Current 
faculty 
member 
Emily 
Lawsin 
and 
former 
faculty 
member 
Scott 
Kurashige 
filed 
a 
discrimination 
lawsuit 
in 
2016 against the University of 
Michigan under the Elliott-
Larsen Civil Rights Act. Their 
trial began yesterday at 9 a.m. 
at the Washtenaw County 
Court and it is scheduled to 
continue until December 23.
Kurashige and Lawsin are 
seeking more than $25,000 
in damages to compensate 
for emotional distress, loss of 
reputation and lost salaries.
They cite a “hostile work 
environment for faculty of 
color and women” at the 
University, 
“(p)atterns 
of 
racial 
discrimination 
in 
faculty hiring” within the 
Department 
of 
American 
Culture 
and 
racial 
discrimination in leadership 
selection 
and 
promotion, 
among other things, in their 
lawsuit. 
They 
also 
claim 
the Office of Institutional 
Equity failed to investigate 
the Kurashige’s complaints of 

discrimination in a just and 
efficient manner.
Lawsin is a lecturer IV 
in 
the 
Women’s 
Studies 
and 
American 
Culture 
departments and Kurashige 
was a tenured professor and 
the director of the Asian/
Pacific 
Islander 
American 
Studies Program before he left 
in 2014. Both began working 
at the University in 2000.
Kurashige 
was 
removed 
from his position as director 
of the A/PIA Studies program 
and said he felt pressured to 
quit his tenured position. He 
now works as a professor at 
the University of Washington. 
Kurashige 
additionally 
seeks reinstatement to both 
his former positions at the 
University.
They are being represented 
by attorneys Alice Jennings 
and Carl Edwards of Edwards 
and Jennings PC, a law firm 
based in Detroit.
The United Asian American 
Organizations 
released 
a 
statement 
on 
Sunday 
in 
support 
of 
Lawsin 
and 
Kurashige in their lawsuit 
and urged students to attend 
the trial to show support. 

Last 
month, 
students 
at 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan 
published the first issue of 
The Michigan Gayly: LGBTQ+ 
Issues, a newspaper dedicated to 
publishing articles related to the 
LGBTQ+ community. 
Established this October, the 
organization is currently made 
up of about 20 undergraduate 
and 
graduate 
students 
and 
publishes an issue every month. 
Students can pick up copies of 
the newspaper at the Spectrum 
Center and the campus dorms. 
LSA 
freshman 
Shoshana 
Weinstein, 
editor-in-chief 
of 
The Michigan Gayly, said she 
came up with the idea for the 

newspaper because she felt like 
there was not enough attention 
on the policy and the legislation 
that surrounds LGBTQ+ rights 
in the media and on campus. She 
was pleasantly surprised to see 
the excitement among others in 
the community to contribute to 
the newspaper.
“I hadn’t realized there was 
such a hunger within the LGBT 
community to be able to tell 
our stories,” Weinstein said. “I 
thought maybe people would 
want to do an issue or two; I 
wasn’t really sure if there was 
going to be enough support or 
momentum to keep it going. But 
people immediately responded 
really passionately with all 
these things that they cared 
about.” 
LSA freshman Adrian Beyer 

said he became a staff writer 
because he was intrigued by 
the student-run nature of the 
publication, created by people 
who felt strongly about the rights 
of the LGBTQ+ community. 
“This is a group of people who 
just cared really passionately 
about having a newspaper and 
publishing queer voices,” Beyer 
said. “And I think it’s really 
important too, because a lot of 
other publications might shy 
away from some of those stories, 
but here, it’s kind of a chance 
to really be uncensored and say 
what you want to say.”
According to the University 
of Michigan Maize Pages, The 
Michigan Gayly is the only 
newspaper 
on 
campus 
that 
publishes stories solely dedicated 
to the LGBTQ+ community. The 

newspaper has articles about 
politics, business, sports, health 
and more, all relating to the 
community. 
LSA 
freshman 
Edha 
Shirodkar, the news editor of the 
publication, said The Michigan 
Gayly is important in terms of 
giving students in the LGBTQ+ 
community the representation 
they deserve on campus. It made 
her feel more comfortable with 
her own identity because she 
was able to find comfort in a 
group of people who understood 
some of the experiences she had 
gone through.
The newspaper also features 
articles about writers’ coming 
out stories and other personal 
experiences. 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, December 3, 2019

