When a couple knocked on Rack-
ham student Jeffrey Lockhart’s door
on Nov. 4 asking if he was planning
on renewing his apartment lease,
Lockhart knew something wasn’t
right.
As a tenant of Oxford Companies,
a popular Ann Arbor real estate com-
pany, Lockhart said he was surprised
to find prospective tenants outside
his home asking about his plans to
renew so that they can potentially
take over his lease next year. Lock-
hart said he received an email from
the leasing company that said “leas-
ing season is upon us.”
“(Oxford Companies) wrote the
email basically as if the new ordi-
nance had not happened and that
leasing season was now in early
October, which it of course is not
anymore because that is the whole
point of the new ordinance,” Lock-
hart said.
In September, the city of Ann
Arbor approved a new leasing ordi-
nance to protect students from being
forced into signing leases nearly a
year before the lease was planned
to start. Multiple stakeholders were
involved in the development of the
legislation, including the Graduate
Employees’ Organization, Central
Student Government, tenants and
landlords.
The
new
leasing
ordinance
ensures landlords are unable to show
a property to new tenants until 150
days prior to the expiration of the
current lease. Previous legislation
allowed landlords to begin showing
properties to prospective tenants 70
days into the current lease. In oppo-
sition to the new ordinance, land-
lords filed a lawsuit in September
against the city of Ann Arbor.
Now, many tenants are saying
that landlords are finding loopholes
in the new ordinance and pressuring
students in current leases to renew
their contracts much earlier than the
accepted time period.
Engineering senior Nathan Nohr
is currently a resident of Prime
Student Housing, a local housing
authority. In a statement to The
Michigan Daily, Nohr said there is
a waitlist process for current resi-
dents. According to Nohr, a reserva-
tion requires paying one and a half
months of rent, which will give resi-
dents priority to sign in March — a
move Nohr said is unfair.
“Prime Student Housing notified
current residents in September that
we would need to resign our lease or
else they would open up reservations
for our apartment,” Nohr wrote.
“This circumvents the ordinance
and still requires students to renew
early in the year and now forces
other prospective residents to make
a hefty reservation if they want to
make sure to get a place. If students
decide not to act on the waitlist res-
ervation they lose the rent reserva-
tion fee.”
As a GEO member in the union’s
housing caucus group, Rackham
student Lucy Peterson said the leg-
islation was widely supported by
GEO members since many in the
organization have experienced their
own issues with housing as graduate
students.
“From being graduate students
living in the city for a while, a lot
of us have experienced issues with
early leasing,” Peterson said. “Grad-
uate students have to handle a lot
of precarity in their work because
we could be needing to do research
one semester, we could get a job and
have to move. So the idea of having to
sign a lease 10 months in advance is a
huge burden on graduate students in
particular.”
Peterson said she believes some
landlords are using bribes and
threats to encourage tenants to sign
the leases early.
“(Some landlords are) counting on
tenants being afraid and isolated and
worried about their housing security
to get them to renew,” Peterson said.
“So landlords are free to use pres-
sure, coercion, manipulation, bribes
and threats in order to get their
existing tenants to renew or to say
that they’re not going to renew.”
CSG President Nithya Arun, a
Public Health senior, said she also
received an email from University
Towers — a popular student hous-
ing apartment complex — saying
they are ready to start signing leases
for next year. She said that CSG has
received many complaints from stu-
dents who expressed frustrations
about their landlords disregarding
the new ordinance.
“I immediately thought that the
leasing period is not supposed to be
open until March, so that seems like
a violation,” Arun said.
Lockhart said there is also a
power dynamic that exists between
landlords and tenants, making the
effort to stand up for tenant rights
difficult for some renters who do
not necessarily understand the City
Council rules.
“If I didn’t follow local city coun-
cil ordinance stuff and if I wasn’t
paying close attention to this, I’d
have no idea that I didn’t have to
make that decision now,” Lockhart
said. “These are the people that con-
trol whether you have housing, how
much you pay for housing, they have
a lot of power and it’s very easy for
landlords to make people’s lives mis-
erable.”
Arun said she and other CSG
members felt very passionate about
housing issues since they have also
experienced issues with leasing
before. Despite all the effort put
forth by CSG, GEO and City Council
to pass this legislation, Arun said the
same issues are still prevalent.
“A lot of shareholders spent time
crafting this piece of legislation and
making sure students would benefit
from it and not be pressured to sign
leases early, and now it almost feels
like nothing has changed,” Arun said.
