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NEWS Students compete in A2 Health Hackathon Competitors prototype solutions for healthcare
MichiganDaily.com
One Hundred and Twenty Five Years of Editorial Freedom
Thursday, June 30, 2016
University increases freshman class enrollment by 9 percent
>> SEE PAGE 2
NEWS
‘Ban the Box’ may
cause discrimination Employment reform has unintended consequences >> SEE PAGE 3
OPINION
The ethics of going driverless Columnist David Mertz discusses the ethics involved in an autonomous future. >> SEE PAGE 5
ARTS
Cameron Crowe’s ‘Roadies’ fizzles Writer-director’s look at the music industry underwhelms >> SEE PAGE 6
SPORTS 2016 NBA Draft Caris LeVert was the 20th pick of the first round by the Indiana Pacers >> SEE PAGE 12
INDEX Vol. CXXVI, No. 122| © 2016 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
NEWS ................................... 2 OPINION .............................. 4 ARTS ..................................... 6 CLASSIFIEDS......................... 8 SUDOKU................................ 2 SPORTS................................ 10
Design by: Miranda Riggs
Increase driven by growing number of out-of-state applications By BRIAN KUANG Summer Daily News Editor
The University of Michigan expects to yield a freshman class size of 6,600 for the class of 2020
— an increase of about 500 from the class of 2019 — potentially making it the largest freshman class in University history and a reflection of the rapid growth in applicants to the University since 2010. After enrolling 6,505 freshmen in 2014 — overshooting a target class size of 6,000 — administrators expressed frustration that over-enrollment was straining the University’s housing and instructional resources. To combat
this over-enrollment, admissions procedures were changed for the subsequent freshman class by reducing early admission offers and making greater use of the waitlist. As a result, only 6,071 freshmen entered campus in 2015. For the 2015-16 admission cycle, 55,500 students applied for admission to the University, a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year. Of those who applied, 16,100 were admitted for an acceptance rate of 29 percent,
and the University estimates 6,600 freshman will be on campus come September — a yield rate of 41 percent. This represents a threepoint increase in the University’s acceptance rate over the past admissions cycle and a four-point decline in its yield. Also of note was the disparity between in-state and out-of-state acceptance rates. Of the 10,959 Michigan residents who applied for admission, 42.2 percent were See ENROLLMENT, Page 9
CAMPUS LIFE
Faculty and students discuss factors that contribute to Engineering’s achievements Research, student groups and career resources strengthen the program By ALEXA ST. JOHN Daily Staff Reporter
In fall 2015, private gifts to the University of Michigan College of Engineering totaled nearly $46.5
million. Nearly all of the 12 College of Engineering’s departments ranked in the top ten engineering departments in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report. And while the University itself has an acceptance rate of 26.2 percent, the College of Engineering’s acceptance rate for fall 2015 was 24 percent — providing the 13,461 first-year applicants a less than one-in-four
chance of acceptance. These extensive private funds, consistent nationwide and international rankings, and low acceptance rates are the tip of the iceberg for the University’s College of Engineering. With 397 total tenured and tenure-track faculty, 6,351 undergraduate students and 1,742 graduate students, the College of Engineering has topped ranking lists since its establishment in 1854, including being ranked the
sixth-best engineering school in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. Twelve departments and 17 undergraduate programs of study — 14 of which have received specialized accreditation by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology — are clearly part of what distinguishes the engineering school from hundreds in the country. But what else helps it See ENGINEERING, Page 8
2 NEWS
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Students compete in first annual A2 Health Hackathon Teams spent weekend developing solutions to global healthcare problems
and operated by Beatrix Balogh, a research associate for the William Davidson Institute, an independent non-profit that provides emerging market solutions; Britt Johnson, a consultant at Integral Chain; Diane Bouis, the innovation programs director at The Inovo Group, an innovation consulting firm; and Neelima Ramaraju, the global health applications director at LLamasoft, a supply chain management software company. Though there are other hackathons in Ann Arbor, the four co-founders wanted to create something different to engage a more diverse crowd. “We wanted it to be free and available to the community,” Johnson said. “Many other hackathons are focused on the University, and coming in as a working professional, it’s cool to see all of the people working in startups in health and software. There’s just such a variety.” The co-founders brought
By ALEX COTT For the Daily
The first annual Ann Arbor Health Hackathon brought together medical professionals, software engineers, public health workers among others to brainstorm solutions to global healthcare problems from Friday to Saturday in Palmer Commons. The “hackathon” included 24 hours of health-related “hacking,” which involved teams pitching ideas and creating prototypes for solutions to health problems. The event focused on preventing disease in underserved areas of the Sudoku Syndication developing world. The hackathon was created
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Engineering junior AJ Goldstein presents his application, Balance, at A 2 Health Hacks at Palmer Commons on Wednesday.
together their past experiences health and how multidimensional to create a health hackathon that it is. Sometimes the problems encompassed the most successful intertwine so if you solve one, then practices from other events. you solve others as well.” “I participated in hackathons Once the hacking began, 91 at MIT in Boston and again in participants were faced with Cleveland,” Johnson said. “I just the challenge of creating a basic loved how it brought so many product or prototype in 24 hours to different experts together in one crack a disease prevention problem. room at one table that generally Seventeen teams, ranging from one http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ don’t have the chance to meet and to seven members, each chose a talk. I liked the idea of starting pitched idea to work on during the with a problem and thinking event. through a solution with a group of Johnson said many pitched ideas people.” covered hugely problematic issues Johnson added that sometimes in healthcare, health habits and real products have developed disease and cultures. HARD from hackathons. The teams worked with a wide Johnson said organizers had variety of ideas, including a website two goals: uncovering new ideas to inform the local residents about and uniting the community. the three-mile-long dioxane “Our goals are two-fold: to plume in Ann Arbor and how bring innovative thought and clean the water sources are, an new design and solutions into app that simplified the language a space where there have been in insurance policies for people to a lot of traditions,” Johnson better comprehend, and a paper said. “The second is more local: diagnostic strip for cardiovascular bringing those diverse parts of disease and other key diseases for our community together to talk developing countries and rural and work on it and get to know areas. each other.” Johnson said the organizers The event commenced aimed to have diverse participants, Friday evening for participants including the students. to meet and exchange ideas. “We tried to get a big mix of Saturday morning began with participants,” Johnson said. “We three keynote speakers — Eden were really looking for people in Wells, Mark Wilson, and Hamid health, software and tech. We Ghanbari — who discussed how wanted a mix of ages that pulled multifaceted nature of global from different backgrounds, like health issues. working professionals as well as © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. “(Ghanbari) was my favorite,” the student population.” MOUNTAIN CLIMBING Puzzle by sudokusyndication.com rising LSA senior Jenny Tou, a Tou’s team worked on a program participant in the hackathon, that created a physical therapy Generate and solve Sudoku, Super Sudoku and Godoku puzzles atsaid. sudokusyndication.com! “He talked about global See HACKATHON, Page 9
SUDOKU
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Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS 3
RESEARCH
“Ban the Box” may lead to increases in discrimination Study shows Black applicants had fewer callbacks after legislation By MEHRUNISA KHAN Daily Staff Reporter
A University of Michigan research study shows that “Ban the Box” legislation may lead to an increase in racial discrimination by employers. “Ban the Box” refers to a push for the removal of questions concerning criminal history on job applications, making it easier for former convicts to receive initial interviews. “Ban the Box” does not prevent employers from eventually running background checks. Rather, the legislation aims to provide applicants with the opportunity to prove their abilities and impress employers in hopes of gaining the chance to re-enter the community. According the Ban the Box Campaign website, more than 45 cities and countries and seven states have adopted the policy to reduce employment discrimination based on criminal records. Last year, President Obama encouraged “banning the box” forfederal employment. Ann Arbor unanimously voted for this hiring policy for city employment in 2014. Sonja Starr — a University law professor who conducted the study with Princeton University economist Amanda Agan — said she believed it was important to look into the legislation’s effects, as the law spreads across the nation. The study focused on racial discrimination, as one of the main arguments for Ban the Box legislation is the policy would increase access to jobs for people of color, especially young Black men. “Black men in particular face high levels of unemployment, and it is often said that one reason for that is that Black men are disproportionately likely to have criminal records, and employers
are too unwilling to hire people with records,” Starr said. LSA junior Emma Ward, a head research assistant, said she and a large team of student researchers sent fictitious job applications in New York and New Jersey before and after Ban the Box laws were in place. Research assistants were given a group of cities and a fake applicant’s name, race, profile number and business to which each application would go. The profiles were sent in pairs: one Black and white applicant, and one with a criminal background and one without. Starr said the researchers kept all applications identical except for specific traits, such as the applicant’s criminal record and race. All of the applicants were male. Results showed there was an increase in racial discrimination towards Black men. “It’s mixed news for Ban the Box,” Starr said. “On one hand, we found that it was true that criminal records were a huge obstacle to getting jobs. And companies do comply with Ban the Box so that obstacle for the initial callback stage disappears after Ban the Box goes into effect. On the other hand, there was a very large increase in racial discrimination after Ban the Box went into effect.” Before Ban the Box, White male applicants had 7 percent more callbacks than Black applicants. After Ban the Box, this gap increased to 45 percent. Starr said the consequences were unintended, since Ban the Box was meant for people of color to pass the initial stage of employment. “BTB is often presented as a way of increasing Black male employment, but most Black men do not have criminal convictions, and BTB risks harming Black men without records by preventing them from signaling that fact to employers,” the research study stated. The researchers believe that statistical discrimination was in effect, meaning employers use See BOX, Page 9
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI–12) speaks with local entrepreneurs for Start-Up Day Across America at the Ann Arbor SPARK Central Business Incubator on August 20th, 2015.
