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Wednesday, September 23, 2020 — 5

COVID-19 reported at Brown Jug as semester began

The Brown Jug, a popular 

student restaurant and bar on 
South University Avenue, has 
reported at least six positive 
COVID-19 cases among staff since 
late August. 

A server, who requested to 

remain anonymous due to fear of 
retaliation from their employer, 
told The Daily six employees 
tested positive for COVID-19 in 
the past month. Both the server 
and the restaurant’s owner, Perry 
Porikos, confirmed these cases. 
The entire staff was then tested 
for COVID-19 — those tests came 
back negative.

The Brown Jug then shut down 

from Aug. 30 to Sept. 8 after a 
cluster of cases emerged among 
employees on Aug. 28, according 
to Porikos. He said he immediately 
contacted the Washtenaw County 
Department of Health and shut 
down the restaurant for deep 
cleaning on Aug. 30. He also told 
all employees who tested positive 
to quarantine, following health 

department protocol.

“I decided for the benefit 

of everybody to shut it down,” 
Porikos said. “You know, informed 
the health department right away. 
They informed me that, listen, 
legally, (you don’t have to) shut 
down.” 

However, the server said the 

restaurant did not close while the 
employees were awaiting results 
from their tests between Aug. 20 
and Aug. 30. 

“The problem is, with this 

testing … when (management) says 
‘OK, everyone has to get tested,’ 
you don’t close, everyone still 
comes into work, even if they’re 
waiting on test results,” the server 
said. 

Nate, a bar manager who asked 

to only use his first name for 
privacy concerns, said he was the 
first to get a positive result back 
for COVID-19 on Aug. 25 after 
going in for a test four days earlier. 
He said he felt sick the day before 
and took off from work, and then 
got tested. 

“The earliest (positive case) 

was actually mine,” Nate said. “I 

was like, ‘I’m not gonna come in 
for a shift, I don’t feel right, I felt 
weird.’ So I actually didn’t come in. 
I tested positive on the 21. I wasn’t 
even in contact with anybody. I got 
it from an outside person.” 

Nate said another employee 

later tested positive who, days 
earlier, had tested negative. The 
employee had worked nearly every 
shift in between the test days, so 
the entire staff got tested again, 
Nate said. From that group, four 
more came back positive. 

“One of the workers was 

asymptomatic the whole time, but 
that person was working almost 
every shift,” Nate said. “Everyone 
got scheduled to get tested, and 
the second person that came back 
positive, we were like, well, the 
rest of you are probably going to 
test positive as well. It was only 
five of us altogether that got it, and 
that’s when we shut everything 
down.”

Nate said he believes The 

Brown Jug is doing everything it 
can to protect its staff and patrons 
from COVID-19. 

“We’ve been cleaning, self-

quarantining, getting checked,” 
Nate said. “I mean, there’s not 
much more we can do. Everything 
is 
sanitized 
after 
touching 

everything, capacity is limited. 
We had a line outside the other 
day and it was aimed away from 
our patio. And we can only control 
people as much as we can control 

people.” 

The server said all employees 

were told to wear masks at all 
times and usually left tables open 
to maintain social distancing and 
wiped down menus and tabletops 
with a bleach solution.

However, 
the 
server 
said 

employees did not always follow 

these precautions. On weekend 
nights and during other peak 
hours, employees did not have 
time to clean menus or enforce 
social-distancing limits, they said.

JULIA RUBIN

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

MaryAnn Sarosi, an attorney 

in Washtenaw County, sat at 
her desk one day in early April, 
combing through court files 
while preparing for a case. She 
eventually stumbled across data 
that caught her eye: criminal 
court 
cases 
revealing 
vast 

racial disparities in Washtenaw 
County’s legal system.

She said the task at hand 

— sifting through data to get 
statistics on racial inequities 
— seemed daunting at first, 
but nationwide revolts against 
police 
brutality 
reinforced 

her commitment to seeing it 
through.

“We lamented for a long 

time that these things weren’t 
transparent,” Sarosi said. “And 
then I realized, well, they are on 
the court records, on the court 
website. It would be tedious, 
but we could do these by hand, 
and we started doing by hand. 
And then after George Floyd 
was murdered, we realized, 
‘Oh, we really got to do this. We 
really got to do this on a broader 
scale.’”

