michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, October 22, 2019

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

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

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
michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit
Follow The Daily 
on Instagram, 
@michigandaily

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

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

