“Even 
though 
just 
inherently in this mock trial 
room, learning that cases 
weren’t finite and outcomes 
were 
creative 
and 
many 
different things could happen 
inside them — after this long 
observation, I knew as an artist 
I must turn to some kind of 
action,” McClellan said. 
McClellan 
also 
explored 
the 
role 
of 
storytelling 
in 
a 
courtroom 
and 
how 
it 
contributes to the infinite 
uncertainty 
of 
truth. 
She 
said she sees litigation as a 
place where storytelling and 
performance intersect.
She also said she considers 
“liveness” vital to a courtroom. 
McClellan 
suggested 
that the act of witnessing 
contributes to a collective 
narrative in the legal space 
and that this public gesture 

is just as important as the 
performers in the trials. She 
said the openness of this space 
plays an important role in its 
subjectivity, which shows that 
truth is not an absolute but 
rather something people share 
with each other. 
“Witness is a powerful act. 
Witness is a presence but also 
a retelling,” McClellan said. 
“It’s active and social and 
political in nature.”
After the Artist Talk, the 
audience headed to the Irving 
Stenn, Jr. Family Gallery to 
experience the performance 
itself. 
Different 
from, 
yet 
imitative, of the traditional 
courtroom, Witness Lab was 
painted in a shade of light blue 
with counsel tables on both 
sides. 
Camille Casemier, School 
of Art & Design and Music, 
Theatre 
& 
Dance 
junior, 
said she has been a huge fan 
of McClellan’s work and is 
interested in her research-

based art.
“The interaction in between 
the 
courtroom 
and 
the 
religious space is something 
that I wasn’t really aware of 
so I thought that was really 
interesting,” Casemier said. 
“As an artist who also likes 
to do a lot of research, it felt 
really affirming to hear (from) 
someone a lot further along in 
their career.”
Conner 
Darling, 
a 
performance 
artist 
and 
University alum, expressed his 
interest in public ritual and 
McClellan’s medium of art. 
“I 
enjoyed 
her 
point 
about 
simulation 
versus 
reenactment,” Darling said. 
“Simulations 
can 
allow 
anything to happen effectively 
and a lot of what she has 
done is creating the space for 
things to happen as opposed to 
prescribing certain events.”
Reporter Lola Yang can be 
reached 
at 
lolayang@umich.
edu.

Despite the common recognition 
of Mars’s alleged misbehavior, 
Jordan 
said 
employees 
felt 
uncomfortable speaking up about 
Mars.
“The company had such a 
culture where we were kind of 
trapped and we couldn’t really say 
anything about it and bring up that 
it was so fucked up,” they said. 
Jake agreed, noting employees 
wouldn’t speak up because they 
didn’t want to lose their jobs and 
the company was doing well. 
Sam echoed this, saying the 
company was lucrative and many 
of the employees had strong stock 
options. 
Sexual misconduct was not the 
only trouble with Clinc’s culture, 
Jordan said. They claimed Mars 
was prone to angry outbursts at 
employees, and he and Tang would 
engage in intense fights at work. 
Other sources The Daily spoke 
to supported this claim. Ryan 
suggested the fighting was a tool 
Mars and Tang used to intimidate 
employees. 
“It was marital spats, but to an 
absolutely extreme degree,” Jordan 
said. “Swearing, storming out of the 
room, slamming doors. Married 
couples fight, but it was psychotic, 
almost.”
According to Jake, Mars crossed 
professional boundaries in the 
way he criticized and talked about 
employees.
“He definitely talked about 
employees in a very unprofessional 
manner,” Jake said. “He would 
mention 
people’s 
physical 
appearances, he would mention if 
they were a good worker or a bad 
worker. He would openly talk shit 
about employees pretty regularly.”
Jake said employees would be 
prone to personal attacks for their 
mistakes and Mars’s temperament 
could change instantaneously.
“He’s very outwardly friendly, 
like ‘I’m your best friend,’” Jake 
said. “But the instant you get on 
his bad side, you do something that 
upsets him, you’re dead to him. It 
flips like a switch, it’s crazy.”
Sam supported this, saying 
the workplace environment was 
confusing because Mars and Tang 
were volatile. For instance, he noted 