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Each month, The Michigan 
Daily’s 
Administration 
Beat 
sits 
down 
with 
University 
of Michigan President Mark 
Schlissel to discuss important 
questions 
about 
University 
policy, 
commitments 
and 
challenges. Topics discussed at 
this month’s interview included 
the President’s Commission on 
Carbon Neutrality, The Detroit 
Center 
for 
Innovation, 
the 

discrimination 
lawsuit 
filed 
against the University and more.
At the beginning of the meeting, 
The Daily also spoke with 
Jennifer Haverkamp, director 
of the Graham Sustainability 
Institute and co-chair of the 
President’s 
Commission 
on 
Climate Neutrality, about the 
Commission’s 
first 
interim 
report 
that 
was 
released 
Monday morning. Haverkamp 
said the report includes input 
from over 90 individuals and 
highlights the first phase of the 
Commission’s work, which is 
focused on devising strategies 
to 
reach 
carbon 
neutrality 
and 
planning 
for 
potential 

obstacles in the future. Some 
of the goals include creating a 
Carbon Accounting Subgroup to 
estimate the amount of methane 
leakage 
in 
the 
University’s 
natural gas supply chain, hiring 
an external consulting firm to 
suggest ways to reach carbon 
neutrality and adding the Flint 
and Dearborn campuses to the 
objectives. 
The Michigan Daily: How 
will the carbon neutrality goals 
translate over to the Detroit 
Innovation Center?
Mark Schlissel: That’s a 
really interesting question. So 
since the Detroit Center is quite 
a new concept, and actually 

it hasn’t been fully designed, 
and there’s not a shovel in 
the ground, I don’t know. But 
yeah, there are opportunities 
to make that a model building. 
And the folks that are doing 
the development are thinking 
along those lines. Once we 
know what we’re going to 
do, we’ll announce it ... the 
buildings being built by outside 
developers that will be donated 
to the university. So although 
we have input into the building, 
we won’t have control of it until 
it’s complete and given to us as 
a gift.

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

INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 38
©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

Discrimination lawsuit over violation 
of state civil rights law heads to court

The University of Michigan 
President’s Commission on Carbon 
Neutrality released its first interim 
progress report in an email to 
students Monday morning. The 
report details the commission’s 
progress on its goal to develop 
recommendations 
for 
reducing 
carbon emissions on campus by 
2025.
In an interview with The Daily 
Monday, 
Jennifer 
Haverkamp, 
co-chair 
of 
the 
President’s 
Commission on Carbon Neutrality, 
discussed the contents of the report. 
According 
to 
Haverkamp, 
the 
document contains input from more 
than 90 individuals, including the 
commission’s members as well as 
faculty and students from advisory 
and analysis groups working with 
the commission.
“(The report) is reflecting the 
first phase of our work, which was 
focused on defining the challenges 
in reaching carbon neutrality and 
planning on how we address those 
challenges,” Haverkamp said.
Since 
Schlissel 
announced 
the creation of the Commission 
in February of this year, the 
commissioners have met 12 times. 
The Commission has held three 
public forums at the Ann Arbor 
campus to receive input from the 
community, and it has also created 
an online form for U-M community 

members 
to 
leave 
comments 
directed at the commission.
One key development in the 
Commission’s 
work 
was 
the 
formation of eight internal analysis 
teams 
to 
investigate 
different 
opportunities for decarbonization. 
The teams, composed of faculty 
and student research assistants 
from 
all 
three 
University 
of 
Michigan campuses, include: bio 
sequestration, which focuses on 
finding University land for carbon 
sequestration 
projects; 
building 
standards; campus culture and 
communication; 
commuting; 
energy 
consumption; 
external 
collaboration; food; and university 
travel for faculty, staff and students.
Beyond the internal analysis 
teams, the Commission has also 
hired Integral Group, an external 
firm 
that 
analyzes 
building 
energy infrastructure to enhance 
sustainability, to present a plan to 
eliminate carbon emissions from 
heat and power systems across all 
three campuses.
Though the current sustainability 
goals for greenhouse gas reduction 
only addresses scope one and 
scope two emissions — those 
generated on campus or through 
purchased electricity — the report 
states the Commission intends to 
also make recommendations for 
reducing scope three emissions that 
indirectly relate to the University’s 
operations. 

Report reveals 
details of carbon 
neutrality effort 
 

ADMINISTRATION

Commission releases plans for creating 
emission reduction recommendations

President Schlissel talks carbon 
neutrality, Detroit Innovation Center

Head of University discusses importance of youth voter participation

Trial starts for 
suit brought 
by members 
of ‘U’ faculty

Follow The Daily 
on Instagram, 
@michigandaily

OLIVIA CELL/Daily
University President Mark Schlissel speaks on the Climate Coalition in an interview with The Daily in Fleming Administration Building Monday.

See TRIAL, Page 3

PARNIA MAZHAR
Daily Staff Reporter

EMMA STEIN
Daily Staff Reporter

ALEC COHEN/Daily

See GAYLY, Page 3
See REPORT, Page 3

AMARA SHAIKH, 
LIAT WEINSTEIN 
& EMMA STEIN 
Daily News Editor 
& Daily Staff Reporters

ARJUN THAKKAR
Daily Staff Reporter 

See SCHLISSEL , Page 3

The Michigan Gayly provides 
outlet for LGBTQ+ community 

New publication features students’ personal experiences, stories

