Alves 
said 
having 
worked in the legal sector 
in New York, in politics 
at the White House and 
at 
fintech 
startups 
in 
Silicon Valley, she’s found 
the 
hardest 
problems 
facing the financial world 
require different types of 
knowledge.
“The hardest problems 
to solve are ones that 
require people to have a 
perspective from different 
sectors, and that’s how I 
thought about my careers … 
I needed to have experience 
in all those places and 
speak those languages and 
understand those cultures 
to be able to bring them 
together and solve really 
thorny problems,” Alves 
said.
Harris also spoke on 
regulating U.S. financial 
institutions and challenges 
in the new age of fintech, 
where 
technologies 
involving 
machine 
learning 
and 
artificial 
intelligence 
have 
the 
potential 
to 
influence 
finances. Recent changes 
and 
the 
incorporation 
of 
technology 
into 
the 
financial 
industry 
have 
drawn 
attention 
to 
systematic 
issues 
and 
require policy innovation.

“Before, 
fintech 
data 
was just your transaction 
data … but now everything 
is financial information,” 
Harris said. “You take Uber 
or Lyft, where you went 
and at what time is now 
tied up with a financial 
service, 
and 
payment 
apps 
— 
everything 
has 
become financial data and 
everything 
has 
become 
data on which financial 
decisions about you can 
be made. The trick is, as a 
regulator, as a policymaker, 
is how do you stay close 
enough 
to 
industry 
to 
help drive an affirmative 
agenda, to help catch the 
no-no’s when they happen, 
but not stifle innovation?”
Harris said the highly 
personal nature of money 
and 
finance 
and 
the 
unknown 
role 
fintech 
companies 
will 
play 
in 
possibly perpetrating or 
amending 
mistrust 
in 
financial institutions. 
“(Finance) is emotional, 
it’s personal, it’s stressful, 
it’s all of these things and 
you’re basically expected 
to 
just 
hand 
it 
over, 
whether it’s the money 
itself or it’s our login,” 
Harris said. “When fintech 
first came along they were 
like, ‘We’re not the big 
financial institutions.’ ... 
But that also used to be the 
case, sort of, with Google 
and 
Facebook, 
so 
we’ll 

see how this changes. I 
think we start off feeling 
trustworthy and become 
less so over time.” 
Alves 
discussed 
some 
of her motivations behind 
organizing this dialogue. 
Alves said the event took 
place as part of diversity 
week 
at 
the 
Business 
School, 
which 
aims 
to 
bring awareness to key 
issues regarding access to 
financial institutions and 
trust in them. 
“I thought of why I 
wanted to do an event on 
financial 
inclusion 
and 
what did I want to learn 
more about and what did I 
also want my peers to hear 
about in terms of financial 
inclusion,” 
Alves 
said. 
“Some of the main points 
(were) trusting financial 
institutions 
and 
getting 
traditional banks or bigger 
financial 
institutions 
to 
actually 
serve 
these 
underserved communities 
and populations.”
Harris 
elaborated 
on 
the 
potential 
for 
fintech 
companies 
to 
help decrease the cost of 
providing 
traditionally 
“underbanked” people, or 
those 
without 
frequent 
access 
to 
mainstream 
financial 
services, 
with 
access to credit as well 
as educating people on 
financial health. 
“Historically, 
people 

have said it’s too costly to 
serve 
those 
populations 
because they don’t create 
enough revenue for the 
institution,” Harris said. 
“Fintech 
sort 
of 
came 
about with the promise of 
we’re going to use tech to 
drive down the cost and 
therefore that ratio will 
be going back and we’ll be 
better able to serve these 
people.”
Sanchez-Burks said the 
subject matter of the event 
was interesting, noting the 
interdisciplinary aspect of 
the event.
“There’s a lot of work 
being done in the studio 
around financial inclusion 
and credit … to focus it 
on fintech and financial 
inclusion, the dangers and 
possibilities have got to be 
very interesting,” Sanchez-
Burks said. “We want to be 
this hub for the University 
of innovation and partner 
with 
other 
units 
on 
campus.”
Harris 
answered 
questions from the crowd 
of 
students, 
alumni 
and 
faculty 
addressing 
topics including fintech’s 
durability during a possible 
economic recession.
“A big question in the 
fintech 
community 
is 
what’s going to happen 
when there’s a recession,” 
Harris said. “We just don’t 
know yet because we’ve 

