More than 300 students, 
faculty, 
and 
community 
members 
attended 
a 
lecture 
by 
former 
U.S. 
Ambassador to the United 
Nations, Samantha Power 
at the Ford School of Public 
Policy this Wednesday. As a 
distinguished guest of the 
Public Policy School’s third 
annual Vandenberg Lecture, 
Power discussed her career 
in 
diplomacy 
and 
began 
her talk with a reflection 
on her intentions behind 
writing 
her 
most 
recent 
memoir, “The Education of 
an Idealist”. 
“I have written a book 

in a very personal way,” 
Power 
said, 
“appealing 
to young people, and the 
young at heart – those who 
are feeling, right now, more 
of a pull to try to make a 
difference than they have 
ever felt in their lives.” 
Power served as the 28th 
U.S. representative to the 
United Nations from 2013 to 
2017, and was a member of 
President Barack Obama’s 
cabinet. Some of her most 
notable 
work 
included 
imposing sanctions on North 
Korea, 
opposing 
Russian 
aggression in Ukraine and 
Syria, 
and 
lobbying 
the 
release of political prisoners. 
President 
Obama 
praised 
her as one of the “foremost 

thinkers in public policy.” 
Powers immigrated from 
Ireland with her mother 
as a child. She specifically 
discussed 
how 
her 
background informed her 
worldview from a young age 
and impacted her career in 
public service later in life. 
“Having come to America 
as an immigrant back in 
the day... I really felt like 
going into government was 
something 
similar,” 
she 
said. “You had to suspend 
certain parts of who you 
were, or at least leave them 
at the door when you went 
in in the morning, and then 
master this new way of being 
and doing in order to be 
effective.”

Public 
Policy 
junior 
Bennett Neuhoff attended 
both this discussion and the 
talk with Stephen Biegun, 
U.S. Representative to North 
Korea, earlier this month. 
After the event, he discussed 
in an interview with The 
Daily 
how 
both 
events 
left 
him 
hopeful 
about 
the outlook of America’s 
influence abroad. 
“There is a very big sector 
of the United States that 
is not ready to necessarily 
surrender the United States’ 
influence 
abroad 
despite 
what some of the actions of 
the current administration 
have been,” Neuhoff said. 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, September 26, 2019

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Ann 
Arbor 
rent 
has 
skyrocketed in the last 
year, according to recent 
reports. And while the 
cost of living in the city 
continues to rise, local 
businesses 
are 
having 
trouble filling positions 
and keeping employees, as 
some residents feel unable 
to keep up with the rapidly 
increasing rent rate.
Since the demand for 
housing continues to be 
a concern in Ann Arbor, 
property 
management 
owners have built more 
housing structures, most 

of which are luxury high-
rise 
apartments 
with 
expensive rent rates — the 
newly built Vic Village, for 
example, has an average 
rent of $1300 per person 
per month for a 4 bedroom, 
4 bathroom unit. 
But 
as 
demand 
rises 
higher than supply, access 
to affordable housing has 
become 
less 
available. 
To navigate this issue, 
many people working in 
the city resort to living 
in areas outside of Ann 
Arbor, such as Ypsilanti. 
This poses another barrier 
to employment, as some 
residents 
may 
not 
be 
able to afford the added 

costs of a commute or 
have no reliable means 
of transportation of their 
own. 
There are many factors 
an Ann Arbor employee 
must 
consider 
when 
looking for jobs, including 
the ease of their commute 
and 
certain 
employee 
benefits 
to 
determine 
if working in such an 
expensive city is worth 
it, 
said 
Jennifer 
Hall, 
executive 
director 
of 
the Ann Arbor Housing 
Commission. 
“People 
are 
finding 
housing and then looking 
for jobs based on the 
distance, 
commute 
and 

ease of getting to work 
… and if they do not offer 
benefits like health care 
and paid sick time,” Hall 
said. “When workers are 
transient, it is harder to 
attract or keep them if they 
have a hard time getting to 
and from work.”
Phillis Engelbert, owner 
of local restaurants The 
Lunch 
Room 
on 
Fifth 
Avenue 
and 
Detroit 
Street Filling Station in 
Kerrytown, 
said 
many 
of her employees cannot 
afford to live in central 
Ann Arbor due to high rent 
prices.

Each month, The Michigan 
Daily’s Administration Beat 
sits down with University 
President Mark Schlissel to 
discuss important questions 
about 
University 
policy, 
commitments and challenges. 
Topics 
discussed 
at 
the 
interview included the search 
for a new Vice President of 
Student Life, the President’s 
Commission 
on 
Carbon 
Neutrality, Title IX policy 
and more. This transcript 
has been abbreviated and 
reordered for reader clarity. 
Search for new VP of 
Student Life
The Michigan Daily: Given 
the 
recent 
announcement 
that Vice President E. Royster 
Harper will be retiring, what 
will the process to select a 
new VP of student life look 
like? 
President Mark Schlissel: 
In the next week, we’ll have 
an announcement, but we’re 
putting together a search 
committee that will have on 
the committee faculty, staff 
and several students — not 
just one student. 

GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail 
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.

INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 141
©2019 The Michigan Daily

N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

CL A SSIFIEDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

Federal Court 
vacates past
ruling on Bias 
Response Team

Judge decides group infringes on First 
Amendment rights of free speech

Of the University of Michigan’s 
over 30,000 undergrad students, 
about 230 students are from the 
Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The 
University’s new U.P. Scholars 
Program aims to increase this 
number by building a community for 
some of these students that provides 
them with transitional support.
The first cohort in fall 2020 will 
consist of seven to 10 students from 
the U.P., according to Cheyenne 
Marlin, U.P. Scholars Program 
assistant director. Each student will 
be given financial assistance of up to 
$15,000 each year for four years. 
In addition to financial support, 
Marlin said the program will 
offer students in the program any 
academic, social and professional 
assistance they may need during 
their time at the University.
“We know that the numbers for 
students from the Upper Peninsula 
are lower, and so we’re striving to 
support students from every corner 
of Michigan,” Marlin said. “With 
the distance being a huge barrier 
for students coming from the U.P., 
we think that something like this 
could really help students be 
successful here at Michigan.”

Program 
to assist 
students 
from U.P.

ACADEMICS

BARBARA COLLINS
Daily Staff Reporter

Local businesses struggle with 
retention as housing costs rise

Ann Arbor employees find new jobs or commute due to high rent prices

Schlissel: 
‘Student 
protest is 
important’

ADMINISTRATION

AMARA SHAIKH, EMMA 
STEIN & LIAT WEINSTEIN
Daily News Editor & Daily Staff 
Reporters 

Follow The Daily 
on Instagram, 
@michigandaily

A federal appeals court 
voided a ruling in favor of the 
University of Michigan’s Bias 
Response Team on Monday, 
arguing the group infringes 
upon First Amendment rights 
and suppresses freedom of 
speech across campus. The 
decision sent the case back to 
the U.S. District Court and 
reversed the August 2018 
ruling by district court Judge 
Linda V. Parker, who ruled in 
favor of the University and the 
BRT. 
The role of the University’s 
BRT is to investigate claims 
of racism, sexism and other 
forms 
of 
discrimination 
put forth by those at the 
University. 
The 
lawsuit 
alleges the BRT, which allows 
students, faculty and others 
at the University to report 
incidents of bias, violates the 
First Amendment because 
the claims quell freedom 
of speech and may not be 
completely legitimate.
In May 2018, the University 
became the first university 
in the country to receive a 
federal lawsuit related to 
freedom of speech when 

Speech First, an organization 
dedicated to promoting and 
upholding free speech on 
American college campuses, 
filed 
a 
lawsuit 
alleging 
the BRT violates the First 
Amendment. A month later, 
on June 11, the Department of 
Justice submitted a statement 
of interest in support of 
Speech First and the lawsuit. 
When contacted by The 
Daily, Speech First president 
Nicole 
Neily 
declined 
to 
comment 
specifically 
on 
the federal appeals court’s 
decision to vacate the U.S. 
district 
court’s 
ruling. 
Instead, Neily referred to a 
statement put out by Speech 
First in response to Monday’s 
decision.
“We are gratified that the 
court of appeals restored our 
case against the University 
of Michigan and ordered 
it to proceed in the district 
court,” the statement reads. 
“We continue to believe that 
the 
University’s 
policies, 
including the ones it tried 
to abandon after we filed 
suit, are blatant violations of 
the First Amendment. We 
look forward to vindicating 
our members’ rights as this 
litigation progresses.”

DESIGN BY SHERRY CHEN

Samantha Power presents new 
memoir on her journey to diplomacy

Former UN ambassador combines personal story & policy analysis in book

See SCHLISSEL, Page 3

LIAT WEINSTEIN
Daily Staff Reporter

University President 
talks carbon & Title 
IX policy in interview

MADELINE MCLAUGHLIN
Daily Staff Reporter

ANGELINA BREDE
Daily Staff Reporter

MICHAEL BAGAZINSKI/Daily 
Samantha Power, former United States Ambassador to the United States, discusses her role in shaping foreign policy in the Obama Administration as well as her new book, 
“The Education of an Idealist,” at Weill Hall Wednesday afternoon.

See FREE SPEECH, Page 3

New scholarship hopes 
to increase population 
from the peninsula

See RETENTION, Page 3

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

See DIPLOMACY, Page 3

