When Ari Paul, a University 
of 
Michigan 
alum, 
met 
his 
aunt’s husband William “Buzz” 
Alexander as a teenager, he 
recognized how special Alexander 
was right away.
“Meeting him for the first time, 
you could tell he was someone of 
incredible experience and had an 
endless love of people,” Ari said. 
Janie Paul, Alexander’s wife 
and a School of Art & Design 
professor, met her husband in 1992 
at the Blue Mountain Center, a 
community of writers and artists 
upstate New York. They became 
inseparable, she said.
“He just exuded a feeling of 
interest in other people,” Janie 
said. “The first thing I noticed was 
that he was a great listener.”
The English professor and 
creator of the Prison Creative Arts 
Project passed away at his home 
in Ann Arbor on Sept. 19. He died 
of complications from frontal 
temporal degeneration at the age 
of 80, Janie said. 
Alexander was born in Chicago 
and raised in Wilmette, Illinois. 
He received his undergraduate 

degree from Harvard University 
in 1960 and returned as an 
instructor in 1967. While there, 
he joined the Anti-Vietnam War 
movement, putting him on the 
path of social justice advocacy. He 
moved to Ann Arbor to teach at 
the University of Michigan in 1971, 
where he taught until 2017. 
He 
led 
many 
activist 
movements on campus, including 
“The Committee for Human 
Rights in Latin America.” He also 
pioneered 
anti-racist 
activites 
among 
University 
faculty, 
co-founding 
the 
Concerned 
Faculty organization in 1987. His 
push to require English majors 
to take classes about literature 
written by women and people of 
color led to the creation of the LSA 
Race and Ethnicity requirement, 
according to Janie. 
“I’ll always remember Buzz for 
the soft-spoken pedagogical and 
political radicalism that allowed 
him to bridge generation gaps,” 
wrote English professor Alan Wald 
in an email to the department. “His 
success as a classroom teacher and 
pioneer in the development of new 
courses could send one into envy 
meltdown.”

Political 
cable 
network 
C-SPAN 
stopped 
outside 
Rackham Graduate School as 
part of its educational bus tour 
Monday. The high-tech bus 
acted as a mobile classroom and 
has been on tour since 1993 to 
engage with voters and elected 
officials.
C-SPAN 
marketing 
representative Jenae Green said 
the bus is stopping in various 
cities in Michigan and several 

other Midwest states for its 
battleground 
states 
tour 
in 
preparation for the upcoming 
2020 presidential election.
“Michigan plays a huge role 
in the election, it always does,” 
Green said. “We wanted to 
make sure that we come by 
the University of Michigan to 
engage with students, professors 
and just talk about politics, 
and in an unbiased way — an 
unfiltered way of letting you 
see what’s happening, and the 
candidates that are running 
what’s going on in government. 

And then just finding out more 
ways to stay informed.”
Green said what separates 
C-SPAN 
from 
most 
other 
news outlets is its unbiased 
and nonpartisan reporting on 
government affairs, since it was 
created by the cable industry 
as a public service. C-SPAN 
receives no funding from the 
government.
“We can truly make sure that 
we keep our coverage unbiased, 
nonpartisan, because we don’t 
have to lean one way or the 
other,” Green said. “In the way 

that we show news, we don’t 
ever have a panel discussing 
what’s going on behind them … 
so the viewers at home can make 
it their own informed decision.”
Doug Hemmig, a C-SPAN 
community 
relations 
representative who’s traveling 
with the bus, said the bus acts 
as both a classroom and a studio 
with 11 large-screen tablets, 
a smart board for classroom 
teaching, a photo station and 
a TV production studio for 
programming.

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, October 1, 2019

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Washtenaw County’s Judge 
Carol Kuhnke ruled Wednesday 
to allow residents access to 
records 
of 
communication 
between private citizens and 
city officials under the Freedom 
of Information Act. In doing 
so, 
Kuhnke 
ruled 
in 
favor 
of Ann Arbor resident Luis 
Vazquez 
whose 
April 
FOIA 
requested, among other things, 
any interaction between city 

councilmembers and Ann Arbor 
resident Pat Lesko over email, 
texting or social media direct 
messaging since Jan. 1, 2019.
Vazquez said his interest 
was piqued through a personal 
distrust of Lesko. Lesko has been 
named by many as an active 
participant in Ann Arbor politics, 
even running for mayor almost a 
decade ago. Vazquez called her 
“Machiavellian” and said she 
often wrote or spoke poorly about 
her adversaries in the media. 
“I was just curious as to how 

things were going to be with a 
new majority on council, which 
she obviously helped to elect,” 
Vazquez said.
He and others also pointed out 
the frequency with which Lesko 
requests FOIAs herself.
“Those who want to find out 
information 
about 
everybody 
else should be prepared to reveal 
information about themselves,” 
Vazquez said.
Vazquez’s FOIA also asked for 
communication between resident 
Tom Stulberg and attorney Tom 

Wieder with any public official 
over the same period, as well as 
communication between council 
members Anne Bannister, Jeff 
Hayner, 
Jack 
Eaton, 
Kathy 
Griswold and Elizabeth Nelson 
who, 
according 
to 
Vazquez, 
constitute a new majority in 
the city council whose views 
and actions stand in contrast 
to his own interests and shared 
the political support of Lesko, 
Stulberg and Weider.

Eleven 
SACUA 
board 
members 
held 
their 
weekly 
meeting 
Monday 
afternoon in the Fleming 
Administration 
Building, 
addressing 
issues 
facing 
the University of Michigan 
faculty and student body. 
University President Mark 
Schlissel was in attendance 
for the first half hour of the 
session, speaking on issues 
of curbing vape use and 
improving parking at the 
University.
Schlissel said the issue 
of vaping has been on his 
radar 
for 
several 
years, 
and 
administrators 
have, 
on 
several 
occasions, 
considered crafting a ban 
on 
tobacco 
products 
on 
campus.
“A year or two ago, Preeti 
Malani, who’s our Chief 
Health Officer from the 
health system who has this 
advisory role to me, said, 
‘You know, Mark, we should 
really consider making the 
campus not just no smoking, 
but tobacco free,’” Schlissel 
said. 
“And 
by 
common 
usage, vaping falls under 
tobacco, be that as it may.”

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

INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 2
©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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

Prison Creative Arts Project founder, 
beloved professor passes away at 80

SONIA LEE 
Daily Staff Reporter

The House of Representatives 
passed the Secure And Fair 
Enforcement 
Banking 
Act 
on Sept. 25, to protect and 
facilitate 
relationships 
for 
banking organizations looking 
to work with legitimate cannabis 
businesses. 
After 
struggling 
with maintaining relationships 
with banks for years, Ann Arbor 
cannabis 
dispensaries 
believe 
the bill could drastically benefit 
business and destigmatize the 
cannabis industry as a whole.
The main purpose of the bill 
is to prevent federal banking 
regulators 
from 
“penalizing 
a 
depository 
institution 
for 
providing banking services” to 
cannabis companies for the sole 
reason that these businesses 
handle 
cannabis. 
Specifically, 
these regulators are prohibited 
from taking adverse action on a 
loan made to these businesses, 
discriminating 
banks 
and 
credit unions for collecting or 
processing payments for these 
businesses and ending or limiting 
the 
dispensary’s 
insurance, 
among other restrictions. 
The bill must now be passed 
by the Senate and signed by the 
President of the United States in 
order to be enacted into law. 

SAFE Act 
to impact 
cannabis 
companies

GOVERNMENT

Businesses, students 
reflect on potential of 
new federal bills to help 
dispensaries financially

PARNIA MAZHAR
Daily Staff Reporter

A2 judge permits FOIA requests of 
private conversations with officials

Community reacts to ruling releasing public-private communications

Schlissel 
joins talk 
on vaping, 
parking

ACADEMICS

BEN ROSENFELD
Daily Staff Reporter 

Follow The Daily 
on Instagram, 
@michigandaily

DESIGN BY ROSEANNE CHAO

C-SPAN bus arrives at U-M 
on high-tech educational tour

Mobile classroom engages with voters, elected officials in battleground states

See BUZZ, Page 2

See SACUA, Page 3

ELIZABETH LAWRENCE
Managing News Editor

RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Jenae Green, a representative of the political cable network C-SPAN, gives students a tour of the network’s interactive bus while parked in front of Rackham Graduate School 
Monday morning.

See CSPAN, Page 3

See SAFE, Page 3

MELANIE TAYLOR
Daily Staff Reporters

See FOIA, Page 3

11 SACUA members
discuss curbing U-M 
e-cigarette use, online 
voting for Assembly

Buzz, in 
memory: 
‘Something 
magical’

