The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, August 31, 2020 — 5

LSA senior Dylan Gilbert 

was sitting in a class discussion 
with 
the 
other 
20-or-so 

members of her class, when her 
English professor Scott Lyons 
read out loud the N-word from a 
short story by American writer 
William 
Faulkner. 
Gilbert, 

uncomfortable 
with 
the 

situation, left the discussion 
that day.

Though the class carried on, 

the professor’s choice to read 
the racial slur and the student’s 
protest ultimately raised an 
ongoing 
academic 
debate: 

whether or not the use of racial 
slurs from academic text is 
appropriate in the classroom. 

In June 2020, around a year 

later, Gilbert told her story on 
Twitter, where she received 
an outpouring of support from 
fellow University of Michigan 
students, alumni, faculty and 
staff, many condemning the 
professor and the University 
for tolerating the behavior. 

“I 
was 
just 
kind 
of 

exhausted,” Gilbert told The 
Daily. “I don’t feel like I should 
have to sit in a room and have 
a non-Black person keep saying 
the N-word in front of me. So I 
just quietly packed up my stuff 
into my bag, walked out of class 
and did not say anything.”

Details 
of 
the 
incident 

surfaced 
amid 
a 
renewed 

national commitment against 
systemic 
racism, 
thereby 

calling 
into 
question 
the 

impact classrooms have on 
perpetuating racial injustice. 

“The 
environment 
wasn’t 

comfortable anymore,” Gilbert 
said. “I felt targeted in the 
environment, and I felt unsafe 
in the environment, and I 
didn’t feel like I was learning 
the way I needed to learn. So 
when you use racial slurs in the 
classroom, you’re taking away 
some sense of equality in the 
classroom because now a group 
of your students aren’t feeling 
the way they should be feeling 
to properly learn.”

Gilbert’s 
tweets 
also 

included screenshots of email 
exchanges between her and 
Lyons after the class, in which 
Lyons did not offer an apology 
but 
committed 
to 
“avoid 

uttering the word for the rest 
of the term.” For the next class 
period, according to Gilbert, 
Lyons 
assigned 
an 
article 

defending the use of the word.

“I’m not sure I understand 

the 
distinction 
between 

assigning a work with the 
n-word (written by a non-black 
writer and read by mostly non-

black readers) and reading it 
out loud -- imagination versus 
exhaulation? -- but I do take 
your point,” Lyons wrote in the 
email exchanges.

The Daily reached out to 

Lyons multiple times for a 
comment, but was referred to 
University 
spokesman 
Rick 

Fitzgerald.

“Students have a variety of 

ways to raise concerns about 
their classroom experiences,” 
Fitzgerald wrote in an email to 
The Daily. “In this case, these 
concerns are being addressed 
through 
the 
appropriate 

channels.”

This 
incident 
does 
not 

appear to be an isolated one, 
either. 
Universities 
across 

the country have struggled to 
address how professors should 
approach teaching racial slurs. 
Some institutions have taken 
to 
suspending 
professors 

for using racial slurs in an 
academic environment, while 
others have defended their use 
based on academic freedom.

English 
professor 
Susan 

Parrish often teaches texts 
from 
Southern 
literature, 

which can include epithets 
against various groups. She 
explained how voicing these 
slurs can harm the ability for 
students to learn effectively 
and feel respected in the 
classroom.

“The classroom is a space 

of analysis and a space of 
mutual learning and of (the) 
responsibility to (not only) 
take care of each other while 
challenging each other, but 
(also) challenging each other 
equally and fairly to increase 
our understanding,” Parrish 
said. “I also feel like epithets 
against any group … makes 
a 
classroom 
situation 
feel 

unequal and feel potentially 
hostile, and then it decreases 
certain students’ possibility to 
learn and to feel welcome and 
to feel like they belong.” 

Parrish 
said 
she 
usually 

addresses the use of offensive 
language at the start of the 
semester with her class. But 
ultimately, 
the 
violent 
and 

historical weight that many 
slurs 
against 
groups 
carry, 

Parrish explained, does not 
warrant saying the word.

“I think where I ultimately 

come down is that you can’t 
have 
a 
student-by-student 

decision about this, it has to 
be something we set up at the 
beginning that if there are 
(slurs) in the text that have 
been associated with violence, 
suppression or oppression, we 
should not spread those words,” 
Parrish 
said. 
“Students 
do 

have to look at them as they’re 
doing their reading, but there’s 
no reason that we have to give 
breath to those words in live 
time together.”

According 
to 
Vershawn 

Young, an African-American 
studies 
professor 
at 
the 

University 
of 
Waterloo 
in 

Ontario, Canada, banning the 
use of the N-word in classrooms 
is also not a solution.

