The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 — 3

The lawsuit Doe v. University 
of Michigan was first filed 
in 
June 
2018 
by 
a 
male 
undergraduate student, referred 
to in the lawsuit as “John Doe.” 
It arises from a complaint filed 
by a female student against Doe 
in the University’s Office of 
Institutional Equity, claiming 
Doe sexually assaulted her. 
At the time, the University’s 
sexual 
misconduct 
policy 
operated 
under 
the 
single-
investigator 
model, 
which 
involved 
one 
investigator 
who had conversations with 
the accuser, the accused and 
witnesses, without opportunity 
for parties to confront one 
another. 
Doe 
claims 
this 
procedure 
violated 
his 
due 
process rights and amounted to 
gender discrimination against 
male students accused of sexual 
assault. 
In the lawsuit, Doe denied the 
female student’s allegations and 
said he was not made aware of 
them when he was interviewed 
by the OIE investigator, leaving 
him unable to fully respond to 
the accusations against him. 
In addition, the University put 
Doe’s official transcript and 
degree on hold following the 
complaint, which the lawsuit 
argued 
put 
Doe’s 
academic 
and professional future at risk 
without full investigation. Doe’s 
transcript was released soon 
after the lawsuit was filed.
Three months later, the U.S. 
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals 
struck down the University’s 
single-investigator model in Doe 
v. Baum, a separate lawsuit filed 
by Gordon against the University. 
The 
ruling 
required 
the 
University’s sexual misconduct 
policy to grant students accused 
of sexual misconduct the option 
of a live hearing and cross-
examination. 
The 
University 
tried 
to 
appeal 
the 
ruling, 
arguing 
cross-examination discourages 
those who have been sexually 
assaulted from reporting and 
disadvantages 
lower 
income 
students who cannot afford legal 
counsel. The Sixth Circuit Court 
declined to re-hear the appeal, 
forcing the University to release 
a new interim sexual assault 
policy in December 2018 that 
included cross-examination and 
a live hearing. 
In 
June, 
a 
week 
before 
University 
President 
Mark 
Schlissel 
was 
prepared 
to 
appear in U.S. District Court 
for a private, off-the-record 
settlement 
conference, 
the 
University filed a motion to 
dismiss the lawsuit, contending 
the due process argument was 
no longer relevant because of 
changes in the new policy. 
U.S. District Judge Arthur 
Tarnow opened the conference 
to the public and to the media 
two days before it was scheduled 
to occur. Sixteen hours before the 
planned conference, the Sixth 
Circuit Court granted a request 
by the University to postpone 
the meeting, a move criticized 
by Tarnow. In August, the Sixth 
Circuit Court ruled that Schlissel 
did not have to appear in court 
for the settlement conference, 
determining 
Tarnow 
had 
overstepped his discretion by 
requiring so. 
The University maintains the 
ongoing lawsuit is irrelevant 
now that the sexual misconduct 
policy requires a live hearing 
and 
cross-examination 
and 
already meets the ruling of 
Doe v. Baum. However, Gordon 
explained she is still pursuing 
the lawsuit because she wants to 
obtain relief for her client, which 
includes clearing his permanent 
record. 
Ultimately, she said she wants 
the District Court to issue an 
order requiring the University 
to have a live hearing and cross-
examination to further ensure 
the University will maintain 
these due process procedures. 
Gordon explained the ruling in 
Doe v. Baum is a court opinion, 
which only allows the University 
to be sued. If there were a court 
order and the University changed 
its policy, it would be in contempt 
of court, which imposes further 
punishment. 
“It’s like a University rule 
you could think of it … Unless 
there’s somebody that sends 
you disciplinary action, the rule 
doesn’t really mean as much,” 
Gordon said. “You just know 
you’re not supposed to violate it, 
until you get a directive saying if 

you do violate it you’re out.”
Gordon said she believes the 
University should address sexual 
misconduct by providing the 
option of a live hearing and cross-
examination as it does all other 
cases of student misconduct. 
She disparaged the Start by 
Believing campaign, a program 
the 
University’s 
Division 
of 
Public Safety and Security has 
signed 
onto, 
that 
nationally 
works to change the way sexual 
misconduct is responded to.
“They 
think 
student-to-
student sexual misconduct is not 
like other misconduct. Why is 
that, I don’t know,” Gordon said. 
“I guess it’s because they want to 
be politically correct, they like 
the ‘Start by Believing campaign,’ 
which is the antithesis of due 
process … But our whole system 
of justice is based upon the 
concept 
(of) 
innocent 
until 
proven guilty.”
