In the past academic year, the
Office for Institutional Equity,
the entity on campus charged
with investigating complaints of
discrimination and harassment,
has been widely talked about on
campus. After a ruling by the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in
September 2018, OIE had to change
its policy regarding student sexual
misconduct complaints to include
an in-person hearing between the
accused and the accuser.
In October 2018, The Daily
published an article following
a student survivor of sexual
assault’s
painful
experience
going through OIE’s reporting
process. In November 2018, The
Daily investigated the University
granting
Music,
Theatre
&
Dance professor David Daniels
tenure after a student reported
an instance of Daniels’ sexual
harassment to OIE.
In light of this heightened
conversation surrounding OIE and
the reporting process, The Daily
sat down with Jeffery Frumkin,
OIE
interim
senior
director,
and Elizabeth Seney, OIE senior
associate director and interim
Title IX coordinator, to talk about
OIE’s mission, its new policy, its
investigator training processes and
other areas of interest.
The Michigan Daily: What
would you say OIE’s overarching
mission is in helping the campus
community? What are the office’s
priorities in investigations?
Elizabeth
Seney:
For
the
first question, I would say the
overarching mission really is to
make sure that the University is
responding fairly and appropriately
to concerns that exist. Then,
of course we also have a role in
preventive and educational work
as well. So I wouldn’t limit our
overall mission to just responding
to particular concerns, but I would
say that is where we spend a lot of
our time and efforts and that’s a
significant priority. And that really
is in making sure that the process
is designed and conducted in a way
that there’s broad access to make
reports, broad access to engage in
either an investigative process or
whatever might be the appropriate
and requested resolution, and that
all of those processes are both
legally compliant but also meet the
needs of the community, so they’re
fair. People are being treated with
respect throughout the process …
not causing more harm as much as
that is possible. I would say that’s
the overall mission.
The
Lecturers’
Employee
Organization has accused the
School of Music, Theatre &
Dance of moving to reduce
course loads for two lecturers
following
LEO’s
successful
bargaining campaign last year.
According to LEO, the School
of Music, Theatre & Dance is
trying to shift classes taught
by lecturers Missy Beck and
Jean-Claude Biza to tenure-
track faculty in order to avoid
paying lecturers more under the
contract the union ratified over
the summer.
Beck, who has taught at the
University for more than 15 years,
said she was told her course
load would be reduced after she
emailed Anita Gonzalez, interim
chair of the Department of
Dance, in February asking about
scheduling sections of a ballet
course.
“That’s where she replied that
she didn’t even know if I’m going
to be teaching next year,” Beck
said. “So I wrote back to say,
‘What’s going on, if it’s me, if it’s
my performance, I would love to
talk to you about that. This was
my mission, teaching students
and teaching people, so if there
is something I could be doing
better, please let me know.’”
Beck said she was told SMTD
intended to have tenure-track
faculty take over the classes she
had previously taught.
“It was a bit condescending,”
Beck said. “At one point when
they said, ‘You’ve been helping
us out, you’ve been so generous
to take those classes, but now
we need to give them back to
the people who they belong to.’”
Following
a
months-long
bargaining
campaign,
LEO
ratified a new contract with the
University in July that included
salary increases and improved
health
benefits
and
job
security for nearly 1,700 non-
tenure track faculty across the
University’s three campuses.
Under
the
agreement,
the
minimum salary for lecturers
in Ann Arbor saw a 47.8 percent
increase, going from $34,500
to $51,000 by September 2020.
Starting salaries in Flint and
Dearborn were both set to reach
$41,000 by then, a 50.2 percent
and a 44.9 percent increase
respectively.
LEO says it is because of
these raises the Music, Theatre
& Dance School moved to cut
the dance lecturers’ course
loads. According to an email
provided to The Daily by LEO,
Gonzalez
said
in
February
SMTD’s
administration
was
looking to shift as many courses
taught by lecturers as possible
to tenure-track faculty.
“Because
of
the
large
increase in LEO salaries the
administration would like to
move as many LEO courses
as possible to tenure track
faculty,” Gonzalez wrote.
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Tuesday, April 23, 2019
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At the Planned Parenthood
Advocates
of
Michigan
conference
in
Lansing
on
Tuesday,
Michigan
Attorney
General Dana Nessel said even if
the Supreme Court overrules Roe
v. Wade, she would not prosecute
what would then become illegal
cases of abortion.
“I
will
never
prosecute
a woman or her doctor for
making the difficult decision to
terminate a pregnancy,” Nessel
said.