Tang could be kind — even hugging 
him on his birthday — when she’d 
just been screaming at someone in 
a conference room. 
Commenting on the workplace 
dynamic at Clinc, Ryan said Mars 
and his wife would manipulate 
employees by playing “good cop, 
bad cop.”
“Once you’re on their radar, they 
choose which of them is going to be 
nice and which is going to be mean 
to you, so that they can always have 
one of their unit on your side,” Ryan 
said. 
Jordan said the toxic culture 
got to the point where employees 
would freeze upon hearing even 
a video recording of Mars’s voice, 
afraid that he was in the room. 
“His 
presence 
is 
just 
so 
dominating and it’s scary,” Jordan 
said.
A 
major 
part 
of 
Mars’s 
misbehavior, Jordan said, was 
substance use. They said alcohol 
is a focal part of Clinc’s workplace 
culture — employees store alcohol 
in the company fridge, drink during 
Friday meetings and often go to 
bars after work — and this fueled 
Mars’s toxicity. 
Jake pointed out alcohol use and 
underage drinking are common at 
many tech companies, but claimed 
Mars was unprofessional in the 
extent of his drinking. According 
to Sam, at the first retreat he went 
to, the company brought 600 cans 
of beer and seven handles of vodka. 
Emily noted Tang was a heavy 
drinker as well, participating in the 
many happy hours and after-work 
drinking sessions. She said the 
couple would often show up late to 
work as a result of their drinking. 
“They show up oftentimes late 
because they both like to drink,” 
Emily said. “And then they have all 
the liquor in the office.”
Ryan said he thinks Mars 
used alcohol as an excuse for 
inappropriate behavior. Ryan added 
he was unimpressed by a statement 
Mars made in a company email, 
saying he had stopped drinking.
Referencing the incident at 
Revel and Roll, Ryan said he does 
not believe Mars’s inappropriate 
actions can be completely pinned 
on alcohol. According to Ryan, 
Mars winked knowingly at him the 
day after the incident.
“As far as I know, on bowling 
night, he was only just drinking 

beer, so unless he slammed down 
15 beers, he shouldn’t have been 
so out of control,” Ryan said. “It’s 
definitely not that he was blackout 
drunk the night before. It’s pretty 
clear that he knew he was trying to 
manipulate me, and then the wink 
was some sort of signal.”
Sexual harassment and alcohol 
abuse aside, Clinc was rife with 
professional issues, according to 
the sources who spoke to The Daily. 
For instance, Ryan said, Mars and 
Tang would cite themselves in their 
research papers to inflate their 
citation counts. Sam added there 
was some suspicious use of funds; 
he claimed Mars and Tang used 
investor money to pay for a set of 
condos they owned downtown. 
Emily said the couple would fire 
employees often, especially when 
employees 
expressed 
concern 
about the company. Sam agreed, 
sharing a story about an intern 
who told management he was not 
interested in pursuing a full-time 
position and was immediately fired. 
Moreover, Ryan said, Mars 
would 
lie 
to 
clients 
about 
the 
capabilities 
of 
Clinc’s 
conversational AI platform. Mars’s 
exaggerations 
meant 
workers 
would have to pull all-nighters 
to deliver on his promises. Emily 
backed up this claim.
“When an investor or client 
would come in and they’d be like, 
‘Oh, it would be cool if we could do 
that,’ as soon as that would happen, 
Jason would be like, ‘Oh, we 
already have that done, it’s so super 
intelligent, just give us two days to 
get it ready,’” Ryan said. 
In addition, Ryan said Tang 
and Mars would select graduate 
students from their University lab 
that they knew they could easily 
manipulate into working overtime. 
“That’s their perfect worker, 
someone you can pressure into 
working 70 hours a week, basically 
unpaid, for the company and for 
their own research,” Ryan said. 
According to Emily, Mars would 
target lower-level employees or 
those with less power in order to 
avoid retaliation. 
“He’s smart enough to pick on 
people who are lower level than he 
is, much lower level, to avoid some 
of the allegations,” Emily said. 
Ryan, who quit shortly after the 
bowling alley incident and left his 
doctorate program, said it took him 