Reps. criticize congressional inaction on gun regulations Mich. lawmakers call for background checks, limits based on No-Fly List By RIYAH BASHA Summer Daily News Editor
A panel of representatives from Michigan’s congressional delegation and state organizers gathered Wednesday afternoon to call for gun control legislation — namely universal background checks and the “No Fly, No Buy” measure that prevents individuals on the Federal Bureua of Investigation’s No-Fly List from purchasing firearms. Representatives John Conyers (D–Detroit), Debbie Dingell (D– Dearborn), Dan Kildee (D–Flint), Brenda Lawrence (D–Southfield) and Sander Levin (D–Royal Oak) — who all participated in House Democrats’ daylong sit-in last week to protest Republicans’ refusal to vote on gun control bills — slammed congressional inaction and promised to follow up their protest with more public pressure. The standing-room-only event took place in Berkeley, Michigan, as part of a national day of action promoted by Democratic
lawmakers to curb gun violence. More than 50 people attended, and although a majority of the audience included members of state advocacy groups such as Moms Demand Action and Million Moms Against Gun Violence, a handful of National Rifle Association members also attended and vocally criticized the panel. The representatives heralded last week’s sit-in as a significant action that swayed public opinion. Lawrence emphasized the importance of acts of protest and marked gun violence as a public health crisis. “There has not been change in this country without civil disobedience, ” Lawrence said. “We are coming home almost to a hero’s welcome (and) we finally said enough. Guns are being used to take lives every day. This is common sense … this is not a move to take away guns from any lawabiding citizen.” Conyers, the most senior U.S. representative, went further to say that all assault rifles must be banned. He was met with both loud cheers and boos. Dingell revisited her emotional speech from the House floor last week and said difficult memories of domestic violence propelled her to act. “This is not an easy subject
for me, and I haven’t slept much since last Wednesday,” she said. “But it’s my story too. If we can keep anybody from experiencing gun violence, we have a moral responsibility to do so. Other community leaders sat on the panel as well — law enforcement representatives and members of SafeHouse, Crime Stoppers, Equality Michigan and local mosques weighed in on the importance of gun control, though some had varying opinions on the bills at hand. Dearborn Heights Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi questioned the reliability of the No-Fly List as an extrajudicial tool. “If the watchlist has some innocents on it, then that is injustice,” he said. Dingell and Lawrence addressed concerns about using the No-Fly List, marking it as a starting point for further legislation proposals. “If someone’s on the No-Fly List erroneously … there’s a process for us to mitigate through that,” she said. “Let’s talk through that. How can we legislate if you don’t bring the bill forward?” Nathan Triplett, Equality Michigan’s political director, underscored the urgency of antiLGBTQ violence, especially in light of the Orlando shootings earlier this month. During the shooting, See GUN CONTROL, Page 9
4 OPINION
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com LARA MOEHLMAN EDITOR IN CHIEF
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A disturbing reaction to domestic violence
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ntimate partner violence is an issue that has long been kept in the shadows of law and media; it wasn’t until ELENA 1994 that HUBBELL the Violence Against Women Act was passed, and it was discussed as only a public health concern as late as the ‘70s. Only then did shelters for abused women begin to open in the United States, and laws were passed to protect the rights of abused women and children. Though well-meaning, these laws and shelters often exclude nonheteronormative individuals, people who don’t fall on the twogender binary, as well as men who have been abused, showing that there is a long way for our society to go before we fully understand and face the issues surrounding intimate partner violence. Although intimate partner violence has been a crime that has existed probably as long as the nuclear family and the patriarchy itself, only recently have the wellbeing for members of this type of family been discussed in an open atmosphere. The immaturity that is often the response to the issues of intimate partner violence has been quite apparent in the face of Amber Heard’s allegations against her soon-to-be ex-husband Johnny Depp. Soon after her allegations were announced to the public, she was being called a whore who was trying to steal Depp’s money as well as ruin his reputation, with the money that she was asking for used as evidence. In addition, Depp’s former partner, as well as his daughter, came forward to state that Depp has been, and always will be, a kind and gentle person, incapable of hurting anyone. The articles detailing Vanessa Paradis and Lily-Rose
Depp’s words have been used to besmirch Heard’s allegations, as evidence that seems to state, “If one woman in a man’s life is abused, then all women in this man’s life must have been abused.” The most glaring form of misunderstanding is, in my opinion, in the form of the accusations of wishing to ruin Depp and take his money that have been thrown at Heard. In the form of comments on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, as well as in an op-ed written by a friend of Depp’s, Heard has been accused of being a gold digger and a manipulator. I am not stating that there has never been a false accusation of domestic violence, but statistics show that intimate partner violence occurs at an alarming rate. So why did we, as a society, decide that a majority of those who accuse others of domestic violence are doing so out of spite, and that in turn accusing these people of being scheming and devious is an appropriate response? Specific to the Heard and Depp case, Depp has long been considered one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood, as well as a likeable — albeit strange — personality. For my generation, he is a huge part of our childhoods, having played the memorable Captain Jack Sparrow in all of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. Amber Heard, in going forward with her allegations, was setting herself up to be vilified and minimized by the media and the American public for daring to accuse a man with so much respect and power. She has been accused of trying to ruin Depp’s reputation, but, by watching the events that have transpired since her accusations have come to light, it becomes obvious that the only person whose reputation is being ruined is Heard’s herself. We must ask ourselves: When
was the last time allegations of domestic abuse really ruined someone’s career? If ruining Depp were Heard’s goal, wouldn’t she be doing this all wrong? Looking at Depp’s previous relationships with women as a way of claiming Heard’s deceit is also problematic, as this perspective fails to understand how different circumstances can affect this situation. Vanessa Paradis, Depp’s partner for over a decade, wrote a letter stating, “These recent allegations being made are outrageous.” Depp’s first wife, Lori Anne Allison, has apparently told friends that Depp is incapable of hurting anyone. I’m not doubting the words of these women, but I do doubt that they completely, 100 percent understood Depp and his inclination toward violence, in spite of being in an intimate relationship with him. I find it hard to believe that any person can fully understand another enough to say that they would never do anything. Not only that, but Heard is 22 years younger than Depp and bisexual. Though both were adults when the relationship began, 22 years is still a big difference, and it could have affected the way Depp viewed his wife. And, as a bisexual woman, Heard was already twice as likely to be abused as a straight woman. Heard’s bisexuality has already been a source of gossip for the tabloids, some claiming that this was the reason Depp initially became angry with her. I don’t wish to imply that Depp’s former partners are liars, I only wish to argue that there is no way that these women completely understood their former lover, or his relationship with Heard, and that their words shouldn’t be taken as solid evidence of Depp’s innocence. People have been really quick to
vilify Heard, pointing out the fact that when she originally called the police to her home on May 21, they saw no evidence to file a report. But Heard was granted a restraining order, and recently text messages have surfaced that appear to corroborate Heard’s claims that Depp abused her on multiple occasions over a period of time. She did everything right, she took all of the steps necessary, but she is still being accused of lying. Will we ever really know the answers to what happened in this relationship? Perhaps not, and as people who have zero personal connections to either of these actors, maybe
that’s for the best. We won’t be the ones to decide the truth, but we can decide how we react to these accusations. Immediately assuming that when someone wealthy and respected is accused of abusing another, that the person accusing is being manipulative is only a show of misunderstanding in regards to intimate partner violence. We need to change our attitude toward intimate partner violence — we need to begin understanding this issue more, and rely less on outdated stereotypes. —Elena Hubbell can be reached at elepearl@umich.edu.