LSA senior Megan Burns,
co-president of Students for
Choice at the University of
Michigan,
and
LSA
senior
Annabelle Luescher, the events
coordinator
for
Students
for
Choice,
attended
the
conference on behalf of their
organization.
“Dana was speaking a lot
about things she had done
in support of women and in
support
of
women’s
rights
during her time in her new
position as attorney general,”
Burns said. “She kind of threw
it in there sort of randomly.
I think a lot of people were
caught off guard.”
Pres. Obama
adviser talks
career, book
during event
Valerie Jarrett discusses her experiences in
the White House, the support of her mom
LIAT WEINSTEIN
Daily Staff Reporter
GOVERNMENT
On Monday evening, over
two hundred students, faculty
and
community
members
filled the Michigan Theater
for a conversation between
Valerie
Jarrett,
former
senior adviser to President
Barack Obama, and Broderick
Johnson,
a
former
White
House
Cabinet
secretary
for Obama. The discussion
touched
on
Jarrett’s
experiences as a single parent
working
in
the
Chicago
mayor’s office in addition to
her years as Obama’s adviser
and close confidant.
The
talk,
co-hosted
by
Nicola’s
Books
and
the
Michigan Theater, was meant
to give the community an
inside look into the White
House
during
the
Obama
years and promote Jarrett’s
new memoir, “Finding My
Voice,” which was published
on April 2.
Johnson, who noted Jarrett
is the longest-serving senior
adviser to any U.S. president,
opened
the
conversation
by
reminiscing
on
their
experiences
together
as
University of Michigan law
students. Johnson mentioned
the two became even closer
friends working for the Obama
campaign in 2008.
“Over the last 15 years,
Valerie and I have become
very,
very
close
friends
through the campaign, the
Senate campaign and then the
two successful campaigns for
president,” Johnson said.
The conversation flowed
between
discussion
of
Jarrett’s childhood in Iran,
where she grew up on a
hospital compound, and her
family’s relocation to Chicago
when she was seven years old.
Jarrett said while her years
in Iran lent her a greater
appreciation for the freedom
awarded to citizens in the
U.S., they also made her aware
of the importance of a cultural
crossover and understanding.
“It gave me the sense that
the United States is really
an extraordinary country,”
Jarrett said. “But the other
thing I learned there was that
… we can learn a great deal
outside our shores. So it gave
me the context for where the
United States fits in. Coming
back
to
Chicago,
to
my
mother’s home and where my
father did his residency, they
just felt it was great because
they were going home. To
me, I was going to a foreign
country.”
See OIE, Page 3
.
LEO accuses SMTD of cutting ‘U’
courses after union won pay raises
Lecturers claim classes are being transferred to tenured professors post-bargaining campaign
MELANIE TAYLOR
Daily Staff Reporter
MAX KUANG/Daily
Ian Robinson, president of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization, greets SMTD Dance lecturer Jean-Claude Biza before the Congolese Dance Class showing at the Betty Pease
Studio Theatre Saturday.
LEAH GRAHAM
Daily News Editor
ELIZABETH LAWRENCE
Managing News Editor
State AG
addresses
abortions
Nessel discusses role of
Roe v. Wade in the state
In 2011, after the U.S. Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague
Letter to remind schools of the importance of preventing and
addressing sexual violence under Title IX, student Title IX cases
were transferred to the OIE office.
From August 2011 to August
2013, OIE instituted an
interim procedure while the
University worked on a more
robust student sexual
misconduct policy.
In 2013, OIE’s official
policy was implemented,
utilizing the single
investigator model to keep
a trauma informed lens
without sacrificing fairness.
In 2016, OIE revised its
policy to include intimate
partner violence and gender
required that there be an
annual review of the policy.
In 2017, a district judge
dismissed a lawsuit filed on
behalf of a former University
student who violated the
University’s Student Sexual
Misconduct Policy but argued
his due process was denied.
Currently, OIE is working to create a more permanent version of their policy.
2011
2013
2016
2017
2018
The Office of Institutional Equity comes into being in 2004. It handles cases of discrimination, but not the student on
student sexual harassment cases. Before this time, sexual harassment claims were handled by Human Resources.
based harassment. It also
In 2018, the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals
appealed this ruling, and struck
down the University of Michigan’s
sexual assault investigation model
because it did not include a
cross-examination. Because
of this, OIE amended its process
to include an in-person hearing
between students involved and the
witnesses.
Interview with The Daily: Office for Institutional
Equity officials clarify new policy, reporting process
OIE sits down to discuss overarching mission, duties, training protocols for investigators at U-M
See ABORTION, Page 2
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
See OIE, Page 3