The University of Michigan Diag was illuminated by a string of tealight candles the evening of Dec. 2 as community members gathered to mourn and commemorate the four lives lost in the Oxford High School shooting on Nov. 30, where a 15-year-old sophomore opened fire in what would become the deadliest K-12 school shooting since 2018. Three students spoke at the event: Public Policy junior Alyssa Donovan, LSA junior Mckenzie Miller and LSA junior Josh Winslow. Donovan and Miller are graduates of Oxford High School. Prior to the speeches, organizers and other supporters walked around and lit small handheld candles for attendees to hold. The speakers stood on the steps in front of the Hatcher Graduate Library and attendees gathered around to listen to them through a megaphone. During her speech, Donovan expressed her and other organizers’ support for the members of the Oxford community. “The reasons for our gathering, our shared experiences of trauma and loss to gun violence, are devastating,” Donovan said. “We are here today to relay our support for the community of Oxford, for my community and the community of so many here gathered today.” Donovan continued, telling the Oxford community that the U-M community stands with them in their time of grief. “We’re here to show the community of Oxford that the University of Michigan, the state and the country share our pain, our sorrow, our devastation and our loss,” Donovan said. “We’re here to support us through it. We are here to offer our thoughts and our prayers. We’re here to reach out to others being brought together in our shared grief.” Miller pointed out the tight-knit nature of Oxford and explained the shock she felt when she learned that her hometown was the location of the attack. “Oxford’s a small town,” Miller said. “It’s the kind of place where you go to Meijer with your friends on a Saturday night. McDonald’s before every football game. It’s a place where people grow up and they come back to raise families. Oxford’s been changed forever.” In an interview with The Daily, Miller said she initially found out about the shooting from a friend. Miller said she then received a text message from her sister, who is a sophomore at Oxford High School, telling Miller that she loved her. “I actually got a text from her … to me and my other sister, and it just said ‘I love you guys,’” Miller said. “I was, at that point, trying to figure out what was going on and I was panicked. ‘What do you mean? What’s going on?’ And then she just said ‘There’s a shooter in the school. I love you guys so much.’ And then I didn’t hear from her for another 30 minutes.” During her speech, Miller went into more detail about how she’s been feeling all week following the shooting. “I can’t explain what it feels like to receive those ‘I love you’ texts. What it was like to see your small hometown high school trending on Twitter,” Miller said. “I don’t know how to explain how any of this feels, and I truly hope no one else will ever have to understand. I’m not okay, but it breaks my heart to know that what I’m feeling is only a small fraction of all the students and staff that were in that school.” Miller said that, right now, her focus is on mourning the lives lost and respecting those affected. “I know that many of us, myself included, are feeling a range of emotions these past few days,” Miller said. “Anger, confusion, resentment, denial, just sadness. And there will be time for all of those emotions to run their course and make these necessary talks and actions. But right now, it is time to grieve. Feel pain and sadness for all those affected. To give support and prayers for Madisyn Baldwin, Hana St. Juliana, Justin Shilling and Tate Myre. Four students, four kids, who will always be remembered.” The Coalition for Re-envi- sioning Our Safety, a multira- cial group of faith leaders, social workers, health care workers, researchers and activists who support building a “care-based” community, are currently work- ing to develop a plan for an unarmed public safety response program in Ann Arbor that was approved in an April City Council meeting. In April, The Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution call- ing for an unarmed public safety response program to send pub- lic health experts to non-violent emergency calls in place of the police. This program aims to help individuals who do not feel com- fortable calling the police for help or need professional help with issues such as mental health. The program aims to expand the work of public health provid- ers by having a comprehensive program that directs resources to those in need, according to the resolution. Ann Arbor City Councilmember Kathy Griswold, D-Ward 2, said she supports this program because there needs to be a more proactive approach on providing care for marginalized communities. “There has been talk about this for a few years in many commu- nities, and the general approach rather than being punitive (is) to be more proactive so that we can reduce actions with police offi- cers,” Griswold said. Lee Roosevelt, clinical assis- tant professor in the School of Nursing, is a member of CROS. She said the coalition is about people coming together to help the community. “In April, when the city put together this resolution, we all got together and decided to combine forces and really organize to make sure that this is a comprehensive program now that we have the city backing for it,” Roosevelt said. CROS’ core values include ensuring non-police profession- als are responding to non-violent emergencies under this program. They believe that the police can cause significant harm in the com- munity and cannot be re-trained to take care of sensitive cases. Part of the group’s goals includes ensuring these public health professionals are separated from the criminal legal system. They must also be trained on a variety of issues such as mental health, homelessness and emo- tional abuse. Washtenaw County has seen multiple instances of police bru- tality in recent years, including the death of Aura Rosser, a Black woman killed by Ann Arbor police officers in 2014. Last year, amid heightened awareness around police brutality and racial injus- tice, millions of Americans pro- tested for Black Lives Matter across the country, including in Ann Arbor. Roosevelt said the police are not always trained for emergen- cies such as mental health in ways that other professionals are, and therefore should