Be safe around water
T
his summer, the abnormally warm weather will drive thousands of Michiganders to one of our favorite pastimes. KEVIN Being SWEITZER the Great Lakes State, swimming and water recreation is an understandably popular way to cool off and stay active this summer. With more than 3,200 miles of coastline and over 11,000 inland lakes, Michigan is a swimmer’s paradise. The downfall of this abundance of water is the threat of drowning and other water emergencies. This summer, more than 10 people a day will die of drowning in the United States, totaling more than 3,500 drowning fatalities each year. Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in children under the age of four, and all of these deaths are completely preventable. Drowning is so deadly that it outflanks choking, house fires and falls as a cause of death. However, there is very little in the way of preventing drowning on a large scale. While drowning primarily affects children, anyone can be a victim of drowning. Many people think that by simply knowing how to swim, they can avoid the consequences of poor water safety. This could be no further than the truth. The strange thing about drowning is that not many people know what the signs of drowning are. Movies and TV have trained
us to think that a drowning person will be splashing around and yelling for help. In reality, a drowning person may silently slip below the surface of the water and die within minutes. To combat drowning as a national epidemic, every person who is around water must be vigilant and knowledgeable about safety. Children should always be watched around water and should be rescued at the first sign of trouble. People who don’t know how to swim should be in a coast guardapproved lifejacket and proper precautions should always be taken. Swimmers should always swim near a lifeguard, and if that isn’t possible, someone should be watching from outside of the water. Additionally, alcohol and swimming should never mix, and children should never be left alone near water. I know that thousands of University of Michigan students will be near water this summer, and many will be responsible for small children as well. Being safe around water doesn’t necessarily involve getting a lifeguard certification or paying lots of money to go to a well-guarded waterpark. Water safety starts with one responsible person and that person can prevent a drowning before it happens. So this summer, please pay attention near water. You will play a huge role in limiting the 3,500 drownings a year and may keep a loved one alive. —Kevin Sweitzer can be reached at ksweitz@umich.edu.
OPINION 5 Ensuring ethics in autonomy How to live with a short attention span Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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magine: You step into your car and punch in the address of your destination. The motor hums to life, the wheels begin to turn, DAVID but you aren’t MERTZ steering. Instead you can relax, queue up some music, use both hands to eat, talk on the phone or simply have a snooze. Driverless cars, or autonomous vehicles (AVs, as they’re called in the industry), look to be the inevitable direction of motor transportation. The University of Michigan agrees — just look to its recently-built mockcityscape, which engineers are using now to test AVs onsite. Many have been wondering when AVs will ever become a fixture in our way of life. I can’t speak to that personally, but I’ve become intrigued by the ethical questions about AVs that are now starting to disseminate through conversations: In the chance a fast-moving AV bears down on oblivious pedestrians in the road, should it maneuver to avoid them while putting the passenger at risk for collision with a fixed object (like a wall) or even somebody walking responsibly on the sidewalk? Or should it prioritize the wellbeing of the passenger, sacrificing that of the pedestrians? AVs are little more than robots with wheels. They will be programmed to have to make such calls. The development of AVs has triggered unprecedented collaborations between expertise in the tech and automotive spheres, most notably that between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Google. In such a joint venture, we can imagine that while automotive engineers style and design safety mechanisms for AVs, programmers will design the algorithms that AVs employ to navigate and make split-second decisions. The programmer would therefore consciously write in the car’s software which maneuver to take for situations when collisions are unavoidable, but the course of action differently affects the lives of those involved. This decision-making process would be made known to consumers. Without regulations in place, consumers could hypothetically choose between an AV software package that prioritizes the safety of the passenger (themselves) and a package that prioritizes the safety of the greatest number of people (including those outside the car). Researchers recently surveyed U.S. residents about their sentiments regarding such a dilemma. One opinion held a clear majority. Seventy-six percent of
the respondents believed that the car should maneuver to harm the fewest number of people, even if the passenger was not among that number. Perhaps it suggests that we generally have equal respect for all human life and wellbeing, a utilitarian and pleasant notion. But the situation changes when we consider purchasing a car ourselves. While a strong majority felt that AVs should minimize harm across everyone, a majority were not supportive of regulations requiring such algorithms in AVs, likely preferring to have the option to purchase self-protecting cars. Such offerings would create a completely different preference: who would buy a utilitarian car knowing others could be purchasing self-protecting ones? The enthusiasm to protect the common good breaks down. A couple things have become clear. We already believe that AVs of any type will save lives by preventing user error-triggered collisions compared to human-driven vehicles. And for everyone to begin adopting utilitarian AVs, regulations will be needed. This in turn will slow adoption of such cars, however, as consumers remain concerned about their own wellbeing when using them. As a result, more lives may not be saved during the slower transition to utilitarian cars than if self-protecting cars were allowed, and more quickly adopted. We will need to learn even more about consumer opinion about a variety of specific ethical dilemmas concerning AVs of this sort before such decisions are made. But with the data we have, it seems like a two-stage adoption would make the most sense. Early on, regulating cars to protect the passenger would suffice to ensure quick adoption of this new mode of transportation. Perhaps 20 to 30 years afterward, or however long it takes for driverless cars to become widespread in the United States, the policy could switch to a utilitarian one, ensuring the greatest preservation of life for time to come, after the consumer psyche has gained comfort with using such vehicles. I don’t put this forward as an expert, just a curious citizen. But this is about more than a thought experiment. Engineers aren’t perfect. When millions of AVs eventually hit the road, we’ll see their shortcomings. We should be considerate about the ones we can control. —David Mertz can be reached at drmertz@umich.edu.
