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Friday, March 29, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Speakers address student aid, climate action at Regents meeting

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Gerstein & Blanchard to win executive seats of CSG

Activists also discuss felony disclosure policy, support for undocumented individuals

Running as Engage Michigan, the two hope to broaden reach, impact of CSG REMY FARKAS Daily News Editor

DANYEL THARAKAN/Daily Protesters denouncing the University’s inaction on climate change, new felony disclosure policy and financial support for undocumented students during the Regents meeting held in the University Golf Course Clubhouse Thursday afternoon.

ALEX HARRING & EMMA STEIN Daily Staff Reporters

The University of Michigan’s Board of Regents convened Thursday afternoon for the last meeting of the winter 2019 term. Regents Michael Behm (D) and Mark Bernstein (D) were not present but called into the meeting, while Chair Ron Weiser was unable to attend or call in. University President Mark Schlissel began the meeting by addressing the March 16 active shooter scare. He acknowledged that though there was no actual shooter, the fear community

members felt was real. He thanked responders from the Division of Public Safety and Security and external law enforcement partners. He further said while many parts of their response went well, some had issues. “While many aspects of our response went according to plan, we know we must improve others,” Schlissel said. “Communications during this crisis proved to be problematic with some notifications delayed and others not delivered as expected. We are committed to rectifying this critical deficiency.” The shooter scare occurred on the Diag during a vigil for victims

of the shooting in two New Zealand mosques. Schlissel said the University has worked with Department of Public Safety Security to make it easier to receive alerts and to widely share information about what to do in active shooter situations and about opportunities for in-person training. Additionally, he wrote an email to students that is also available online. Schlissel also shared the four individuals — Randy Schekman, University of California, Berkeley professor and Nobel Prize winner; Mark di Suvero, sculptor and peace activist; Leslie Uggams, awardwinning actress and singer; and

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — he recommended for honorary degrees. These individuals will receive their honorary degrees at the University’s commencement ceremony in May. Additionally, Schlissel commended S. Jack Hu, vice president for research at the University, for his work to elevate campus research with an unwavering commitment to integrity and public impact. Hu is leaving the University in July to be the next senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Georgia. See REGENTS, Page 3

An initial voting count by CSG election director Victoria Allen, a Law student, indicates LSA sophomore Benjamin Gerstein and LSA junior Isabelle Blanchard will serve as the 2019-20 University of Michigan Central Student Government president and vice president. Gerstein and Blanchard, running on the Engage Michigan ticket, earned 2,226 votes, beating Engineering freshman Shub Argha by 1,294 votes. Dylan Haugh-Ewald, a candidate confused by his placement on the ballot, earned 166 votes. Finally, Reggie Bee the corgi — who sparked controversy last year by starting a CSG campaign — came in fourth place. By The Daily’s count, the Engage Michigan Party elected 31 students to CSG representative positions.

Anthropology exhibit draws attention ‘Women Who Win’ to lives lost across US-Mexico border

In an Engage Michigan Party profile published by The Daily, Gerstein and Blanchard said their overarching goal is to increase the impact and reach CSG has on campus by providing more resources for students. To do this, they hope to create a comprehensive resource guide and institute Diag Days, monthly resource fairs on North and Central campuses. Engage also hopes to outline a five-year sustainability plan, and to work with the administration to extend Thanksgiving Break by including the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Following the release of the unofficial results to the CSG candidates, current representatives and The Daily at 12:51 a.m., Gerstein and Blanchard told The Daily in an email statement how thankful they are for their campaign team and the passion of the student body. See RESULTS, Page 3

BUSINESS

CAMPUS LIFE

event hosts Judy Kelly

“Hostile Terrain 94” reflects efforts of U-M professor, students, alumnus to document deaths

Previously homeless people talk inspiration

Lecture hosted by Michigan Women in Business talked about suceeding in any job

Outside Room 2436 in Mason Hall, thousands of orange and beige tags consume the wall in an exhibition titled “Hostile Terrain: Exploring Border Security and Migration in 2019.” The exhibit is a prototype of a project by Jason De León, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies of anthropology at the University of Michigan; Los Angeles-based

CALLIE TEITELBAUM Daily Staff Reporter

Judy Kelly was the first woman in her community to study a profession in college other than nursing or teaching — she decided to study business. She began her career at International Business Machines, a global technology company, stuffing envelopes. Kelly received seven promotions over 10 years, and after 32 years of working for IBM, Kelly is now the vice president of sales for IBM government and education clients, responsible for profit and client satisfaction regarding IBM software and services sold to government and education institutions across the U.S. Kelly spoke at the second annual “Women Who Win” event hosted by Michigan Business Women — BBA on Thursday at Tauber Colloquium. Kelly, as well as Sage Klapper, a 26-year-old U-M alum who is currently one of the youngest brand managers at Tiffany and Co., spoke to an audience of more than 200 women, who were mostly students, about their experiences as women in the world of business, their journey to success and the lessons they have learned along the way.

MARIA SOBRINO Daily Staff Reporter

photographer Michael Wells; artist Lucy Cahill, a U-M alum and a team of six University of Michigan students. “I would say that this project is just one of many translations of the anthropological work that we do,” De León said. “We’ve taken the data on migrant deaths and we’ve just translated it for a public audience.” “Hostile Terrain” is composed of over 3,000 toe tags, which are tags morgues use for the identification of deceased bodies.

The toe tags sit atop a map of the Arizona-Mexico border, in the exact location where the remains of the individual they represent were recovered. The current exhibition in Mason Hall is a prototype of the pop-up installations that 94 communities will host for one week in late September 2020. The number of toe tags featured in these installations will reflect the projected number of deaths in the Sonoran Desert in 2020. The tags in the exhibit

reflect the names, locations and conditions of the people who died in the border crossing — beige tags denote identified remains and orange tags denote unidentified remains. They represent the bodies of migrants who will have died between 2000 and 2020 in the process of crossing the border between Mexico and Arizona. Their bodies are sometimes found only after bodily decomposition has made them too difficult to identify. See BORDER, Page 3

The Michigan Movement banquet features speakers’ journeys with moving forward MADELINE MCLAUGHLIN Daily Staff Reporter

On Thursday evening, Michigan Movement hosted a banquet featuring speakers who had previously experienced homelessness but were able to surpass hardship and move forward. About 100 students and community members attended the event. Michigan Movement began after Public Health senior Hussain Ali, co-founder of the organization, was offered a newspaper on the street by a homeless man. “When I was just going to classes or going out to dinner with friends, I always would see people on the sides and corners of the street with Groundcover newspapers,” Ali said. “I looked into it, and found out … they were vendors selling these papers for an income, and these vendors actually were experiencing homelessness or poverty. That really inspired me to look into this problem in Ann Arbor.”

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Hostile Terrain Exhibit displayed outside room 2436 in Mason Hall.

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INDEX

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 CLASSIFIEDS................6

SUDOKU.....................2 ARTS...................5 SPORTS....................7

News

2 — Friday, March 29, 2019

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

TUESDAY: By Design

WEDNESDAY: This Week in History

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THURSDAY: Twitter Talk

FRIDAY: Behind the Story

BE HIND THE STORY

LSA freshman Barbara Collins on her story “Concerns rise over safety protocol for individuals with disabilities”: “I got assigned the story Friday night and I knew that I would be having to interview people with disabilities, and I knew someone from home that was in a different journalism program that does have a disability, so I ended up contacting him to ask what the proper terminology was and how I should go about this, so I definitely did some back-up research on it. Then I inteterviewed Bradley, who was very passionate on the issue of accessibility around the school, and that the ‘run, hide, fight’ command was uninclusive of people with disabilities.”

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“

Thank you for all your incredible work and for the number of resolutions that you’ve worked on. I just want to end in saying that please make sure you stay committed to Central Student Government, our campus community or whatever community you may end up in the next year or the next few years. It’s important to stand up and be proud and to fight for inclusivity, and make sure that you don’t let hate or negativity decide the actions you take.” Central Student Government President Daniel Greene at the final meeting of CSG’s eighth assembly

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LSA Opportunity Hub hosts workshop on dialects and identites in workplace

‘Your Voice at Work’ talks embracing regional differences in speaking, code-switching NIKKI KIM