In November 2018, Secretary 
of 
Education 
Betsy 
DeVos 
proposed 
new 
regulations 
for Title IX — the federal law 
preventing sex discrimation in 
federally-funded 
universities 
often raised in discussions about 
sexual assault — that would 
allow for cross-examination of 
victims. Some have lauded the 
move as a necessary to ensuring 
due process rights of the accused. 
However, students at the 
University 
and 
activists 
against sexual assault across 
the nation have criticized the 
use of cross-examination in 
cases of sexual misconduct, 
arguing 
it 
re-traumatizes 
victims and thus discourages 
reporting. In addition, some 
scholars suggest the practice is 
actually counterproductive to 
truth-finding as it encourages 
manipulation and intimidation. 
Lawyers 
and 
Title 
IX 
professionals also worry cross-
examination will push colleges 
to facilitate courtroom-esque 
hearings they may not have the 
capacity to take on. 
LSA 
sophomore 
Emma 
Sandberg 
is 
the 
founding 
member and executive director 
of the non-profit Roe v. Rape, 
which works to help survivors 
of sexual violence heal through 
activism and prevent sexual 
misconduct through education. 
She explained she believes cases 
of sexual assault should be 
handled differently from other 
cases of misconduct because the 
former can often be very personal 
and is especially traumatizing. 
Sandberg also noted only 
5 percent of campus sexual 
assaults are reported to the 
University and only 2 percent 
of sexual assault accusations 
nationally are false. However, 
Sandberg said she knows several 
students who didn’t report or 
who dropped their case because 
of 
the 
cross-examination 
requirement. 
“The 
amount 
of 
students 
who would be falsely accused 
at the University is just so low 
compared to the amount of 
survivors who are prevented 
from both getting justice and 
ensuring 
they 
feel 
safe 
at 
school,” Sandberg said. “When 
a perpetrator is off the hook, it 
puts all the rest of the students in 
danger.”
When asked about concerns 
surrounding cross-examination, 
Gordon pointed to resolution 
of 
sexual 
assault 
cases 
in 
the criminal justice system. 
According to Gordon, students 
who protest cross-examination 
by bringing up the trauma it can 
cause are “extremely immature,” 
“short-sighted,” and “focused 
only on themselves.”
“Rape victims that don’t go to 
the University of Michigan don’t 
have these special protections, 
and still the system somehow 
works, more or less,” Gordon 
said. “There’s nothing unique 
about being a college student 
that should give you more 
protection than anybody else … 
I realize they’re college students, 
and so maybe they’re just not 
thinking of the bigger picture, 
but lawyers are. To me, it just 
seems 
really 
straightforward 
situation. Whatever pain you feel 
and trauma is unfortunate, but 
it doesn’t trump throwing aside 
our justice system.”
The University has received 
criticism for implementing cross-
examination in its sexual assault 
policy. However, in a previous 
Daily article, LSA junior Sidney 
Aloisi, co-coordinator at the 
Sexual Assault and Prevention 
Awareness Center, noted some 
may not realize the University 
did not voluntarily require a live 
hearing and cross-examination.

“I think that a lot of people 
have the misconception that 
it 
was 
Michigan’s 
decision 
completely and that’s what we 
wanted, but that is a myth I am 
happy to debunk,” Aloisi told 
The Daily in October. “It wasn’t 
our decision … We didn’t really 
have a say in the hearing, and 
it’s something that we’ve tried 
and tried again to get the Sixth 
Circuit Court to reconsider, but 
repeatedly they will not.”
Many remain unsatisfied with 
this explanation. Though the 
Doe v. Baum decision requires 
cross-examination 
in 
sexual 
misconduct 
cases, 
it 
allows 
the option for representatives 
to do the questioning, yet the 
University’s policy requires the 
accuser and accused to cross-
examine one another. 
In January, Sandberg created 
a petition — which has over 
78,000 signatures at the date 
of publication — calling for 
the University to allow cross-
examination by a third-party 
adviser instead. Last month, the 
American Civil Liberties Union, 
at Sandberg’s request, released 
a public letter calling for the 
University to change its policy. 
In response to these concerns, 
University spokeswoman Kim 
Broekhuizen 
previously 
told 
The Daily the University does 
not allow for a third-party 
representative to conduct cross-
examinations for equity reasons.
“Questioning 
by 
personal 
advisors — often attorneys — 
is not allowed at U-M out of 
concern that not all students 
would be able to afford counsel,” 
Broekhuizen said. 
