michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Friday, January 24, 2020

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. 56
©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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

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

KRISTINA ZHENG
Daily Staff Reporter

Ann Arbor’s recreational 
marijuana 
businesses 
reported higher levels of 
sales since local retailers 
took 
advantage 
of 
the 
statewide 
legalization 
of 
marijuana. Skymint joined 
five other cannabis retailers 
in Ann Arbor licensed to sell 
recreational marijuana on 
Jan. 9. 
Skymint, which is owned 
by Green Peak Innovations, 
is 
the 
largest 
marijuana 
company in Michigan. The 
dispensary has been open 
since November, and is one 
of six locations throughout 
the 
state, 
including 
one 
in Flint, which opened on 
Thursday. 

Summer 
Ransom, 

Skymint’s 
president 
of 
retail, said gaining a license 
for recreational sale has 
transformed business at the 
Ann Arbor location. 
“It’s been night and day for 
how busy we are,” Ransom 
said. 
“It 
has 
increased 
business by five times — 
certain days even more than 
that — so it’s been pretty 
crazy.”

The University of Michigan’s 
Central Student Government will 
send five representatives to the 
Association of Big Ten Students 
winter 
conference 
at 
Indiana 
University in Bloomington, Ind., on 
Friday.
The 
Association 
of 
Big 
Ten Students brings together 
representatives from each of the Big 
Ten schools’ student governments 
to 
share 
information 
about 
student governance and represent 
students to administrations and 
governments. 
LSA junior Aidan Sova is 
the executive director of ABTS 
and said he is excited to bring 
20 pieces of legislation to the 
conference, up from CSG’s typical 
10 items. The legislation includes 
tackling student affordability and 
developing 
ABTS 
partnerships 
with student advocacy groups. The 
flagship piece of legislation urges 
all Big Ten universities to invest 
with a climate conscious lens. 
“Ben Gerstein wrote on behalf of 
Michigan a piece of legislation that 
would increase our commitment 
to sustainability in asking our 
respective 
administrations 
across the Big Ten to no longer 
invest in fossil fuels,” Sova said. 

Many Big 
10 student
councils 
to convene

STUDENT GOVERNMENT 

JULIA RUBIN 
Daily Staff Reporter 

Following claims against Philbert, 
a look at The Daily’s reporting on OIE 

Office has received criticisms for length, effectiveness of investigations

BUSINESS

Indiana meeting brings 
together leaders to share 
ideas, collaborate on 
upcoming legislation

Largest A2 retailer 
obtains a license to 
sell recreationally after 
legalization in 2018 

ANGELINA LITTLE 
Daily Staff Reporter

See CSG, Page 3
See MARIJUANA, Page 3 

Cannabis
company 
sees high 
 
sale levels 

DESIGN BY MAGGIE HUANG

EMMA STEIN
Daily News Editor

When 
remembering 
Sam 
Epstein, 
linguistics 
and 
cognitive 
science 
professor, 
who passed away on Nov. 
29, colleagues and students 
reflected on his brilliance. 
During his 22-year career 
at the University of Michigan, 
Epstein 
was 
the 
founding 
director 
of 
the 
Weinberg 
Institute for Cognitive Science 
in 2014 and worked closely 
alongside 
Noam 
Chomsky, 
famed intellectual and linguist. 
Colleagues say his work in 
linguistics 
and 
cognitive 
science 
propelled 
forward 
these 
departments 
at 
the 
University, and his teaching 
was recognized by a 2009 John 
D’Arms Award for Excellence 
in 
Graduate 
Mentoring 
and an Arthur F. Thurnau 
Professorship in 2013. 
Marlyse 
Baptista, 
Department 
of 
Linguistics 
and the Weinberg Institute 
faculty member, met Epstein 
during her time as a student 
at Harvard University nearly 
30 years ago, where he was an 
assistant professor. They kept 

in touch when Epstein came 
to the University, and when 
Baptista received a position, 
they were able to continue their 
close 
working 
relationship, 
which 
became 
a 
life-long 
friendship. 
His 
knack 
for 
complex thinking, she said, was 
one of a kind. 
“If you think of Sam Epstein, 
one of the first things that 
come to mind is his brilliance,” 
Baptista said. “The brilliance 
of his intellect. And whenever 
you had a conversation with 
him, both as a colleague and 
as a friend, you knew that you 
were going onto some type 
of academic journey, whose 
endpoint would always be so 
deeply satisfying, because he 
had that kind of mind. It was 
always very elegant in the way 
that he reasoned and argued for 
a specific point. I don’t know 
anybody who can match what 
he had to offer.” 
While Epstein’s excellence 
as an academic is undisputed, 
Baptista and other colleagues 
unanimously 
emphasized 
the personality, charm and 
empathy he brought to campus.

Colleagues, students reflect on legacy 
of Cognitive Science Institute founder

Sam Epstein
remembered: 
‘His door was 
always open’

KATHERINA SOURINE
Daily Staff Reporter

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 KELSEY PEASE/Daily
School of Business senior Maha Zeidan and graduate student Noor Ghali attend the Paani Culture night in UMMA Thurday evening.