time to process how unhealthy the 
workplace environment at Clinc 
was. 
“It’s so multidimensional how 
toxic it is,” Ryan said. “Once you’re 
there, it kind of infects your brain 
and it takes you like two months to 
actually withdraw from it and get 
back to normal.”
Overall, Sam said, the culture 
at Clinc was complicated. The 
management’s behavior was clearly 
inappropriate, but Mars also had 
many positive attributes, according 
to Sam — for example, he worked 
hard to get talented students 
from his parents’ native Guyana 
internships at Clinc. 
“Jason’s so charismatic and so 
persuasive, he has a way of getting 
inside your head,” Sam said. “He 
has this way of looking at people 
where it’s like he’s looking into your 
soul.”
U-M responds to the claims 
against Mars
In the wake of the allegations, 
University 
students 
and 
administration are reflecting on 
Mars’s role at the University. 
Multiple 
students 
have 
commented 
on 
the 
blurred 
boundaries between Mars’s class 
and his startup. 
Taylor, who took EECS 498 in 
Fall 2019, said Mars came to about 
three to five lectures over the 
course of the semester, saddling 
another lecturer — and Clinc 
employee — with the bulk of the 
teaching. He added Mars was 
unresponsive to emails related to 
the course. 
“He was pretty explicit about 
one of the reasons he did the class 
was to try to recruit UMich CS 
undergrads to go work at Clinc,” 
Taylor said. “At the final demo, 
there was a Clinc recruiter there 
handing out business cards.”
Taylor 
said 
the 
distinction 
between Mars’s professorship and 
his outside work was hazy. 
“My kind of perception was 
something along the lines of he 
didn’t really think that the rules 
and boundaries applied to him,” 
Taylor said. 
Sam claimed Mars and Tang 
abused their ties to the University. 
For example, he said, most of Mars’s 
graduate students also worked at 
Clinc, and they felt they had to stay 
at Clinc in order to keep their spot 
in the doctorate program. 

“Jason and Lingjia had a way of 
just intertwining everything,” he 
said. 
In an email to The Daily Friday 
morning, University spokesman 
Rick Fitzgerald clarified Mars’s 
status as an associate professor 
remains 
unchanged. 
He 
re-confirmed Mars’s employment 
Sunday morning.
“The behavior reported in this 
story is inconsistent with the values 
in the College of Engineering and 
entire University of Michigan 
community,” Fitzgerald wrote in 
the email on Friday.
In addition to retaining his 
employment status, Mars stayed 
on as a speaker at Friday’s TEDx 
event. 
The day The Verge published its 
reporting on Thursday, an EECS 
498 instructor made a post on the 
class’s Piazza page, acknowledging 
the article and clarifying the course 
has in no way been restructured.
An EECS 498 instructor made a 
Piazza post assuring students the 
class would not be restructured 
following the allegations against 
Mars.
On Friday morning, Engineering 
professor Westley Weimer sent out 
a lengthy statement to his EECS 
481 class, addressing students’ 
concerns in light of the allegations 
against Mars and other University 
administrators and faculty. 
In his statement, Weimer said 
though 
he 
cannot 
personally 
address investigations into sexual 
misconduct claims, he has set up 
an anonymous dropbox and wants 
students to feel comfortable coming 
forward. He also noted there are 
many other issues, like wait times 
at office hours, transparency in 
hiring processes and disrespect 
towards students from course staff, 
that the CSE department needs to 
address. 
“I may not be able to personally 
affect 
university-level 
policy 
about 
sexual 
harassment 
allegations, but I am working with 
a number of faculty members 
and 
administrators 
who 
have 
generously volunteered time or 
money to address some of those 
other climate concerns,” Weimer 
wrote.
Also on Friday, computer science 
and engineering faculty released a 
statement calling for Mars to take a 
leave of absence, according to The 

Verge. The School of Information 
announced it would be suspending 
its recruiting relationship with 
Clinc.
Late Friday afternoon, the Dean 
of Engineering Alec Gallimore sent 
out an email condemning the recent 
allegations of sexual misconduct 
and stating the college would soon 
take action.
“Let me state in the clearest 
terms — the reported behaviors 
are not consistent with our values,” 
Gallimore wrote. “Although I do 
not have details to share today, I 
want to assure you that we will 
address these matters and take 
action as appropriate. We are 
working toward solutions to not 
only address immediate issues, but 
to also support a culture of respect 
within the entire College.”
In 
an 
email 
to 
CSE 
undergraduates 
Saturday 
afternoon, CSE Chair Brian Noble 
said he had taken a few steps to 
address the allegations on Friday. 
He said CSE faculty had discussed 
the department’s climate issues. In 
addition, he said he asked Weimer 
to accept a position as Associate 
Chair of Diversity, Equity & 
Inclusion and had launched two 
new student committees. 
“There are profound problems 
with CSE’s climate. I know that 
there is a lot of frustration, pain and 
anger, and I share it,” Noble wrote.
 CSE Chair Brian Noble sent 
an email to undergrads Sunday 
addressing the climate in the 
program.
Jake said Mars should absolutely 
not stay on as a professor. 
“If he’s being this touchy around 
employees, I would feel incredibly 
unsafe going to an individual office 
hour with him,” Jake said. “There’s 
no positives of him staying at 
Michigan.”
Emily said she takes issue not 
only with Mars’s status at the 
University but with his wife’s 
professorship as well. Tang is 
an assistant professor, not an 
associate, and her Linkedin says 
she is currently on leave from the 
University. 
“I would not send my kids to 
a university like that, knowing 
the professors have that kind of 
conduct,” she said.
Reporter Alice Tracey can be 
reached at atracey@michigandaily.
com.