After witnessing a similar 

situation in which a University 
of Waterloo professor used 
the N-word during class, the 
University of Waterloo released 
a statement in a June 2020 
article, saying the university 
“unequivocally believes there 
is no place for the use of the 
N-word in class, on campus or 
in our community.” 

In response, Young wrote an 

article describing the harmful 
effects of completely banning 
the use of the N-word in the 
classroom, explaining that it 
censors his language as a Black 
man and scholar. Prohibiting 
the use of the N-word, Young 
further 
explained 
in 
an 

interview 
with 
The 
Daily, 

provides a disservice to the 
cultural complexity of the word.

“If you ban the word and 

in text, especially African-
American cultural text, you 
are not only diminishing one 
way in which the word is used, 
but six or seven ways in which 
the word is used,” Young said. 
“You cannot get to an accurate 
interpretation or a deep cultural 
understanding if you ban the 
word or if you only say that 
the word can be the ‘N-word,’ 
because the ‘N-word’ itself does 
not capture the various ways 
in which the word functions in 
African-American culture.”

Young further noted that 

censorship of any kind should 
not be enforced without careful 
consideration of its impact on 
not only particular groups, as 
well as the very meaning the 
author was trying to convey. 

“I believe that there is an 

easy answer,” Young said. “The 
easy answer is yes, the word 
should be allowed to be used in 
very careful, pedagogical ways 
and not in casual conversation. 
But I think in instructional 
conversations and texts where 
the word appears, it should 
not be erased because when 
you erase it, it is not true to 
the author’s intentions, is not 
true to the author’s text and it 
changes the meaning.”

The University of Michigan’s 

Board of Regents passed the 
administration’s 2020-21 budget 
in a 5-2 vote during a special 
meeting 
Monday 
night, 
days 

after a 4-4 vote at their June 25 
meeting had appeared to sink 
proposed 
increases 
in 
tuition 

and fees. The approved budget 
includes a 1.9 percent increase in 
tuition for the Ann Arbor campus; 
a 3.9 percent increase for UM-Flint 
and UM-Dearborn; a 1.9 percent 
increase in room and board fees 
and a $50 COVID-19 student fee. 

 Regents Paul Brown (D), Jordan 

Acker (D), Ron Weiser (R), Mark 
Bernstein (D) and Michael Behm 
(D) voted in favor of the budget, 
with Brown and Acker changing 
their votes from Thursday. Regents 
Shauna Ryder Diggs (D) and Denise 
Ilitch (D) voted against the budget. 
Regent Katherine White (D) was 
not present, though she called in to 
vote for the proposed budget at the 
previous meeting.

 After the budget initially failed 

to pass on June 25, University 
President Mark Schlissel said he 
anticipated the budget proposal 
the executive team would present 
at the July Regents meeting would 
diminish or eliminate a tuition 
increase for the Ann Arbor campus.

 Schlissel explained that the 

Board called for the special meeting 
on Monday because, without a 
budget, the University would not be 
able to operate and continue paying 
employees in the new fiscal year, 
starting July 1. Half of the revenue 
from the tuition increase will go 
toward increasing financial aid to 
address the pandemic, according to 
Schlissel, and the new budget also 
doubled the funds provided to Flint 
and Dearborn campuses from $10 
million to $20 million. 

Schlissel defended the proposal 

and cited the University’s ongoing 
efforts to protect students and 
families from the pandemic and 
economic 
recession 
including 

COVID-19 testing, hiring freezes, 
the suspension of nonessential 
travel and spending, and the use of 
$400 million from the endowment.

 “We’re committed to do 

our very best to make sure that 
the COVID-19 pandemic does 
not result in a lost generation 
of students who are unable 
to continue or complete their 
Michigan education because of the 
circumstances we find ourselves 
in,” Schlissel said. 

Students have criticized the 

University for trying to increase 
tuition, claiming their learning 
experiences will not be the same 
with online classes and more 

students 
are 
now 
struggling 

financially due to the recession 
sparked by the pandemic.

After Schlissel’s introduction, 

most of the meeting was devoted to 
Regents explaining their support 
for or disapproval of the budget.

Weiser, who supported the 

budget last Thursday and on 
Monday, 
addressed 
demands 

made by students and activists to 
use the endowment to balance the 
budget and cover financial losses. 
He said much of the endowment 
funds are restricted to particular 
units of the University and thus 
cannot be redirected legally.

 “While we are a university 

that’s 
blessed 
by 
having 
an 

endowment that’s gonna give 
us 400 million dollars this year, 
most of that money is restricted 
to certain areas,” Weiser said. 
“… It’s not a 12 million (sic) dollar 
endowment where we can take 
the income and spread it, put it 
any place we want. We have legal 
and moral and federal policy and 
law obligations about how we can 
spend it.” 