only seen fintech in this 
one economic cycle.”
Harris also addressed 
the potential to use fintech 
to analyze wealth gaps in 
the U.S. and the role that 
race plays in accessing 
credit 
and 
financial 
resources. 
“Because of the history 
of this country around 
race, there are wealth gaps, 
income gaps that tend to, 
themselves, 
perpetuate,” 
Harris said. “I’m hopeful 
that 
part 
of 
what 
technology will allow us to 
explore is our conceptions 
about this.”
Business 
freshman 
Isabella 
Conti 
attended 
the event and expressed 
her interest in fintech, 
considering its potential to 
increase financial access in 
underserved communities. 
“(The 
talk) 
brought 
up a lot of things that 
I’d never thought about, 
with the future of finance 
and technology and how 
that 
intersects,” 
Conti 
said. “My family is Latino 
and my parents are both 
immigrants, so how this 
could help underprivileged 
people and demographics 
was 
really 
interesting 
to me, as I know a lot of 
people who could benefit.” 
Reporter Hannah Mackay 
can be reached at mackayh@
umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, February 13, 2020 — 3A

While Mills said liberalism 
is a great idea in theory, he 
noted the ideals of it have not 
been carried out in practice. 
He 
noted 
freedom 
and 
equality have exclusively been 
the rights of certain members 
of society, while others, such 
as people of color and women, 
have been left out. Mills said 
the 
conventional 
narrative 
portrays 
modern 
Western 
society to be more egalitarian 
than it truly is.
“We need to remember 
most 
Western 
European 
states at one time or another 
had 
empires 
— 
British, 
French, 
Dutch, 
Spanish, 
Portuguese, 
Belgian 
— 
in 
which 
non-Europeans, 
indigenous peoples, in some 
cases, African slaves were 
systemically 
subordinate,” 
Mills said. “Together, these 
Western 
countries 
ruled 
undemocratically 
over 
the 
vast majority of humanity.”
With these considerations 
in mind, Mills said classical 
liberalism 
has 
historically 
been both a “patriarchal” 
liberalism, 
supported 
by 
male 
gender 
domination, 
and 
“racial” 
liberalism, 
underwritten by white racial 
domination. Yet, Mills said 
the philosophy discipline has 
done little to address these 
historical biases.
According to Mills, part 
of the problem with the 
philosophy field is that it is 
predominantly 
white. 
He 
acknowledged his claim is 
controversial as some say 
philosophy isn’t affected by 
race because it supposedly 
theorizes about the general 
human condition. However, 
Mills 
said 
this 
argument 
misses the experiences and 
issues specific to people of 
color. 
Mills said a consequence of 
non-diverse academia is that 
the education system ignores 

certain aspects of history. 
For example, Mills told the 
audience that Japan, one of 
the few non-white countries 
in the post-World War I 
diplomatic council the League 
of Nations, advocated for a 
racial equality clause in the 
Treaty of Versailles. However, 
the other countries rejected 
the proposal.
When 
Mills 
asked 
the 
audience how many people 
knew about the unsuccessful 
racial equality clause, only a 
handful of people raised their 
hands.
“This is a prestigious, very 
well-known 
university,” 
Mills said. “You need to ask 
yourself, what does this say 
about the education system 
… and the broader history of 
colonialism?”
Mills 
spent 
much 
of 
his 
talk 
criticizing 
the 
theories of John Rawls, a 
20th-century 
American 
political philosopher. In his 
book “A Theory of Justice,” 
Rawls proposed the idea of 
distributive 
social 
justice, 
which 
expanded 
upon 
the social contract theory 
developed by Enlightenment 
thinkers 
John 
Locke 
and 
Thomas Hobbes.
According 
to 
social 
contract theory, individuals 
in a state agree to give up their 
freedoms and be governed 
by the state in exchange 
for security. Rawls added 
onto 
this 
theory 
through 
the thought experiment of 
a “veil of ignorance,” which 
hypothesizes that a person, 
before they are born, has the 
opportunity to create an ideal 
society. 
However, the person has no 
knowledge of who they will 
be in this world. Because they 
do not know if they will be a 
part of the privileged class 
or not, Rawls claims people 
will create an objectively just 
society out of self-interest in 
case they are born without 
certain privileges.
According to Mills, Rawls’s 