senses as well as the words that come out asked participants to circle the regions voice is enough to establish social class of their mouth all play off of one another, they thought could be associated with an membership,” Wright said. “It’s not provable that something fell out of my accent or a dialect. On Thursday evening, the LSA she said. “We have an egocentric perception mouth and you heard me being in a Opportunity Hub hosted a workshop Wright explained that each specific in the LSA Building on celebrating your dialect reflects individuals who think — we are carrying all this information particular group, but we know it works around about where we are in the world,” that way.” voice at work. About 20 students attended alike and talk about the same thing. Marten spoke about recognizing “We use all of our perspectival Wright said. “Who we are and where we the event, which explored different dialects and the identities they represent systems, every one of our senses and are has a lot to do with how we hear other her privilege and keeping others in check when it comes to linguistic in an attempt to answer questions experiences in the world,” Wright said. people.” According to Wright, sociolinguistic discrimination. about the roles they play in professional “And we adapt to the patterns around “Everyone changes the way they industries. The workshop was the third us and the dominant languages in our variables are attached to different groups of people. That is, vowels, consonants speak given who they are around,” installment of the Hub’s bigger campaign community.” to engage with identities while pursuing According to Wright, where an and the sounds words make are often Marten said. “I think people with power individual is from and their own lived associated with specific communities. need to be intentional about the way in a career. Kierra Trotter, director of student experiences often lie at the root of In this way, people are able to garner which they use language to judge and engagement for the Opportunity Hub, how they relate to others. Citing the social information from a mere voice ultimately marginalize other people.” Wright used the U.S. housing market explained the purpose of the campaign. “Michigan accent,” as an example, because their brains are keyed into social to illuminate the real-world impacts “We’re trying to help students explore Wright explained that people often conditions. “Subject position is really strong for of dialect discrimination. Before and learn and develop, starting with associate what is considered a “normal” who they are and how they want to see accent with whatever their regional the ways we categorize,” Wright said. segregation laws, housing discrimination “Sometimes we hear things that aren’t was overt; policies such as Eisenhower’s themselves in the future,” Trotter said. accent is. The Thursday seminar and “It’s all about our understanding there, but also that we don’t hear things highway project, where a physical discussion was led by Kelly Wright, an of culturally defined categories in the that are there. This means that voice highway divided regions by class, illuminated that. With policies such as experimental linguist in the Linguistics world,” Wright said. “We really do have matters.” Department whose research involves very strong expectations of what we This becomes a problem, Wright said, the Fair Housing Act, discrimination, dialect discrimination. are going to see — how we parse up our when linguistic discrimination occurs. instead of being eradicated, was pushed Wright began the seminar by signals and senses have to do with our In other words, when individuals are under the table, becoming covert. Wright discussed the implications of explaining categorical perception and interactions within the physical world.” treated differently based on the way they sound. Such instances correlate this. theSyndication role it plays in interpreting dialects. The workshop then transitioned into http://sudokusyndication.com/sudoku/generator/print/ Sudoku “Homeownership is the cornerstone The relationship between people’s an interactive activity for its participants. with social stereotypes that are already of economics,” Wright said. “It cultural expectations, their physical Wright handed out a map of the U.S. and present. “This natural phenomenon of determines things like generational recognizing social knowledge has wealth, school districts and tax bases. some pretty nasty consequences,” Keeping me out of the door when I call on the phone affects everything. This Wright said. According to Wright, when people is about systematic, covert oppression EASY start to equate the way individuals based on race, voice and class.” The workshop ended with Trotter speak with certain social groups, it can influence the natural speech emphasizing the importance of identity expression within the workplace. perception system. “We want to make an impact on “Black voices are seen as aggressive or lazy, female voices the employer, not just tell students to sound shrill or pitchy, southern voices change who you are,” Trotter said. “We sound uneducated or slow-paced, treat culture as a coat we have to take off New England voices sound fast-paced before we go to work. You should be able to wear that coat in the workplace.” or confident to a fault,” Wright said. Though career and style guides are After the event, LSA senior Carly Marten reflected on how different changing to focus on the individuals perceptions and generalizations can themselves rather than fitting a mold, listeners were encouraged to become negatively impact communication. “People need to think about how part of that change — to incorporate their they have ideologies about language personal stories into their professional that are based on ideologies about prospects. Alia Orra, global alumni and employer groups of people who speak those languages,” Marten said. “They need relations manager for Communications to consider and deconstruct those and Outreach at the Hub, explained narratives in order to interact with the importance behind reframing people as their true selves, rather the foundation of professional career than a caricature that is based on advising. “So much of career coaching is stereotypes in larger discourses.” Wright noted how dialect about adjusting your identity to match a TREAT YA BRAIN! puzzle by sudokusyndication.com © sudokusolver.com. For personal use only. discrimination is not addressed by the norm,” Orra said. “We want to empower students to ask who created the norm law explicitly. “The law doesn’t feel that a and why.” Daily Staff Reporter

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid.

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ONE LAST TIME

BORDER From Page 1

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Redshirt junior wing Charles Matthews scored just 12 points on 3-for-9 shooting in a game widely-presumed to be his last at U-M before he turns pro this spring.

REGENTS From Page 1

Schlissel then directly addressed points students would be discussing during the public comment portion of the meeting. He first addressed the “dissenting views” surrounding the recently announced felony self-disclosure policy by saying information helps maintain a safe community. Schlissel noted the University already has felony-related information about new employees through background checks, but this policy gives the University information about current employees. “To be absolutely clear: history of a felony conviction does not automatically prevent an applicant from working at the University, nor would it necessarily result in a current employee losing their job,” Schlissel said. “Knowing about a serious criminal charge allows the University to take timely action in instances where there could be a significant risk of harm in the workplace.” He noted this policy triggers an internal review and the University will “closely monitor” the policy to ensure it doesn’t have disparate impacts on certain communities. Schlissel then discussed carbon neutrality by emphasizing he shares students’ urgency about the issue. He clarified the University will develop a plan to achieve carbon neutrality, and then will commit to a specific date. “When we are at our best, our impact does not stop at the borders of our campuses,” Schlissel said. “We seek to change society, to help others and to make significant, measurable differences on the world we share.” Schlissel noted the University has already achieved carbon reduction and carbon emission is down 7 percent from the 2006 baseline, while the physical campus has grown since then by 20 percent. He also said he is aware of the controversy surrounding the plan to expand the Central Power Plant, but said the University would need to purchase more coalbased electricity. Functioning as a university, especially one with a major hospital, requires a lot of energy, and fossil fuels are the only way to provide enough energy for the foreseeable future, Schlissel said. He also noted the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality added a public session of the commission on April 9. To end his speech, he commended University athletic teams for their success throughout the year. After Schlissel finished, Regent Denise Ilitch (D), vice chair of the board, commended Schlissel on his election into the John Hopkins Society of Scholars. The society — the

RESULTS From Page 1 “This elections season has been nothing short of electric - we thank the student body for their enthusiasm for our party, our ideas, and most importantly our candidates,” they wrote. “Tonight serves as a win not only for the executive ticket, but for our representatives,

first of its kind in the U.S. — honors faculty who have served at least a year at Johns Hopkins and have received distinction in their discipline while not working at the school. Following Schlissel’s remarks, Joy Beatty, vice chair of Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs and a professor at U-M Dearborn, said faculty care about the University and are well-poised to offer advice on University affairs. She requested faculty to be included in decisionmaking processes so there is time to offer constructive and helpful feedback. Specifically, Beatty noted faculty’s longstanding concerns about the Office for Institutional Equity’s processes, including lack of notification, due process and opportunity for appeals as well as long timelines for investigations. She said the Senate Assembly is preparing suggestions for improvements and passed resolutions to share with the Office of the Provost. “To realize the full benefit to the community that stems from the consultation with involved faculty, elected faculty representatives need to be included early in decisionmaking processes, so that there is time to offer constructive and thoughtful feedback,” Beatty said. “If we are consulted after decisions have already been made or too late in the process for substantive feedback, the administration risks becoming entangled in conversations which miss key points of community concern.” During updates from the regional campuses, it was announced that Schlissel will be on the U-M Dearborn campus next week to give a speech about the future of higher education and the importance of a growth mindset. Additionally, according to the board, significant progress on scholarships and funding for student support has been made on the Flint campus because of the success of the Victors for Michigan campaigns. The board voted on appointments, buildings, degree programs, policy and partnerships. One action request that was approved was a master affiliation and related joint venture agreement between Michigan Medicine and Sparrow Health System of central Michigan. The board also approved an addition of classrooms and accessibility improvements to the Detroit Observatory, the secondoldest building on campus. The project will cost an estimated $10 million. E. Royster Harper, vice president for student life, commended Daniel Greene, Central Student Government president, for his leadership. She called him “tenacious” and said his leadership has made “the University stronger.”

In his final address to the board, Greene, a Public Policy senior, said he struggled to decide what to discuss. He began by thanking faculty members and DPSS, then discussed how to build a better University in the future. He said in the past he has spoken on a variety of topics — from food insecurity to mental health awareness on campus — but reflected on how the University can be more accessible and inclusive going forward. Greene emphasized it is important every student feels welcome and safe on campus. Greene noted the University’s strides in these areas, including the Go Blue Guarantee, the Maize and Blue Cupboard, the Trotter Multicultural Center and the holistic well-being model. However, he said he realizes the campus community at-large still has a long way to go. Greene said CSG ideally represents all students, but he hoped his role has also been as an advocate for those voices who were not heard on campus. “Our institutional values include equity, diversity, liberty and justice,” Greene said. “Our mission statement calls for developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future. Unfortunately, those values and mission are not always upheld. We as a campus community still fall short in our mission and, unfortunately, oftentimes fall short for the most vulnerable members of our campus community. For me, the Michigan of the future has a campus community where visible and invisible identities … do not predict the quality nor the potential of each student’s Michigan experience.” Public comments During the public comments portion of the Board of Regents meeting on Thursday, 15 students and community members addressed the board and University of Michigan administration. They discussed carbon neutrality, the felony disclosure policy and undocumented students. Carbon Neutrality The first speaker was U-M alum Jan Culbertson, leadership council chair of the Ann Arbor 2030 District partnership. She discussed setting standards on University buildings as part of its goal to reach carbon neutrality. Culbertson said because the University is such a big institution, it has the opportunity to make a huge impact and asked the board to actively set standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from University buildings. LSA sophomore Hallie Fox, member of the Climate Action Movement, then asked University President Mark Schlissel and the Board of Regents to take stronger action and show the same level of

commitment to achieving carbon neutrality as the students have. She noted while she and her fellow students are passionate about climate change, they need Schlissel’s help to achieve their goals. “You say it’s not reasonable for us to divest from carbon-based energy sources,” Fox said. “If we’re lucky enough to spend millions of dollars renovating University office space, then we’re wealthy enough to invest in the urgent need for true carbon neutrality on campus. President Schlissel and the regents, I challenge you to take meaningful action like the rest of us. Time and time again, us students have been brave enough to take a stand… We’ve showed our commitment to carbon neutrality. So far, you showed us your commitment to taking small actions that aim to appease the masses.” Rackham student Gordon Fitch also spoke about the University’s path to carbon neutrality. Fitch claimed when he signed up to speak at this meeting, he had hoped he would be congratulating Schlissel and the regents on their excellent work setting an achievable goal to reduce emissions. Instead, Fitch discussed his disappointment in the University for its treatment of student protesters during the Climate Strike on March 15. “You decided it was preferable to arrest peaceful protesters, including minors, rather than simply agreeing to an open meeting,” Fitch said. “Since then, we have heard from those high school student organizers that they are no longer interested in attending the University of Michigan, so long as it continues to refuse substantive action on climate change. These are some of the brightest, most dynamic young people in Ann Arbor — if any of the 15- to 18-year-olds out there fit the description of leaders and best, it’s them.” Fitch said he hopes the University will begin creating more substantive policies on carbon neutrality going forward. “It would be a shame — and I really mean a shame — on you,” Fitch said. “If you continue to allow this issue to drive a wedge between this great university and the current, future and former students that are its lifeline, but I hope that you will reconsider your position to commit to neutrality before it’s too late.” Felony Disclosure Policy Cozine Welch, a Prison Creative Arts Project member and a formerly incarcerated individual, discussed how he often feels like an outsider on campus and how this policy reinforces those feelings. He said he, as well as other formerly incarcerated people, provide an opportunity for the community to grow. “I don’t see myself reflected on campus in race, in culture or socioeconomic status and circumstance,”