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used to be able to sit down and read, uninterrupted, for hours. Same with movies and award shows — I would intently observe, MADELINE connect with NOWICKI the material and try my hardest to remember why I liked it so I could tell my friends later. As I began to become more and more captivated by social media and technology, this ability waned. I found myself anxious to tweet my thoughts during a live television event, Snapchat the best songs at a concert and take a good selfie for Instagram. I couldn’t give myself the freedom to simply watch, listen and live without the anticipation of critiquing, documenting or interrogating the experiences I had. This isn’t always a bad thing — nearly every course you can take on literature and rhetoric highlights the importance of continued, rigorous engagement with media and experiences. The omnipresence of technology has definitely enabled a stronger culture of critical thinking when it comes to certain events and trends (think: the response to Beyonce’s Lemonade, plethoras of television recaps, thinkpieces, etc.). However, I sometimes miss the days of prolonged and directed focus. I am starting to miss having a real attention span. I’m working on improving my focus, but while it’s still on shaky ground, I thought I’d share some things I’ve noticed about myself and others grappling with this dilemma. 1. Instagram > Facebook. Facebook is the place you go to announce a life update requiring major verbal explanation. It’s for reaching out to your parents, grandparents and acquaintances. And you definitely never read through each post. Who has time for that? Instagram, however, is home to your closest friends (especially if you have a finsta), and the norms dictate roughly one photo posted per day with a quirky one-sentence caption. It’s easy to reach the end of your feed when you only need to glance at a picture and double-tap it to acknowledge its presence was felt, before sending it away with a
flick of your thumb. It just makes more sense this way — you’re less formal, cringeworthy puns are the best captions, and comments are short bursts of love for your friends and their photogenic lives. It’s more authentic. And it takes less time — gotta keep that battery life lasting all day! 2. Snapchat is king. Texting can be a lot of work. Again, you’re thrust into the rigidity of language and emojis — and those can only express so much. But a picture tells 1,000 words, without the tedium of typing out and then reading all of those words. And a picture with the dog filter superimposed on it says even more. 3. Video chatting and live video are great. Again, typing and reading are super difficult for those of us suffering from shrinking attention spans. FaceTiming or Skyping a friend saves you the time and is also spontaneous — you don’t have to dedicate time later to read through a feed, a backlog of texts or even open a set of Snapchats. It’s all happening live. Live video is also popular on social media, and from livestreaming sports and political events like the recent gun safety sit-in, it’s a new form of journalism. It’s a form of journalism that you can actually sit through — because it’s going on right then, right from your phone. 4. Binge-watching is the only way of life. Netflix changed the game with streaming television shows, and even more so when it began releasing its own content that was designed for binge-viewing. We collectively realized that scheduling time and pacing ourselves to get through a story was a waste. Plus, it’s hard to remember every detail packed into a show when it runs the course of an entire year. Just get all of your watching over and done with — so you can Snapchat your friends about it. 5. You sign up for online learning and never learn. There are so many incredible resources for learning new skills, from computer programming to history, just the tap of a button away. And your résumé, and your
intellectual curiosity, could use some of that. But no matter how many Codecademy-esque sites you see or how many Coursera e-mails you get, you cannot ever actually stick to the plan. I mean sure, reviewing JavaScript was cool last week, but you’re busy and this Instagram caption won’t write itself. 6. You think you’re immune to clickbait … An article with a buzzy headline will pop up online, and you will see right through it, patting yourself on the back for not getting sucked into the trap. Then it happens. “5 Easy Guacamole Recipes That Changed My Life.” Before you realize it, you are eating chips and guac and an hour has passed, you have nine tabs open and you’re seven items into a separate list regarding the middle names of each of the 101 Dalmatians. 7. You wish TL;DR existed for everything. Paragraphs are daunting. The written word, from textbooks to text messages, from e-books to e-mails, could use a one sentence summary of key points. Teachers always used to say show, don’t tell. But when you can see any image in the entire world from a few keystrokes, it’s better to just tell. Too Long; Didn’t Read is the epitome of casual, everyday shortened attention spans. 8. Listicles are your best friend! Few things are as ubiquitous on the Internet than the Buzzfeedstyle listicle. Sassy headlines, brief bullets, animated GIFs and copywriting that reads like an advertisement all abound in listicles. But they are quick to read and so relatable! They can be effective in communicating a brief point, explaining a concept or providing entertainment value. Listicles are the most salient feature of the modern Internet, and they show no sign of slowing down yet. It’s hard to keep people engaged in an article whose point is to engage with their own lack of engagement, and even harder to do so if that article is long with traditional paragraphs and blocky text boxes. —Madeline Nowicki can be reached at nowickim@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Roland Davidson, Caitlin Heenan, Elena Hubbell, Jeremy Kaplan, Madeline Nowicki, Kevin Sweitzer, Brooke White.
6 ARTS
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
Cameron Crowe fails to satisfy with ‘Roadies’ Well-known director’s look at music industry underwhelms
A24
“Does anyone understand our movie?”
‘Lobster’ absurd
By SAM ROSENBERG Daily Arts Writer
Man, can Cameron Crowe ever catch a break? Known for creating highly acclaimed modern films C+ like “Say Anything,” “Sin- Roadies gles,” “Jerry Series Premiere Maguire” and “Almost Famous,” the Sunday at 10 p.m. famed writ- Showtime er-director has been in a slump for a while now. Since 2001, Crowe’s filmography has mostly garnered mixed reactions, from the sci-fi disaster “Vanilla Sky” to last year’s panned romance flick “Aloha.” All of the smart writing and wonderful storytelling from his first few movies have gradually disappeared over time, trading in those elements for mawkish overtones, bland characters and humorless dialogue. Perhaps it makes sense then why Crowe has switched on over to television, creating and co-executive producing Showtime’s music-centric dramedy “Roadies.” But even with a move to the small screen, Crowe still has trouble making his thematic and aesthetic trademarks refreshing again. Despite Crowe’s reliably tasteful soundtrack and a talented cast, “Roadies” suffers from stiff writing, unlikable characters and a grating sense of self-importance. Similar to “Almost Famous,” “Roadies” is another one of Crowe’s gooey love letters to the art and soul of music. But in contrast to “Almost Famous,” “Roadies” packs none of the film’s charm, wit or spirit. The hour-long show also tends to over-romanticize the reality of being a roadie, something that real-life roadies who watched the show have acknowledged. These detrimental plot
FILM REVIEW
By SOPHIA KAUFMAN Daily Arts Writer
SHOWTIME
Carla, how did you go from “Spy Kids” to this mess?
elements become quickly evident in the series premiere episode, “Life is a Carnival,” where we meet protagonist Bill Hanson (Luke Wilson, “Idiocracy”), the tour manager of successful folk-rock group The StatonHouse Band. Following an apt Tom Petty quote in the opening titles, the show cuts to Bill in the first of three bizarre, gratuitous sex scenes of the episode in which he’s copulating with the 22-year-old daughter of a concert promoter rep. You would think this kind of situation would make Bill a sleazy character, but he turns out to be quite the opposite. Working alongside tour production manager Shelli (Carla Gugino, “The Brink”), Bill makes sure everyone does their job before the concert begins at a venue in New Orleans. This includes looking out for obsessive band stalker Natalie Shin (Jacqueline Byers, “Ascension”), removing any potential firecrackers that could appear and getting the stage ready for the band, which happens to be indie folk outfit The Head and The Heart. There’s no denying that “Roadies” has an intriguing concept: following a group of people around the country on a music tour, where actual relatively popular bands perform. It’s also nice to have actual bands cameo and play music in “Roadies” instead of getting actors to do that. However, the execution feels off and underdeveloped, as Crowe’s craft is overshadowed by his attempt to boast his personal, somewhat defensive
beliefs about music. That type of instance parallels to one particular tense sequence, where skateboarding lighting rigger and aspiring film student Kelly Ann (Imogen Poots, “That Awkward Moment”) challenges the corporate, cynical ideologies of stuffy British music financier Reg Whitehead (Rafe Spall, “What If”). Ann’s passionate response to Reg’s condescension of her and the rest of the roadie crew is undeniably sharp, thanks in part to Poots’s standout performance. Yet its underlying message doesn’t reach “Jerry Maguire” level heights of emotional conviction, nor does it satisfy in making the case for Crowe’s root-for-the-underdog approach. The rest of “Roadies” is generally underwhelming, in terms of the muddy dialogue and the occasionally awkward humor. There’s one really strange scene involving Natalie Shin fellating a microphone that makes you wonder what Crowe was trying to accomplish in writing that gross scenario. Within “Roadies,” there are some intermittent bright spots. Besides the sweet music interludes, Wilson and Gugino have great chemistry together, their characters trying to uphold a professional relationship while engaging in some fun bantering and even showing off their subtle romantic feelings for one another. But other than those small glimmers of hope, “Roadies” isn’t a drastic improvement to Crowe’s recent canon of mixed-to-negatively reviewed work.
