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INDEX
Vol. CXXXII, No. 90
©2022 The Michigan Daily

NEWS............................1

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

O P I N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, September 7, 2022

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Law professor sues ‘U’ 
for racial and gender-
based discrimination
Michigan Medicine nurses 
authorize strike 

Union alleges University officials have refused to negotiate in good faith

IRENA LI
Daily News Reporter

RILEY HODDER & IRENA 
LI
Daily News Reporters

UMich plans for COVID-19 and monkeypox on campus: Free rapid tests, vaccination headline prevention strategies

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Festifall brings crowds and success to student organizations 

CARLIN PENDELL
Daily News Reporter

 The University of Michigan 
Professional 
Nurse 
Council 
(UMPNC) 
voted 
to 
authorize 
a strike Friday afternoon after 
months of unsuccessful contract 
negotiations with the University, 
according to a statement from the 
union. The authorization is not an 
announcement of an immediate 
work stoppage but would allow the 
bargaining unit to call for a strike 
at any point. 
According to the statement, 
96% of voting members voted in 
favor of the strike authorization. 
The release says the union would 
only call for a strike if they deem 
it “absolutely necessary” to protest 
the University’s alleged unfair 
labor practices. 
An 
FAQ 
section 
regarding 
the vote on the UMPNC website 
says 
union 
leadership 
sought 

authorization to strike because it 
believes the University has violated 
labor practices in its negotiations. 
“We are voting to authorize a 
work stoppage for the purpose of 
protesting the university’s alleged 
unfair labor practices,” the website 
reads. “We believe the university 
has failed to bargain in good 
faith, made improper changes to 
our working conditions, and has 
undermined our elected union 
… We just want the university 
to respect our rights, voice, and 
union.”
Michigan 
Medicine 
spokeswoman Mary Masson said 
in a statement that the University 
was disappointed in the UMPNC’s 
decision to authorize a strike and 
that preparations are being made if 
a work stoppage were to occur. 
“Patients can still expect to 
receive the same high quality 
care at our hospitals and health 
centers,” Masson said in the 
statement. 
“We 
are 
currently 

planning to ensure safe staffing 
levels if a work stoppage occurs.” 
The UMPNC is a branch of the 
Michigan 
Nurses 
Association, 
which published a statement on 
the vote Friday and said over 
4,000 MNA-UMPNC members 
participated in the vote.
“The vote shows that thousands 
of nurses are united in standing 
up for their rights and demanding 
respect,” Renee Curtis, president 
of MNA-UMPNC, wrote in the 
statement. “We will not sit by 
while the university violates the 
law, especially when it comes to 
their refusal to negotiate over safe 
workloads. Nurses are ready to 
do whatever it takes to hold the 
university accountable.
The 
strike 
authorization 
comes after the MNA filed a 
lawsuit last month alleging the 
University violated the Public 
Employment Relations Act of 1947 
by refusing to bargain over nurses’ 
workloads. Negotiations between 

the University and Michigan 
Medicine nurses have been 
ongoing since March 15, with 
nurses having worked without a 
contract since the previous one 
expired on July 1. 
According to Masson, the 
nurse’s union and the University 
are close to a resolution. The 
current proposal includes a 
21% base pay increase in nurses 
over the next four years, the 
elimination 
of 
mandatory 
overtime and a $4,000 bonus for 
each member of the bargaining 
unit. 
The 
union 
said 
in 
the 
statement that members would 
be attending the next Board of 
Regents meeting on September 
22 to “make sure (the regents) 
understand 
what 
Michigan 
Medicine’s administration has 
been doing.”
Daily Staff Reporter Irena 
Li can be reached at irenayli@
umich.edu.

TESS CROWLEY/Daily

Festifall 
returned 
to 
the 
University of Michigan this week 
with student organizations lining 
the streets of campus hoping to 
recruit the next class of promising 
students. 
Festifall began Tuesday on 
North Campus in the late afternoon 
before moving to Central Campus 
on Thursday for afternoon and 
evening sessions on the Diag and 
Ingalls Mall. 
This week’s festivities marked 
the second in-person student org 
recruitment event since classes 
were canceled due to the COVID-
19 pandemic in March 2020. Last 
year, Festifall was conducted fully 
in person while Winterfest, the 
winter semester equivalent, was 
held virtually due to the spread 
of the highly contagious omicron 
variant of COVID-19. 