Welch said. “But the University is lacking in the diversity a public university needs in order to be fully prepared to educate students and it’s this. These are not just my words — any students that have been fortunate enough to teach will tell you the same. Their parents will tell you, student evaluations will tell you, the formerly incarcerated are an asset to this university, this thing in this country at large, we are even without the advantage of equal opportunity or former education. Through selftaught means and Herculean efforts in a system set to deny us, we acquire education, the only thing that cannot be taken.” Welch said this policy disproportionately targets people of color and those of lower socioeconomic statuses. He then called on Schlissel and the board to rescind the policy. LSA senior Hannah French, a PCAP member, said the felony disclosure policy does not follow through on its claims to promote campus safety. French discussed how she has learned a lot from the formerly incarcerated and she claimed the policy promotes mass incarceration and is harming the community rather than making it more secure. “As a student, I am ashamed to be paying tuition that supports mass incarceration, especially when my best learning on the subject comes from interactions with people who have lived experience,” French said. “This policy is not preventative, it does not mitigate risk; its safety is really presumed and it is limited to a very specific population. This is not the only way that the University is further repressing and harming our communities. The University claims to uplift student voices, but it remains silent on issues which target and suppress them.” Policy regarding undocumented students Taubman freshman Juan Muñoz-Ponce is an undocumented student and member of the Student Community of Progressive Empowerment. He discussed the University’s policy that allows undocumented students to get in-state tuition. He claimed the policy has a requirement of applying within 28 weeks of graduating high school, but he said many undocumented students live in poverty and often need more time. Muñoz-Ponce and fellow SCOPE members asked Schlissel and the board to consider changing the policy to give students more time to apply. Muñoz-Ponce said he was not able to apply for in-state residency within 28 months and his appeal was denied.

street team, and our entire core who all invested their time and energy into the campaign. Managing a full party and running a campaign is no easy task, and without the work of our team, it never could have happened.” Argha ran independently under a three-pronged platform. He hoped to implement initiatives including “Ban the Bottle” to eliminate

all plastic water bottle sales on campus, “Change the Cycle” to provide free feminine hygiene products in campus restrooms and “WTH is CSG?” to help increase awareness of CSG through hosting social events. His platform also included plans to tackle diversity, mental health, affordability and sustainability. Students selected representatives for their

respective colleges: 14 for LSA, six for Engineering, seven for Rackham, four for Business and one for each of the remaining 13 colleges. Also on the ballot was an amendment to add a CSG commission to select justices of the judiciary committee. The amendment passed with 1,759 votes in favor. At the end of their statement, Gerstein and Blanchard

emphasized their commitment to the student body. “We will work tirelessly on behalf of the students of this university, to make this university work for you, and to make each and every student feel that this is their home,” they wrote. “We can’t say that this will be an easy journey, or that we’ll never misstep, but at the end of the day, we will never stop working for you.”

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Opinion

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ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

A foreign policy of collaboration

he United States has a lot of strengths as a nation. It’s in a large, resource-rich and geographically advantageous location — isolated from potential threats by great oceans. Despite exorbitant education costs, it is still home to the vast majority of the world’s best higher-learning institutions. It has the oldest, and one of the most impressive, constitutions in the world. Thanks to these factors, and a host of others, the United States is a global superpower. However, the United States’ foreign policy, both historically and in the present day, has done nothing but undermine the United States’ tactical and economic strengths, hindering its ability to act as a world leader. U.S. foreign policy in the 20th and 21st centuries has hurt international development and growth, as well as the United States’ own standing in global geopolitics. Through an aversion to multilateral cooperation, the United States has disregarded alliances it could (and should) have utilized, irritating other nations and diminishing its own power. As China and other nations rapidly develop, it’s time for the U.S. to make a long-overdue foreign policy shift from an adversarial lone wolf to a cooperative coalition leader. Perhaps nothing embodies the United States’ adverse relationship with multilateralism more than the League of Nations. In the wake of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson (correctly) theorized that a large organization promoting international cooperation was needed in order to maintain lasting global peace. With this in mind, Wilson introduced the idea of a “general association of nations,” an organization aimed at both resolving inter-state disputes diplomatically and preventing war through collective security. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Wilson was able to convince nations around the world to join, and, on Nov. 1, 1920, 41 nations convened in Geneva for the League of Nations’ inaugural session. There was only one problem: The United States was not one of the 41 nations present. Despite creating the League of Nations himself, Wilson was unable to convince a stubborn, isolationist U.S. Senate to agree to join. While the League of Nations was not designed to be particularly strong — for instance, it lacked armed forces with which to enforce its decrees — the United States’ decision not to join rendered the organization useless. Understanding how irrelevant and powerless the League of Nations was, Germany and Japan both withdrew in 1933, and six years later, Wilson’s worst fears were realized: Unable to cooperate, nations around the world had once again plunged into conflict alongside the rise of Adolf Hitler. Following the Second World War, it seemed that the United States had finally begun to understand the benefits of multilateralism. The U.S. became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 and appeared willing to work with its Western European allies.

However, less than 20 years after joining NATO, the U.S. began to (again) ignore the desires of its own allies, much to their chagrin. At the 1964 North Atlantic Council Meeting, the United States had attempted to convince its NATO allies to launch an offensive against Vietnamese communists. However, the U.S.’s European allies declined, criticizing the mission as an unwinnable war in an area they did not see as a major threat and as one that would only take resources away from defending their own borders. Undeterred by NATO’s resounding disapproval, the U.S. deployed troops to Vietnam in 1965, beginning a lengthy and fruitless U.S. military campaign. Harlan Cleveland, the U.S. representative for NATO, even admitted the U.S. viewed itself as above the alliance, saying the U.S.’s approach to working with NATO primarily consisted of “consent building notifications after the event.” Ultimately, the U.S. left Vietnam in 1975 after an unsuccessful and drawn-out campaign, which had done nothing but antagonize their own allies and destabilize the United States’ relationships. Thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a mere 16 years after the Vietnam debacle had concluded, the United States became, indisputably, the most powerful nation in the world. Despite this golden opportunity to promote peace and prosperity around the globe, it only took the U.S. until 2003 to once again bewilder and enrage its own allies. In February of that year, Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State, delivered a speech to the United Nations Security Council advocating for an invasion of Iraq, based on the false claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. With the exception of the United Kingdom, all U.S. allies staunchly disagreed with the invasion. In response to the U.S.’s plan, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said, “We think that military intervention would be the worst possible solution.” Germany agreed with France’s assessment, and French President Jacques Chirac said he and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder would do everything they could to prevent a conflict. Backed only by the U.K., the U.S. decided to invade Iraq anyway, resulting in a war that destabilized the region horribly, killed more than 650,000 people and found no weapons of mass destruction. Once again, the U.S. had gone against the wishes of its own allies, acting not like a global leader, but rather an overzealous war machine. Even today, the consequences of the U.S.’s aversion towards collaboration have direct consequences on world affairs and hinder American effectiveness. For example, the U.S. recently sent aid to Venezuela to help the country’s deprived citizens during the nation’s period of mass unrest. Seizing on the U.S.’s history of politically motivated foreign aid missions in the Americas and politically charged tweets by President Donald Trump’s administration, Venezuelan

President Nicolás Maduro justified blocking the aid, saying it was intended to prop up his opponent, Juan Guaidó. Whether or not the U.S. had genuinely been acting in good faith (which is highly debatable), Maduro had successfully used the United States’ past actions as an excuse to limit aid to his own people. However, no current issue highlights the world’s desperate need for a cooperative U.S. more than climate change. In 2016, 195 nations around the world signed off on the Paris climate agreement, an agreement aimed at limiting (and eventually reducing) the emission of greenhouse gases. Crucially, the Paris agreement relies on the good faith of the member nations: It is up to each country to determine how they plan to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. Unsurprisingly, different nations showed varying levels of intent — Nicaragua initially didn’t even ratify the agreement, arguing it didn’t go far enough. On the other end of the spectrum is the United States. Despite being the second biggest producer of carbon dioxide (and the biggest per capita producer), the United States withdrew from the Paris agreement in 2017, with Trump saying it would undermine the U.S. economy. With an opportunity to take the lead on a critical global issue, the United States decided to shirk responsibility, ignoring the destructive consequences of its actions. Unfortunately for the U.S., rectifying their past missteps in foreign policy will be a difficult task that cannot be completed overnight. However, the U.S. can still begin by displaying a fundamental change in attitude. The U.S. may have a larger military than its allies, or a bigger economy, but neither of those factors justify continually strong-arming our allies, something the United States should acknowledge and apologize for. Going forward, the United States should rejoin the Paris climate agreement and UNESCO and stop constantly antagonizing its own allies. An overhaul of U.S. foreign relations doesn’t necessarily need to involve introducing new largescale international treaties, but rather simply working with the nations the U.S. claims to already be allied with and fulfilling its responsibilities on global issues such as climate change. Ultimately, the U.S. has not thrived because of an aggressive, individualistic foreign policy, but rather in spite of it. While the Trump administration will surely not be the one that fixes this, that doesn’t mean the situation is a lost cause. Hopefully, the United States’ future leaders will work collaboratively with leaders around the globe to form coalitions aimed at promoting peace and prosperity, understanding the things that benefit both the United States and the world as a whole.

Zack Blumberg can be reached at zblumber@umich.edu.

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Recognizing the realities of the false shooter alert

hen asked about my experience with the active shooter scare last Saturday, I compress it into a few sentences: My roommate and I were in the Diag for the vigil. We got separated and had no way of contacting one another. We both spent two hours wondering if the other had been shot. But it was more than that truncation. It was realer than those few clauses suggest. So here, I retell our story: For 40 minutes, we mourn. My roommate and I meet each other in the Diag to attend the vigil in honor of the men, women and children who were killed at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch, New Zealand. Some of us hold hands, many hold back tears and speakers much braver than I am choke over the names of people killed in the past decade by white supremacist terrorism. We bow our heads. We witness cries of terrible grief and cries of rallying, unbelievable power. We are together. In a split second, we are driven apart. It appears as though panic travels in a wave, bodies farthest from me remaining upright, fleeing, and bodies closer to me ducking, hitting the ground, both willfully and unwillfully. I process this wave, this relative motion, because at first I do not move. Later, I will question my reflexes in this moment. While actual seconds lapsed before I responded to the imperative run, it took no time at all for me to accept that it was happening, that we were under attack. To think, yes, of course it would happen right now. We have been waiting our turn. To rationalize, yes, of course it would be here. They would target us for mourning. They would kill us for demanding memory, demanding action, demanding a