However, both Sandberg and 
Gordon agreed the University 
should pay for legal counsel if a 
student, either the accused or the 
accuser, would like a lawyer but 
cannot afford it. Gordon noted 
she would be willing to represent 
these cases pro-bono for both 
sides and conjectured many 
other lawyers would feel the 
same. She accused the University 
of intentionally preventing third-
party representatives to provide 
justification for fighting the 
Sixth Circuit ruling.
“I personally think they’re 
doing that on purpose to make 
this more traumatizing so they 
can they were right all along,” 
Gordon said.
Sandberg 
conjectured 
the 
University refuses to change its 
policy to discourage reporting.
“The conclusion I have reached 
is that they chose this cross-
examination model because they 
want fewer students reporting,” 
Sandberg said. “They want less 
perpetrators suing them, and 
it’s about money. I find this very 
concerning, that administrators 
seem to be valuing the school’s 
money 
over 
the 
emotional 
wellbeing of survivors.”
In messages to the University 
community, 
Schlissel 
has 
emphasized 
the 
University’s 
hopes 
to 
increase 
rates 
of 
reporting. In support of this 
claim, the administration has 
pointed to the implementation of 
the adaptable resolution pathway 
to handle sexual misconduct 
cases without a live hearing or 
cross-examination. 
The 
University 
recently 
released two reports on trends 
of sexual misconduct on campus. 
The Campus Climate Survey 
found a decrease in sexual 
assault rates overall since 2015 
and an increase of trust in 
the University’s investigation 
process, and the DPSS report 
showed the number of on-campus 
sexual 
assault 
reports 
have 
dramatically increased. 
In an email to University 
students, faculty and staff last 
week, Schlissel announced a new 
draft umbrella policy for sexual 
and gender-based misconduct. 
According 
to 
Schlissel, 
the 
umbrella policy aims to clarify 
the 
University’s 
policies 
to 
ensure 
consistency 
between 
them for all University groups. 
Before the umbrella policy 
is implemented in early 2020, 
Schlissel asked members of the 
University community in an 
email to submit survey feedback 
through Nov. 22. He said the 
University continues to work on 
its goal of ensuring a safe and 
respectful community for all. 
“The 
number 
of 
sexual 
assaults and misconduct cases 
continues to be too high at U-M, 
on college campuses across the 
country, and throughout our 
society in general,” Schlissel 
wrote. “We must do everything 
we can as we strive to reduce the 
number to zero.” 

CASE
From Page 1

“You kind of just want to go with 
the flow to get things over with,” 
Ramesh said. “So, when these 
problematic things happen, you just 
kind of have to sweep them under 
the rug. And unless your professor 
makes it intentional that they’re 
open to talk about things like that, 
you’re not going to trust them with 
that information.”
In one instance, Heard, head of 
the Communications Committee 
for the DEI Task Force in the 
Business School, said she was the 
only Black woman in a class of 60 
or 70 people. She said one day, the 
professor told students to promote 
themselves in an elevator pitch, and 
then after, had students go around 
and select groups. Heard described 
the immense discomfort she felt 
from this exercise after having to 
convince people why she deserved 
to be in their group, especially 
because she was the only Black 
person in the room. 
“I literally felt like a slave in that 
instance, because I felt like I was 
begging people to buy me. I feel like 
the professor didn’t realize that’s 
how that experience would impact 
me, because there were plenty of 
groups that looked at me and were 
like, ‘we don’t want you, we just 
don’t want you’ for 30 minutes.”
According 
to 
Heard, 
her 
experience shows the significance 
of the activities and general 
teaching 
approaches 
used 
by 
professors. 
“I remember, I went home and 
I cried and I wanted to drop the 
class,” Heard said. “I didn’t end up 
dropping the class, because I had 
to remember who I was, but there’s 
been a lot of times where I feel like 
teachers don’t realize that or don’t 
take into consideration that how 
you teach or the examples you give 
in class or anything that makes up 
the class experience can impact 
someone with a different identity.”
Ramesh, who is an international 
student herself, took issue with the 
case studies her professors used 
and had students work on in class. 
Often times, these studies were 
US-centric, focusing on American 
brands and companies, which 
made it difficult for international 
students to relate. Another issue 
was with students and professors 
having trouble pronouncing certain 
students’ names in class, according 
to Ramesh.
Working towards a Race and 
Ethnicity class requirement in 
the Business School
Unlike the University’s College 
of Literature, Sciences and the Arts, 
the Business School does not have a 
race and ethnicity requirement for 
students. In LSA, all students must 
take a minimum of one course of at 
least three credits which discusses 
the meaning and effects of race, 
ethnicity and racism in the U.S. 
or across the globe in some form. 
Classes also promote discussion on 
social class, gender and/or religion.