The numbers Sarosi found 

reveal large gaps in the treatment 
of different racial groups in 
the county’s criminal justice 
system. According to a report 
documenting 
her 
findings, 

prosecutors charge people of 
color more often than they do 
white people. The extent of the 
disparities 
varies 
depending 

on the felony category. For the 
felony category of suspended 
license, 
prosecutors 
charged 

people of color 22 percent more 
than white people. For the 
category of “Weapons - Felony 
Firearm,” people of color were 
charged 1,150 percent more often 
than white people, meaning POC 
faced charges at a rate 12.5 times 
that of their white counterparts. 

In 10 of the 11 categories, 

prosecutors filed more charges 
against people of color, on 
average, than white people, 
ranging from a 12.8 percent to 
62.9 percent difference. People 
of color also received more 
convictions per case, on average, 
than white people in 10 of the 11 
categories. 

The report was a team effort. 

After initially combing through 
the files with her colleague 
Rev. 
Joe 
Summers, 
Sarosi 

teamed up with Linda Rexer, 
retired 
executive 
director 

of the Michigan State Bar 
Foundation and Alma Wheeler-
Smith, former representative 
in the Michigan State House 
of 
Representatives, 
to 
form 

Citizens for Racial Equality 
in Washtenaw — a group that 
collects and analyzes felony case 
records from the county court’s 
website to explore whether and 
to what extent racial disparities 
exist in the county’s charging 
and sentencing practices. 

In 
August 
2020, 
CREW 

published the report online 
detailing their findings after 
scraping through thousands of 
cases on the court’s website. 
The analysis covers more than 
3,600 court cases in 11 felony 
categories — including capital 
and non-capital felonies — from 
2013 to 2019. 

According 
to 
the 
report, 

Washtenaw County prosecutors 
have 
broad 
discretion 
in 

deciding whether or not to 
charge someone with a crime 
and what kind of charges to 
bring. 

Washtenaw County judges 

also have wide volition in 
determining the length of a 
sentence and choosing whether 
to accept a plea agreement or to 
sentence a person to probation, 
jail or prison. 

“While 
we 
found 
racial 

disparities 
among 
individual 

judges, CREW did not find that 
the Washtenaw County Circuit 
Court, as a whole, demonstrated 
a pattern of racial disparity in 
its sentencing of our community 
members across all eight case 
categories 
we 
studied,” 
the 

report read. “That is not to say, 
however, we found no instances 
of disparity across the court.”

The data showed 44.1 percent 

of people of color convicted of 
homicide were sentenced to life 
in prison, compared to only 27.3 
percent of white defendants. 
Additionally, 
most 
of 
the 

judges “contributed to a wide 
racial disparity in the average 
minimum/maximum 
sentence 

in armed robbery cases.”

The report also highlights 23 

instances in which individual 
judges were found to issue 
harsher sentences or whose 
sentences 
showed 
racial 

disparities. 

Several former University of 

Michigan student-athletes joined 
lawmakers in Lansing, Mich. to 
announce legislation to extend 
the statute of limitations on 
certain sexual abuse cases and 
reform governmental immunity. 
Standing on the steps of the 
Capitol Building, the survivors of 
alleged abuse by late University 
doctor Robert Anderson called for 
systemic change to hold predators 
accountable.

The “Empowering Survivors” 

legislative 
reform 
package 
is 

co-sponsored by state Rep. Ryan 
Berman, R-Commerce Township, 
and state Rep. Karen Whitsett, 
D-Detroit.

Berman 
described 
the 

legislation as a necessary step 
to empower survivors of sexual 
abuse and assault. If passed, the 
two bills would reform Michigan’s 
statute of limitations to create a 
one-year window from the time 
the laws are passed for survivors 
of criminal sexual assault to sue 
if their abuse happened under 
the guise of medical care or if 
the abuser was in a position of 
authority such as a medical doctor. 
The package would also alter the 
state’s governmental immunity 

law to prevent universities from 
mischaracterizing sexual assault 
to avoid lawsuits.