Over the two days, Festifall, 
organized by the Center for 
Campus Involvement (CCI), hosted 
over 750 student organizations, 
community vendors and campus 
departments seeking to engage 
and recruit students.
Devon 
Vaughn, 
program 
manager for student development 
in CCI, estimated that about 
9,000 people, primarily students, 
attended 
Festifall 
on 
Central 
Campus, and about 3,000 people 
attended 
Festifall 
on 
North 
Campus. Vaughn said the in-person 
format allowed organizations to 
connect with students.
“Fully 
virtual 
(events) 
are 
such a challenge. You don’t have 
those moments of connection and 
face to face contact. Last year, we 
came back for the first time, and 
it was great, but there was a lot of 
hesitation,” Vaughn said. “This 
year, it felt a lot closer to what 
we saw in 2019 and 2018. The 
attendance was beyond what (the 

CCI) expected.”
Vaughn spoke on some of the 
more difficult aspects of Festifall 
and how the CCI plans to mitigate 
the challenges of such a large 
event. 
“I think really great connections 
are being made,” Vaughn said. 
“There 
are 
challenges, 
like 
(Festifall) is overwhelming. It’s 
huge. One of the things we’ve 
tried to do is offer a one-on-one 
appointment after Festifall for 
those who could use that kind of 
space.”
LSA freshman Maddison Linker 
attended Festifall on Thursday and 
shared her thoughts on the event. 
“I was a little overwhelmed at 
first because it seemed like a lot 
of people, but now that I’m here, 
it feels a lot better, and I’m very 
excited to be learning about all 
these organizations,” Linker said. 
“I love it. Other than the free items, 
I would say I’m really excited about 
joining the volunteering clubs and 

even some of the more random 
clubs. I’m looking for fun things 
to do outside of class.”
With a return to normal life 
on campus, many organizations 
felt this semester’s Festifall 
differed 
from 
the 
mid-
pandemic. Public Health senior 
Meghna Singh is the president 
and programming chair of 
the 
American 
Foundation 
for 
Suicide 
Prevention 
at 
the 
University 
(AFSP-UM). 
The organization’s table was 
scattered with pins, stickers, 
flyers and candy on Thursday 
in the Diag. Singh talked 
about AFSP-UM’s recruitment 
process this semester.
“The 
energy 
is 
what’s 
different,” Singh said. “There’s 
definitely more people walking 
around checking out tables, 
versus a virtual environment, 
which we’ve done multiple 
times. It’s just not as successful. 
I’m glad to see people are 

excited and wanting to get back 
involved again.”
Engineering 
junior 
Nicole 
Baalbaki is the Director of Finance 
for the Syrian Student Association. 
She 
discussed 
the 
association’s 
tactics for recruiting new members at 
Festifall.
“I think just playing some good 
Arabic music, Syrian music, teaching 
people about our culture, and who 
we are,” Baalbaki said. “Just being 
ourselves, showing what our culture 
is.”
While some Festifall participants 
said they are planning for a primarily 
in-person semester, many said they 
will use online meetings in the early 
stages of membership. 
LSA junior Deniz Kirca, outreach 
chair of the Neuroscience Student 
Association (NSA),, explained that 
while his organization is conducting 
many in-person events this year, the 
NSA is still using a hybrid format. 

KATE HUA/Daily
Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Monday marks the beginning of 
the fourth academic year impacted 
by the COVID-19 pandemic. And 
as the U-M community embarks on 
another school year, The Michigan 
Daily has you covered with the 
most frequently asked questions 
about health and safety on campus.
With the state of Michigan still 
grappling with COVID-19 and the 
monkeypox virus (MPV) reaching 
the state in June of this year, 
campus leaders have been tasked to 

make preparations for the viruses’ 
impact on campus this fall.
COVID-19 
Who was consulted in making 
plans for Fall 2022? 
In preparation for the Fall 2022 
semester, the University created 
the 
Public 
Health 
Infection 
Prevention and Response Advisory 
Committee to advise on safety 
plans, 
University 
spokesperson 
Rick Fitzgerald told The Daily in 
an email.
The 
committee 
includes 
specialists 
from 
Michigan 
Medicine on infection prevention, 
University Health Services (UHS), 

the School of Public Health, 
athletic department, leadership 
from all three U-M campuses and 
other 
university 
professionals 
according to Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald 
also 
wrote 
that 
University 
established 
the 
Department 
of 
Infection 
Prevention 
and 
Epidemiology 
in 2020 within UHS to oversee 
aspects 
of 
the 
University’s 
infectious disease response. 
What percentage of classes will 
be taught in person for the Fall 
2022 semester? 
The University did not provide an 
exact percentage of classes taught 

in person during the Fall 2022 
semester. Fitzgerald confirmed 
that 
the 
University 
will 
be 
welcoming everyone back for a 
“fully residential” semester, but 
also recognized “the important 
role of technology, in the classroom 
and for other academic activities, to 
augment the learning experience 
and to address accessibility needs, 
consistent 
with 
pedagogical 
and programmatic needs.” It is 
expected that some courses will 
continue to be fully remote.
Why are vaccine-exempt 
students no longer required 
to test weekly? 