According to Taryn Petryk, 
director of diversity and inclusion 
for the Business School, the school 
is working to have this requirement 
in the future. They also want to 
ensure that, if and when the course 
does come, students truly feel as 
though it will be beneficial to them, 
rather than just being an add-on 
class.
Business 
sophomore 
Matt 
Person 
believes 
the 
Business 
School has provided students with 
sufficient exposure to different 
backgrounds and identities thus 
far, despite not having a race and 
ethnicity requirement.
“At least from my perspective, I 
think we’re doing a lot of that within 
Ross without having a specific three 
credit course solely dedicated to it,” 
Person said. “So, I feel as if I have 
been getting exposure.”
“I had a ... general lack of 
understanding of how much 
Michigan cared about DEI”
According 
to 
Heard, 
many 
students and faculty alike feel 
there has been a communication 
gap between the Business School 
administration and the rest of 
the community. While the small 
percentage of people working 
directly 
with 
administration 
recognize the DEI work it has 
been putting in over the past 
several years, Heard said those not 
involved with the administration 
are unaware of these efforts. 
“I think that before I was part 
of taskforce, I had a very bleak 
and probably just general lack 
of understanding of how much 
Michigan cared about DEI, but in 
having these conversations through 
taskforce and just being on the 
administration level and talking to 
them about it, they really actually 
genuinely care, and that was very 

surprising for me,” Heard said. “But 
I feel like they’re struggling with 
connecting to students as well as 
communicating with students.”
As a Black woman, Heard said if 
she had understood the DEI-related 
actions the administration took as 
an underclassmen, she would have 
had an overall better experience. 
This year, the Business School 
has 
focused 
largely 
on 
the 
development of the school’s culture 
and betterment of DEI efforts, 
according to Petryk. She said 
Business Dean Scott DeRue’s 2019 
Dean’s Report highlighted these 
efforts.
“(The 
report) 
really 
talked 
about diversity and inclusion at the 
center of our values,” Petryk said. 
“I do think that there’s probably 
been some messaging gaps or 
communication gaps around what 
our values are and what we aspire 
to be, and that’s changing this year. 
We’re really focusing on the culture 
that we want to create and the 
values that we hold that really do 
stem from our deans.”
While the administration may 
be putting in effort to promote 
diversity 
this 
year, 
Ramesh 
described how its current methods 
are not effective in connecting with 
the student body.
“It’s like what would be the 
best medium to communicate 
(administration’s efforts) through, 
because no one is going to read 
the emails. They put together a 
dean’s report, but no one is going 
to read (the) report,” Ramesh 
said. “So, I think there’s no good 
medium, there’s no good way to 
communicate it in terms of what to 
say … I think that’s what we need to 
focus on.”
According 
to 
Heard, 
students should be apart of the 
administration’s messaging efforts. 
“I think (the) administration is 
just now realizing that, ‘Hey, we’re 
discussing 
amongst 
ourselves 
about how to communicate to the 
students; let’s involve students 
in a conversation to figure out 
how we should communicate to 
the students,’” Heard said. “I feel 
like once they get more students 
involved with that, things are going 
to just start rolling.”
“I am an IDO peer facilitator, 
and, even within that, I would 
say that that’s not enough”
Currently, 
the 
Business 
School provides students with 
mandatory Identity and Diversity 
in Organizations workshops, which 
“prepare students to interact with 
people from different backgrounds 
who have had different experiences 
from their own.” Workshops occur 
once a year and are 90 minutes long. 
According to Petryk, they are run by 
about 25 peer facilitators, who are 
Business upperclassmen trained in 
diversity and inclusion facilitation.
Though she sees the workshops 
as a value to students at the Business 
School, as a peer facilitator, Ramesh 
said they are not sufficient enough 
to fully educate students on the 
necessity of cultural sensitivity.
“I am an IDO peer facilitator, 
and, even within that, I would say 
that that’s not enough, because I 
engage with these students in a 
one and a half hour workshop,” 
Ramesh said. “There’s not enough 
time to build that relationship, build 
that trust, have those important 
conversations. We need a race and 
ethnicity requirement.”
The IDO workshops are solely 
offered to sophomores, juniors 
and seniors in the Business school, 
though 
certain 
students 
have 
explained the beginning years in 
the Business School are crucial for 
the students’ development. 
“I feel like once you’re a junior 
and senior, you’re kind of set or 
don’t care anymore,” Heard said. “If 
we refocused a lot of this work for 
freshman year, the culture would 
completely shift.”
