Content 
Warning: 
sexual 

assault

A story published by Business 

Insider Oct. 5 detailed decades of 
sexual misconduct tied to Young 
Life, an international youth 
Christian 
organization, 
with 

incidences of sexual assault of 
former members reported across 
the country — including at the 
University of Michigan. 

Public Health senior Maddie 
Malvitz and LSA senior Becca 

Wong, two of the students inter-
viewed as part of the Business 
Insider story, both began attend-
ing Young Life meetings at the 
University as freshmen. Wong 
was promoted to a leadership 
position her sophomore year.

The two told Business Insid-

er that a male student leader 
harassed Wong at a block party in 
2019 and later that night, invited 
Malvitz to a house where he and 
other Young Life members lived. 

Instead of going to that house, 

Malvitz told Business Insider 
the student leader took Malvitz 
to the back of another house 
and forced her to perform oral 
sex on him. Following the inci-
dent, Malvitz said she went to 
the house where other Young 
Life members lived and slept on 
their couch while the student 
leader went upstairs. During the 
middle of the night, Malvitz said 
the student leader came down-
stairs and demanded they have 
penetrative intercourse; Malvitz 
refused. 

When Malvitz told Wong 

about the assault in May 2020, 
Wong was a student leader and 
reported the incident to the 
University’s Young Life leader-
ship immediately, according to 
the Business Insider story. After 
doing so, Wong said she was 
called to meet with leadership 
over Zoom, where they informed 
her that she would be terminated 
from the organization.

In an interview with The 

Michigan Daily, Wong said she 
felt blindsided by this decision 
and even afterwards still wanted 
to be a part of the organization. 
Wong said it took her time to fully 
recognize the organization’s sys-
temic issues. 

“It’s a very harmful experi-

ence but when you’re in (Young 
Life), you really drink the Kool 

Aid and you really believe every-
thing they’re doing,” Wong said. 
“Leaving Young Life was a very 
eye-opening experience, and you 
can’t really see the problems in 
Young Life until you’re out of it.”

Malvitz echoed Wong’s point, 

saying that after her assault and 
what she believes to be the orga-
nization’s manipulative handling 
of the report, she began experi-
encing religious trauma that she 
still struggles with. 

“I think my trust in church 

structures 
in 
general 
has 

declined 
extremely,” 
Malvitz 

said. “(Young Life) has hurt me so 
much further than I can explain 
by using the word of God or say-
ing that what they were doing 
was more important than the 
pain I was going through.”

Wong said she believes Young 

Life will not take proper action 
unless they are prompted to by 
people speaking out. She refer-
enced the #DoBetterYoungLife 
movement, an online forum space 
dedicated to those who have been 
harmed by Young Life and want 
to share their experiences, as an 
example of how members con-
tinue to speak about their experi-
ences in the organization. 

“I do not believe that Young 

Life can change internally,” 
Wong said. “I think the exter-
nal pressure is the only thing 
that will force them to change 
because we’ve seen how they 
responded to the #DoBetterY-
oungLife movement and how 
they responded to so many sto-
ries of people being hurt by their 
homophobia and their homopho-
bic policies, and they responded 
with, ‘We’re not changing our 
policies. This is the Word of 
God.”’

In an email statement to The 

Daily, the Young Life parent 
organization’s communications 
office said they take all allega-
tions of sexual misconduct and 
harassment seriously, and “no 
one guilty of violating or abus-
ing another individual is allowed 
to continue in relationship with 
Young Life.” The organization 
also said they deny all claims 
from Malvitz and Wong.

“Regarding the specific alle-

gations that Maddie Malvitz 
and Becca Wong assert, this is 
an active claim in the EEOC, so 
we cannot comment. However, 
Young Life has denied all claims 
and is defending itself vigorous-
ly,” the statement reads.

The Daily also contacted the 

University’s Young Life branch 

but did not receive a response in 
time for publication. 

Wong and Malvitz also dis-

cussed the shooter threat that 
was directed at women and shook 
the University campus over the 
weekend, specifically mentioning 
how the threat appeared to target 
sexual assault survivors. Wong 
said the threat is one example of 
the added stress many survivors 
have about reporting incidences 
of sexual violence. 