 In opposition to the budget, 

Ryder Diggs criticized the proposal 
for continuing the trend of raising 
tuition when the public health 
and economic circumstances have 
deteriorated.

“The administrative leadership 

team believes that tuition should 
always increase annually,” Ryder 
Diggs said. “The principle is that 
students should share the burden 
of increased costs from payroll, 
energy, 
infrastructure, 
food 

and housing, and even in health 
crises such as the coronavirus 
pandemic. I do not agree. Now 
I’ve consistently voted in favor of 
tuition increases, but this year is 
unlike any other in our lifetimes. 
When a global health crisis evolves 
into an economic crisis, we should 
not increase our tuition.”

 Ilitch, who voted against the 

budget, said the value of a mostly 
remote education is diminished. 
She 
added 
the 
University’s 

administration projects a 50-50 
chance “(we) will not complete 
this semester.” 

 “With this uncertainty, why 

would we raise prices on our 
students and families during this 
crisis?” Ilitch said.

 Ilitch also read from an email 

sent to the Regents by Rackham 
student Sarah Bork, president of 
Rackham Student Government, in 
partnership with Amanda Kaplan 
and Sav Nandigama, president and 
vice president of Central Student 
Government. The email called 
for a cost of attendance freeze, 
removal of the proposed COVID-
19 fee from the budget and the end 
of the $500 international student 
fee passed in last year’s budget.

Acker said he voted yes on the 

budget because it contains new 
pledges to eliminate uncertainty 
and will not increase tuition for 
in-state students whose families 
make less than $120,000 per year. 

 
Though 
regular 
Regents 

meetings 
include 
scheduled 

public 
comment, 
Monday’s 

special meeting did not. Acker 
said, however, that his vote was 
not an endorsement of the special 
meetings process taken to pass the 
budget before July 1.

“I am extremely disappointed in 

the process over the last few days,” 
Acker said. “I feel it is extremely 
important to take public comments 
… The one thing that Regent Ilitch 
and I as (incoming) vice chair and 
chair have to really work on is to 
make sure the process is better 
going forward, with more public 
input, with more conversations 
about what the budget does, and 
most importantly, meeting the one 
area we must really improve next 
year, which is communication.” 

In Bernstein’s statement in 

support of the budget, he said 
the University’s sticker price is 
misleading, as most students do 
not pay the full price of tuition. 
He said one in four in-state 
undergrads — over 4,100 students 
— pay no tuition, and 100 percent 
of students with demonstrated 
financial need will not see their 
tuition and fees increased.

“So who does pay tuition?” 

Bernstein said. “Students who 
can, and therefore, in my opinion, 
should, and are getting one of 
the great bargains in higher 
education, paying about half of 
what out-of-state students pay 
… Fundamentally, I believe that 
lower 
income 
students 
who 

struggle to pay tuition can depend 
upon those who can to reduce the 
cost of their college education.”

Though Brown objected to the 

budget presented on July 25 out 
of concern that the Dearborn and 
Flint campuses would not receive 
adequate support, he said he was 
reassured after conversations with 
Schlissel and other staff members. 
He noted the increase in funding 
to Flint in Dearborn also impacted 
his decision to vote “yes.”

 
“I 
am 
an 
enthusiastic 

supporter of this budget,” Brown 
said. “I believe the investment of 
20 million dollars in our Flint and 
Dearborn campuses aligned with 
the chancellors’ strategic plans 
(and) created an unprecedented 
opportunity for those campuses 
to only increase the world class 
education 
provided 
at 
those 

schools so we can continue to say 
we are truly the leaders and best.”

WilmerHale investigation finds two decades of 
Philbert misconduct, several ‘U’ officials knew

WilmerHale 
released 
its 

88-page report of its independent 
investigation of allegations of sexual 
misconduct by former University 
of 
Michigan 
Provost 
Martin 

Philbert Friday. The report found 
“significant evidence” that Philbert 
violated the University’s Sexual 
Harassment policy. It identified 
numerous times when University 
personnel 
and 
administration 

received 
information 
about 

Philbert’s sexual misconduct. 

“Two things are clear: First, 

there is significant evidence that 
Philbert engaged in a wide range 
of sexual misconduct, including 
sexual harassment, for at least 
fifteen years,” the report reads. 
“Second, 
neither 
OIE 
(Office 

of Institutional Equity) nor the 
senior leadership of the University 
understood the seriousness or 
the pervasiveness of Philbert’s 
misconduct.”

WilmerHale 
began 
its 

independent 
investigation 
in 

January 2020. After six months, 
WilmerHale 
investigators 

interviewed 
128 
people, 
some 

multiple times, including current 
and former employees, former 
students and current and former 
University administrators. 