theory does not apply to the 
U.S. because Rawls sees the 
country as one with racism 
instead of as an inherently 
racist 
society. 
However, 
Mills said Western societies 
have historically been racist 
because race affects the basic 
structure of these societies, 
from the economy to the 
main 
political 
and 
social 
institutions.
Instead 
of 
theorizing 
about what an ideal world 
would 
look 
like, 
Mills 
believed racial justice should 
consider and acknowledge 
racist histories and focus on 
corrective justice. According 
to Mills, corrective justice 
entails 
actions 
such 
as 
radical 
revision 
of 
the 
prison-industrial 
complex 
and 
perhaps 
even 
a 
consideration of reparations. 
Mill’s 
revision 
of 
the 
Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” 
thought experiment, under 
the 
lens 
of 
corrective 
justice, 
would 
aim 
to 
repair 
historically 
racist 
structures. 
“As a white person, you 
ask yourself, I’m doing this 
thought experiment … let’s 
say I’m a Black woman in a 
ghetto in South Side Chicago, 
or let’s say I’m a Latino 
somewhere in southwestern 
United States or I’m a Native 
American on a reservation,” 
Mills said. “What structures, 
what policies would I want to 
see put in place to make sure 
as much as I can that I’m not 
radically handicapped?”
Following his talk, Mills 
opened the floor to questions 
from the audience. 
The first person to speak in 
the Q&A portion claimed Ann 
Arbor is a reverse racist and 
reverse sexist community that 
discriminates against white 
males like himself. When 
people started clapping after 
he said he planned to leave 
the country because of this 
discrimination, 
he 
became 
angry and left the event. 
Several audience members 

asked Mills how to incorporate 
discussions of racial justice 
into 
the 
classroom, 
both 
in college courses and in 
secondary 
schooling. 
Mills 
said efforts should be made 
not only to have dedicated 
courses to race theory but also 
to center considerations of 
identity.
“See how race can be 
incorporated 
into 
the 
curriculum … because it’s 
not as if you’re distorting 
the material,” Mills said. 
“Because 
race 
permeates 
everything.”
Rackham 
student 
Gabrielle Peterson and the 
rest of the Racism Lab, an 
interdisciplinary 
group 
of scholars, attended the 
event 
together. 
She 
said 
Mills’s point about the lack 
of 
diversity 
in 
academia 
resonated 
with 
many 
of 
them. 
“Mills’s 
discussion 
of 
the 
demographics 
within 
research 
bodies 
in 
philosophy 
that 
influence and inform the 
misrepresentations of Black 
people and other minorities 
was extremely helpful in 
rethinking 
and 
reflecting 
on our own experiences in 
our respective disciplines,” 
Peterson said. 
Jessica 
Castellani, 
a 
graduate 
student 
at 
the 
University 
of 
Toledo, 
drove to the event with 
her 
classmates 
and 
her 
professor 
to 
hear 
Mills 
speak. Castellani said she is 
taking a class on critical race 
theory and has been reading 
Mills’s work in class.
Castellani said she talked 
to 
classmates 
about 
the 
audience 
member 
who 
brought up reverse racism. 
She said she believes his 
anger is a product of the fear 
of having his rights taken 
away. 