“Regardless of whether or not 

the threat is real, the fear is real 
and we all experienced that,” 
Wong said. “I wish the Univer-
sity would have taken this more 
seriously.”

The University investigated 

the threat with the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation and 
decided there was no harm to the 
campus, allowing classes to con-
tinue in-person as normal. More 
than a thousand students signed 
a petition asking the University 
to hold all classes and activities 
remotely Monday. 

Malvitz said she too was 

unsettled by the threat, espe-
cially considering the fact that 
the Business Insider article was 
set to publish within a few days 
following. Malvitz said she was 
disappointed by the University’s 
response and its lack of recogni-
tion of how the threat specifically 
survivors of sexual assault. 

“There’s these constant lit-

tle aggressions that make you 
not want to speak on campus,” 
Malvitz said. “A lot of these 
announcements from the Uni-
versity were just saying, ‘It’s okay 
now. We are safe.’ They weren’t 
talking about that it is directly 
targeting women in the #MeToo 
Movement It’s dangerous to not 
notice the violent factors that are 
going on on campus, and acting 
like they’re not happening makes 
it so much worse.”

Wong said she believes it is 

important to speak about these 
issues. If survivors choose to 
report, Wong said, she hopes they 
feel safe and supported.

“It’s important to speak truth 

into these issues, because a main 
weapon of oppression is silence 
and Young Life has silenced a lot 
of us,” Wong said. “That’s why 
we’re speaking out today. We will 
not be silenced and we are not 
going away.”

Daily News Editors Lily Good-

ing and Jasmin Lee can be reached 
at 
goodingl@umich.edu 
and 

itsshlee@umich.edu. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 — 3

The Michigan Daily found three red flags to look out for

CAMPUS LIFE
UMich survivors of Young 
Life speak on allegations of 

sexual misconduct 

LILY GOODING & 

JASMIN LEE

Daily News Editors

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RONI KANE

Daily Staff Reporter

Members of Christian group said they’ve experienced 

assault, retaliation within organization

Students face online
scams when buying 

football tickets

What is the ‘Go Blue Flu’? 
People are more sensitized and aware of coughing, illness 
now given the pandemic, epidemoiology professor explains

The “Go Blue Flu” and the “col-

lege plague” are just some of the 
witty names students at the Uni-
versity of Michigan and across the 
country have termed the back-to-
school sickness that has infiltrated 
lecture halls with dry coughs and 
runny noses. 

Though students across campus 

may be experiencing flu-like symp-
toms, the flu season has yet to come. 
So what is the source of this seem-
ingly infectious illness? 

The Michigan Daily sat with 

Dr. Joseph Eisenberg, U-M pro-
fessor and chair of the epidemiol-
ogy department and public health 
expert, to get answers as to what 
these symptoms could possibly be 
from.

Is the Go Blue Flu really the flu?
According to the Centers for Dis-

ease Control and Prevention, the 
influenza virus can be contracted 
year-round, but getting the flu is 
quite common in the fall and win-
ter months, specifically between 
December and March. Eisenberg 
said an early September-October flu 
season is highly unlikely.

“As the weather gets colder, peo-

ple are inside more … so transmis-
sion is more efficient with respect 

to aerosol droplets, very much 
similar to COVID-19, which does 
better in colder and drier environ-
ments,” Eisenberg said. “However, 
early October is quite early for the 
flu season. There (are) also a lot of 
other viruses that cause the com-
mon cold.”

Eisenberg said it is more likely 

that students are infected with 
other respiratory viruses that are 
not COVID-19. These can include 
various respiratory syncytial virus-
es like rhinoviruses, the other coro-
naviruses and others. 

Why is everyone sick?
Some studies suggest that quar-

antine and isolation lead to a weak-
ened immune system. Eisenberg 
said this could be the biggest expla-
nation as to why so many students 
are experiencing flu-like symptoms. 
He also explained that the congre-
gation of students across the coun-
try in one city, or even one lecture 
hall, can expose everyone to viruses 
that may have been localized to one 
community or general area back 
home.

“If people have not been exposed 

to (viruses that cause the common 
cold) in a long time because they’ve 
been mostly at home and not social-
izing, their immune system is not 
quite primed to fight off viruses,” 
Eisenberg said. 