Since landlords now have to wait
longer than they did in previous
years to sign leases for their prop-
erties, many are offering voluntary
waitlists for new tenants to join,
according to Jordan Else, a landlord
with Wessinger Properties. Else has
been involved with the Ann Arbor
housing market as a resident, parent
of a U-M student and now as a land-
lord with her husband.
The concept of the voluntary
waitlist varies with each landlord,
but the concept allows renters to
reserve a spot in a certain building
or unit in advance without officially
signing a lease since leases cannot be
signed at this time, Else said.
Else said she is in support of the
ordinance and that she feels that
there is confusion about how the
ordinance affects leases that begin
in May versus those that begin in
September. With the new ordinance,
she said that new May leases can
now be signed in early December
and September leases can be signed
in March.
“I think part of why all this isn’t
working great and has historically
not worked great is there’s an educa-
tion piece that’s missing,” Else said.
An unknown individual splat-
tered red paint onto the statue of Bo
Schembechler in front of Schem-
bechler Hall on the University of
Michigan campus and spray painted
“Bo knew #HailToTheVictims” at its
base overnight on Nov. 23.
“Bo knew” references the allega-
tions that the late Schembechler,
head football coach at Michigan
from 1969 to 1989 and later athletic
director, was alerted several times to
former athletic doctor Robert Ander-
son’s sexual abuse of football players
and failed to take appropriate action.
Anderson was the head doctor for the
football team during much of Schem-
bechler’s tenure.
More than 950 former University
students have come forward in recent
years alleging Anderson abused
them, most typically under the guise
of medical examinations.
An anonymous local resident
took responsibility for the action
in an email sent to local media and
obtained by The Michigan Daily.
“It is time for the world to know
that Bo is responsible for the abuse of
innumerable Michigan football play-
ers,” the resident wrote.
The resident wrote that the action
was in solidarity with the “Hail to the
Victims” campaign led by Anderson
survivors, who have been protest-
ing for the past few months to bring
attention to the abuse and to hold the
University accountable.
Jonathan Vaughn, a former foot-
ball player and Anderson survivor
who has been protesting outside of
University President Mark Schlis-
sel’s house since Oct. 8 to ask for the
University to take responsibility for
Anderson’s abuse, told The Daily that
the statue paint was not related to his
protest.
“Not in anyway!” Vaughn wrote in
a text message. “I’m out here every-
day fighting for justice why would I
go and do something unjust?!” [sic]
The University is investigating the
paint incident, according to Univer-
sity spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald.
“We understand and appreciate
the passionate advocacy on behalf of
those who were abused by the late
Robert Anderson,” Fitzgerald wrote
in an email to The Daily. “But the
vandalism to the University of Michi-
gan statue of Bo Schembechler will
be investigated fully in order to hold
those responsible accountable for
their actions.”
Fitzgerald added that the Uni-
versity is working toward “fair com-
pensation” for Anderson survivors in
confidential mediation.
“We are working every day to
make our campus safer for every
member of our community,” Fitzger-
ald wrote.
A spokesperson for the Division
of Public Safety and Security had no
update to provide on the investiga-
tion.
A representative for Michigan
Students Against Sexual Assault,
a campus organization that has
advocated for Anderson survivors
in recent months, did not have any
information or comment on the paint
incident.
The paint incident comes days
before the Michigan football team
faces Ohio State, in a rivalry that
largely defined Schembechler’s lega-
cy before allegations that he knew of
Anderson’s abuse surfaced last year.
Since then, many community mem-
bers have called for a reevaluation of
the place of Schembechler’s image on
campus.
Though the University has yet to
comment directly on Schembechler,
the huge “The Team, The Team,
The Team” banner, quoting a famous
Schembechler speech and tradition-
ally unfurled in the student section at
every home game, has not appeared
at Michigan Stadium since 2019.
Schlissel
declined
to
answer
whether he supported removing the
statue or renaming Schembechler
Hall, the football team’s main prac-
tice facility, when The Daily asked
him in August.
“This Schembechler issue is too
tied up in the litigation around the
awful acts of Dr. Anderson to really
act on right now,” Schlissel said.
“We’ll see what happens down the
road.”
Daily News Editor Calder Lewis can
be reached at calderll@umich.edu.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
2 — Wednesday, December 1, 2021
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is publishing weekly on Wednesdays for the
Winter 2021 semester by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available
free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office
for $2. If you would like a current copy of the paper mailed to you, please visit store.
pub.umich.edu/michigan-daily-buy-this-edition to place your order.