According 
to 
marketing 
professor Carolyn Yoon, faculty 
director of diversity and inclusion, 
professors are moving beyond 
the IDO workshops this year by 
integrating curriculum regarding 
identity and diversity. For example, 
in Business Administration 100 
and 200 courses, professors are 
incorporating 
workshops 
to 
educate students on how their 
identities affect their opportunities 
in business.
Both faculty and students are 
aware of pushback from Business 
students who do not see the value in 
taking the IDO workshops, Petryk 
said.
“We are also working with 
some resistance which is with 
students especially within the BBA 
population around, ‘Why do I need 
to do this? Why is it important? 
How is this going to help me in 
my career?’” Petryk said. “So, we 
are working in multiple different 
ways to make that connection 

for folks who don’t necessarily 
see themselves in the problem of 
diversity and inclusion.”
According 
to 
Ramesh, 
the 
polarizing 
views 
of 
Business 
students regarding these IDO 
workshops have stemmed from 
their 
different 
socioeconomic 
backgrounds. On the one hand, 
Ramesh said white students from 
privileged backgrounds might feel 
uneasy having these discussions.
“I think it’s that students who 
come from very white, upper class 
communities are not comfortable 
talking about these things, don’t 
want to say the wrong thing, don’t 
know how to be in that environment 
because they’ve never really been in 
an uncomfortable space like that,” 
Ramesh said. 
Ramesh 
said 
that 
on 
the 
flip side, minority students are 
tired of having to have the same 
conversations regarding diversity. 
“They’re one of two of their 
identity in the entire class, and they 
have to sit in this workshop where 
they’re the only ones speaking 
for their whole community again, 
having to learn this information 
that they already know, having to 
teach their peers,” Ramesh said. 
“So, I think on both sides it’s very 
uncomfortable.”
The presence of wealth is 
especially noticeable in the Business 
School, even outside of the IDO 
workshops, according to Ramesh. 
While many people are financially 
comfortable, others without the 
same financial capabilities can be at 
a disadvantage in regards to certain 
elements of the school’s culture.
“I think SES is very noticeable 
in the way people dress and the 
way people show up,” Ramesh said. 
“Even I think just small things, like 
we do a lot of team projects and 
they encourage team bonding, and 
people tend to want to eat out, etc. 
and that’s not always accessible to 
a lot of people. Even recruiting, I 
know someone was talking about 
having to fly out for an interview, 
and you have to pay for your flight 
and they’ll reimburse you, but if you 
don’t have that money in the first 
place, it’s an obstacle.”
“The burden is always falling 
on the same people to do the 
work”
The taskforce, BBA Council 
and certain faculty members have 
worked to further improve the 
culture of Ross by trying to make 
it a more inclusive environment 
for international students and 
minorities as a whole.
Business senior and BBA Council 
President Liza Hochberg said the 
DEI taskforce has worked with 
faculty to expand the conversation 
on case studies to include a more 
diverse range of topics. Business 
senior Robbert Massie, BBA Council 
vice president of leadership and 
ethics, said in one of his courses, his 
professor now encourages student 
feedback on the cases he chooses 
and asks whether students feel they 
are inclusive for everyone. 
The taskforce also encouraged 
the introduction of name tags with 
phonetic pronunciations, which 
the Business School implemented 
schoolwide this semester.
People like Petryk and Yoon 
have led initiatives with the 
faculty to raise awareness around 
unconscious biases and how to 
promote more of an inclusive 
classroom 
environment. 
For 
instance, 
they 
run 
several 
workshops per year for faculty 
within 
the 
Business 
School. 
Within the past two years, faculty 
evaluations also explicitly ask 
professors questions about what 
they are doing in terms of inclusive 
teaching practices and promoting 
DEI. 
“That signals and lets the faculty 
know that this is an important part 
of their professional development 
and it matters,” Yoon said. “And 
the vast majority of faculty really 
care and they do show up to 
these workshops, and many have 
thought very carefully about how 
to incorporate that into their own 
teaching or pedagogy.”
Ramesh said though great work 
is being done, more people need to 
be involved in efforts to better DEI 
at the Business School. Plus, those 
who are currently involved should 
get the recognition they deserve. 
“The burden is always falling on 
the same people to do the work, and 
there is so much work to do that it 
cannot just be them anymore, and it 
cannot be them doing this work and 
then upper administration getting 
credit,” Ramesh said. “I mean, if 
our diversity numbers go up, or 
students of color are landing these 
amazing job offers and things like 
that, it doesn’t fall on the programs 
that put them through this. It’s not 
often that those programs and the 
amazing people that lead them will 
get credit.”

DEI
From Page 1