Even as COVID-19 cases at the 

University remain low, some U-M 
students have said they have wit-
nessed their peers coughing in their 
classrooms and lecture halls. Eisen-
berg noted that, after experiencing 
a pandemic, most people are no 
longer desensitized to coughs and 
sneezes that would have otherwise 
gone unnoticed in the past.

“The flu pre-COVID really 

wasn’t on students’ radar and I 
think that COVID-19 has increased 
our awareness of coughing,” Eisen-
berg said. “It used to be acceptable 
to come to class or work with a 
cough. The majority of people prob-
ably wouldn’t have given it a second 
thought. I think that people are sen-
sitized to coughing now in a way 
they probably weren’t two years 
ago.”

Dr. Erik Nielsen, professor of 

molecular, cellular and develop-
mental biology, teaches roughly 
150 students in a single lecture hall 
twice a week. He said that it is not 
uncommon to see people coughing 
this time of year. 

“It’s not uncommon to see this 

many people coughing a little bit, 
but I think we are more aware of 
it now — (we) have been isolating 
for a year and have not been hear-
ing these coughs in large groups of 
people in a long time,” Nielsen said. 

NADIR AL-SAIDI
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Having just transferred from 

Plekhanov 
Russian 
University 

of Economics in Moscow, Rus-
sia, LSA junior Veronika Volevich 
was looking forward to attend-
ing her first football game in The 
Big House. She made a post in 
the “Buying and Selling Tickets 
UMich” Facebook group on Sept. 4 
requesting that anyone selling tick-
ets to the football games on Sept. 11 
or Sept. 18 comment or contact her 
privately.

Within a few minutes, Volevich 

said she got a message from Face-
book user “Elena Beretta.” Beretta 
told Volevich she had tickets for 
both games in Section 31, Row 10 
and asked Volevich to make an 
offer. Volevich suggested $40 per 
ticket and said Beretta immedi-
ately accepted.

But an hour after Volevich 

electronically paid Beretta for the 
tickets, Volevich said she still had 
not received them. When Beretta 
stopped responding to her private 
messages, Volevich realized it had 
been a scam.

“Then I decided to make a post 

about (Beretta) in the (Buying and 
Selling) group,” Volevich said. “I 
received three or four messages 
from other people saying … she had 
used the same exact strategy on 
them.”

Associate 
Athletic 
Director 

Kurt Svoboda confirmed in an 
email to The Michigan Daily that 
this is the first year that student 
football tickets have been solely 
distributed online. Ice hockey and 
basketball student tickets have 
been virtual since 2019.

“We do not have plans to return 

to physical tickets in the future 
but we will continue to follow best 
practices within the industry to 
provide security within the tick-
eting landscape,” Svoboda wrote. 
“Mobile ticketing is proven to be 
far more safe and effective than 
paper tickets as it relates to authen-
ticity.”

Volevich is not the only student 

who has recently been scammed 
while trying to buy student tickets 
through social media.

After talking to several other 

students with similar experiences 
to Volevich, The Michigan Daily 
found three major warning signs 
to look out for — and ways to miti-
gate the risks — when trying to buy 
student tickets online.

“I know I’ll never get my money 

back,” Volevich said. “I just want to 
warn other people so this doesn’t 
happen to them.”

Red Flag 1: Pressuring the 

buyer to pay the full cost before 
sending the ticket

LSA sophomore Audrey Beach 

was scammed on Aug. 21 while 
trying to purchase an entire season 
of student tickets through the Buy-
ing and Selling Facebook group. 
Beach said a scammer by the name 

of “Reilly Kat” liked Beach’s post in 
the group, so Beach reached out to 
her to purchase the ticket

Once they agreed on a price, 

Beach said Kat told her to set up 
a Zelle account and transfer the 
money immediately if she wanted 
the tickets.

“She was definitely pressuring 

me into paying right away, like as 
soon as possible, and to get a dif-
ferent payment app that was better 
for her,” Beach said.

Beach said she was out shopping 

with her family at the time and told 
Kat she wanted to wait until she 
got home to set up a Zelle account 
on her laptop. Kat insinuated she 
would sell the tickets to someone 
else if Beach took too long, suggest-
ing she use her phone to transfer 
the payment if she was serious 
about buying.

