Thursday, May 14, 2020

INDEX

Vol. CXXIX, No. 113
 © 2020 The Michigan Daily 
NEWS ....................................
OPINION ............................... 
ARTS/NEWS..........................
MiC.........................................
SPORTS................................

MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Outdated America
Aakash Ray analyzes the 
failed institution that has 
created the American 

system 

>> SEE PAGE 8

NEWS
GEO petition

GEO demands more 

support for graduate 

students during pandemic

>> SEE PAGE 3

OPINION 
Standing her ground 

Whitmer’s strong stance in 

the face of protesters

>> SEE PAGE 5

ARTS
Boyfriend Country 
Country music’s next 
trend is bland, sugary 
and generic

>> SEE PAGE 6

SPORTS
Leadership
Through tragedy, Ambry 
Thomas became the leader 

his team needed 

>> SEE PAGE 12

inside

2
4
6
8
10

For the last two months, 
Business senior Ben Lindau has 
not seen anyone except his two 
brothers and parents. 
He 
was 
studying 
abroad 
in Stockholm, Sweden, when 
the University of Michigan 
canceled 
all 
study 
abroad 
programs and President Donald 
Trump declared a suspension 
of all travel from Europe to 
the United States, except for 
Americans who had “undergone 
appropriate 
screenings.” 
According to Lindau, he feared 
he would be stuck abroad, so he 
flew home the next day.
Back in his hometown of 
Chicago which, like many areas 
of the country, was under a stay-
at-home order, Lindau’s life 
was confined to the compact 
apartment that his family had 
recently moved into. Over the 
past two months, Lindau said 
he has only left his family’s 
apartment five times, to “go 
stand outside for 30 minutes.” 
But he acknowledged that even 
doing so posed a risk to his 

health.
“We do have a park we can 
go to, but in walking there, 
everything’s so congested that 
you’re passing a ton of people,” 
Lindau said. “You’re definitely 
in close proximity with a lot of 
people, so it’s difficult to keep 
the social distance.”
Chicago’s Lakefront Trail, 
which borders Lindau’s home, 
has been closed since late 
March. From his living room 
window, Lindau said he can see 
the unoccupied patches of green 
grass that face a crystal blue 
Lake Michigan. He said the lake 
is a sad reminder that he is stuck 
inside.
“That took away pretty much 
all of the green space I could 
use,” Lindau said. “Because 
they closed down that whole 
lakefront, I feel like there’s 
simply nowhere to go.”
Dr. Srijan Sen, an associate 
professor of psychiatry and 
molecular 
and 
behavioral 
neuroscience at the University, 
studies the connections between 
genes, environment and stress. 
He commented on the strain 
that a global pandemic and 
quarantine can have on one’s 
mental health.
“It’s a really unusual time for 

mental health,” Sen said. “We’re 
still gathering data, but clearly 
we see a big increase in anxiety 
and depression, and depending 
on the situations, loneliness and 
social isolation.”
Where someone lives, who 
they live with and how they 
approach stressful situations 
all inform their mental health 
during 
the 
pandemic 
and 
quarantine, according to Sen. 
He noted that it’s a largely 
individualized response.
“It’s a difficult time broadly 
across all of us in the world at 
this point,” Sen said. “But it’s 
definitely going to hit different 
people differently based on their 
own situations and personal 
histories and predispositions.”
Sen said a student stuck 
inside in a city can be equally as 
stressed as a student living in an 
area with lots of nature, but with 
a strained family relationship.
“What your family life is 
like — for some people it’s a 
source of comfort, others it’s a 
source of stress — that really is 
going to affect the experience 
of unexpectedly being back 
home,” 
Sen 
said. 
“There’s 
socioeconomic components to 

‘U’ students 
start petition 
demanding
new Title IX 
regulations

University community 
calls for written statement 
of agreement by June 1

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Read more at michigandaily.com

CLAIRE HAO
Daily News Editor

SARAH PAYNE AND 

MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA 
Summer News Editor and 

For The Daily

Read more at michigandaily.com

michigandaily.com

City or suburb, mental health 
impacted by lengthy quarantine

Design by Maggie Wiebe 

More 
than 
300 
University 
of 
Michigan 
community 
members 
have signed a petition regarding the 
University’s sexual misconduct policy 
following last week’s newly released 
Department of Education Title IX 
regulations. The petition has seven 
specific demands about investigation 
time limits, evidentiary standards, 
processes to resolve off-campus assault 
and more. 
The petition was created by LSA 
senior 
Morgan 
McCaul, 
a 
sister 
survivor and sexual violence prevention 
advocate, 
alongside 
student-run 
non-profit Roe v. Rape, a survivor 
empowerment organization. They are 
asking University administration to 
agree to commit to their demands in a 
written statement before June 1. 
In a previous Daily article, University 
spokesman Rick Fitzgerald wrote it will 
take time to understand how these new 
regulations will affect University policy. 
Fitzgerald reiterated this sentiment 
when 
asked 
whether 
University 
administration plans to consider the 
petition’s demands. 
“We are not able to share anything 
further 
until 
we 
have 
a 
clear 
understanding of the impact of these 
new regulations across several U-M 
policies,” Fitzgerald wrote. 
The new regulations, announced 
last Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of 
Education Betsy DeVos, come after 
her department rescinded Obama-
era guidelines in 2017. According to 