pleading, relentless search of her. For world without massacre. When I do finally manage to run, a quarter of them I am crying. People I fall, too. As I stand back up after on the other end of the line remind me collapsing, I realize I do not know to breathe. A stranger in the library where my roommate who I came rubs my back when I start crying with, mourned with, is. I look around. and, whenever they move us between How could so many people vanish? floors of Hatcher and escort us past Why did they tell us to run toward police officers holding the largest Mason Hall and then away? Why weapons I have ever seen in person, didn’t I grab her hand, why didn’t I they ensure I keep moving. Later, I grab her hand, why didn’t I grab her will process these sacrifices people made for my sanity. I will marvel at hand … I return to the Diag. People seize the endless capacity to give that some the microphone — used minutes people have, even in these scenarios earlier to eulogize, to give speeches, to that try to take all that you have. During the last of these 16 phone deliver poems — and initiate searches for people who got lost in the chaos. calls, I am back where I started. We One of the brave students who voiced have been told that they have cleared one of the mournful, rallying cries the libraries and the Diag. People asks me if I’ve seen a little boy with a are going home. I contemplate aloud camouflage jacket. Later that week, I whether I should follow suit; I feel will see this same student walking to a need to stay in the place I last saw a classroom in Mason. I will stop and her and wait for her to come back, try not to stare at him, at this person but the friend speaking on the phone who had no concern for himself, with me tells me I should go home. concerned himself solely with the I hesitate and look back to the last recovery of a stranger’s child. All I can place I saw my roommate when I see croak out to him in the moment is a another piece of her: her backpack. I rush over, pick it up, and decide, sorrowful “No.” I try to reach her. Two phone yes, I will go home. I will carry her calls, no answer. They are telling us phone and mine, her backpack and to seek shelter in the Harlan Hatcher mine, bringing these small pieces Library. I redial. I redial. “Hello?” on of her to her. I will tell myself she is the fourth. I inhale; I am buying time, already home, wondering where I am. and in that bought time, I pretend I Later, I still will avoid the thoughts don’t know it’s not her voice. I exhale, I was avoiding then. I will swallow “Hey.” I gulp, “Where are you?” The hard at the thought of seeing the text person with the voice that is not my messages on her phone, friends and roommate’s tells me she is sitting relatives asking if she was okay, that on a bench inside Hatcher. She has I could not answer. At the thought of collected phones that were dropped carrying pieces of her and wondering when people started running. I if I would see the whole her again. think I am still exhaling when I see the person who is not my roommate Read more at MichiganDaily.com and pick up my roommate’s phone. I cannot reach her, I cannot reach her, Julianna Morano is a sophomore at the I cannot reach her… University of Michigan and a writer for the For two hours, I am without her. Arts section of The Michigan Daily. For 16 phone calls, I am in a desperate,

MILES STEPHENSON | COLUMN

Indentities in animation

orn in the last year of the “Disney Renaissance,” I grew up watching animated childhood tales with my family. Far from mindless cartoons, these films explored meaning through narratives of love, betrayal, coming of age and more — solidifying themselves as archetypal stories for entire generations. In no small terms, these animated films are often the preeminent means of social education for young children. They tell young, eager minds how to be happy, how to treat friends, how to treat the opposite sex, how to find meaning, how to behave toward parents and how to grow up. They orient the minds of children to the way of doing things here in the Western world. Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson examines these archetypes in “The Little Mermaid”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “The Lion King”, “Pinocchio” and other classics in his lectures at the University of Toronto. After analyzing the fundamental hero myth in “Beauty and the Beast” during a segment on a news talk show, Peterson said, “A story is something that you can’t contrive. It has to manifest itself in some sense. The story has an internal logic. If you’re aiming it at a moral statement, then it’s not art, it’s propaganda, and it’ll fall flat.” As I got older, animation had less of an impact on my beliefs, and aside from a few wildly imaginative stories like Studio Ghibli’s “Princess Mononoke”, Laika’s “Kubo and the Two Strings”, and Pixar’s “Up” and “The Incredibles”, I began to see animation as a sort of passive entertainment: bright stimulating colors, humorous sound effects and a simple three-act structure. The colloquialism of Saturday-morning cartoons lends this expendable, shallow classification to animation, something a parent might put on in the background to distract their three-year-old while dressing them. I began to look exclusively at live-action cinema for dramatic stories and when a new blockbuster animation headlined the marquee at my local theater (as with “WreckIt Ralph” and “Moana”), I always left underwhelmed. My mindset changed last week when I saw “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” First, there was the “living painting” style of animation that mixed line work, painting, dots and other comic book visual techniques to make it appear handcrafted, “Achieved by artists taking rendered frames from the CGI animators and working on top of them in 2D.” This brilliant work could lead a viewer to believe that Spider-Man, a nimble, squishy

acrobat suspended in webs, and his story were made for animation. Then there was the superb soundtrack that sampled from some of the biggest rap and hiphop names in the world including Aminé, Juice Wrld, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Post Malone, Swae Lee and XXXTentacion, aiding the animation with its involved and energetic rhythm. But what fascinated me the most about “Spider-Verse” was its portrayal of changing social identities in a modern world. To start, this film’s protagonist and central Spider-Man, Miles Morales, is the son of a Puerto Rican nurse and African-American cop. In the franchise’s last three iterations, Spider-Man was played by a young white guy, informing the audience with a cultural lens unique to that identity. Now, with Miles, SpiderMan can be something different. Aside from a positive stride in racial representation in cinema, following the efforts of “Black Panther” in allowing young people of color to identify more closely with their favorite superheroes, Spider-Man’s new non-white identity brings something fresh to the story. This Spider-Man is different, current and compelling: He has a new passion, taste in music, vernacular, group of friends and family dynamic, reinvigorating a classic story with a new lens. These traits are not so much tied to Miles’ race but are necessarily informed by the cultural implications of growing up as a person of color in New York City. Miles spray paints art murals with his uncle in the subway, listens to Post Malone while doing his homework and exchanges Spanish terms of endearment with his bilingual mother. An article by The Washington Post further examines these intersectional identities. The article describes Miles Morales’ arc as the following: “The recognition that you are a freak; the isolation of the closet; the discovery of freaks like you, who might come to stand in for biological family; the play of identification and shame within a stigmatized group, of revulsion and self-acceptance, initiation and competition; turning freakishness into a weapon against adversity; and perhaps the eventual reintegration — of some part of yourself — into mainstream society, or at least into the family.” The article argues that despite Miles’ heterosexual identity, the story resembles the stages of a coming-out story, paralleling his secret superhero identity with that of a closeted gay person. Later in the film, we’re introduced to a quasi-anime animation style with

Japanese-American Peni Parker and her telepathic Spider-Bot, an alternate version of Spider-Man. This isn’t “diversity equals good” storytelling but instead a modern way to link the story of SpiderMan to contemporary experiences of not only Asian and homosexual identities but of all people. In this way, “Spider-Verse” invites all audiences to connect and see themselves as the protagonist: a superhero. As the world continues to become more interconnected through film, and the stories of marginalized populations find the spotlight, “Spider-Verse” seeks to make room in an American story for the new voices in the room. There are times when this wellintended, progressive portrayal of identities seems a bit contrived. In the final act, Miles and his team of interdimensional Spider-People attempt to disrupt the villain Kingpin’s nuclear supercollider. In his final goodbyes to his team, Miles addresses Gwen Stacy, who up until this point in the film has been treated as a love interest, with an extended handshake. “Friends?” he asks. “Friends,” she agrees. Screen Rant writes that the story of the sequel “... will be focused on the romantic relationship between Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, which is a thread from executive producer and co-writer Phil Lord’s original script for the first movie.” And yet, this movie attempts to shoehorn a “not-all-female-leadsmust-be-love-interests” lesson into the same story that, for the last hour and a half, framed Gwen and Miles’ relationship as the embarrassing and flirtatious highschool romance. A moment that tried to help viewers check their subconscious classification of the attractive female lead as necessarily filling the role of the romantic interest, which albeit is a valid meta-criticism of superhero tropes, felt awkward and out of character for both Miles and Gwen. Aside from this infrequent faux pas, the film expertly addresses a modern audience by placing social identities at the heart of this Spider-Man, SpiderWoman, and Spider-Robot story. “Spider-Man: Into the SpiderVerse” pushes the boundaries of animation and reimagines the mid-century superhero comic to include the conversations of today, and for these reasons, it returns archetypal stories to the realm of animation.

Miles Stephenson can be reached at mvsteph@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Friday, March 29, 2019 — 5

STYLE EVENT PREVIEW

CONCERT PREVIEW

Fashion Summit is here Ectomorph at Club Above MARGARET SHERIDAN Daily Style Editor

With spring on the rise and April fast approaching, the Ross School of Business buzzes with excitement and anticipation of Michigan’s second annual Michigan Fashion Media Summit. A networking phenomena, this event broke boundaries and has only just begun revolutionizing the meaning of the fashion industry at Michigan. On April 12 in The Ross School of Business, you can take part in a one of a kind event on campus: Where industry meets fashion, where passion meets drive, and let me tell you, it’s going to be chic. Similar to last year’s set up, the 2019 Michigan Fashion Media Summit will consist of a wide range of panelists and speakers, all available for attendees to not only to hear speak, but to interact with as well. This year’s summit is heavily focused on bringing a true diversity in panelist backgrounds to attendees. While the 45 member team is excited for all panelists, some names to look forward to include: Jennifer Powell, (Digital Brand Strategist and Jordan Brand Vice President of Design), David Creech and

John Mezzo (Vice President of Human Resources for Retail at Michael Kors). As they near summit day, the excited — and of course, fashionable — co-presidents Alexa Moss and Caitlin Forbes spoke about their goals when selecting panelists and planning the event. “We went about curating the

Michigan Fashion Media Summit Friday, Apr. 12 Stephen M. Ross School of Business $35

speakers in a very strategic way, choosing people that not only we would want to see in the audience, but those who also have valuable lessons and lessons they want to share,” said Moss. This type of collaboration is a pillar of the Michigan Fashion Media Summit. Whether it be with fellow attendees, or through panel conversations, the entire event offers a business approach to fashion, making it a truly one of a kind event on campus. Co-President Caitlin Forbes

said, “(We are) showing students these amazing options, and what they can do with their passions and also their career path. We want to benefit the students in lots of different sectors.” In addition to collaboration through intentionally curated panels, the co-presidents and entire team have brought the fashion industry to U-M without the existence of a fashion major at the University. “Fashion is so much more than just sitting behind a sewing machine, or sitting behind a drawing board, or walking down a runway. There’s so many other disciplines that go into it. Our goal is to give students that extra edge in fashion, one that they don’t get with their degree,” said Moss. Like fashion is more than a single sketch or design, this event is so much more than just one day. A whole world of opportunity exists outside the Michigan Fashion Media Summit, and it all starts on April 12. As the event rapidly approaches, the Michigan Fashion Media Summit is certainly an event to prepare for. The opportunities for networking growth within and beyond the fashion industry at this event are endless for students of all career trajectories.