Single guests staying at the hotel depicted in “The Lobster” have three options: They can try to find a life partner within 45 days, run away Ato the city and try to survive as The a part of a sham Lobster relationship or on their own, A24 or live as Loners in the forest. State Theatre The second two options are dangerous and lead to violent punishment. But anyone who fails in their endeavors in the first option is turned — literally transformed (this is not a metaphor) — into an animal. The film’s protagonist, David (Colin Farrell, “Winter’s Tale”), is packed off to the hotel after his divorce, with his brother (a dog) at his knees. He soon learns the bizarre workings of the hotel. Masturbation is illegal and punishable, but male guests are sexually stimulated by a hotel maid as it makes finding a mate easier — there’s no indication that women are given the same treatment, but whether that stems from a lack of recognition of female desire or something else is up to the viewer. Couples are most believable if they have a distinct trait in common, like a propensity for random nosebleeds. So when faced with a looming countdown to a transformation, guests get creative in their attempts to hasten a match with each other. Desperate deception abounds. Other than faking a good match, there is only one way for them to put off the date of their transformation. Every guest at the hotel is given a tranquilizer gun and sent into the forest to try to cap-
ture Loners; for each Loner that a guest captures, they receive an extra day to find if not true love, something that will convince the miserable but powerful patrons of the hotel. David casts his lot in with the Loners, and his life is then shaped by two different women. The leader (Léa Seydoux, “Blue is the Warmest Color”) is shrewd and unforgiving; she allows masturbation but no romantic or erotic attachments. The other, the Short Sighted Woman, (Rachel Weisz, “The Constant Gardener”) is the only person in the film who seems capable of true lightness and laughter. She’s drawn to David, and he to her, but they tread carefully — until they don’t, and are punished by the Loner Leader. While Farrell and Weisz stand out in how well matched they are, their acting styles offsetting each other perfectly, the rest of the cast strongly supports them. The characters in “The Lobster” would seem brain-washed if it weren’t for the flickers of color that sporadically stab through the bleak gray fabric of the film. If happiness is still a sensational possibility in this world — a debatable point — it comes only in brief flashes, in the ghost of a joke or the glimmer of a smile. It’s no coincidence that it’s usually in the Short Sighted Woman’s vicinity. “The Lobster” is funny because it’s clever, but you’re too busy holding your breath to laugh. Though the pace of the world is a steady, almost hopeless beat, it’s unpredictable in its moments of passionless cruelty or timid, half-hearted bravery. It ends with a question; it asks audiences how much they believe in love, and, if not love, then how much they believe in basic human decency. It’s almost too frightening how absurd yet close to home the parameters of this story are.
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MUSIC REVIEW
Desiigner silences his naysayers — for now “New England” fails to prove Desiigner has staying power
TV REVIEW
ARTS 7
CBS
When will this guy’s brain explode from the pain of politics?
‘Brain’ is Dead
By ANAY KATYAL By ALEX INTNER
Summer Senior Arts Editor
Summer Managing Arts Editor
For a man whose life has changed so drastically since February, Desiigner has managed to keep himself from gloriously crashing and Bburning off New England of the hypemachine cliff. Desiigner CongratulaGOOD Music tions are in order for that, I guess. For a lot of people like myself, in the time between the release of The Life of Pablo — Desiigner’s introduction to the mainstream rap game — and the release of New English, a lot of time was spent trying to figure out what to make of Desiigner’s talents. Is he a simple culture vulture riding the coattails of the Atlanta rap trend or is there more to the guy beyond his rapaciously hype demeanor? With the release of his muchanticipated debut mixtape, Desiigner (fortunately) shows he’s more than someone who benefitted from positive circumstance, but his potential staying power (and potential legacy beyond a brief Kanye West cosign) is still a question that remains up in the air. New English is far from an artistic pinnacle among hip hop’s new wave of trap rookies, let alone hip hop itself — it’d be a farce to consider it otherwise. That being said, there’s something endearingly brutish and primitive to Desiigner’s music that piques a part of my brain I didn’t know existed (namely, the part that wants to burn and destroy whatever’s around me). Much like “Panda,” Desiigner managed to channel stupefying levels of hype in his songs while remaining charmingly unintelligible all the same; hell, Desiigner manages the impossible by having all fourteen
GOOD MUSIC
“Kanye, I’m cool now! I promise!”
songs feel both completely alike and different at the same time. Things could’ve gone south quickly for Desiigner had he released a project that fell far from the quality of the song that made his name in the first place (a common trope among hip hop’s rags-to-riches stories), but Desiigner and his fans can find solace in the fact that New English doesn’t fall far from the testosterone-heavy, “Panda”esque tree. New English is a welcome sight for patrons of Kanye and GOOD Music, considering West’s label has seen its fair share of duds and promising acts that never managed to capitalize on their hype. That being said, while Desiigner has something to show for himself beyond “Panda,” New English isn’t exactly a release that’ll stay on rotation months after its debut (largely due to the aforementioned lack of song variance). Songs like “Roll Wit Me,” “Da Day” and “Zombie Walk” all feature an enraged Desiigner yelling stereotypical trap-influenced adlibs (and fairly meaningless lyrics) into the microphone. Rarely do songs deviate from that vibe, so much so that the project’s adherence to cohesion in light of the style of “Panda” becomes its own undoing. With this release, Desiigner also manages to place himself in the middle of a seemingly burgeoning wave occurring in rap music, a wave that can be accurately dubbed as “post-lyrical rap.” With its generic trap hooks and familiar braggadocios, hyperbolic lyrics describing the ways of the caricatured Atlanta trap life, Desiigner is one of many new
examples showing how lyrical substance is devolving toward obsolescence in the rap game. Artists like Desiigner are purveyors of “vibes” more so than authenticity, swapping the credibility and realness (of their own lives) for the opportunity to craft a musical aura shaped around preconceived notions of the rockstar drugdealing ways of Atlanta’s finest fugitives. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing — especially when such songs can provoke alarming, brutish levels of excitement — but it’s disappointing to see the genre’s starlets going towards the way of what fits the current hip-hop zeitgeist rather than building a sustainable musical foundation for themselves to prosper off of in the long term. In releasing New English, Desiigner does successfully manage to stave off some of the criticism that’s been thrown his way. The disparity between “Panda” and the rest of his songs is largely nonexistent, a testament to the man’s consistency. But if Desiigner wants to stick around once the dust surrounding rap’s exaggerated trap trend settles (and hip hop moves on to something new), the question remains whether Desiigner will co-opt something new, wither away into irrelevancy or actually manage to create a repertoire of music he can successfully call his own (something beyond his most recent project, that is). New English is something Desiigner can show for himself in the face of his doubters, but he’ll need something a bit more substantial to avoid being a faded memory of one of Kanye’s past projects.
Someone, please tell the Kings that they need to take a deep breath and just relax for a second. Robert and Michelle King B(who created and ran “The BrainDead Good Wife” for seven sea- Series Premiere sons) are back Mondays at 10 p.m. on television only a couple CBS months after the shaky ending of their drama with a show that could not be more different from their long-running, acclaimed series. Where “Wife” was levelheaded and serious in its discussion of politics, “BrainDead” takes its ideas to a new and rather absurd level. While there’s a fun series somewhere in its DNA, with the amount of setup the first two episodes had to them, the show couldn’t move past the bare-bones of its premise. The Kings seem to be letting the story breathe to the point where it loses a sense of cohesion and becomes a muddled mess. “BrainDead” follows Laurel Healy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “10 Cloverfield Lane”), the sister of powerful Democratic United States senator Luke Healy (Danny Pino, “Cold Case”), who enters the world of politics to work in her brother’s office. She starts when a partisan battle is about to cause a government shutdown. Through her work with Luke, she deals with Gareth Ritter (Aaron Tveit, “Grease Live”), the young and charming assistant to Republican senator Red Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub, “We Are Men”). Meanwhile, a group of bugs crash to Earth on a meteor and are brought to Washington D.C. by the Smithsonian. Throughout the first two episodes,
they’re seen crawling into people’s ears, causing their brains to pop out of their heads and explode. Within the arrival of the bugs and the largely unseen havoc they wreak on D.C. is a weird story that the show unfolds slowly but surely. It takes multiple episodes to gain insight into who the bugs are going after and how they go about targeting their victims. What we don’t know is the reason behind their attacks and the true effect on their victims. (What does losing their brains do to them? How do they still think without them?) It’s hard to hone in on what the show means and what it wants to say without clarity here. It’s one thing to let a story breathe, it’s another to completely confuse your audience. Though, the series still has some elements which draw me in despite some of its more confusing elements. Like “The Good Wife,” “BrainDead” features a deep ensemble of New York actors who bring their characters to life with a sense of charm and charisma. Winstead and Tveit especially have fantastic chemistry, as scenes where the two share the screen crackle (and provide the show’s few laughs). The drama also features a similar slickness and production value that made “The Good Wife” so entertaining. You can see the Kings’ influence on the direction, camerawork and the score, all of which help me maintain a passive interest in watching their show. I wish the Kings took a step back while planning “BrainDead” and took more time to adequately arc out their story. They introduced too little of their main idea in the first two hours, leading to a jumble of a story arc. Still, Winstead and Tveit’s chemistry and the production values are going to be enough for me to keep tuning in for the rest of the drama’s short season.