not be the ones responding to people who need help with those issues. “The police are not social work- ers, and we are asking them to behave as social workers instead of doing what they are trained to do,” Roosevelt said. Roosevelt said the program needs to be run by an independent nonprofit organization in order to ensure separation from other city departments. “The big thing is that it has to have city (administration) support and be funded by the city, but it needs to not be embedded in the police department of the city, it needs to be really separate,” Roo- sevelt said. Roosevelt also said this pro- gram could be beneficial to individuals who do not feel com- fortable asking the police for help. “We have a large portion of the community that has very chal- lenging and problematic inter- actions with the police, and just won’t call 911,” Roosevelt said. “Part of the police department is not going to be utilized by the por- tions of our community that are asking for something that is sepa- rate and different.” LSA senior Josephine Graham is leading a lawsuit that aims to change the way the University handles sexual assault cases. This class action lawsuit was filed in May 2021 on behalf of hundreds of survivors of former athletic doctor Robert Anderson. Graham volunteers at Youth Arts Alliance and Telling It, a “trauma-informed” after-school program for children in the community,and works at Ground- cover News, a local nonprofit street newspaper publishing sto- ries related to homelessness and poverty. Graham said that based on her experience working with marginalized communities and learning about the criminal jus- tice system, she believes there is a strong distrust between mar- ginalized communities and the police. “You just look at all the data and hear all the stories, and most importantly see first hand by working with communities most impacted,” Graham said. “You see that they all have a very strong distrust in the police because, as I believe, the system has been bro- ken from the start.” The resolution also requests a separate call number differ- ent from 911. Roosevelt said the reasoning for the separate num- ber is to avoid confusion for the emergency dispatch if the caller is requesting an unnamed response. CROS’ proposal was inspired by other unarmed public safety response programs that have been successful. Some of those exam- ples are located in Eugene, Ore.; Denver, Colo.; Olympia, Wash.; San Francisco, Calif. and Austin, Texas, among other cities. The City Council resolution aims to complete developing the plan this month. The program will have a budget of $3 million, given by the city administration to the unarmed response organization. “When you compare it to the $30 million fund the police department gets, it’s actually a very low budget,” Roosevelt said. Griswold said the pilot for testing the program would start within two years, which is the minimum funding period for the program. “If we can get the pilot started mid-2022, I would be very satis- fied,” Griswold said. “We do have models already in other commu- nities, so we can modify them to meet Ann Arbor’s needs.” Regarding how the program would be received by the com- munity, Graham said building trust with the community would require hard work and time. In order for the program to be effective, the organization needs to have a community-based approach that listens to the peo- ple’s voices, Graham said. “This is an ongoing process because trust doesn’t come in unity,” Graham said. “It requires us to be intentional in the ways we engage most directly with people impacted by these issues … They are great ideas, but they are not implemented in a way that is focused on the community.” Daily Staff Reporter Caroline Wang can be reached at wanca@ umich.edu. News Wednesday, December 8, 2021 — 3 ANN ARBOR Multiracial group of local actvists develop plan for unarmed public safety response CAROLINE WANG Daily News Reporter Organization supports “care-based” approach to non-violent emergencies Jonathan Vaughn talks campaign for Board of Regents Anderson survivor has been camping outside of President’s House since Oct. 8 ADMINISTRATION Vigil on Diag mourns victims of Oxford shooting Read more at MichiganDaily.com CAMPUS LIFE Jonathan Vaughn wears many hats. He is a former collegiate athlete, a survivor of the late University of Michigan athletic doctor Robert Anderson and a business owner. Vaughn has been camping outside University President Mark Schlissel’s house for more than 50 days in protest of the University’s handling of the hundreds of sexual assault allegations against Anderson. Now, he is also a self-announced candidate for the 2022 election for the U-M Board of Regents. He announced his run at the Nov. 13 “Survivors Speak Up” forum. Vaughn said his reason for running for the Board of Regents is simple: the current regents have failed at their stated mission of “developing leaders and citizens.” In an interview with The Daily, Vaughn said the University’s handling of past and current sexual assault cases and the administration’s marginalization of students of color are all examples of the failing of the Board of Regents. Since his announcement on day 36 of his planned 100-day protest, Vaughn has continued his protest outside of Schlissel’s house. On day 41, The Daily sat down with Vaughn about what he wants to accomplish as regent and why he is running. Vaughn said his experience as a football player at the University in the late 1980s and his return to campus in 2020 as a vocal advocate for sexual assault survivors show that he has the commitment necessary to represent the campus community on the Board of Regents. “I’ll put my love for this University up against any other regents,” Vaughn said. “All the sacrifices I’ve made for this University during my time here, I never question that I am a Michigan Man through and through.” Vaughn’s goals as regent would be to engage with the people of the University and to prioritize campus safety. Through his protests on South University Avenue, Vaughn said he has had extraordinary access to U-M students. Vaughn estimated he has talked to 4000 or 5000 people and said the general disappointment in the University regents and administration is a common talking point. “There’s an overwhelming unfavorable opinion or response from the students and the faculty in the office of the president and administration and the Board of Regents,” Vaughn said. “There is a loss of hope that the current leadership will protect, inspire and empower.” This is particularly true in the era of the Anderson case, which may be the largest sexual abuse scandal by a single person in the documented history of the United States with thousands of complaints filed. Other U-M staff and faculty have been recently accused of sexual misconduct, including former violin professor Stephen Shipps, former computer science professors Walter Lasecki and Peter Chen, computer science professor Jason Mars, former American Culture professor Bruce Conforth and former Provost Martin Philbert, among others. Vaughn said the regents haven’t taken responsibility for the actions of the University in dismissing and covering up the Anderson abuse complaints. While Schlissel and the regents have heard from survivors at Board of Regents meetings, Schlissel has not directly spoken to the protesters outside of his home. Mike Cox, Vaughn’s attorney in the Anderson litigation and former Michigan attorney general, said that Vaughn would succeed as regent. “He not only loves the University as an institution and for its traditions, and more importantly, he is focused on what is best for its current and future students,” Cox said. “By that I mean he knows the University is organic and to grow it must focus on its students. Further, he is smart, a hard worker and a critical thinker — all good things for a regent.” The current Board of Regents is primarily focused on money and endowment growth, Vaughn said. As regent, Vaughn said he would not be concerned about money, stating that he “will not be bought.” Instead, Vaughn said he would direct the Board toward greater transparency and more frequent auditing of the services provided to the students. “Universities can’t be the Titanic in today’s age because the Titanic is not agile,” Vaughn said. “We must become more agile in (our) thinking, more creative in (our) thinking. We must be able to take a top-down and a bottom- up view of everything. And so not only thinking about the long term financial welfare of the University, but the services that you provide here.” Vaughn said that part of his goal in running for regent is to educate the public on the role of the board and their election process. He said that most students he speaks with do not know that the regents are a public office elected in statewide elections. History professor Terrence McDonald, director of the Bentley Historical Library, said the Board of Regents effectively functions as a board of directors at a large corporation with the president acting as CEO. The selection of the University president is one of the main roles of the regents. Historically, the most frequent occupation for regent is lawyer, McDonald said. This holds true today: six of the eight current regents are lawyers and the other two have degrees in business. Vaughn says he is undaunted by his different professional background, saying that it will give him an advantage in representing the community. After attending the University, Vaughn spent a decade playing football professionally for the National Football League. For the last 18 years, Vaughn has been co-CEO of a Florida-based hospitality company with his brother, Britt Vaughn. “I know people,” Vaughn said. “I have critical thinking skills and thrive under pressure and understand what true team play is. And at some point in time, your moral compass has to be greater than your legal compass in the way that you think and the way that you handle things because we’re talking about people’s lives.” Vaughn has not yet announced what political party he will run with. Typically, the state political parties nominate their candidates for regent at the state convention prior to elections. McDonald said no one has ever won a seat on the Board of Regents with a political party other than the traditional Republican or Democrat. “One could imagine an independent campaign,” McDonald said. “It’s certainly possible, but you would have to figure out how you would somehow get your name out. You wouldn’t get anybody’s publicity. And independent candidacy is hard.” Vaughn would need to obtain 12,000-24,000 votes if he does not run with a traditional party affiliation and would need to file before July 21, 2022 to get a place on the statewide ballot. A case, Graveline v. Benson, is currently pending before the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals to reduce the number of signatures to 12,000 given that “no independent candidate for statewide office ha(d) ever satisfied Michigan’s current statutory scheme to qualify for the ballot over the preceding 30 years.” “Whatever party I choose, or independent, I will not be bought,” Vaughn said. “I cannot be bought off of someone else’s agenda. I’m not asking for a handout to be a regent. I see issues that I think I can directly help solve. And the people who support me love this University (and want) to get back to being leaders and best.” The University’s chapter of College Democrats issued their support for Vaughn’s decision to run for Board of Regents in a statement to The Daily. “We support Jon Vaughn’s decision to run for a position on the University’s Board of Regents because of his dedication to making this campus a better and safer place for all,” the statement reads. “We also would like to emphasize our support for the work he and other survivors of sexual assault have been doing to keep our campus safe and advocate for the needs of the student body.” Ryan Fisher, the spokesperson for the University’s chapter of College Republicans and LSA senior, said the Republican businesswoman Lauren Hantz is the only candidate for regent that they currently support. “Vaughn has been a proponent of the University of Michigan community for a long time,” Fisher said. “With that said, we are going to hold off until he announces more of his platform and policy goals. (We) would love to see an emphasis on financial restraint, quelling the ongoing tuition increases, and protecting free speech for all on campus.” ELISSA WELLE Daily Staff Reporter The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Read more at MichiganDaily.com CHRISTIAN JULIANO Daily Staff Reporter ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily Students gathered on the Diag on Dec. 2 to grieve the victims of the Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School. Sophomore opened fire on Nov. 30, killing four students and injuring seven others