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Tuesday, October 22, 2019
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INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 15
©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
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Every time Business senior
Mia Heard walks into class, she
is the only Black person in the
room.
“When I walk in a room, I
don’t get the luxury of being
like, ‘Oh, I’m just a person
walking to class,’” Heard said.
“It’s like, I’m the Black girl
walking into this class, and I
can just feel the pressure of just
being that Black girl; the black
dot that always has to be there
or they know I’m gone.”
According to the Office of
the Registrar, for the winter
semester of 2019, 2 percent
of students in the Stephen M.
Ross School of Business at the
University of Michigan were
Black, 6 percent were hispanic
and 57 percent were white. In
addition, 62 percent of students
were male and 38 percent were
female.
These demographics are not
unnoticed by the entirety of the
Business School. To improve
diversity, equity and inclusion
efforts, students and faculty
developed the DEI Task Force
during the winter of 2018. Part
of the Bachelor of Business
Administration Council, the
Business
School’s
student
government,
the
taskforce
hosts events and initiatives
to
develop
an
inclusive
environment for students.
Though parts of the Business
School have been working to
improve DEI efforts, some say
the lack of a race and ethnicity
course
requirement
in
the
Business School, paired with
the lack of communication
between administration and
students, has impeded the
growth of diversity in the
Business
school.
Opposing
views from students on the
Identity
and
Diversity
in
Organizations workshops in
the school has also been an
obstacle, according to some
students.
“I literally felt like a slave
in that instance, because I
felt like I was begging people
to buy me”
In one of her group projects
for class, Business senior Elsa
Ramesh, head of the Inclusive
Classroom Committee for the
DEI taskforce, said a student
made transphobic and racist
comments while other students
laughed along. She said the
students
present,
including
herself, did not speak up about
the incident to avoid upsetting
their peers. They worried it
could impact their grades,
Ramesh said.
As of Sept. 27, the University of
Michigan has spent $1.6 million
defending against a lawsuit alleging
its policies violate the due process
rights of those accused of sexual
misconduct, MLive reported at the
beginning of October.
When asked by The Daily,
University
spokesperson
Rick
Fitzgerald clarified costs incurred
by the Doe v. University of Michigan
lawsuit are not drawn from tuition
money and state appropriations.
Instead, Fitzgerald explained, the
University’s legal fees are covered
by its insurer, Veritas Insurance
Corporation, which the University
owns.
A report in 2017 found higher
education institutions around the
nation spend an average of $350,000
on sexual misconduct lawsuits. To
explain the significantly higher cost
of the Doe v. University of Michigan
lawsuit, Fitzgerald pointed to the
amount of legal work required in
the “3-year-old, heavily litigated
case involving complicated legal
issues.”
“The plaintiff filed an initial
complaint, an amended complaint,
and second amended complaint,
the latter of which is 40 pages
long and contains more than
200 paragraphs of allegations,”
Fitzgerald wrote in an email.
“There has been a total of 64 briefs
in the trial court, with 38 filed by
the plaintiff, resulting in a record
that exceeds 5,000 pages. There
have been five lengthy hearings and
four status conferences in the trial
court, as well as full briefing and
oral arguments in the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals.”
However,
Deborah
Gordon,
the
attorney
representing
the
anonymous
plaintiff,
pushed
back
against
the
University’s
explanation. According to Gordon,
$1.6 million is an “incredible” sum
of money to spend on a case not
involving discovery of evidence.
Instead, she blamed the cost on the
University’s legal briefings.
“I’m a four-person law firm, I
do contingency fee work mostly,”
Gordon told The Daily. “At one point
they had 12 different attorneys
working for them from three
different law firms, two of them out-
of-state … I’m a very small firm and
they’re saying it’s me that caused
this? That’s laughable.”
The
Search
Advisory
Committee for a new Vice
President
of
Student
Life,
appointed by the University
of Michigan President Mark
Schlissel, held the first of two
town hall meetings Monday
evening. Around 20 students
and
community
members
attended the event which was
intended to gauge specific
areas
of
student
interest
when selecting a shortlist of
candidates to recommend to
Schlissel. E. Royster Harper,
the current Vice President
of Student Life, will retire in
January.