8 NEWS
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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RELEASE DATE– Friday, June 24, 2016 RELEASE DATE– Thursday, June 30, 2016
Enjoy the Sudoku on page 2
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ENGINEERING From Page 1 consistently maintain its spot in the top 10? Many aspects of College of Engineering’s success Engineering Dean David Munson said there are many aspects of the College of Engineering that allow it to maintain its rankings and consistently receive funding year after year. “We have grown a little bit each year in my time as dean,” Munson said. “We’ve hired really exceptional faculty members and, especially during the time of the recession and those surrounding years, when other universities didn’t have the resources to hire very many, if any, new faculty members in engineering, we hired basically as many top-notch people as we could find, and we really have an exceptional junior faculty that goes along with a really fine senior faculty.” However, a high-quality faculty is just one facet of the college’s success, Munson said. Since he moved to Ann Arbor in 2003, Munson has helped put many strategies into place to ensure students were receiving a top-notch engineering education, including improving the undergraduate experience through co-curricular and outside classroom experiences, such as the Center for Entrepreneurship, which encourages entrepreneurship among engineers, and expanded international programs. “We’re working to get as many of our undergrads as possible to spend time overseas — whether it is in the form of a summer job, summer internship overseas or taking courses at a university or doing research overseas or perhaps offering volunteer service overseas,” Munson said. “We’ve tremendously ramped up the percentage of our students who are involved in those activities.” Additionally, the Multidisciplinary Design Program — which involves students in large projects that are significant to modern industry and technological advances — has played a role in improving the College of Engineering alongside efforts to integrate engineering with the arts-related units on North Campus, like those in the School of Music, Theatre
& Dance. Various programs, a minor track offering courses outside engineering and the recently implemented Living Arts section of the Bursley dorm — a learning community which brings together students from the different North Campus schools — are just some of the strategies to encourage creativity within the college. Similarly, Munson said increased collaboration with the Ross Business School has allowed the college’s entrepreneurship program to expand each year. Jointly with the University’s Office of Technology Transfer, faculty and students can file for patents, launch start-up companies and expand their research through a business perspective. Aside from goals aimed at improving the undergraduate experience, Munson said research takes up a substantial part of the College of Engineering’s goals, with annual research expenditures reaching more than $225 million a year. Munson said the College of Engineering frequently partners with the Medical School. “Between Engineering and Medicine, we are one of only two universities in the nation that have both top-ranked engineering and medical schools on the same campus, and so that conditions us in this great way to work so intensely with medicine,” Munson said. The College of Engineering also partners with certain departments in LSA, such as the natural sciences and mathematics departments, as well as the School of Public Health, which make the undergraduate experience in the college unique. “I think the undergraduate program we offer really is noticeably different and better compared to most other universities,” Munson said. Ultimately, Munson credits much of the success of the college to multiple goals he and other administrators have set in place, including searching for the best faculty, staff and students — which has become much more competitive over the years. “Our student selectivity has just tremendously improved in the last 10 years,” Munson said. “It’s much, much harder to gain entrance in engineering than it was 10 years ago.”
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Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ENROLLMENT From Page 1 accepted, while 24.5 percent of the 44,541 out-of-state and international applicants to the University were admitted. University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the increase to 6,600 freshman enrolled this upcoming year was intentional, and University provost Martha Pollack coordinated with University schools and divisions to ensure adequate instructional and housing capacity. With the hiring of new faculty, creation of additional intro-level course sections and the completion of maintenance on
HACKATHON From Page 2 strategy to help with limb motion in people with diseases, like multiple sclerosis. Tou said the allotted time was adequate since a portion of the work was done beforehand.
BOX From Page 3
stereotypes — such as that Black men are disproportionately likely to have criminal records — may be true, but they’re not applicable to one individual. “In our case, when the law removed criminal history information from the application, the employers appear to use the race of the applicant to infer
GUN CONTROL From Page 3 a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 other victims at a gay nightclub. “Not so long ago, Equality Michigan probably wouldn’t have been at this table,” he said. “LGBT individuals are most likely to be victims of hate crimes.” Daniel Edinger, a gun owner who attended the panel, said he the discussion did not allow for alternative ideas and only repeated the same senitments. “I disagree that anything presented here was a solution to gun violence,” Edinger said. “Terrorism, No-Fly List, none of
NEWS 9
housing facilities, the University will be able to accommodate more than 6,000 students, unlike in 2014. Fitzgerald said the decision to increase class size was driven by the continued growth of the University’s applicant pool. After switching to the Common Application — an application students can use to apply to hundreds of schools — in 2010, the number of applicants to the University immediately jumped by 25 percent, and the number of applicants has increased with each consecutive year. In the past six years, the annual number of freshman applicants to the University has increased by almost
24,000. and know what to expect.” “The number of applications To exercise greater control continue to go up … and the over class size, the University’s University wanted to legitimately admissions office has reduced look at things carefully and say, the number of early admission ‘could we offers it grants accommodate in December, more of these placing greater “The University has students emphasis on decided there is room the showing this regular for some growth” great interest decision cycle in coming to and the waitlist. Michigan?’ Fitzgerald said ” Fitzgerald said. “Could we that doing so would grant the accommodate them without admissions office greater flexibility stretching ourselves too thin or later in the admissions cycle, as at great additional expense? And students who are accepted early what the University has decided is are more likely to matriculate. there is room for some growth as “Doing fewer students who we long as we can manage it properly know will come ... helps to increase
the overall diversity of the class as well and leaves some more flexibility in the normal admissions process,” he said. In addition, Fitzgerald said the University has reduced the lag time between the release of admissions decisions and financial aid information to further streamline the admissions and matriculation process, allowing prospective students to have the necessary information to commit to enrolling at the University sooner. “That really helps students make a better-informed decision earlier in the process,” Fitzgerald said. “Reducing that gap of time really helps students make their decisions about coming to Michigan or not.”
