Garden City resident Aimee Stephens became a funeral director for one reason: to help people. Despite facing hardship in her personal life, Stephens found comfort in the knowledge she enabled individuals to memorialize those they loved. Stephens, a transgender woman, said she knew she was a woman from the age of five. After a lifetime of suppressing her identity, Stephens began to live as a woman, dressing as a man only while at work in the funeral home’s distinct male and female uniforms. Stephens had worked at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home in Garden City for nearly six years. In 2013, her lifelong internal struggle with gender identity came to a head, and Stephens decided to announce her intention to live fully as a woman to her co-workers. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Stephens described the moment she told her boss her gender identity — through a letter. “We just went into the chapel to talk … I gave him the letter, he read it, he folded it up and put it in his coat pocket, and he said, ‘I’ll have to think about this,’” Stephens said. She went on to recount the moment her boss fired her. “That was pretty much all that was said for two weeks … he comes back in one afternoon and he says … ‘This is not going to work.’ That’s pretty much all he said, and he handed me basically a letter firing me and offering me what I took it to be as hush money to keep my mouth shut, and basically sign away any rights I may or may not have,” Stephens said. Instead of accepting the money, Stephens sued with the backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency enforcing civil rights law against workplace discrimination. michigandaily.com Ann Arbor, Michigan Thursday, October 10, 2019 ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM About 56 students, faculty and community members came to Haven Hall Wednesday to hear Morgan State University professor Harold D. Morales speak about his new book, “Latino and Muslim in America: Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minority.” The event was sponsored by the Romance Languages and Literature, Global Islamic Studies Center, Department of American Culture, Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, Latina/o Studies and La Casa. Morales started off with statistics of Latinx Muslim representation in the United States population. According to Morales’s research, there is a high concentration of Latinx Muslims in Northeastern and West Coast states, including California and New York. In addition, he said by the year 2043, the United States will be the first nation where the current racial minority populations will outnumber the racial majority population. As an example of a prominent Latinx Muslim, Morales shared a video of Hamza Perez, a Puerto Rican-American rapper who converted to Islam. In the video, Perez labeled himself as “America’s Worst Nightmare” because of his shared identities as Puerto Rican, Muslim and a rapper. Morales said he disagrees with the idea that being a minority is a negative feature. “So, he’s got all of these things that are often portrayed as negative stereotypes and they’re lumped all together, and all of a sudden, it’s amplifying the negativity somehow,” Morales said. “Why in the world would you choose to increase your marginality? Why would you choose to increase the discrimination that you will experience? There are certain assumptions that are being made about what is lacking and what is Islam or Islamic identity, and I think that’s really telling and important to keep in mind.” This month, the University of Michigan announced the creation of a faculty working group dedicated to recommending revisions to two Regents bylaws addressing the dismissal of tenured faculty. The two bylaws include the University’s standard procedure in cases of faculty dismissal, as well as severance pay. The announcement of the working group comes after School of Music, Theatre & Dance Professor David Daniels was accused of sexual assault by former student Samuel Schultz in August 2018. Just a few months later, Andrew Lipian, another former student of Daniels’s, filed a lawsuit claiming he was sexually assaulted by Daniels in March 2017. In July of this year, the University began the process of firing Daniels, who was placed on paid leave after Schultz’s allegations were made public. GOT A NEWS TIP? Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know. INDEX Vol. CXXIX, No. 9 ©2019 The Michigan Daily N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 CL A SSIFIEDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 B michigandaily.com For more stories and coverage, visit Washtenaw County sprayed to combat the spread of EEE Deadly disease with no cure or vaccine can lead to rare brain infections When LSA junior Zoe Garden arrived on campus this semester as a transfer student, she had completed many beginner and upper-level courses in communications — including an entry-level communication studies course — at her previous school. Yet, because of the University of Michigan’s transfer requirements, she found herself enrolling in Communication Studies 101 this semester. “I always say that I feel like a freshman here on campus, because I obviously don’t know the campus as well and stuff like that, but sometimes being in these classes with all these freshmen, you just kind of feel like you’re out of place,” Garden said. “You come here to Michigan for more opportunities, but I feel like I’m being set back more than pushed forward sometimes.” Garden, who transferred to the University from Oakland University, a four-year college located in Auburn Hills, Mich., said introductory communication courses at the two schools were comparable — both were 100-level courses in the Communication & Media department covering similar subject matter. Transfer students talk credit challenges ACADEMICS ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter Religion professor discusses book on Latinx Muslim community Dr. Harold D. Morales speaks at event in honor of Latinx Heritage Month University to consider two tenure revisions ADMINISTRATION Follow The Daily on Instagram, @michigandaily A portion of northern Washtenaw County was aerially sprayed to combat the spread of a mosquito-borne virus last Saturday night, according to Susan Ringler Cerniglia, Communications and Community Health Promotion Administrator at the Washtenaw County Health Department. The decision to conduct aerial spraying came after the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services contacted WCHD on Sept. 29 about the spread of the virus called Eastern Equine Encephalitis. MDHHS recommended WCHD and Livingston County Health Department participate in aerial spraying after an animal with EEE was found in neighboring Livingston County on Monday, Sept. 30. Cerniglia said WCHD was given short notice about the proposed spraying and ended up participating in the MDHHS-coordinated spraying. “As a local health department, we have to prioritize reducing their risk of a potentially deadly infectious illness,” Cerniglia said. When transmitted by mosquitoes to another organism, EEE can lead to a rare brain infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is fatal to 30 percent of those infected. There is no cure or vaccine for the virus. The CDC also noted Dr. Harold D. Morales, associate professor at Morgan State university, discusses the changing demographics in the United States and the relationship between Muslim and LatinX identities at the LatinX and Muslim in America Lecture at Haven Hall Wednesday. Michigan woman takes case on discrimination to Supreme Court Aimee Stephens fired from job after telling her boss she was transgender See TENURE , Page 3A MICHAL RUPRECHT Daily Staff Reporter MADELINE MCLAUGHLIN & BEN ROSENFELD Daily Staff Reporters JASMIN LEE Daily Staff Reporter DESIGN BY LAUREN KUZEE See EEE, Page 3A Individuals also cite having to re-take entry level courses, discuss issues with graduation See DISCRIMINATION, Page 3A See TRANSFER , Page 3A Read more at MichiganDaily.com MICHAEL BAGAZINSKI/Daily Faceoff The Daily hockey beat breaks down the season » Page 1B Working group formed after SMTD Prof. David Daniels accused of sexual assault by students LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter