LSA 
junior 
Rain 
Uddin 
decided to get involved in this 
campaign when she learned 
that Michigan’s 12th District 
was represented by a Democrat 
rather 
than 
a 
Democratic 
Socialist.
“I am really interested in 
seeing the progressive take this 
seat, especially in this district,” 
Uddin said. “I am a transfer 
here, and once I experienced 
the community it was shocking 
to me that we had such an 
established Democrat as our 
representative, so that’s the 
main reason that I am here.”
In an email, Kellie Lounds, 
the 
political 
director 
for 
Dingell’s campaign, said the 
congresswoman was focused on 
serving the people of the 12th 
District.
“Congresswoman 
Dingell 
is focused on continuing to 
lead the fight in Congress for 
quality, affordable healthcare, 
safeguarding the environment, 
strengthening affordable and 
accessible 
education, 
and 
delivering 
for 
hard-working 
men and women in Southeast 
Michigan,” 
Lounds 
wrote. 

“Across the 12th Congressional 
District, 
Mrs. 
Dingell 
talks 
with everyone, and has gone 
to hundreds of meetings and 
events - including events from 
Downriver 
communities 
to 
multiple 
events 
on 
UMich 
campus weekly. People who 
know her, know she is a fighter.”
As 
Rajput 
continued, 
he 
emphasized his various beliefs. 
He said he was focused on 
college debt and talked about 
more affordable or free college. 
“How are we going to pay 
for it? Well, the answer is using 
the vast wealth and resources 
of the United States because we 
are a rich country,” Rajput said. 
“We are the richest country that 
has ever existed in the history 
of mankind, and we’re going 
around pretending that we are 
barely getting by. … We have 
so much money, but we keep 
spending it on dumb stuff.”
He shared a story about 
a woman he met during his 
campaign. 
She 
mentioned 
she was married, but that it 
was not a romantic marriage. 
When applying to college, she 
got married to a friend so they 
would receive more financial aid 
because she would then qualify 
as a dependent.
Rajput said no one should 

have to get married in order to 
pay for college. 
“Is this actually something 
that 
is 
happening 
at 
this 
University?” Rajput said. “The 
answer is yes. … That’s where 
we’re at. Where people are 
trying to do whatever to figure 
out how to make this make 
financial sense for them.”
University 
alum 
Stephen 
Tryban 
attended 
the 
town 
hall to learn more about the 
candidate challenging Dingell. 
“As someone who is pretty far 
left, I am curious and interested 
in any kind of disruption there 
could be in the establishment 
Democrat field,” Tryban said. “I 
think that even if this campaign 
is not successful, I think that 
primarily 
having 
somebody 
like Solomon come in and 
really gather a lot of attention 
for these particular stances 
could inevitably shift Dingell’s 
position, possibly. So, I think, if 
anything, it could gather more 
support for these particular 
issues.”
Rajput concluded by sharing 
his opinions on health care. 
Implementing universal health 
care is crucial, he said. 
“We need to try to make our 
healthcare system better from 
the inside out,” Rajput said.

Experts are unsure how 
PFAS 
exposure 
impacts 
people clinically, Wasilevich 
said. 
“Sometimes it means that 
our lab testing procedures are 
not as refined,” Wasilevich 
said. “We are learning and 
evolving those procedures 
to test for new analytes. We 
also don’t have a clear sense, 
at least for PFAS, about the 
clinical implications of being 
exposed. That makes the 
risk of communication very 
challenging.”
Wasilevich 
then 
proceeded to talk about the 
public health obligations of 
the Michigan PFAS Action 
Response Team.
“We have a public health 
obligation, so once (MPART) 
identifies 
contaminated 
sites, we intervene to try 
to reduce or remove that 
exposure, protecting public 
health,” Wasilevich said. “If 
we locate a contaminated 
site, we will replace that 
water either with bottled 
water or will shift the water 
source, and we will also 
distribute filters.”
Wasilevich 
spoke 
about 
how 
PFAS 
contamination 
affects communities and how 
MPART assuages the fears of 
a contaminated community.
“When a community is 
affected with a contaminant, 
they become very fearful. 
It’s out of their control that 
they’ve been exposed, and 
they 
want 
answers, 
and 
they 
deserve 
answers,” 
Wasilevich said. “We go into 
town halls frequently for 
health education to let them 
know about their testing. We 
create a very strong presence 
in the communities that are 
affected.”
Wasilevich 
also 
talked 
about 
MPART’s 
surface 
water investigations where 
they check for PFAS levels in 

fish and wastewater.
“We 
do 
some 
surface 
water 
investigations,” 
Wasilevich said. “We test 
fish in the water and address 
PFAS foam in the water, and 
we test our wastewater as 
well, and based on what we 
find, we put in public health 
advisories.”
Public Health senior Anna 
Tankersley 
commented 
on possible improvements 
MPART could make in its 
response to PFAS.
“I think that they are 
doing a really good job, but 
I’d like to see them be a little 
more transparent about it,” 
Tankersley said. “I’d like to 
see more publications, kind 
of publicly available. Overall, 
I’d like to see the studies to 
see what they’re doing.”
Wasilevich 
spoke 
about 
where MPART is presently in 
their area of assessment.
“We 
are 
currently 
analyzing 
the 
data. 
We 
are 
pulling 
together 
a 
preliminary report for the 
community to share with 
them 
before 
the 
end 
of 
the year,” Wasilevich said. 
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to 
share the full report by the 
end of the next year.”
Wasilevich further spoke 
about MPART’s expansion 
plans, including a five-year 
grant to establish two new 
biomonitoring initiatives in 
Michigan. 
Meredith 
McGehee, 
a 
senior 
administrative 
assistant at the School of 
Public Health’s Department 
of Epidemiology, commented 
on Michigan’s response to 
the PFAS presence. 
“They’re doing a great job,” 
McGehee said. “They’ve got 
the steps down in the right 
order, they are doing the 
testing, and they have two 
studies that are in their first 
stages.”
The event came to an end 
with a Q&A session. The first 
question asked involved how 
MPART planned to address 
the clustering of samples. 

Wasilevich 
responded 
that 
MPART 
aimed 
to 
statistically address the issue 
of clustering, for example 
analyzing households rather 
than individuals. 
“One of the things that 
we’ve done in the North 
Kent County assessment is 
use households as a means 
of analysis as opposed to 
individuals,” 
Wasilevich 
said. “So, there are some 
statistical means that we 
might employ to address 
that.”
Wasilevich 
was 
further 
asked how the researchers 
planned to boost enrollment 
in the study. 
“We are going to do a lot of 
non-targeted recruitment as 
well as targeted recruitment 
in 
the 
community,” 
Wasilevich said. “We are 
incentivizing with gift cards. 
We’re hoping that helps.”
In 
an 
interview 
with 
The Daily after the event, 
Wasilevich 
addressed 
the 
struggles 
MPART 
faces 
in 
recruiting 
people 
to 
participate in studies. 
“One of the challenges 
is to make sure we have 
people across the spectrum 
of 
possible 
exposure,” 
Wasilevich said. “One of the 
things we also had struggles 
with when we did a random 
sample of participants in 
North 
Kent 
County 
was 
that 
we 
didn’t 
include 
everyone, which meant that 
some people who wanted to 
participate couldn’t.”

Wasilevich 
also 

commented 
on 
how 
Michigan’s response to the 
threat of PFAS has been 
exemplary and what needs to 
be done in the future.
“We are doing so much. It’s 
really been gratifying, in a 
way, to be a part of something 
that is so comprehensive 
and 
has 
all 
these 
state 
agencies participating in,” 
Wasilevich said. “We need 
to continue to do these kinds 
of investigations and direct 
funding to support it.”

“We want to be very 
thoughtful about what we 
think we can understand,” 
Papsal said. “And we don’t 
want to be insulting to 
anyone (thinking) that we 
could 
truly 
understand 
what those individuals are 
going through, but we can 
talk about it. We can raise 
awareness.”
SAWC Director Dan Kelly 
addressed the crowd as the 
event began. Kelly implored 
attendees to leave the Diag 
with not only a greater 
understanding 
of 
what 
experiencing homelessness 
entails, but also an action 
plan for moving forward.
Student 
leaders 
from 
CURIS and MReach said 
they were eager to turn 
the 
event’s 
momentum 
into 
tangible 
action. 
CURIS 
rebranded 
their 
organization 
this 
year, 
moving away from clinical 
work and into advocacy. 
As a result, Public Health 
senior Josie Lee, president 
of 
CURIS, 
said 
the 
organization was seeking 
out a community partner 
who 
had 
experience 
in the field when their 
communication with SAWC 
began.
“Our 
purpose 
was, 
‘They’re already doing so 
much, they already have the 
connections, but what were 
the gaps? Is there anything 
that we could maybe fill?’” 
Lee said.
Similarly, MReach is a new 
organization this semester. 
MReach President Cameron 
Zurawlow, Business junior, 
said the organization’s goal 
was to foster community 
partnerships such as that 
with SAWC.
“Hopefully 
this 
will 
be a night that CURIS 
and MReach continue to 
do every (year), and that 
was the main purpose of 
this 
year: 
establishing 
those 
relationships 
and 
making a change within 
the community,” Zurawlow 

said.
In 
planning 
for 
next 
year, Papsal noted the need 
to apply for an overnight 
permit further in advance. 
Despite having begun to 
plan for the event just 
as 
students 
returned 
to 
campus 
in 
September, 
Papsal said they did not 
apply 
for 
the 
overnight 
permit with enough notice 
to gain approval. The event, 
which lasted seven hours, 
ended at 2 a.m. rather than 
at daybreak because of this.
Lee also said she hopes 
next year’s turnout will 
be larger. She explained 
how 
in 
her 
four 
years 
at 
the 
University, 
she 
has 
observed 
many 
insensitive 
conversations 
where poverty is clearly 
misunderstood. 
Lee 
said 
this was likely on account 
of the privilege afforded 
to what she believes is 
a majority of University 
students.
“Personally, I feel like 
there’s 
something 
U-M 
students 
particularly 
… 
need to learn more about 
this,” Lee said. “They need 
to be more aware of this 
topic, so hopefully it will 
be a tradition that happens 
every year.”
Lee 
sees 
homelessness 
as 
a 
personal 
topic 
because there was a period 
during which her brother 
experienced homelessness. 
She and Papsal explained 
how quickly and irreversibly 
a person can transition from 
poverty 
to 
homelessness 
through no fault of their 
own.
Lee 
and 
Papsal 
also 
noted the importance of 
preventative measures. In 
Papsal’s experience, it is 
far easier to save someone’s 
housing situation at the last 
second than it is to begin 
anew when they become 
homeless. 
SAWC 
client 
Yolanda 
Neely 
said 
when 
SAWC 
acknowledged her humanity 
as well as her homelessness, 
she was finally able to begin 
the recovery process.
“I say that was the first 

day of the beginning of my 
new life and the last day 
of the end of my old life, 
with me not knowing it,” 
Neely said. “I went there 
angry, upset, thinking my 
life was over, but they gave 
me something that I didn’t 
think that I had. They cared 
for me.”
Neely also expressed a 
need for more preventative 
measures 
against 

homelessness, 
such 
as 
affordable 
housing. 
She 
referenced 
Ann 
Arbor’s 
housing crisis, which Papsal 
blames for SAWC’s inability 
to house virtually any of 
their clients in Ann Arbor 
post-recovery.
The fight for affordable 
housing 
in 
Ann 
Arbor, 
which has been brewing for 
years, persists in Ann Arbor 
among both students and 
residents. Protesters took 
to the street on Sunday in 
order to protest mounting 
difficulties.
Ann Arbor City Council 
discussed the issue Monday, 
approving a proposal to 
begin 
affordable 
housing 
development by a 9-2 vote. 
In regard to the decision, 
Councilmember 
Zachary 
Ackerman, 
D-Ward, 
who 
voted 
in 
favor 
of 
the 
development, 
advised 
listeners that, despite the 
proposal’s 
success, 
any 
tangible changes were likely 
four to five years down the 
road.
In the meantime, Papsal 
urged students who are 
interested 
in 
helping 
to 
donate 
or 
contact 
SAWC 
at 
734-662-2829 
for more information on 
volunteering.
“Our greatest goal would 
be 
that 
people 
would 
want to come to us and 
more meaningful ways to 
volunteer and actually have 
more 
client 
interaction,” 
Papsal said. “Really having 
the greatest minds in the 
community 
(use) 
their 
energy to do more than what 
they’re currently doing.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 — 3A

CANDIDATE
From Page 1A

SLEEP-OUT
From Page 1A

PFAS
From Page 1A

Al 
Ahmad 
has 
forged 
connections 
with 
her 
interview subjects, some of 
whom she has grown close 
with over her years of covering 
the area. As she returned to 
Yemen over the years, she 
recognized the effect the 
trauma from the civil war was 
having on people’s perception 
of time and reality.
“Nothing prepares you for 
how you need to handle these 
cases,” Al Ahmad said. “How 
do you maintain distance, 
but also empathy (and) trust? 
They become your friends, 
you talk to them all the time, 
and so the boundaries are 
very difficult to deal with.”
In addition to being a 
journalist, Al Ahmad covers 
her 
stories 
through 
film, 
directing documentaries that 
were broadcast on programs 
like PBS and CBS.
“The 
camera 
is 
an 
interesting addition to a war 
zone, because it enables me to 
filter everything through that 
frame, through that lens,” Al 
Ahmad said. “It actually gives 
me emotional distance.”
Though 
she 
is 
both 
a 
filmmaker and a journalist, 
Al Ahmad said she prioritizes 
the story being told over the 
quality of camera work.
“I’m 
not 
one 
of 
those 
people who’s going to make 
a beautiful film, and I don’t 
really care about that as 
much as, ‘Are you getting the 
information that you need 
from this scene?’” Al Ahmad 
said.
As someone applying for 
the Wallenberg Fellowship 

to learn about the lives 
of 
Yemeni 
refugees 
and 
asylum seekers, LSA senior 
Ayat 
AL-Tamimi 
attended 
Al 
Ahmad’s 
lecture 
for 
the 
opportunity 
to 
learn 
from someone who is doing 
groundwork 
in 
a 
similar 
field.
“I think at the heart of it 
was that she talked about 
all these war and political 
factions, but I don’t think 
any of that mattered in the 
grand scheme of the story,” 
AL-Tamimi 
said. 
“What 
mattered was the human 
element, and people’s lives 
and how those have been 
impacted by people who put 
ideology above human life.” 
LSA junior Jalal Mawri, 
who attended the lecture, is 
a Yemeni-American student 
who lived in Yemen until 2013. 
Mawri said he felt a personal 
connection to Al Ahmad’s 
stories, as two of his cousins 
had been killed in airstrikes 
in Yemen.
“It was brutally emotional,” 
Mawri said. “When I was 
hearing those stories that 
she was saying, I got really 
emotional. I had a few tears 
coming out of my eyes.”
Al 
Ahmad 
became 
emotional 
while 
sharing 
stories of civilian casualties 
she had encountered while on 
the ground in Yemen, ranging 
from a five year old girl who 
died alone standing in line to 
get water, to a mother who 
lost her two boys to a missile 
strike that hit them while 
they were playing outside. 
“If anything, this was a 
reminder that you can have 
five factions warring in a 
village, but in the end, a kid 
is still a kid who answers to 