Robert Ernst, U-M chief health 
officer, announced in an email to 
the campus community on August 
18 that testing would be optional but 
“encouraged” for anyone who is not 
up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations 
required by the University last fall and 
winter.
Fitzgerald 
wrote 
that 
the 
University’s COVID-19 response has 
shifted to encouraging individual 
risk assessment related to adoption 
of vaccination, testing, masking and 
social distancing. 
Will the University continue to 
offer free single-use antigen tests 
at on-campus COVID-19 testing 

sites?
Single-use antigen tests will be 
available at Community Sampling 
and Tracking Program sites for U-M 
students and employees. Fitzgerald 
did not confirm how many tests 
the University has reserved for 
the fall semester, but he wrote that 
“everyone is encouraged to have 
antigen tests on hand” in case they 
develop symptoms and need to test 
quickly.
How will students be able to 
report COVID-19 results taken on 
an at-home test?

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

 Laura Beny, University of 
Michigan Law School professor, filed 
a lawsuit in the U.S District Court 
for the Eastern District of Michigan 
against the University and Law 
School Dean Mark West on Friday, 
claiming race, gender, familial and 
marital status discrimination.
The 
lawsuit, 
which 
names 
the University, the Law School 
and West as defendants, asserts 
that Beny experienced a hostile 
work 
environment 
created 
by 
her 
co-workers 
and 
employers 
throughout 
her 
time 
at 
the 
University.
The 
suit 
claims 
that 
she 
encountered multiple instances of 
gender and race discrimination in 
her classroom and, upon reporting, 
the situations were not remediated 
by the University. The lawsuit 
references the Law School’s “lock 
step” 
payroll 
policy 
in 
which 
employees hired at the same pay rate 
are expected to receive equivalent 
raises, and the lawsuit claims that 
Beny was not given pay raises in lock 
step with a white male and white 
female professor who were hired at 
the same salary as her. 
According to the lawsuit, Beny 
sought a meeting with West in 2014 
on this issue, who claimed that it was 
a clerical error. West then applied for 
a retroactive pay increase for Beny, 
the lawsuit says.
“(Beny) 
felt 
that 
the 
administration had penalized her 
for having championed equality and 
making complaints about inequities 
at the law school,” the lawsuit reads. 
University spokeswoman Kim 
Broekhuizen told The Michigan 
Daily in an email that the allegations 
were baseless. Beny, who was hired 
at the University in 2003, remains as 
a tenured faculty member at the Law 
School, Broekhuizen added.
“The University of Michigan 

will vigorously defend itself and the 
Law School against the meritless 
allegations made by Professor Laura 
Beny in her complaint,” Broekhuizen 
wrote.
The lawsuit describes several 
instances throughout Beny’s tenure in 
which she allegedly faced derogatory 
remarks and harassment regarding 
her race, gender and familial status, 
including from West. The suit asserts 
that the University and West are 
in violation of the Americans with 
Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Family 
Medical Leave Act of 1993, which 
prohibits discrimmination based on 
disabilities and protects the right for 
temporary leave.
The lawsuit claims that West made 
multiple 
inappropriate 
comments 
regarding Beny’s appearance, as 
well as the appearance of her female 
co-workers, 
and 
insinuated 
that 
Beny was a “dominatrix” on multiple 
occasions. Included in the lawsuit was 
one email in which West signed off 
with “Your humble minion.”
“This theme of (Beny) being a 
dominatrix has been constant in Dean 
West’s inappropriate sexist and racist 
comments towards (Beny) and it has 
influenced his discrimination and 
retaliation to her in the present,” the 
lawsuit reads. “(Beny) felt demeaned 
and horrified. (Beny) was a new 
single mother, her daughter being 
exactly one year old. No other single 
parents were on the faculty at (the 
University’s) Law School, to (Beny’s) 
knowledge and belief, and Defendant 
West never spoke to other new 
mothers, white women, on the faculty 
in the same offensive manner.”
West was also implicated in 
controversy in March 2021, when he 
publicly apologized for featuring racist 
and sexually suggestive depictions 
of Asian women on his book covers. 
The suit recalls West’s apology and 
claims it was merely “lip service,” as 
he did not apologize to Beny for his 
continued race- and gender-based 

GEORGE WEYKAMP & 
RONI KANE
Daily News Editors

Laura Beny accuses school of unfair pay 
practices and unlawful harassment

Relaxed pandemic-era policies attract new members, restore feelings of normalcy at fall club fair