The report finds that Philbert 

normalized 
his 
inappropriate 

behavior and intimidated women 
who may have sought to report him. 

“Philbert 
had 
expressly 

threatened some of them—one 
witness, who in fact was in a 
relationship with Philbert, told us 
that he said: ‘If you ever tell anyone 
about us, I will make sure you go 
down. I will destroy your career,’” 
the report reads.

The report alleges Philbert 

sexually 
harassed 
multiple 

members 
of 
the 
University 

community while he was an 
assistant professor, an associate 
dean, School of Public Health dean 
and provost. In his early years at 
the University, Philbert allegedly 
harassed women who worked in 
his research lab, making comments 
about their bodies, redirecting 
conversations toward sex and 

insisting on getting hugs. The 
report found Philbert engaged in 
simultaneous sexual relationships 
with at least two University 
employees, and sometimes more, 
during his tenure as Provost. He 
stored nude photos of these women 
on University-owned devices and 
had “sexual contact” with them in 
University offices often. 

The report was released to both 

the University and the public at 
the same time. In an email to The 
Daily, University spokesman Rick 
Fitzgerald said the University is 
reviewing the results from the 
report.

“We have just begun to carefully 

review the full report and take 
all of its findings into account,” 
Fitzgerald wrote. “Yet, it is clear 
in the executive summary that 
the WilmerHale report – released 
publicly today at the same time it 
was shared with university officials 
– contains a shocking description 
of improper and unacceptable 
behavior by a university officer as 
well as failings by this institution. 
We will do everything in our 
power to prevent such misconduct 

from ever happening again at the 
University of Michigan.”

In 2003, a male lab employee, 

Tom Komorowski, was terminated 
by 
Philbert. 
He 
reported 
to 

University officials he was fired 
over a female lab employee because 
of her and Philbert’s close, personal 
relationship. 
A 
senior 
Public 

Health School faculty member 
questioned Philbert about the 
alleged relationship and did not 
find any indication of an improper 
relationship. A 2004 lawsuit by the 
male employee also did not find any 
such evidence. 

In 2005, specific allegations 

of 
sexual 
harassment 
against 

Philbert arose in the Public Health 
School. One of Philbert’s research 
assistants reported Philbert had 
“asked her for sex, to marry him, 
to run away together and to ‘have 
caramel colored babies’ with him.” 
The alerted Public Health professor 
relayed the information to multiple 
University 
officials, 
including 

the then-Public Health dean Ken 
Warner; Lori Pierce, vice provost 
academic and faculty affairs and 
Anthony Walesby, director of the 

Office of Institutional Equity. 

As the director of OIE, Walesby 

was responsible for investigating 
sexual 
harassment 
complaints 

against faculty. According to the 
report, when he tried to speak 
with the women, however, both 
declined for fear of retaliation from 
Philbert. Another member of the 
Philbert’s lab — a graduate student 
— reported Philbert had a “bad 
reputation with women” and that 
he asked another student for sex. 
Walesby determined OIE could not 
investigate further since women 
would not speak with him, the 
report says. 

In 2010, Philbert was in the 

running to become the Dean of 
the Public Health School. During 
the process, Paula Lantz, the chair 
of the Search Committee, became 
aware of the 2005 allegations and 
informed the Provost’s Office of 
the allegations. After meeting 
with 
Warner, 
Lantz 
did 
not 

inform the committee because 
“the investigation revealed no 
wrongdoing.” At the same time, 
then-Provost Philip Hanlon also 
learned of the 2005 allegations and 

had more information than Lantz, 
after meeting with multiple people 
to further question. 

Both Lantz and Hanlon, along 

with the Search Committee were 
aware of a confidential survey 
in which a participant said “I 
was subject to inappropriate and 
unwanted sexual comments and 
suggestions,” according to the 
report. The report concludes that 
both Lantz and Hanlon should have 
turned the survey results to the OIE 
for further investigation.

In 2017, Pierce was a member 

of the Provost Search Committee, 
which was chaired by University 
President Mark Schlissel. The 
report finds that the committee 
and Schlissel did not learn any 
information about Philbert’s alleged 
mistreatment of women during the 
search process, even though Pierce 
was one of the University officials 
Walseby reported the 2013 incident 
to. 

CALDER LEWIS &
ARJUN THAKKAR
Summer News Editor &

 Daily Staff Reporter Reporter

KRISTINA ZHENG
Summer News Editor

CALDER LEWIS &
KRISTINA ZHENG
Summer News Editors

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Regents approve tuition 
hike after initial rejection

‘U’ community examines 
use of N-word in classroom

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