BRITTANY BOWMAN
Managing Editor babowm@umich.edu
BARBARA COLLINS and LIAT WEINSTEIN
Managing News Editors news@michigandaily.com
Senior News Editors: Emma Ruberg, Hannah Mackay, Calder Lewis, Jasmin
Lee, Kristina Zheng, Lily Gooding
Investigative Editor: Sammy Sussman
FOIA Manager: Ayse Eldes
ELIZABETH COOK and JOEL WEINER
Editorial Page Editors tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Senior Opinion Editors: Julian Barnard, Brandon Cowit, Shubhum Giroti, Jessie
Mitchell, Evan Stern
ELISE GODFRYD and ELIZABETH YOON
Managing Arts Editors
arts@michigandaily.com
ALLISON ENGKVIST and MADDIE HINKLEY
Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com
ANDIE HOROWITZ
Managing Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com
Deputy Editors: Samantha Cole, Leo Krinsky
MADISON GAGNE and OLIVIA BRADISH
Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com
Senior Copy Editors: Caroline Atkinson, Anjali Chiravuri, Ethan Patrick,
Kelsey Burke, Emily Wilson, Vanita Seed, Ellen Howell, Kathryn Kulie, Rena
McRoy, Alison Chesnick
PARTH DHYANI and NAITIAN ZHOU
Managing Online Editors
webteam@michigandaily.com
Project Managers: Rimaz Khan, Alex Cotignola, Jessica Chiu, Simran Pujji
IULIA DOBRIN and ANNIKA WANG
Managing Video Editors video@michigandaily.com
Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Noor Moughni, Maya Kadouh, Eliya Imtiaz,
Jessica Kwon, Lola Yang
Senior Sports Editors: Drew Cox, Lily Friedman, Jack Kingsley, Brendan Roose,
Daniel Dash, Jared Greenspan, Jacob Cohen
Senior Video Editors: Margaret Rudnick, Jordan Shefman
Senior Social Media Editors: Kirti Aplash, Natalie Knight, Cristina Costin,
Ryan Postman, Evan DeLorenzo, Sarah Kent, Bella Morreale
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327
www.michigandaily.com
ARTS SECTION
arts@michigandaily.com
SPORTS SECTION
sports@michigandaily.com
NEWS TIPS
tipline@michigandaily.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
EDITORIAL PAGE
opinion@michigandaily.com
TARA MOORE
Business Manager
business@michigandaily.com
CLAIRE HAO
Editor-in-Chief
eic@michigandaily.com
PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION
photo@michigandaily.com
NEWSROOM
news@michigandaily.com
CORRECTIONS
corrections@michigandaily.com
LANE KIZZIAH and KENT SCHWARTZ
Managing Sports Editors sports@michigandaily.com
Senior Arts Editors: Kari Anderson, Drew Gadbois, Andrew Pluta, Grace
Tucker, Sophia Yoon
Arts Beat Editors: Lilly Pearce, Peter Hummer, Mik Deitz, Sabriya Imami,
Kaitlyn Fox, Anya Soller
SHANNON STOCKING and ALLISON YIH
Managing Design Editors
design@michigandaily.com
ANAMIKA KANNAN and GABRIJELA SKOKO
Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com
HALEY JOHNSON and ASHA LEWIS
Managing Social Media Editors socialmedia@michigandaily.com
Editorial Staff
Business Staff
Senior Photo Editors: Emma Mati, Miles Macklin, Becca Mahon, Julia
Schachinger
Assistant Photo Editors: Grace Beal, Tess Crowley, Kate Hua, Jarett Orr,
Dominick Sokotoff
RORI MILLER
Creative Director
EMILY OHL and GERALD SILL
Managing Podcast Editors podeditors@michigandaily.com
SCHUYLER JANZEN
Sales Manager
ADVERTISING
WMG-contact@umich.edu
JACK GRIEVE
Digital Managing Editor jgrieve@umich.edu
ALEX HARRING and SARAH SZALAI
Co-Chairs of Access & Inclusion accessandinclusion@michigandaily.com
Senior Podcast Editors: Doug McClure, Max Rosenzweig, Avin Katyal
NEWS
Bo Schembechler statue vandalized, painted
with “Bo Knew #HailToTheVictims”
Unknown individual took responsibility, said “it is time for the world to know”
Associate Editor: Julia Maloney
MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily
Students and fans storm the field after Michigan football beats Ohio State Nov. 27.
PHOTO
Senior Layout Editor: Sophie Grand
CALDER LEWIS
Daily News Editor
Students concerned by practices such as housing reservations, bribes and threats
ANN ARBOR
Landlords find loopholes to Early Leasing Ordinance
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
KAITLYN LUCKOFF
Daily Staff Reporter