Since there were no live specta-

tors at football games last fall, this 
was Beach’s first time purchasing 
tickets to a U-M football game. She 
said if she had known more about 
how tickets were transferred, the 
value of season tickets or the tricks 
scammers traditionally used, she 
would have been more careful.

“If I had that experience last 

year, if I had ever been to a football 
game … I definitely would have had 
a better understanding of what I 
was trying to buy and how to do it 
safely,” Beach said.

To protect both buyers and sell-

ers from losing the full value of the 
tickets, Beach and other scam vic-
tims suggested sending half of the 
cost before receiving the tickets 
and the other half after.

Red Flag 2: Asking that money 

be sent through new payment 
applications

All of the scam victims inter-

viewed by The Daily said the Pay-
Pal-owned application Venmo — a 
middle ground between a payment 
transfer service and social media 
platform — is their preferred inter-
face for virtual payments. Venmo 
appears frequently in lists of the 
applications college students use 
on a daily basis, and a third of 
Venmo users are between the ages 
of 18 and 24.

Volevich said Beretta refused 

to use Venmo when they were dis-
cussing how the payment would be 
sent.

“(Beretta) said she would prefer 

either Zelle or Apple Pay,” Volev-
ich said. “I found that weird since 
everyone has Venmo.”

Volevich said she consented 

to using Apple Pay since she had 
used it previously to make con-
tactless payments at local busi-
nesses. When a pop-up warning 
screen appeared indicating that 
this particular Apple Pay transfer 
might not be safe, Volevich said, 
she assumed Apple Pay flagged 
any non-commercial transfer and 
dismissed it.

“When I started the Apple 

Pay transaction, I was warned by 
Apple that this might be fraud,” 
Volevich said. “I assumed that 

since I’m transferring money to 
another person, Apple Pay might 
just suspect fraud, so I didn’t pay 
attention to it.”

Besides paying attention to 

explicit security messages from 
payment apps, Volevich and other 
scam victims recommended telling 
the seller they are not comfortable 
using certain payment methods 
they are less familiar with. They 
also suggested that if the buyer 
and seller can arrange to meet in 
person while the transaction takes 
place, it would increase transpar-
ency and reduce scam risks.

“I would ask the (seller) to meet 

in person,” Volevich said. “Since 
all (students) live in Ann Arbor 
mostly, it’s not that hard to meet in 
person.”

Red flag 3: Facebook account 

is not active and person’s stu-
dent status is unclear

If they had paid better attention 

to key details on the scammer’s 
Facebook pages, all of the scam 
victims said they might not have 
been so quick to send money to 
strangers.

2019 University alum Zena 

Shunnar told The Daily when 
she was a student, she had never 
heard of scams involving tickets 
to U-M sporting events. But when 
she was scammed while trying to 
buy three tickets over Facebook 
from a “fellow alum” to the Sept. 
11 game, Shunnar said she found 
out the hard way that things had 
changed.

Shunnar messaged “Simone 

Williams” who claimed she had 
tickets available. Williams’ profile 
mentioned she had recently moved 
to Paris and had studied at École 
Polytechnique de Milan in Milan, 
Italy. Shunnar said she thought 
this was odd, but gave Williams 
the benefit of the doubt, supposing 
Williams wanted to sell her tickets 
because of her current residence in 
Europe.

“I kind of made up the story in 

my head on why she could be sell-
ing these tickets and why it says she 
lives in Paris now,” Shunnar said.

LSA senior Julia Smoot said the 

individual who scammed her had 
very few Facebook friends and 
only had posted a couple of times — 
with each post receiving zero likes. 
Similar to Shunnar, Smoot said she 
had also purchased paper tickets 
several times before and had never 
had any issues.

Both 
recommended 
taking 

more time to identify inconsisten-
cies on the Facebook profiles of 
prospective sellers or buyers. They 
also both suggested using MCom-
munity to verify their student or 
alumni status.

“I started looking up (student 

ticket sellers) in MCommunity and 
I found at least two other people 
who didn’t go here,” Smoot said. 
“This one guy just kept saying, 
‘you’re safe with me, you’re safe 
with me.’ He did not go here.”

RESEARCH