This 
committee 
consults 
with 
and 
advises 
the 
vice 
president for student life.
Cervetti said they have been 
discussing how to think about 
the election in relation to the 
campus 
climate 
and 
issues 
facing students. She has been 
particularly interested in using 
the election to help University 
students think about their role 
as citizens and as an opportunity 
to support civic conversations 
on campus. She said this might 
help U-M win the Big Ten 
Voting Challenge, a competition 
across the Big Ten Conference 
to 
increase 
student 
voter 
registration and turnout.
MaryJo Banasik, director of 
the Faculty Senate Office, said 
she wants to foster different 
ways to promote student life. She 
said she will work to promote 
democratic involvement.
“We know at the University 
of 
Michigan, 
our 
students 
are interested in all kinds of 
pathways in impacting public 
life,” Banasik said. “We will be 
focusing on voting and some of 

the key skills and commitments 
toward democratic nature.”
Banasik 
also 
discussed 
declining support for democratic 
processes. She noted 17 percent 
of U.S. residents agree the 
government can be trusted to do 
what is right always or most of 
the time.
“It’s important to mention this 
to give you a sense of, ‘Where are 
we in this context, and why is 
there renewed focus considering 
civic engagement as part of 
the 
Michigan 
education?’” 
Banasik said. “Our hope at 
Ginsberg Center and working 
with partners across campus 
and some of our national civic 
partners, we know we want 
change in that scenario, creating 
confidence in the democratic 
structures, processes, et cetera 
that go beyond voting and are 
also about discussion, dialogue 
and information in news media.” 
Erin Byrnes, leader of the 
Big Ten Voting Challenge at the 
Ginsberg 
Center, 
mentioned 
there was a large jump in voting 
in 2018 with 41 percent voting, a 
26.7 percent increase from 2014. 
“It’s a lot of great work there,” 
Byrnes said. “We nearly tripled 
our voting rate and it was kind of 

our high-in-the-sky goal … With 
the hard work of our student 
team and our staff we were able 
to do that.”
Byrnes also commented on 
the high projections for the voter 
turnout this year in the U.S.
“In looking ahead to 2020, in 
the fall, projection is around 65 
percent turnout among eligible 
turnouts which will be the 
highest turnout since 1908, so 
over 100 years,” Byrnes said. “We 
are seeing a lot of movement, a lot 
of activity, a lot of energy.”
Dave Waterhouse, associate 
director of the Ginsberg Center, 
discussed how to incorporate 
civic engagement into working 
with students. He mentioned the 
Ginsberg Center is compiling a 
group of resources for faculty 
to connect their work and 
disciplines 
to 
promote 
civic 
engagement among students in a 
nonpartisan way.
“Even 
just 
asking 
the 
questions: ‘Are you voting? 
Do you have a voting plan? 
Are you registered to vote?’ in 
your classes,” Waterhouse said. 

LSA senior Camilla Lizundia, a 
member of the RC, discussed the 
academic attributes of a typical RC 
student and the sense of community 
she felt the RC embodied. 
“When I think of an RC student, 
I think of someone who’s really 
engaged,” Lizundia said. “Someone 
who’s 
perhaps 
interested 
in 
organizing, someone who enjoys 
learning languages and who enjoys 
the arts. When I think of the RC 
as a whole, the word that comes to 
mind is community.”
Badgley further talked about 
her experience as a member of 
RC faculty and the learning that 
she feels comes with the RC 
community. 
“One comes here as a faculty 
member, as a kind of a co-learner,” 
Badgley said. “So I feel as though 
in my classes, even though it’s true 
I have some expert knowledge 
that I can impart, I try to point out 
questions and topics for which I 
don’t have the answers. Because 
I’m genuinely interested in hearing 
what my students think, and they 
often have really unusual and 
valuable insights.”