The town hall, which was
held in a question and answer
format, gave an opportunity for
the committee to hear student
opinions
about
the
vision,
experience and values they
want the new vice president to
uphold. Students at the meeting
also expressed a desire for
more one-on-one interaction
between communities of color
and the VP of Student Life.
LSA
sophomore
Ronnie
Alvarez said he hopes for a
candidate who will listen to and
understand different cultures,
specifically
mentioning
the
Latinx community.
“I think someone who has
culture
empathy
and
has
experience working with the
Latinx community would be a
quality that’ll be a good fit for
the new VP,” Alvarez said.
The committee addressed
questions about ensuring the
pool of candidates was diverse,
how different cultural voices
would be heard and how
decisions would be made with
a student-centric focus.
Alec Gallimore, the Search
Advisory
Committee
Chair
and Dean of the College of
Engineering, reflected on the
importance of student opinion
in the search for the new VP.
“We knew this person has to
be student-focused in a big way,
and the town hall reinforced
it,”
Gallimore
said.
“It
is
important to hear the diverse
points of view that represent
where our students are coming
from.”
The
U.S.
Supreme
Court
overturned
a
ruling
Monday
morning that would have caused
almost three dozen Michigan
congressional
and
legislative
districts to be redrawn on account
of the districts unfairly helping
one political party.
The 34 Michigan districts under
examination by the Court included
15 state house, 10 state senate and
nine congressional districts.
Multiple Democratic plaintiffs
along
with
the
League
of
Women
Voters
first
brought
the case to attention, and a
panel including three federal
judges
in
April,
saying
the
districts were unconstitutionally
gerrymandered. The group gave
the state a deadline of Aug. 1 to
redraw the district lines in time
for the 2020 election or the court
would do it for them.
The panel then released a
146-page
opinion
which
said
the
boundaries
enacted
by
Republicans following the 2010
census either filled districts with
Democratic
voters
or
spread
out their own voters in other
districts in a way in which was
unconstitutional.
Individuals cite personal experiences
with discrimination within school
CLAIRE HAO
Daily Staff Reporter
Ann Arbor’s frequent sporting,
academic and cultural events
draw in large numbers of tourists,
creating an expansive market
for short-term rentals through
platforms like Airbnb and VRBO.
But, in light of Ann Arbor’s lack of
affordable housing crisis and the
threat to the hospitality industry,
city officials are considering
regulating
short-term
rental
companies.
There are currently 978 Airbnb
listings in Ann Arbor, and over
300 of these are for an entire
home — whether it is a house or
one bedroom apartment. This
means there are 300+ less homes
available for people who want to
live in Ann Arbor.
Ann
Arbor
City
Councilmember
Elizabeth
Nelson told The Daily she is
concerned about how short-term
rentals are affecting Ann Arbor’s
housing market.
“If people are going to advocate
strongly to city council that we
need to build new housing, those
same people should be every bit
as concerned about the housing
that we are losing to short term
rental,” Nelson said.
Council
considers
regulation
for rentals
ANN ARBOR
Officials talk impact
of Airbnb, VRBO on
local housing crisis
in city of Ann Arbor
ANGELINA BREDE
Daily Staff Reporter
Search Advisory Commitee hosts
first townhall for VP of Student Life
Community members express areas of interest, expectations for Harper replacement
Ruling on
redrawing
districts
reversed
Students talk
DEI progress
in Business
GOVERNMENT
BARBARA COLLINS
Daily Staff Reporter
RYAN LITTLE/Daily
Town Hall members discuss the search for the new Vice President for Student Life at the Trotter Multicultural Center Monday afternoon.
‘U’ has spent $1.6 million on
sexual assault case litigation
University defends against lawsuit alleging policies violate due process rights
See DEI, Page 3
PARNIA MAZHAR
Daily Staff Reporter
DESIGN BY ROSEANNE CHAO
See CASE, Page 3
VARSHA VEDAPUDI
For The Daily
U.S. Supreme Court
overturns case, cites
unfair advantages
for one politcal party
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Read more at
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