“I think the scope is pretty reasonable,” she said. “They had the basic coding beforehand already, so we are trying to use the wall data to calculate the angle, which should be doable in two days.” Once the hacking ended, the teams pitched their ideas to six judges from healthcare-related fields. The teams competed for
first, second and third place for cash prizes. First place was awarded to a team that created child-friendly mobile apps allowing children to get involved in research studies. The team in second-place developed an app prototype for patients suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. Third
place went to Tou’s team for their physical therapy program. The winning teams were also awarded Ann Arbor SPARK’s competitive boot camp and The SearchLite’s Customer Discovery Program, which offers support through research consulting. The Frankel Cardiovascular Center at the University, one of
the event’s sponsors, gave out the award of Best Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Solution to the team that developed the disease-diagnostic strip. The People’s Choice award, which went to the crowd favorite, was awarded to a team that connected transportation to grocery stores to improve healthy food accessibility.
whether they had a criminal history — that is, they looked at a Black applicant and assumed they had a very high probability of having a record but looked at white applicants and assumed they had a very low, if any, probability of having a record,” Agan wrote. “Due to this perception, they were more likely to call back white applicants than Black applicants when there was no Box.” Starr said making those racebased assumptions is illegal, but it’sdifficult to enforce hiring-
discrimination laws. “Essentially, by taking away the ability to discriminate on criminal records, you are going to get something maybe even worse, which is to discriminate on the basis of race because they are using it as a proxy for criminal records,” Starr said. “It may be an irrational proxy that isn’t fair, gauging it on exaggerated assumptions on the rates at which Black males have criminal records.” White people with records benefit from Ban the Box, but they
benefit at the expense of people of color without records, Starr explained. Both Starr and Agan were surprised by the increase in the employed racial gap since employers were eventually allowed to run background checks. “Although we suspected this would happen due to some past research and the theory of statistical discrimination, it wasn’t clear that employers would change their behavior since they
could eventually do a background check,” Agan wrote. “So our results imply that at least some employers perceive a very high cost to interviewing people that may potentially have records.” Starr said some potential solutions to address this issue were to erase questions on applications that could indicate race or to provide an incentive for employers to hire those with records; however, Starr said these were just ideas and were not part of the larger study.
these things are going to keep guns out of the hands that people who shouldn’t have them. This was an echo chamber. It wasn’t designed to provide a forum about safety. They didn’t invite any of the other side, and this is nothing but antigun. It seems a little disingenous to me. The laws that are on the books aren’t being enforced effectively. That’s a good place to start.” Despite disagreements on processes, the panelists and most audience members agreed on more stringent regulations and continued conversations surrounding guns. “Even you guys here, coming out, we need this,” Elahi said, motioning to NRA members in the audience. “We need to have honest conversations.”
10 SPORTS
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A look at the Michigan football recruiting class of 2017
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Jim Harbaugh and the rest of the coaching staff have gotten off to a hot start in recruiting as Michigan currently has the fourth-best class in the nation.
By ORION SANG Summer Managing Sports Editor
Jim Harbaugh and the rest of the Michigan football coaching staff are near the end of a month-long satellite camp tour that has taken them across the United States and to international locales such as Australia and American Samoa. The presumable cause: to help secure the best recruiting class possible. Harbaugh and company are looking to build upon a 2016 recruiting class that finished fifth in the nation, according to the 247Sports Composite Ranking. Currently, the Wolverines have the fourth-ranked 2017 class with the potential to rise even higher. The gunslinger It all starts with quarterback commit Dylan McCaffrey. The son of former NFL player Ed and younger brother of 2015 Heisman runner-up Christian, Dylan is a highly-touted prospect in his own right. A 6-foot5, right-handed passer that plays at perennial powerhouse Valor Christian in Colorado, McCaffrey is ranked as the No. 1 pro-style quarterback in the nation and No. 22 player of any position, according to the 247Sports Composite Ranking. “(McCaffrey) is a really good prospect,” said Scout.com Midwest
Football Recruiting Manager Allen Trieu. “He has great intangibles, he’s accurate and I think, if you watch him in pressure situations, like the state title game he played in, you really see those intangibles. He’s a leader, he’s cool under pressure and really exhibits the characteristics you’d expect from a kid who grew up around sports his whole life. I’d say his arm strength is an area he can continue to improve in, but he’s also a good athlete who can run.” McCaffrey committed to Michigan earlier this winter, less than two weeks after National Signing Day, which, according to Trieu, has helped Michigan out in more ways than one. “I thought he was a huge commitment,” Trieu said. “Not only because he’s a great player in his own right, but because he (also) helps with recruiting other players.” Thunder, lightning and a cloud of dust O’Maury Samuels is another similarly-touted Michigan commit from out west. Samuels, a 5-foot-11, 190-pound running back from New Mexico, also holds the distinction of being perhaps the most athletic high school football player in the country. His Nike SPARQ rating, derived from a series of tests that assess one’s speed, power, agility, recovery
and quickness, is the highest in the country at 138.30. “Samuels is a great athlete,” Trieu said. “He’s a home run hitter, which is something Michigan hasn’t had a ton of in the backfield of late. Great job by the staff getting in on him early, but now they’re fighting for him a bit.” Samuels is ranked as a fourstar and the No. 20 running back prospect in the nation. While Samuels and his lasertimed 4.45 40-yard dash bring speed to the class, the Wolverines also have two more running back commits that bring different skill sets to the table. And for A.J. Dillon, a 6-foot1, 230 lb., three-star prospect from Massachusetts, that set is a unique combination of power and athleticism. His athleticism is apparent from his SPARQ score of 127.53 — which includes a 4.53 40-yard dash — while his bruising style of running can be seen in his highlight tape. And then there’s Kurt Taylor, a three-star from Georgia. “Dillon is a big, physical back who has shown that, despite his size, he has speed too,” Trieu said. “Taylor is sort of in between (Samuels and Dillon) style-wise. I think, if you’re going to take three backs, they should all be different from one
another and that’s what you have here, three guys who bring three very different styles.” The big uglies The Wolverines appear to have recruited the offensive line with similar goals as they have the running backs. They currently have three offensive linemen committed and look poised to add more to offset the losses the team will suffer after this season. Michigan will graduate fifth-year senior guards Kyle Kalis and Ben Braden and fifth-year senior tackle Erik Magnuson from its starting lineup alone, and junior center Mason Cole becomes draft eligible as well. Currently in Michigan’s recruiting class are JaRaymond Hall, Andrew Stueber and Joel Honigford. Hall, a four-star from Michigan, is the higher-ranked prospect of the three and appears to have the requisite length and athleticism to stick at left or right tackle. Though Hall is ranked higher than his counterparts, both Stueber and Honigford have been heavilyrecruited prospects throughout this cycle. Stueber has garnered more than a dozen offers despite being from Connecticut, a state that typically isn’t highly scouted and doesn’t put
out many Division 1-caliber recruits. According to 247Sports, he holds offers from Duke, North Carolina, Penn State and Tennessee, among others. Stueber, who weighs in at 6-foot-6, 285 pounds, is also a tackle. Honigford — like his two classmates — is a tackle, standing at 6-foot-6, 249 pounds. Like Stueber, Honigford holds more offers than his ranking would suggest, having received more than two dozen offers already, including tenders from Michigan State, Oklahoma and Auburn. The three-star is from Ohio and committed to Michigan in a statement released on Twitter on Wednesday. Dual-threat fullbacks Michigan holds commitments from two athletes in Chase Lasater and Ben Mason who could end up as blockers in the Michigan offense (as fullbacks) — though the former appears more likely to do so than the other. “Lasater is a physical fullback who can carry the ball,” Trieu said. “I think Michigan has shown with Sione Houma that they’ll use that position too so (Lasater’s) an asset. Mason is a bigger kid who can play linebacker or defensive line. We’ll see how he continues to grow and what his body develops like will determine where he will play.” See RECRUITING, Page 11