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

Ware’s meaningful latest SAMMY SUSSMAN Daily Arts Writer

In the wake of Hollywood’s powerful “Time’s Up” movement, the classical music world has begun to react to the #MeToo movement. Famous conductors and instrumentalists such as Charles Dutoit, James Levine and William Preucil have been accused of misconduct. Here at the University of Michigan, music professors David Daniels and Stephen Shipps have been accused of misconduct. Few contemporary classical music composers, however, are willing to address this difficult subject. Enter Evan Ware, School of Music, Theatre & Dance alumni (PhD Theory and Composition class of 2015) and current Assistant Professor of Composition at Central Michigan University. This coming Sunday, Ware’s “Symphony No. 2” will be premiered at Central Michigan University’s Staples Family Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m.. In an interview with The Daily, Ware spoke about his experiences with sexual violence, his attempts to process it through music, and his thoughts on the #MeToo movement in general. Ware is remarkably comfortable retelling his story and explaining how it affected him. “I was abused from the ages of 8 to 10,” he said. “That had a fairly profound effect on my life in lots of ways … It’s hard to be in intimate relationships. (I’m) always wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. When people are going to ask something of (me) that (I’m) not actually willing to provide.” Throughout his early career, Ware described treating his art as refuge from this abuse. During his doctoral studies, however, Ware decided to write a symphony about his experiences. This work, which eventually became Ware’s first symphony, dealt with the trauma male survivors frequently face in a society with rigid definitions of masculinity and masculine emotions. For many men, “it’s about exacting violence and control on other people. That’s how you

restore your manhood,” Ware explained. “It’s not about being vulnerable and accepting your pain and coming to a deeper understanding of who you are as a human being which is really the only way to heal.” Ware has learned to forgive his abuser. In the years since the incident, he has never identified his abuser publicly. “I don’t hold anger against my abuser. That person was a kid. And I can’t fault them,” he said. “If you’re an adult? Well that’s a different thing. That’s an abuse of trust.” As he sat down to write this second symphony, stories of

The Quietest of Whispers Sun, Mar. 31 @ 7:30 p.m. Staples Family Concert Hall $3

abuse by the infamous doctor at Michigan State University first broke in the media. (At Ware’s request, we have refrained from naming this individual. As Ware explains it, we must move the conversation past “the infamy of the predator” to the “hundreds of survivors left behind.”) “I was distressed by the sheer amount of people who were affected by the doctor,” Ware said. “I remember how dark and cold and difficult the world got in the years after my own abuse. And I thought to myself, ‘there’s hundreds of women (that) are about to go through this.’” Ware’s second symphony is his attempt to try to speak to these victims; to tell them that others have experienced what they have experienced, and that they can get through it. “A lot of the language that we have that surrounds these things are about being strong, undefeatable and unbreakable,” Ware said. “There are also moments when you’re not strong. And we shouldn’t be afraid of them because those moments ... are also a part of who you are. They’re as beautiful a part of who you are as anything else. And so I wanted to write a symphony that could be with people when they

weren’t strong.” Ware also spoke about the failure of institutions in many of these instances to protect young students against these abusers. “They were not just betrayed by the doctor. They were betrayed by a university administration that callously ignored that this was going on,” Ware said. “On top of that, some of them their parents didn’t believe them.” Though the #MeToo movement has changed the cultural conversation around sexual abuse, Ware cautioned that society still had a long way to go. “It’s becoming more acceptable to report. But the defenses are all still the same: always blame the victim,” Ware said. “The conversation, I think, has changed in the circle of survivors. There’s less shame about it because it’s not your fault. You didn’t invite it. You didn’t do anything to ask for this … You were targeted by a predator.” As the #MeToo movement moves forward, furthermore, Ware spoke of his fears about all those it is potentially leaving behind. “In the broader sense, there’s a greater willingness to talk about it. People like Ronan Farrow are out there doing really good work,” Ware said. “I kind of worry that it’s (still) pretty delimited by class and race boundaries. It’s okay for (actors in) Hollywood to do this because they have the money to sustain (themselves). But there’s still the possible fallout if you’re a kid from the projects who’s abused by your social worker. It’s a different story. They have a lot less power.” As a survivor of sexual abuse, Ware described the inevitable struggle that one eventually faces as they work to come to grips with what they faced. “Eventually you have to do the hard work of reconnecting. That means feeling pain and looking in places that scare you,” Ware said. “But there’s a great line ... that I inscribed in the opening page of my symphony. ‘We can see that there is something more important than what we fear … We are more important.’”

DOMINIC POLSINELLI Daily Arts Writer

When Ectomorph is on stage, they are no longer people — they are self-professed “conduits” to another dimension. Their brains construct soundscapes that they create with their hands. They produce music that is sprawling, impossibly intricate, formless but almost tangible. There are no drum machines; nothing is pre-recorded. In a phrase that might seem counterintuitive to someone unfamiliar with techno, Ectomorph is entirely organic, producing techno that demands almost imperceptible obedience. What should first be understood about techno is that it is far from the pop-infused, drop-heavy electronic music that dominates mainstream representation of EDM as a whole. It is not in-your-face, and it certainly does not demand attention. It’s the kind of music where you take what you want, no more and no less. Techno shows do not mirror the popular notion that EDM is for young people who take acid and wear bright beads — simply put, EDM is for everyone who loves to feel a beat that makes their bodies follow suit. In conversation with Ectomorph, comprised of artists Brendan “BMG” Gillen and Erika from Detroit techno collective Interdimensional Transmissions, I’ve gained a much better understanding of what it means to perform techno, let alone produce it at all, and how the musical ethos of Detroit has influenced it from its birth there in the ’80s. “There’s an organic thing that happens when you’re in front of an audience, and a crucial thing to us, both having come from (the University of Michigan’s student radio) WCBN — I was a music director, Erika was a program director there — having experience there when we were there, especially during the ’90s. It was a huge influence from jazz — like freeform jazz,” Gillen said. “The easiest way you could say there’s jazz inside of techno and house is watching people DJ, because they’re improvisers. That kind of improvisational nature where the idea is shared with the audience, and they’re participating with their energy, and you respond to that gives a whole new context.” Their knowledge of music of all forms, especially pertaining to Detroit, is nearly encyclopedic, drawing connections to Ann Arbor legends MC5 and The Stooges among other artists who all share a common

connection: the unmatched energy of live performance. “The power of (rock music) was almost like this religious reverence ... it’s got this concept where within pure high-energy rock ‘n’ roll, they’re achieving this advanced, blissed-out state of electronic music, where we go with our events, where we go with our music,” Gillen noted. “It’s hugely important to me because these guys

Ectomorph Friday, Mar. 30 @ 10 p.m. Club Above $10, $5 with student ID stood up and did things that were absolutely unique, invented things, and the rest of the world reacts and still reacts. It’s hugely inspirational to me.” If these examples weren’t enticing enough, Gillen went on to include Patti Smith in the list: “She’s very different from techno, she’s a poet. She’s absolutely articulate and verbal. Techno doesn’t give you much theatrics, but you can see her go into this trance-state. And what you get when you listen to this stuff, I think, that’s where you can see the connection.” And thanks to the University’s student organization MEMCO (Michigan Electronic Music Collective), techno and other forms of EDM have maintained relevance and popularity in Ann Arbor. The club offers students multiple opportunities each semester to experience this uniqueartformandatmosphere.There is no shortage of ways for students to get involved — whether it be DJing, graphic design, promotion or simply attending events — MEMCO’s focus is first and foremost providing a safe space to dance to music that is vastly underrepresented and misunderstood. In conversation with LSA and Ross junior Jordan Stanton, MEMCO’s vice president, he illuminated the driving force behind the organization’s purpose on campus and their dedication to preserving this music in spaces that are comfortable and welcoming to all. Most importantly, MEMCO hopes to subvert popular stereotypes associated with EDM, namely misogyny and drug culture. “Essentially, it’s a community of people who, first and foremost, value music and consequently want to create a space for that kind of music to be enjoyed in a safe place that is inclusive to everyone,” he explained. MEMCO is entirely focused on the music and making it accessible to the Ann Arbor community. Ann Arbor

can, unfortunately, often feel like a small, overwhelmingly white bubble, and MEMCO provides important visibility to an art form born in Detroit by three Black artists that has been overtaken by white men. The organization not only puts on multiple events each semester but also often includes themes that celebrate female DJs and Black DJs, supporting the diversity of techno and its visibility. Ectomorph even echoed the importance of their work on campus. “I think it’s important to be doing the work of keeping younger people connected to more of what’s real about the music,” Erika said of the organization. “I think that’s something that really is lost, or more difficult for people to connect to, is the history that’s not super well known. Making that connection between people and showing people what the real culture is or what the roots are.” Gillen added, “I feel like MEMCO is sharing with people the core essence of what this music scene is about. Like this music could change your life if you experience it in the right place on the dance floor. It’s impossible to put into words — it only hints at what this experience could possibly do.” Stanton shares this sentiment with Gillen about what EDM really means to its listeners. “We definitely want to make it clear to people that we’re a group of people who love music, first and foremost.” Stanton said. “A MEMCO person doesn’t look a particular way. This is a group of students, and — I don’t know of a lot of clubs where this is true — it attracts so many different people. Because so many different people listen to electronic music. If you listen to electronic music and you’re passionate about the music you listen to, you might as well be a MEMCO member.” So what should we know about Ectomorph before Saturday’s show? “One thing that’s really interesting about the show is that it’s one hundred percent analog. It’s all generated live on the spot. If we lost electricity it wouldn’t keep going. It’s not a recording, there’s no samples used. The structure is entirely improvised,” Gillen said. “That goes back to the conduit thing you were talking about before. We’re creating all the music on the spot,” Erika added. “From machines. There’s no computers, no samplers, no drum machines,” finished Gillen. TheeventisthisSaturdaybeginning at 10 p.m. ($10/$5 with student ID) and features support from Jordan Stanton himself, DJ Horse Jeans, and Cat.

