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