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Recruiting,from PAGE 10 in Michigan’s class thus far after McCaffrey and Solomon. Dipping down south Hometown kids Considering their geographic Meanwhile, the Wolverines locations, it would be silly to say already have five in-state players that Michigan’s much-talked committed after signing just about satellite camps haven’t three last year. Michigan holds affected three-star safety commit verbal commitments from the J’Marick Woods and four-star aforementioned Hall, four-star defensive tackle commit Aubrey linebacker Josh Ross, four-star Solomon. But while the camps did defensive end Corey Maloneindirectly help Michigan with both Hatcher, three-star defensive — perhaps more so with Solomon, tackle Phillip Paea and three-star whose high school hosted tight end Carter Dunaway, and the Michigan’s staff for a camp — they Wolverines sit in a good position weren’t the main reason why the with a few more prospects from staff has been able to secure verbal the mitten state. commitments from the two over “After not getting as many SEC schools, according to Trieu. in-state guys last year, I think it’s “I think those commitments been more of an emphasis this year show how satellite camps combine and it’s paying off,” Trieu said. with recruiting efforts (from) “The in-state class they have so the rest of the year and allow far is very good, and it should only the staff to put (emphasis) on an get better. I think they’ll get Jaylen area, which Michigan has done Kelly-Powell and they’re certainly with the southeast,” Trieu said. in position to be in on Donovan “Those kids committed on campus Peoples-Jones and Ambry Thomas in Ann Arbor, but that may not down the stretch, so you add one or have happened had Michigan both of them to what you already not spent time down there or have and it’s a great in-state class. shown that recruiting there is Then you still have Jordan Reid important. So I think it all plays a and Deron Irving-Bey out there part, but the satellite camps didn’t too, so they have a chance to close directly affect these particular strong in-state.” commitments.” Finishing things out And though the staff’s Though Michigan’s class is recruiting efforts down south have already among the nation’s best, gotten more publicity, its efforts it is only expected to get better up north have been just as strong down the stretch. The Wolverines — particularly within Canada and sit at or near the top with many of their home state. their top targets, most of whom Michigan mounties are expected to decide later in the The Wolverines have process. commitments from two Canadians “Kelly-Powell, James Hudson, in Benjamin St. Juste and Luiji some of the southern linemen Vilain, both of whom play defense. like Toryque Bateman, Kai-Leon St. Juste, a rangy, 6-foot-3 Herbert and T.J. Slaton too,” Trieu defensive back, committed to said. “I don’t know that they’ll Michigan more than a year ago but get all of those southern linemen, has stayed steady in his pledge to but they’ll get a couple. Nico the Wolverines, even after success Collins and Peoples-Jones are two at camps this offseason earned him top receivers on the board and a bump in the rankings and a spot Michigan is in good shape with at The Opening, Nike’s prestigious both of them too. Drew Singleton training camp. is a kid we’ve always felt would end “St. Juste has gone out and done up at Michigan. Those are some of really well at some camps,” Trieu the guys I’d feel best about, but said. “I think, even with that, he’s Michigan is in good position for still a relative unknown because more guys than that too. he’s only been seen at a handful “I think you’d have to give (the of events. That said, he shows staff) an ‘A’ (for what they’ve done the cover skills at that size to so far). They’re hard workers, project to corner first. He’s gotten they’re innovative and the class a little stronger and you can see they signed last year, especially the confidence he has now after landing Rashan Gary, was a great hanging with the best. I think class and one that they had to we’ll find out even more about him really battle for. You look at how at The Opening.” they closed, and how they pulled Vilain, a native of Canada who some kids like Devin Asiasi from moved to Virginia in high school, farther away late in the game, and is a four-star defensive end and I thought it was an outstanding the third highest-ranked player job.”
SPORTS 11
SUMMER OLYMPICS
Mikulak, Jaeger make Olympics By ETHAN WOLFE Summer Managing Sports Editor
The University of Michigan will have solid representation at the 2016 Summer Olympics, sending 18 former and current student-athletes to Rio de Janeiro to compete with many more still attempting to qualify. This week, two of those athletes found out they would be making the trip. The first athlete to clinch a spot was former Michigan men’s gymnast Sam Mikulak. Mikulak graduated in 2014 and will be participating in his second Olympic Games after qualifying in 2012 for London. During Saturday’s Olympic Trials, Mikulak compiled the highest all-around score, 362.750, to clinch his spot in Rio. “To finally see the team and who it’s going to be, we look at each other and realize that we’re all about to do something great,” Mikulak told USA Gymnastics. “I’m itching to get back in the gym, and I’m glad I have another opportunity to do that.” Mikulak had a storied career
while competing at the collegiate level for the Wolverines. A threetime Big Ten Gymnast of the Year, Mikulak was instrumental in helping the Wolverines clinch the NCAA title in the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Mikulak won the all-around and parallel in both NCAA Championships, including becoming the high bars champion in 2013 as well. In the 2012 Olympics, the United States gymnasts secured a fifthplace finish, with Mikulak placing fifth in the vault. The second athlete to qualify for the Rio Games was Michigan men’s swimmer Connor Jaeger who, like Mikulak, graduated from Michigan in 2014 and will be participating in his second Olympic games. Jaeger punched his second ticket to the Olympic games on Sunday with his performance during the men’s 400-meter freestyle final at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Omaha, Neb. Jaeger was trailing for most of the race, but a burst of energy in the final 100 meters propelled him to a first-place finish with a time of 3:43.79. “I almost had an out-of-body
experience at the 200 (meter mark), thinking, ‘Man, am I out of this or am I going to turn it around?,’ ”Jaeger said in a statement. “I basically said there was no giving up. I just went until I couldn’t feel my legs or arms anymore. The last 50, I peeped over and I was ahead. It was an incredible realization. I just went as hard as I could. I couldn’t believe I placed first.” At Michigan, Jaeger was a two-time national champion in the 1,650-yard freestyle and was a champion in the 500-yard freestyle in 2013. Jaeger was a team captain for Michigan during the 2014 season, in which Michigan earned its fourth straight Big Ten championship and finished fourth at the NCAA Championships. His individual performance made him a two-time University of Michigan Male Athlete of the Year and two-time Big Ten Swimmer of the Year. Both Mikulak and Jaeger left lasting legacies at Michigan and have continued their dominance at the international level. This August in Rio, they’ll have yet another chance to leave their mark.
12 SPORTS
Thursday, June 30, 2016 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MEN’S TENNIS
Steinberg quickly returns as men’s tennis head coach Steinberg accepted job offer at Arizona State nine days earlier By ETHAN WOLFE Summer Managing Sports Editor
The search for a new Michigan men’s tennis coach was quick and painless. In fact, there wasn’t much of a search at all. Nine days after it was announced that Adam Steinberg would resign as the head coach to take the same position at Arizona State, he notified the Sun Devils’ athletic department that he would no longer be taking the job, and was reunited once again with the Wolverines. Steinberg will enter his third season at the helm, and has collected a 28-25 record in his previous two seasons. His first year coaching the Wolverines,
the team finished with their worst record in program history, 7-17. But Steinberg’s unique coaching tactics came to fruition quickly: Michigan finished last season 21-8, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Regionals. Returning a number of last years starters, alongside the addition of a top-30 recruiting class, the Wolverines look to improve on their already impressive 14-win turnaround. And if last season is any indication of how much a team can improve in one season, then exceeding 21 wins is a definite possibility. “I look forward to being at the University of Michigan for many years to come and to build upon what we have established the last two years,” Steinberg said in a statement.
“I look forward to being at Michigan for many years to come.”
AMANDA ALLEN/Daily
Caris LeVert led the Wolverines in points and rebounds before getting injured in his junior and senior seasons.
LeVert drafted 20th overall By ETHAN WOLFE Summer Managing Sports Editor
Despite battling foot injuries in his junior and senior seasons, Caris LeVert has found a home in the NBA, much earlier than expected. LeVert was selected as the 20th pick in the first round by the Indiana Pacers of Thursday’s NBA Draft. As part of a trade made earlier in the day, the rights to LeVert will be sent to the Brooklyn
Nets. Prior to the draft on April 1, LeVert signed with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation — the same entertainment agency that represents Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant. “I’m really blessed to be in
this situation,” LeVert said to the media after his selection. “None of this was possible without God, my family, and all my teammates and coaches throughout the years. I’m blessed to be here, like I said. Through all the adversity I went through the past couple of years, I’m lost for words right now to be here.” Due to his lack of playing time because of injury, LeVert had to plead his case to NBA teams to even get selected. In a letter published by LeVert in The Players’ Tribune, he cites Durant and Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum as notable players who have succeeded in the pros despite suffering similar injuries. His injuries didn’t seem to hurt his draft stock too much, though. Prior to his season-ending ailments the past two seasons, the six-foot-seven guard led Michigan in scoring and rebounding. His 16.5 points, 5.3 boards and 4.9 assists in his final season were all improvements from his junior campaign. The Pickerington, Ohionative came off the bench during Michigan’s run to the 2013 NCAA Championship game, and recorded Michigan’s fourth-ever triple double against Northern Kentucky December 15. LeVert’s 98 career wins were six away from the alltime record at Michigan.
“I’m really blessed to be in this situation.”