ALBUM REVIEW

Jenny Lewis’s whole heart CLARA SCOTT Senior Arts Editor

Jenny Lewis is indie’s undisputed princess. She has been from the moment she stepped foot on the scene in 1998, and still maintains her position of respect in the genre. Beginning with the popular band Rilo Kiley (we’ve all heard their hit “Silver Lining” a few times) and making her mark on several other groups, Lewis has established herself as a master of many trades over the past two decades of music-making. This week’s unveiling of Lewis’s fourth album On the Line, her first solo release in five years, is a milestone in many ways. It’s an obvious example of her growth as both a musician and a human being, the record’s humor and cleverness a testament to Lewis’s resilience after losing her estranged mother and a longterm relationship in the same few years. One of many things Lewis is good at is attacking the tragedies we all face with a perspective equal parts witty and gentle. This makes for music that traverses several different genres, but rests on the same foundation of brilliant candor. Jenny Lewis not only has a command of indie rock’s fickle landscape, but also that of indie folk, alternative country and everything in between. Her approach to each song

is different, yet all of them have a trademark confessional quality that Lewis is known for. However, the personal aspect of her music never overshadows its genuine innovation. There’s no sappiness, despite the subject matter: Every song is expertly produced and arranged, weaving Lewis’s acidic wit with a variety of synth, guitar and even a few

On the Line Jenny Lewis Warner Bros. Records

organ tracks throughout the album. She sings about her “Wasted Youth,” about addiction on album highlight “Little White Dove,” about the sadness at the end of the party in “Red Bull and Hennessy.” On the Line is what happens when a musician truly knows herself, allowing the darkest and lightest parts of their life to shine through without hesitation. She is laid bare in the lyrics of every song on the 11-track record, yet still maintains a sense of ownership over her own vices and downfalls. It’s an interesting balance of the songwriter’s proclivity for blunt honesty and the tenderness that comes with sharing a secret. Lewis is not afraid to tell her listeners everything she’s been keeping inside, but she does it carefully,

unfurling the pages of her diary with expert hands. On The Line embraces the messier side of the musician’s experiences, but does it through a retrospective and poetic lens. The record comes on the heels of Lewis’s 2016 breakup with her partner of 12 years, fellow songwriter Johnathan Rice, a loss that infuses each song with a wistful reclamation of independence that’s hard to nail down. At every step of On the Line’s production, Lewis continued this independence and self-respect some songs were produced by Ryan Adams before the allegations against him were publicized. He never finished, and the rest of the songs were impeccably produced by indie rock’s most reliable man, Beck. Despite these bumps in the road, On the Line is arguably the truest to herself that Lewis has been on any solo project, and this positive energy worked out in spades: the record features both Ringo Starr and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. This collection of songs is a win for Lewis in every sense of the word. It’s obvious from even the album artwork, a picture of Lewis’s torso in a low-cut dress that mimics the same style as her 2014 LP The Voyager, that she is no longer held back by the perception of others. She is who she is, and she’s learning and growing just like the rest of us.

Arts

6 — Friday, March 29, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

DAILY CLASSICAL MUSIC COLUMN

TV REVIEW

Musings on Mapplethorpe Theranos documentary is is pure terror and tragedy

Robert Mapplethorpe is an enormously complicated figure — that’s no less true today than it was 30 years ago when the attention of the art-consuming world was rapt with the progress of the Cincinnati obscenity trial surrounding his work. Born in 1946, the photographer rose to fame in the 1970s as an unabashed and celebratory visual documentarian of New York City’s gay community, one of the first prominent artists to elevate to the level of museum gallery depictions of a group many Americans still regarded with hostility. Later in the decade, he gained still more attention — and in the eyes of his detractors, notoriety — for often-explicit depictions of his friends in the City’s underground BDSM community, bringing his technical mastery and fascination with classical forms to bear upon subjects some welcomed and others would have prefered were left unaddressed. In the midst of all this, Mapplethorpe was delving deeply into the genres of self-portraiture, still life, portraits and the nude, honing his craft. In this latter category he often foregrounded the Black body, cherishing it for its beauty and comparing it to bronze sculpture. But this treatment of his Black subjects (particularly his omission of their faces) sometimes came under scrutiny: Famously, the poet Essex Hemphill offered a withering critique of what he saw as Mapplethorpe’s fetishization of Black men and the museum world’s embrace of it. He wrote in his essay “Does Your Mama Know About Me?” that “what is insulting and endangering to Black men is Mapplethorpe’s conscious determination that the faces, the heads, and by extension, the minds and experiences of some of his Black subjects are not as important as close-up shots of their cocks.” But by the time of his death in 1989 as a result of complications from HIV/AIDS, Mapplethorpe had developed into one of the most significant photographers of the late-20th century. That same year, and spilling over into the next, Mapplethorpe was catapulted into household-name status when, first, the Corcoran Gallery of Art cancelled a planned exhibit of his series “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment” following political pressure from social

conservatives, and then when the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and its director, Dennis Barrie, were brought to trial on charges of obscenity due to their booking of the same series. While Barrie and the museum were ultimately acquitted by jury, the trial nevertheless represented a crucial moment in the fights surrounding artistic freedom, censorship and funding for the National Endowment for the Arts

DAYTON HARE that raged throughout the decade. Caught up in the vicious opening salvos of the culture wars that were to consume much of the ’90s, in the eyes of many Mapplethorpe’s work came to occupy a social place similar to Serrano’s “Piss Christ” — provocative, stirring, simultaneously revered and reviled. So how do we reckon with an artistic legacy like that? Two weeks ago, the University Musical Society presented a performance attempting to get at that very question. The world premiere of the fullystaged version of “Triptych [Eyes of One on Another],” a new work co-commissioned by UMS, the performance aimed to re-contextualize Mapplethorpe’s work by juxtaposing his photographs with words and music in a theatrical context. In so doing the creators of “Triptych” demonstrated for the millionth time the power of collapsing the barriers we have erected between art forms, and how interdisciplinary art opens up fruitful aesthetic and social dialogues. Directed by theater artist Kaneza Schaal, and with music by Bryce Dessner — a composer, performer and curator many know as a guitarist in the rock band The National — and a libretto by multi-disciplinary artist Korde

Classifieds

Arrington Tuttle, “Triptych” doesn’t cohere into a narrative in the traditional sense. Instead, the performance was structured (as the name implies) into three principal sections, interweaving texts from numerous sources — including the obscenity trial, Mapplethorpe’s close friend Patti Smith and Essex Hemphill — into a series of songs held together by Dessner’s polyglot musical style. Throughout the course of all this, Mapplethorpe’s photographs were projected, massively enlarged and sometimes rapidly changing, onto screens above and around the performers as lighting effects swept across the stage and at times even illuminated the audience. This interplay of movement and light sustained the emotional state of the show throughout: A particularly striking effect featured a bar of searing white light descending from the ceiling, as if for a moment heaven opened up. In lieu of an overt narrative arc, the audience was thus presented with fleeting impressions and emotionally resonant scenes which feel as if they lead naturally from one to another but are difficult to string together into a plot. The performance relied upon the formidable artistic talents of the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth (who by now certainly needs no introduction from me), as well as two additional vocalists, Alicia Hall Moran and Isaiah Robinson, and instrumentalists affiliated with the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. The vocalists, in addition to singing Dessner’s score, took on a semi-dramatic role as well, repositioning themselves on the stage throughout the course of the performance, equipped with rolling music stands. “It’s a wonderful and rich score,” Brad Wells, the director of Roomful of Teeth, told me in an interview the afternoon before the performance. As I learned from him over the course of our conversation, the project has been in the works for quite a while — the possibility of the Teeth and Dessner collaborating on a Mapplethorpe work was first broached around four years ago — and the piece finally materialized into a complete work in the last several months.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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Release Date: Friday, March 29, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

FOR RENT

SAYAN GHOSH

Daily New Media Editor

As someone who grew up in Silicon Valley during its most profitable boom, I still have a soft spot for it. One thing Silicon Valley is brilliant at is wrapping capitalist ventures in a shroud of idealism and “changing the world” (hilariously skewered by the creators of the HBO show “Silicon Valley”). We all wanted to grow up and create the next startup. Forget working for the government, or for a university. The best way of improving the world is through private venture. It’s hard to deny that the Valley has had its successes. Its very nature has made it susceptible to fraud of various degrees, and the most egregious, absurd and horrifying fraud of them all is Theranos. The story of Therenos is inseparable from the story of its founder Elizabeth Holmes, and recent documentary “The Inventor” places her at the forefront. Starting from her first days at Stanford, the documentary paints a portrait of a young woman who had a precocious talent to mesmerize. So talented, in fact, she could convince established scientists and investors ranging from Henry Kissinger to prominent venture capital firms to fund her fledgling company

As she looks directly into the camera ... it’s difficult to ascertain whether she is lying to our faces, or whether she genuinely believes her innocence

DOWN 1 Coat holders 2 Wasatch Front state

3 Opposite of embiggen 4 Traffic stopper, perhaps 5 Leb. neighbor 6 Diamond concern 7 Spicy sauce 8 Capital NNW of Albany 9 Cheer syllable 10 Euphoria 11 “You don’t need to tell me” 12 Home of the Drillers of Class AA baseball 13 Watch surreptitiously 18 Colorful tropical flower 22 Middle management issues? 25 Cheer 27 Satchmo’s birthplace, briefly 28 Narrow opening 29 Turner with numbers 30 Enjoy an easy chair 34 Monastic leaders

36 Charmingly pastoral 37 Member of a Baroque consort 38 Memo heading 39 Survey range components 41 Meh 43 Takes badly? 46 Threatened 49 These days 51 Charm 52 Spa features

53 Like much of Oregon 54 Make amends 55 “I give up!” 59 Uncommon 61 Open-handed blow 62 Unconvincing, as an excuse 63 Put out 65 Energy 67 NY airport named for a mayor

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George Shultz, describes essentially being thrown under the bus by his own grandfather. Whistleblowers were followed by private investigators and feared for their lives. “The Inventor” uses footage from famed documentarian Errol Morris’s interview with Holmes. As she looks directly into the camera, wearing a black turtleneck she used to wear to emulate her hero Steve Jobs, and speaking in her artificial baritone, it’s difficult to ascertain whether she is lying to our faces, or whether she genuinely believes her innocence. Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, points out the unique ethos of Silicon Valley, in which people put out flag posts miles away and confidently proclaim “we are going to reach it,” without ever figuring out how. People who don’t believe it are pushed aside as “old-fashioned,” needing to be “disrupted.” But perhaps disruption isn’t all that it’s panned out to be. Perhaps forethought, research and genuine understanding are actually more valuable. One can only hope that the story of Theranos teaches everyone who works in technology the lesson that “build fast and break things” is not always the answer.

FILM REVIEW

‘Gloria Bell’ rejuvenates ELISE GODFRYD Daily Arts Writer

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Result of littering, maybe 4 Recipe direction 8 Round paths 14 Airport info 15 Minorca, por ejemplo 16 Promote 17 Frantic activity at a clothing sale? 19 How some insults are veiled 20 Luster 21 Electric guitar effect 23 Meh 24 Comedy bit 26 Wooden bird sculpture? 28 Recreational walk 31 European relative of aloha 32 Financial claim 33 Heroic poetry 35 Scheming wife of Augustus 40 With 42-Across, white-collar crime ... and a hint to four Across answers 42 See 40-Across 44 Mongol invader 45 “__ Tired”: Beatles “White Album” song 47 Long-gone time 48 Plant with therapeutic sap 50 Ball VIPs 52 Cereal maker’s storage building? 56 Longtime NBC hit 57 Drive-in need 58 Ivan IV, from 1547 to 1584 60 Passageway 64 Theater company 66 Dispassionate bivalve? 68 Fairy tale sibling 69 Logician’s adverb 70 “Really? Me?” 71 Tired 72 Precious 73 Favorite

whose aim was to create a small device that could run hundreds of blood tests with a small prick of blood. From its inception in 2003, Theranos’s only trajectory was upward. Magazine profiles, glowing endorsements from former presidents: Elizabeth Holmes was a bona fide goddess. However, the main problem was that her company’s product never worked. And nobody could find out. “The Inventor” interviews several former employeesturned-whistleblowers who describe the chaos within. A chemist describes having to reach into malfunctioning machines containing diseaseridden blood with his bare hands. Others describe Sunny Balwani, one of Theranos’s leading men and Holmes’s former lover, monitoring their every move. Blood tests supposedly ran by the Theranos Edison machine were simply run on Siemens machines. Theranos is ultimately a story of tragedy on too many fronts to count. Ian Gibbons, an extremely qualified biochemist brought on to be chief scientist of the company, committed suicide days before having to appear in a deposition regarding patent theft. Tyler Shultz, a former research engineer, and grandson of Theranos investor and former Secretary of State

“Gloria Bell” isn’t your typical coming-of-age movie, and its titular character certainly isn’t your typical coming-of-age protagonist. In a standard coming-of-age film, the protagonist is most likely a teenager or a twentysomething, with the bulk of their life ahead of them. They experience a major life event, like a relationship or a death, that changes them. All loose ends are tied up by the end, and the viewer is left to assume that, after they’ve been affected by this life-altering event, there’s no changing left to be done. However, “Gloria Bell” understands that this is anything but true. People never stop changing and people never stop growing. In other words, people never stop coming of age. Gloria, played brilliantly by Julianne Moore (“Still Alice”), is a fifty-something divorced mother of two living in a lessthan-ideal apartment. In fact, mostly everything in her life is less than ideal — her adult children no longer need her the way they used to, her job leaves something to be desired and her relationship with her new boyfriend is dysfunctional, to say the least. Whether we are aware of it or not, the reality of Gloria’s life is uncomfortable for

a lot of us. We like to believe that, by the time we’re Gloria’s age, we’ll have our lives “figured out.” The hard, confusing parts of life will be behind us. Gloria’s life is an example of a life that doesn’t go as planned, and the prospect of things not going as planned is unpleasant to think about. Nevertheless, it is the truth. “Gloria Bell” is unafraid to bring

Gloria Bell Michigan Theatre A24

awareness to it through the lens of Gloria’s experience. While the middle-aged focus of “Gloria Bell” may feel unapproachable to younger audiences, the film is dedicated to creating a universal appeal in order to counteract this. For one, dating, apartment living and partying — all things we associate with youth — are significant parts of Gloria’s life. The film shows that these facets of life are in no way restricted to people in their twenties and early thirties. Additionally, the movie is quite funny, largely due to Moore’s relentlessly charming on-screen presence. Michael Cera (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”), a wellknown millennial icon, makes a few appearances as well. “Gloria Bell” also avoids isolating its younger viewers by bridging the

generational gap between older and younger people. Although the film showcases undeniable cultural dissimilarities, like differences in music taste and attitudes toward smoking and technology, what each generation values at its core — family, love and human connection — is essentially the same. Gloria’s desire for meaningful connection is at the root of nearly all her actions, as it is for most of us, regardless of age. All in all, “Gloria Bell” is a celebration of life’s uncertainty in all its stages. It knows that nothing is certain and that everything is susceptible to change. In the final shot of the movie, Gloria is shown dancing fittingly to Laura Branigan’s triumphant ’80s anthem “Gloria,” with an appearance of happiness and freedom on her face the audience has never seen from her before. She dances with her arms outstretched, open to all possibilities. Instead of wallowing in fear of life’s perpetual flux, Gloria basks in it and opens herself up to it. And while she will inevitably continue to change and “come of age” after the credits stop rolling, it’s clear that the growth she has undergone over the course of the film is monumental. Her personal growth and ultimate acceptance of it inspires viewers to not only accept the change that will certainly come their way, but to welcome it with open arms.

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Friday, March 29, 2019 — 7

‘That’s the way it is’: Sheryl Szady’s fight against the status quo PAIGE VOEFFRAY Daily Sports Editor

In observance of Women’s History Month, The Daily’s sports section is launching its second annual series aimed at telling the stories of female athletes, coaches and teams at the University from the perspective of the female sports writers on staff. We continue the series with this story from Daily Sports Editor Paige Voeffray. Women’s athletics has come a long way since the first official varsity Michigan teams took the field in 1973. So much so that it’s easy to take what the women have today for granted. Each team is equipped with multiple coaches, trainers and nutritionists to stay in peak condition. All the athletes are given stacks of new clothes every season to make sure they’re looking their best. They’re even flown all over the country to compete against the best teams. This is common practice — almost expected. But it wasn’t always this way. There were many women that came before these athletes that fought and pushed for what they deserved. But there was one woman in particular who couldn’t seem to let it go and wasn’t afraid to take on important people, and every woman who wears a block ‘M’ on their chest has her to thank. Sheryl Szady didn’t want any attention. She didn’t want to cause any issues. She just wanted to play. And because of that, Michigan athletics has never been the same. *** Szady attended Michigan from 1970-1974 and played on the club team for field hockey and basketball. There wasn’t practice equipment or warm-up uniforms, and only some teams would have a volunteer coach if they were lucky. And that might have been suitable for a while, but Szady looked around at the other universities’ varsity programs and wondered how Michigan had fallen so far behind. The club teams would play the varsity programs from these other universities, but their conditions were nothing alike. “We were playing the varsity teams at Eastern, Western, Central, Michigan State, Adrian, as a club team,” Szady said. “I mean I’m calling the varsity coach as a club team being like, ‘Can we schedule a game?’ And they’re picking the day, I mean I had like no clout. They were like, ‘Thank you for playing us.’ ” Szady recalls washing her own uniform after every game, sharing 12 rolls of athletic tape over a season, and even driving across the state in a teammate’s roommate’s sister’s friend’s car. It seems trivial, but this was a big deal to these women. “We don’t want more. We don’t want to take from (the men),” said Michigan softball coach, women’s athletics advocate and essentially the face of women’s athletics at Michigan, Carol Hutchins. “Nobody ever wanted to take away their opportunity. We just wanted to have the same opportunity. And funny how they found a way to fund it because you can find a way to fund whatever you think is important.” This situation wasn’t ideal, but for the time being, it worked — until it didn’t. In the March of her junior year, Szady began to call her usual set of coaches to schedule games for the next season, but they all turned her down. Her friend Linda Laird, the women’s club basketball manager, experienced the same thing. “Finally, the field hockey coach from Eastern called me back and said ‘Sheryl, nobody’s going to play you this year,’ Szady said. “We decided to blacklist Michigan until the University elevated their women’s program.’ ” For Szady, the next step was clear — elevate the program. *** For most people, taking a club team to the caliber of a varsity team would be a daunting task. Many wouldn’t even know where to start. Title IX had been passed in 1972, however the implementation guidelines weren’t written until 1975, so Title IX wasn’t available for Szady to plead her case. So as a junior, Szady went after the one thing that makes all athletic departments run: money. This would go further than a couple of fundraisers. Szady went to the Office of Development and asked to have Women’s Athletics to

COURTESY OF SHERYL SZADY

Sheryl Szady has fought for over four decades to fight for equality in Michigan athletics — receiving pushback from the athletic department at seemingly

be added as a solicitation option on the donation cards. “My thought, at the time, was that if we had enough money, we could run our program at a varsitytype level,” Szady said. “Which is overly simplistic, because you need university support.” Through her efforts, Szady met with Henry Johnson, the vice president of Student Affairs. Her initial plan was to ask Johnson for funding, but when other schools decided to stop playing Michigan, she knew they needed a varsity program. “So we talked and he said to come back in a week, he was going to get me an appointment to talk to Robben Fleming, the president,” Szady said. “And I thought, ‘OK, I just talked to a vice President, I can talk to the president.’ ” While Johnson couldn’t get Szady on Fleming’s calendar, he secured another opportunity: presenting this situation to the Board of Regents. Szady and Laird knew they needed to impress the group, so they came in their best outfits and had their materials already prepared. However, there was another group of students presenting before the women. They were requesting that Jewish holidays be considered when making the academic calendar, but their methods weren’t so well received. “They got up there and were banging on the table,” Szady said. “Good point, wrong delivery. I thought, ‘Oh good, they’re just going to love hearing from two more students.’ ” Each presenter was given five minutes to speak, and the women were never cut off and told their whole story. And it worked. Fleming asked Marie Hartwig, a professor of Physical Education and long-time advocate of women’s sports and recreation, to head a committee to study women’s intercollegiate athletics. The committee began in April, and by the end of June recommended that six women’s sport club teams be elevated to varsity. “Do you know how fast that is?” Szady said. “Fleming received the report and approved it by the end of July. Marie Hartwig called me and said, ‘I just received a message from Fleming’s office, he directed me to start women’s varsity athletics this fall.’ ” *** At first, Szady and her teammates enjoyed some perks that they weren’t accustomed to. They travelled in University vans, even if the coach and a senior had to be the drivers, and they were given meal money. One evening, the team went to Big Boy after a game. The women were given $3.50 for a meal, and so after ordering the special for $2.50, they all had one dollar remaining. Szady feared that if they didn’t spend the money they would never see it again. So each athlete ordered two pies for dessert. “Here comes these two trays with these huge pies,” Szady said.“We catch the coaches going, ‘What the hell is going on?’ and we responded, ‘We’re spending our