The discussion then moved 
on to talk of diversity within the 
RC. Steven Ward, an associate 
professor at the RC, commented on 
how a perceived lack of diversity 
can be attributed to the RC being 
a microcosm of the broader 
University community. 
“I do think that racial diversity 
in particular and other forms or 
types of diversity are problems 
and concerns in the RC,” Ward 
said. “And I will say that that’s also 
symptomatic of the RC, but also 
symptomatic of the University. 
Something that I think we should 
be mindful of and talk about and 
try to work on, and maybe beat 
ourselves up a little bit but not too 
much. If we want to beat up on 
somebody it should be the whole 
University.” 
Badgely 
responded 
with 
a 
comment on the active effort to 
increase diversity within faculty. 
“We are trying to be more 
proactive in hiring,” Badgley said. 
“For example, we just had a joint 
search with the English department 
for a position in creative non-fiction 
and we rewrote the job ad in a 
way that specifically encouraged 
people 
with 
experience 
with 
underrepresented minorities to 
apply. And we also sent the ad to 

60 colleges and universities that 
are especially populated with 
underrepresented minorities.” 
The discussion then moved 
to talk of alienation within the 
RC community and fitting in, 
particularly 
with 
respect 
to 
international students. 
“Yes, we do have a very low 
retention rate,” Lizundia said. 
“But there are a lot of factors that 
go into it … I would say to be more 
specific at what I’m trying to get 
at, the international community is 
not very welcome in a lot of social 
cliques. Absolutely I think we need 
to be having more conversations 
like this, more town halls … and I 
think the addition of task courses 
is excellent but there needs to be 
more.” 
Speakers then reminisced about 
the roots and history of the RC. RC 
drama lecturer Kate Mendeloff 
talked about the tradition of 
student self-governance within the 
RC. 
“Certainly when the RC was 
founded, the students ran it,” 
Mendeloff said. “They had a 
student board that was as powerful 
in making policy as the faculty. I 
think it’s part of the tradition.”
Reporter Sunskriti Paranjape can 
be reached at sunspara@umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 — 3

ALLEGATIONS
From Page 2

RC
From Page 1

SENATE
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

MOBILIZE
From Page 1

It’s about a team of people working 
together, respecting one another 
and elevating each other’s voices.”
Mobilize is holding a mass 
meeting on Wednesday night in 
the Ford School of Public Policy 
building.
Kaplan has previously served 
as CSG’s vice-chair of the finance 
committee and as a member of 
the Student Organization Funding 
Committee. 
She was also chair of the Engage 
Party, headed by Ben Gerstein, 
current president of CSG and 
Public Policy junior, in last spring’s 
election and currently serves as 
chief of staff in his administration. 
Before this, Kaplan held a seat in the 
Assembly as an LSA representative. 
Nandigama 
previously 
served as CSG chief of staff in 
Daniel Greene’s administration. 
Nandigama told The Daily that 
she and Kaplan created Mobilize 

with the goal of ensuring CSG is 
listening to student voices as much 
as possible.
“We really just want people to 
feel like we’re not going to sit on 
some pedestal being president and 
vice president, but we really want 
to work with students,” Nandigama 
said. “We’re really hoping to uplift 
different student voices because it’s 
not just us at the table.”
In addition to her work in 
CSG, Nandigama noted her roles 
within the South Asian Awareness 
Network, the University’s Office 
of Undergraduate Multi-Ethnic 
Student Affairs and Blueprints 
for 
Pangea, 
an 
organization 
committed to mitigating medical 
resource inefficiencies. 
The party does not currently 
have a platform. On Mobilize’s 
website, it said it is meeting with 
student groups to “effectively 
grasp student needs and craft 
meaningful policy.” Mobilize is 
expecting to release a platform 
next week, though it noted it will 
be constantly changing as the party 

hears from more people.
Public Policy junior Miriam 
Chung, 
outreach 
director 
of 
Mobilize, said the party wants to 
have conversations with student 
groups before creating policies 
to bring in multiple voices and 
better integrate CSG in the campus 
community. Chung said she joined 
Mobilize because this mission 
resonated with her.
“If we’re running as a body or as 
an entity that’s really supposed to 
represent student voices, then we 
should ask them what they want, 
and then implement it into our 
policy platforms and what we’re 
really advocating for,” Chung said. 
“In turn, that really integrates a 
lot of different kinds of people and 
voices into our story.”
The website has forms for 
individual students to share ideas 
or for organizations to arrange 
meetings with party members.

WITNESS
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