See PAANI, Page 3

2nd Paani Culture Night celebrates 
history, diversity with food and dance

Student organizations represent countries facing shared sanitation issues 

See EPSTEIN, Page 3 

See OIE, Page 3

The Michigan Daily has 
a tip line just for these 
kinds of stories – tipline@
michigandaily.com. This is 
a private tip line viewable 
by a small team of reporters 
committed to this work. The 
Michigan Daily is listening.
University of Michigan 
President Mark Schlissel’s 
announcement 
on 
Wednesday 
of 
numerous 
sexual 
misconduct 
allegations against Provost 
Martin 
Philbert 
follows 
long-running criticism of 
how the University’s Office 
of Institutional Equity has 
handled such claims in the 
past, as reported on by The 
Daily. 

Philbert, 
who 
was 
Schlissel’s 
second-in-
command, was placed on 
paid administrative leave 
Tuesday after the University 
received multiple allegations 
of his misconduct on Jan. 16 
and 17. 
The Office of Institutional 
Equity investigates sexual 
misconduct claims, among 
other 
allegations. 
OIE 
reported directly to Philbert 
as of Sept. 2019. 
University 
spokesman 
Fitzgerald 
said, 
despite 
supervising OIE, Philbert 
had no direct involvement 
with the investigations. 
“On a day-to-day basis, he 
has no hands-on role with 
the office or investigations 
at all,” Fitzgerald said. 
He 
noted 
that 
any 
allegations 
made 
against 

Philbert “absolutely do not” 
taint 
OIE 
investigations 
conducted 
while 
they 
reported to the provost. 
Fitzgerald 
emphasized 
the provost did not play a 
role in OIE’s investigations, 
adding 
that 
the 
office 
conducts its investigations 
independently. 
“It would be a mistake to 
think the provost, or anyone, 
had power or influence over 
investigations,” 
Fitzgerald 
said. 
“The 
investigations 
are 
done 
by 
trained 
investigators in the Office 
for 
Institutional 
Equity 
and they’re signed off by 
the Title IX coordinator 
if it’s a sexual misconduct 
investigation.”
Philbert had been on leave 
for part of last semester for 
medical reasons, Fitzgerald 

confirmed. Amy Dittmar, 
acting provost at the time, is 
not resuming the role as that 
particular 
administrative 
leave has ended. 
Before May 2019, OIE 
reported to both the Office 
for 
Diversity, 
Equity 
& 
Inclusion 
and 
University 
Human 
Resources. 
Fitzgerald 
said 
the 
University 
administration 
changed who OIE reported 
to in order to make the 
process more efficient. 
“It (the move to have OIE 
report to the provost) was 
partially to indicate the 
importance of this office, 
but 
it 
reported 
to 
two 
different offices,” Fitzgerald 
said. 
“And 
sometimes 
a 
joint reporting relationship 

Just a few minutes before 
7 p.m. on Thursday, the front 
steps of the University of 
Michigan Museum of Art were 
dotted with students dressed 
in a collection of cultural attire 
and winter jackets. Despite 
the cold, more than a hundred 
students were all there for the 
same reason: Paani Culture 
Night. 
Paani 
is 
a 
non-profit 
organization 
comprised 
of 
student volunteers dedicated to 
creating sustainable, evidence-
based solutions to supply clean 

water 
and 
improve 
health 
disparities. The organization 
has built more than 200 wells 
and donated around $100,000 
towards 
alleviating 
the 
sanitation crisis in Pakistan.
To host the event, Paani 
partnered with 10 cultural 
student 
organizations 
across 
campus, 
including 
the 
Bangladeshi, 
Egyptian, 
Iraqi, 
Jordanian, 
Lebanese, 
Palestinian, Pakistani, Persian, 
Syrian and Yemeni student 
organizations. 
Last year, Paani launched 
their first culture night at 
Rackham 
Graduate 
School 
which drew more than 100 
attendees not just from the 

University but also from across 
metro Detroit, including from 
schools such as the University 
of 
Michigan-Dearborn, 
Michigan State University and 
Wayne State University.
LSA 
sophomore 
Sukaina 
Himmati said the organization 
hoped to make this year’s event 
even bigger. 
“It was very important for 
those who initially started it 
and for us now to uplift the 
community that we started 
from,” 
Himmati 
said. 
“We 
noticed that a lot of our 
friends were a part of cultural 
orgs, and all the countries 
that we represented, all of 
them suffered from serious 

sanitation issues that affected 
the lives of the people back 
home.”
Comedian Abdallah Jasim 
emceed the event, entertaining 
the crowd and helping to 
bring awareness to Paani’s 
sanitation 
efforts. 
Decked 
in colored lights and music, 
the UMMA was filled with 
people of all backgrounds and 
interests. From card games 
to 
papyrus 
making, 
each 
organization set up a booth 
where attendees could learn 
about traditions and activities 
most meaningful to their 
organization’s culture.