PHILOSOPHY
From Page 1A

Catherine Marudo, Public 
Health junior and president 
of Phi Delta Epsilon, said 
she believes that despite the 
drawn-out process, it is still 
worth it to apply. She also 
advised 
students 
to 
have 
reasonable expectations.
“If 
you’re 
looking 
for 
clinical experience, it’s either 
a hit or a miss,” Marudo said. 
“You shouldn’t go in with 
the 
expectation 
that 
you 
will have patient experience 
since those clinical positions 
go really fast. But especially 
for pre-med students, any 
form of service in the long-
term will go well with their 
application and they should 
keep reaching out, whether at 
U of M Hospital or elsewhere, 
to find those opportunities.”
LSA 
Honors 
Adviser 
Stephanie Chervin addressed 
the importance of clinical 
experience 
for 
pre-med 
students and advised students 
to apply to other clinical 
settings as well, such as the 
Veterans 
Affairs 
Medical 
Center, St. Joseph’s Mercy 
and other clinics in the Ann 
Arbor area. 
She said she often comes 
across students who complain 
about 
the 
appointment 
slots filling up or missing 
deadlines.
“With 
the 
10,000 
pre-
meds we have, it definitely 
is a stressful thing for our 
students trying to get into U 
of M Hospital,” Chervin said.
LSA 
junior 
Kateryna 
Karpoff is currently involved 
in the Hospital Elder Life 
Program, a program at the 
University 
Hospital. 
For 
those looking to volunteer, 
she advised reaching out to 
upperclassmen to understand 
which programs allow for 
more patient interaction.
“Not all volunteer positions 
are equal, you do kind of have 
to fight for the better ones 

(with patient interaction),” 
Karpoff said. “I think (initially 
applying to the hospital) is a 
good segue, just to get your 
name in the system, and then 
each semester, you can reach 
out to the departments and 
ask if you can be placed in a 
position you’re interested in.”
Loulie Meynard, director 
of volunteer services at the 
University Hospital, said the 
department has made changes 
to the process over the years 
in an attempt to make it fairer. 
She 
discussed 
how 
in 
previous 
years, 
students 
would 
grab 
whatever 
appointment time they saw 
open 
without 
considering 
their own class schedule. 
Realizing this was an issue, 
the department shifted to a 
lottery system and assigned 
appointment times based on 
the availability indicated in 
the student application form. 
“The only thing we got 
tripped up on this time was 
one of the info sessions was 
scheduled before anyone got 
their class schedules. So now 
we are really paying attention 
to when that works,” Meynard 
said.
Michigan 
Medicine 
has 
more 
than 
2,000 
active 
volunteers. 
Meynard said it can be hard 
to manage all of them, but 
she said she attempts to work 
with students on a case-by-
case basis if they’ve attended 
multiple information sessions 
without getting an interview 
by guaranteeing them one in 
the next cycle. 
“We 
have 
a 
wonderful, 
terrible problem,” Meynard 
said. “There are more people 
in this community who want 
to 
volunteer 
at 
Michigan 
Medicine than we have places 
to put them.”
Daily staff reporter Varsha 
Vedapudi can be reached at 
varshakv@umich.edu.