“This type of behavior must be 

stopped, as should the legal tactics 
used to protect these institutions 
from lawsuits when abuse occurs,” 
Berman said. “Our purpose today is 
simple: Survivors must be allowed 
to pursue justice as they see fit. 
It’s my privilege as a legislator and 
citizen to have the opportunity to 
help these people who are sent to 
college as teenagers, our best and 
our brightest, only to be abused 
and ignored. Well, I say, no more.”

The 
allegations 
against 

Anderson 
span 
decades. 
In 

February 2018, former University 
student-athlete Tad DeLuca, who 
participated in the announcement 
Wednesday 
morning, 
accused 

Anderson of sexual misconduct at 
a press conference in Southfield, 
Mich. 
Other 
former 
student-

athletes later came forward with 
their own stories of abuse.

The University has since set up 

a hotline number for survivors and 
sent letters to thousands of former 
student-athletes about the alleged 
sexual misconduct. That effort 
has expanded to include the more 
than 300,000 former students 
who were on campus during 
Anderson’s tenure from the middle 
of the 1960s to the early 2000s. A 
judge ordered the University in 
August to inform those students of 
litigation involving Anderson.

Jon 
Vaughn, 
who 
played 

running back for Michigan in 1989 
and 1990 before spending four 
years in the NFL, said as a student 
he trusted the University would 
give him the best care. Instead, 
he said he was frequently abused 
during medical appointments. 

At the press conference, Vaughn 

said he now has trouble going 
to the doctor or placing trust in 
doctors after what happened 
with Anderson. He called on the 
Michigan state legislature to pass 
the bills to help protect other 
survivors.

“It has also become very clear 

that the University of Michigan 
knew,” Vaughn said. “They made 
a choice not to protect us. Instead, 
the 
University 
enabled 
our 

abuser.”

DeLuca, a former wrestler, 

described the difficulty he has had 
dealing with the alleged abuse he 
endured as a student in the 1970s. 
He added that his coaches knew 
because he wrote them a letter 
in 1975 telling them about his 
experiences with Anderson.

DeLuca said serial predators 

and the people who enable them 
should not be allowed to “run 
out the clock” on the statute of 
limitations to avoid prosecution.

“Serial sexual molesters and 

their 
accomplices 
should 
be 

subject to perpetual overtime,” 
DeLuca said. “Why should an 
institution like the University of 

Michigan be allowed to hide the 
conduct long enough so they can 
hide behind the law and never 
have to answer for the abuse 
they allowed for all these years? 
It makes no sense and it must 
be changed. The University of 
Michigan failed to be the Leaders 
and the Best.”

Dr. John Lott, who played 

football from 1979 to 1983 and 
is now a licensed clinical social 
worker, also spoke. Lott said 
he had to endure exams from 
Anderson every year, which took a 
toll mentally.

Recent testimony revealed a 

former University of Michigan 
vice 
president 
overturned 
a 

decision to fire Anderson in 1979. 
In a court deposition, Thomas 
Easthope, former vice president 
of the Division of Student Life, 
accused former Athletic Director 
Don 
Canham 
of 
ignoring 

allegations against Anderson and 
allowing the doctor to assume an 
influential role in the University 
Athletic Department. The school 
is facing various lawsuits over 
Anderson’s alleged abuse.

Outside law firm WilmerHale 

is 
conducting 
an 
external 

investigation into the allegations 
against Anderson on behalf of the 
University. 

Legislation prompted by ‘U’ doctor 
looks to alter statute of limitations

Former University of Michigan student-athletes hold a press conference 
with lawmakers in Lansing on Wednesday in support of reform package

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily

Republicans challenge Whitmer’s pandemic response in Michigan Supreme Court on September 9th.

Report reveals 
racial gaps in 
county criminal 
justice system 

Local attorneys compile statistics on 
disparities in sentencing, prosecuting

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

LEAH GRAHAM & 

ARIA GERSON

Managing News Editor 
& Daily Sports Writer

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Popular Ann Arbor bar shut down from Aug. 30 to Sept. 8 after a cluster of cases emerged among employees on Aug. 28

FILE PHOTO/Daily

At least six people have tested positive among staff the the Brown Jug since late August.

JULIA FORREST & 

SUNSKRITI PARANJAPE

Daily Staff Reporters