his mother,” AL-Tamimi said. 
“A faction doesn’t take that 
away.”
Currently, Al Ahmad is 
working on a podcast about 
Saudi Arabian human rights 
in Arabic. She is also looking 
to 
continue 
her 
coverage 
of Yemen in the future by 
revisiting her footage and 
seeing how the understanding 
of the conflict has changed.
“For a lot of people, access 
is more important than the 
story itself,” Al Ahmad said. 
“I hope I never get accused 
of 
just 
being 
someone 
who has access but no real 
journalism.”
At the end of her lecture, 
Al Ahmad was met with a 
standing ovation from the 
audience. This was followed 
by a Q&A section, which 
included 
a 
question 
from 
an audience member about 
being a female reporter in the 
Middle East. 
Al Ahmad responded that 
she sees her gender as being 
a superpower, since she can 
cover Yemeni women with 
sensitivity to their culture 
and situation. Other questions 
addressed Al Ahmad’s opinion 
about other conflicts in the 
Middle East area and the 
relations between the region 
and the United States.
Reflecting on Al Ahmad’s 
speech, 
AL-Tamimi 
was 
moved by her description 
of the Yemeni people being 
impacted by the civil war. 
“I think what really moved 
me to tears when she talked 
about how people being here is 
a sign of people not forgetting 
about Yemen,” AL-Tamimi 
said. “I think people often 
forget that people living in 
the Middle East are people.”

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

MEDAL
From Page 1A

“So, for the ACLU, them 
dealing with the courts was 
particular to that, and then 
we wanted to talk about the 
experience of women too, and 
Banner teaches at a women’s 
prison.”
Fancher began the panel by 
outlining the history of mass 
incarceration in the United 
States and noting points in 
recent American history in 
which Black Americans have 
been wrongly incarcerated.
“During the Civil Rights 
era, people were arrested for 
simply exercising their First 
Amendment rights. … During 
the Black Power movement, 
you’d find people who were 
framed… some of these people 
imprisoned in the 1960s are 
still in prison today,” Fancher 
said. “During the war on 
drugs… the number of people 
who went to prison skyrocketed 
because 
of 
policies 
that 
demonized people… and (law 
enforcement) swept through 
Black communities.”
Before 
continuing, 
both 

Banner and Fancher stressed 
to the audience that the issue 
of mass incarceration is not 
simply a point of partisan 
disagreement.
“The issue is not one between 
Democrats and Republicans, 
but it is between those in power 
and those who are oppressed,” 
Fancher said.
“Sentencing guidelines (for 
the War on Drugs) were voted 
on by both Democrats and 
Republicans,” Banner said.
Both Banner and Fancher 
offered up potential changes in 
policy and general approaches 
to the problems surrounding 
mass incarceration. 
Fancher 
focused 
on 
the 
issue 
of 
policing 
and 
the 
disproportionate 
impact 
felt in communities of color, 
especially 
Black 
Americans. 
One possible solution to this, 
Fancher said, is to incentivize 
police 
officers 
by 
tying 
promotion and job progression 
to policing in a manner that 
is as unbiased and as fair as 
possible.
“The one thing that I am 
convinced of after talking to, at 
this point, hundreds of police 
officers, is that if they’re not 
concerned 
about 
anything 

else, they’re concerned about 
their careers and their career 
advancement,” Fancher said. 
“If the message somehow gets 
through to them that the way to 
advance is to act as progressive 
as possible… I think that they 
would do it.”
Banner briefly spoke about 
the issues women face in the 
criminal justice system, and the 
rising number of incarcerated 
women.
“From the 1970s to 2000, the 
number of women incarcerated 
grew by 823 percent … and 
women’s 
incarceration 
numbers seem to be growing. 
… So, we need to realize that 
policies are not equal in their 
impact (to men and women),” 
Banner said.
When asked how University 
students interested in helping 
to reduce mass incarceration 
might do so, Fancher offered a 
rather simple solution.
“The reality is, anything I 
do, you can do right now. It just 
becomes a question of whether 
your way of thinking is one that 
just drives you to get up and do 
it,” Fancher said. “You’ve got 
more power, you’ve got more 
influence than you think.”

PANEL
From Page 2A