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

anonymous 
attack 
threatens the collegiality of 
the School and violates all 
standards of professional 
behavior,” Hanlon wrote.
Hanlon said he received 
two similar emails that 
summer. 
These 
emails 
reportedly warned Hanlon 
to 
investigate 
Philbert’s 
behavior. Hanlon was also 
allegedly told in person 
that there were previous 
complaints about Philbert.
When the University was 
informed of allegations of 
misconduct on Jan. 16 and 
17 this year, the University 
hired 
Washington 
D.C.-
based law firm WilmerHale 
to 
investigate 
Philbert’s 
history.
Philbert 
first 
came 
to the University as an 
assistant 
professor 
of 
toxicology in the School 
of Public Health in 1995, 
later becoming an associate 
professor in 2000. He was 
the 
associate 
chair 
for 
research and development 
in 
the 
Department 
of 
Environmental 
Health 
Sciences from 2000 to 2003. 
Philbert was promoted to 
professor in 2004 and served 
as the senior associate dean 
for research at the School 
of Public Health before 
being appointed as dean in 
2010. He was approved and 
began serving as provost in 
2017. As provost, Philbert 
presided over the Office 
of 
Institutional 
Equity, 
which is responsible for 
investigating 
claims 
of 
sexual misconduct.
In an email to The Daily, 
University 
spokesperson 
Kim 
Broekhuizen 
emphasized the importance 
of letting the investigation 
run its course.
“It is critical that we 
all 
allow 
the 
outside 
investigators to determine 
the 
facts,” 
Broekhuizen 
wrote. “While that process 
is ongoing, there is very 
little that we are able to 
say.”
Reporter Arjun Thakkar 
can be reached at arjunt@
umich.edu.

HOSPITAL
From Page 1A

PHILBERT
From Page 1A

FINTECH
From Page 1A

Song 
was 
elected 
to the AADL board in 
November 2016. In 2014, 
she was appointed the 
executive director of the 
Ann Arbor Public Schools 
Educational 
Foundation, 
a non-profit organization 
that distributes funds to 
area public schools. Song, 
an alum of the University 
of Michigan, is currently 
a lecturer in the School of 
Social Work. 
Song 
will 
need 
to 
register 
100 
signatures 
by April 21 to get on the 
ballot in August. She is 

holding 
an 
event 
this 
Friday in hopes of gaining 
petition signatures. 
She has yet to publish 
a 
platform, 
but 
she 
described her motivation 
to run for office in a 
statement posted to her 
Facebook page.
“My 
training 
and 
instincts 
are 
to 
make 
sure people are ok and 
safe. 
My 
upbringing 
reminds me how a poor, 
refugee family can claim 
new identities and build 
new communities,” Song 
wrote. “My friends were 
right. More social workers 
need to run for office.”
She 
also 
noted 
her 
previous electoral victory 
when she won her seat on 

the Ann Arbor District 
Library’s 
Board 
of 
Trustees in 2016. 
“My term ends this year 
and 
I’m 
committed 
to 
fulfilling my obligations 
as 
Board 
President,” 
Song 
wrote. 
“However, 
I’m 
once 
again 
called 
by community members 
to serve, this time for 
a 
different 
institution. 
I’ve pulled petitions so 
that I can be on this 
November’s ballot as a 
Democratic candidate for 
Ann Arbor’s City Council. 
The meetings are longer 
but the goals are the same 
when it comes to serving 
the public good.”
In 2018, Song protested 
a proposed amendment 

to the city charter to 
build a downtown park, 
instead 
advocating 
for 
the lot to be sold to 
Chicago developer Core 
Spaces to build a high-
rise apartment building. 
Song told MLive she 
thought the proposal was 
fraught.
“Designating 
the 
majority of the block in 
perpetuity as parkland, 
without 
the 
formal 
planning 
process, 
funding 
or 
public 
engagement 
that any other park or 
development 
would 
undergo, 
significantly 
limits future options for 
the 
downtown 
library 
and 
downtown 
area,” 
Song said.

Song is one of many 
community 
members 
newly 
running 
for 
City 
Council 
seats. 
Zingerman’s 
Bakehouse 
baker Dan Michniewicz 
declared his candidacy 
for 
Ward 
5 
on 
Monday, running as a 
democratic 
socialist. 
Lisa 
Disch, 
political 
science professor at the 
University, is running in 
Ward 1. Former MLive 
journalist Jen Eyer is 
running in Ward 4 and 
Erica Briggs is running 
in Ward 5. 
Daily 
staff 
reporters 
Emma Ruberg and Julia 
Rubin can be reached at 
eruberg@umich.edu 
and 
julrubin@umich.edu.

COUNCIL
From Page 1A

