denied other
than its subject matter.
According
to
Deide,
he
pitched his project as a piece
highlighting the power of large
institutions and the sometimes
unjust iterations of that power
without mentioning it would
be about Schultz and Daniels
explicitly. Deide explained that
while the piece was initially
approved,
it
was
suddenly
placed on hold Monday evening
when administrators learned it
involved Schultz’s allegations
against Daniels. However, it
was reapproved within three or
four hours of it being placed on
hold, Deide said.
Deide said he has received
support for the project from
several
faculty
members
and
students.
However,
he
emphasized
the
pressure
— from the music industry,
the administration or legal
proceedings
—
that
many
stakeholders feel not to speak
publicly
about
allegations
against Daniels.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com