money.’ ” It was a change of pace to what they were used to, but the women enjoyed it while they could. They still didn’t have complete uniforms, scholarships or media coverage, but they knew change didn’t happen overnight. After a gymnast fell of the balance beam and dislocated her elbow, the women were finally granted an athletic trainer. “Much progress was reactive in nature,” Szady said. “So we stumbled into progress, but if it cost money, it didn’t happen for a long time.” It was Szady’s firm belief that athletic director Don Canham tried to ignore women’s athletics in hopes that it would go away. It didn’t. The women continued to see differences in what they received compared to the men. The women were still only playing in-state rivals, while the men had a national schedule. The women would receive small scholarships, but only for the semester that they were in season, while the men received full scholarships. If the men made a postseason run, the athletic department and the NCAA covered the costs, whereas the women had to make their case for athletic department funds, if they were good enough to make it that far. Hutchins remembers having teams sell programs at football games or clean Crisler Center after concerts to earn the extra money for the softball team. “Title IX had passed in ’72 and you saw in the mid and late ’70s people realizing that they had to have athletics for women,” Hutchins said. “They had to fund and support teams or they were going to face federal loss of funding, because that’s the penalty of not complying with Title IX. Lawsuits were starting to happen, so having a team doesn’t mean you support it. It means you just have it.” But Szady wanted just one more thing: varsity awards. Szady received a lot of pushback from Canham, but she wanted the same varsity awards that the men received, and she wanted the same block ‘M’ on those awards as well. She was told she was on her own — a familiar refrain. Szady had petitioned the student government for a seat on the Board in Control of Intercollegiate Athletics, and she was quickly granted a spot. Canham assigned her to the Board committee on Varsity Awards. Ultimately, the committee agreed on a new schedule of awards for both men and women: first a jacket, then a plaque, blanket and finally a watch. However, the block ‘M’ on the varsity awards was a different matter. A motion for varsity awards for men and women with the same block ‘M’ was tabled by Canham when it appeared it would be close to passing. The vote occured six weeks later in June 1975. In the meantime, letters were sent by Athletics to all the Michigan letterwinners — the men of the M-Club. The letters, one from Bill Mazer,

We just wanted to have the same opportunity.

then president of the M-Club, and the other signed by then basketball coach Johnny Orr, and football coach Bo Schembechler expressed similar sentiments. “The letter read, ‘You can’t allow them to give the same Block ‘M’out, it’s bad enough we’re giving them one at all. How can you let them give the same Block ‘M’ for which you bled and sweat on the fields of Michigan for. They want to give your Block ‘M’ to synchronized swimmers and softball players.’ ” Szady recalled. At this time, Michigan didn’t even have a softball team. The letter went on to say that if anyone had any issues with this proposed vote, to voice their concerns to the committee members and gave out their home addresses. Szady could fill a paper grocery bag two-thirds of the way full with the letters she received. Szady remembers one letter in particular that still sticks with her. A doctor wrote to share how displeased he was with what she was trying to do, and wasn’t shy about voicing his thoughts. But at the end of the letter, he drew a picture telling her what kind of block ‘M’ she should get — a bra with the ‘M’ in the cleavage. On the day of the vote, Szady traveled to Ann Arbor. She had missed the evening news the night before, but Al Ackerman, an NBC Detroit sports anchor, had stated that if Michigan didn’t give the women the same block ‘M’, he would never report another Michigan score on his broadcast again. This was information Szady wished she had known when Canham called her into his office an hour before the vote. Canham immediately asked her what she wanted. She explained she wanted the same block ‘M’ for women as the men. He countered with a blue ‘M’, an old english ‘M’, anything but the yellow block ‘M’. Again, he asked, ‘What do you want?’ “Now in retrospect, I should have said four tickets on the 50 (yard-line) for life,” Szady joked. Instead, she didn’t waiver, and told Canham she would take her chances with the Board and left for the meeting. The vote passed nearly unanimously with all but one voting against, and the women were going to get their block ‘M’. Months later, when Szady received her letter jacket in the mail, she opened it to find a jacket with a small, square, orangecolored block ‘M’ — not what she had fought for. “And so I call up Marie (Hartwig) and I say ‘What is this?’ And she said ‘It’s the jacket you’re getting.’ Meaning she’s not fighting for this. She fights Canham and she’s probably losing her job,” Szady said. “And I said, ‘That’s not right.’ “And she said, ‘That’s the way it is.’ ” *** Even when Phyllis Ocker became athletic director, she couldn’t do anything to change the letters until Canham’s influence

was completely gone. The culture he created was so entrenched that no progress could be made. “I remember the jacket. I used to hand them out to my student athletes. They were ugly,” Hutchins said. “And in their own right, it’s not that they weren’t nice looking, but then (the men) had the letter jacket, and then we had that.” It wasn’t until 1991-92 that the athletic director at the time, Jack Weidenbach, started to give women the same block ‘M’ on the same leather-sleeved jacket as the men. For forty years, she talked to anyone she could. She wrote letters and made phone calls, but to no avail. It wasn’t until she ran into current athletic director Warde Manuel after a women’s basketball game that things really started to be put in motion. She approached him about her idea for giving 18 years worth of athletes the appropriate jackets, and Manuel said that it was definitely going to happen. Szady wouldn’t believe it until she saw it. While out to dinner in April 2016, she received the long-awaited email from Manuel acknowledging the fundamental role played by the early women letterwinners, and the re-issuing of their varsity jackets with today’s varsity jacket. Only then did she share her joy with all the other restaurant diners. After the initial wave, the University received 120 orders of new jackets. The University was pleased with itself, but Szady wasn’t satisfied. After doing her own outreach, the University received 647 jacket orders. But by her estimates, 881 of the 900 women had been contacted.

“You can’t allow them to give the same Block M out.”

Her work was done. But she wasn’t satisfied. Szady organized for as many ‘Jacket Gals’, as Szady and the women refer to themselves, to get together at a football game. About 300 women came from all over the country with their families to celebrate, and the icing on the cake was they were going to hold the banner before the start of the game. Until they weren’t. Weeks before the game, Szady received a phone call explaining how there were too many Jacket Gals and that they would be bigger than the marching band. Szady knew the women would be crushed. Szady also suspected that if they were football players, they would be holding the banner on the field. So she did what she does best — let right win out. “Meeting with Athletics, I said, ‘You know people are going to be really mad about this. They bought tickets, they’ve got airplane tickets, they got hotel rooms and they expect to be recognized on the field,’ ” Szady said. “And Letterwinners M club just went very silent. And the guy in Athletics said ‘Sheryl, people are still calling saying why do we even have women on the football field.’ “And I couldn’t believe he repeated that.” After the Jacket Gals shared their concerns, the issue was resolved with all 300 Jacket Gals honored on the field at halftime. As Szady led the 300 in their new jackets with the right ‘M’ out of the tunnel onto the field, she finally felt like all her hard work had paid off. *** There were times when Szady never thought the conditions would improve. Everyone seemed so set in their ways that progress seemed unlikely. Even in current times she still faces struggles that people wouldn’t expect. But when she sees what the female athletes have now, she loves it. “I know a lot of women, and Sheryl Szady’s one of them, who fought like hell for that. And went through a lot of shit — for lack of a better word — from people who treated her poorly,” Hutchins said. “I know a lot of people who were fired in that era and to this day are still fired when they bring up the inequities that still exist. Because there still are inequities. “We’ve come so far and it’s taken a lot of people who are vigilant. And people have talked about Title IX that we don’t need it anymore, because ‘Oh look at what you women have.’ I say you don’t take down speed limit signs, because people will start driving 90. You have to have a law because we need boundaries. … If they were going to do the right thing, they would have done it then.” Szady and Hutchins can both agree that women’s athletics still has strides to make. Szady has some more ideas for how the athletic department could change, but she won’t rest until things are equal. Truly equal.

Sports

8 — Friday, March 29, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Suffocated. Offense sputters in season-ending Sweet Sixteen loss to Texas Tech

1 GONZAGA 4 FSU 2 MICHIGAN 3 TTU

1 GONZAGA 3 TTU

NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily

Season comes to abrupt end in 63-44 loss to Red Raiders, scoring season-low in points ETHAN SEARS

Managing Sports Editor

ANAHEIM, Calif. — For all the highs of this season, the end wasn’t especially hard to see coming. Back in January, Michigan sat on top of the world. Undefeated. The best start in program history. The driver’s seat in the Big Ten. The driver’s seat for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Maybe the No. 1 overall ranking. Maybe a return trip to the Final Four. Maybe more. But despite a top-ranked defense, despite a coach on par with any and despite an identity that made losing seem like an incomprehensible option, there were the Wolverines, playing out the season’s last minutes as a formality in a blowout loss. The reserves came on with 1:17 to go as redshirt junior wing Charles Matthews stood at the free throw line wearing the expression of a man at the end of the road. Michigan’s season ended on Thursday night with a 63-44 loss to Texas Tech and, while the Red Raiders looked ahead to the Elite Eight on Saturday, the Wolverines sat on their bench, heads covered in towels so TV cameras might not catch the tears. Afterwards, his eyes still wet and his towel still adorned, sophomore guard Jordan Poole could only offer platitudes at a 1-of19 3-point shooting performance that punctuated the Wolverines’ offensive struggles. “We had a lot of open looks,” Poole said. “Lot of them didn’t go in. It happens.” Against a Texas Tech defense as good as their own, the Wolverines had to score some points to win. They struggled to consistently meet that goal all year and on Thursday, failed to do so again. Michigan

coach John Beilein estimated his team had six or eight good looks from outside, “and we didn’t make any of them.” Initially, it seemed the Wolverines may not have needed to. Eight minutes into the game, the two teams had five made field goals and six turnovers between them. If you are some kind of basketball sadist, the Honda Center might have felt like a five-star resort. For everyone else, it was a crucible. Texas Tech led by eight at the half, enough that the Wolverines went into the locker room feeling like they just needed a couple shots to go down. They never did. And, when the dam finally opened for the Red Raiders, it opened for good. Davide Moretti keyed a 10-2 Red Raider run in the opening minutes of the second half, and with it, the end of the Wolverines’ season. The Red Raider guard hit Matt Mooney with a behind the back pass for three. Then he found Tariq Owens for a twohand jam on a lob. To cap it off, he nailed a transition 3-pointer of his own, extending the lead to 18 points which, coincidentally, was as many as the Wolverines had scored by that point. “I think we had a positive mindset coming out of (the half ) and they hit us with a 7-0 run out of the half,” said assistant coach Luke Yaklich. “It got up to 13, 15 real quick. The

We had a lot of open looks. Lot of them didn’t go. It happens.

amount of pressure that you put on your offensive possessions from that point forward, for the rest of the game, it was big. We did not make shots.” Out of the ensuing timeout, Michigan left Owens off a pickand-roll and, again, the big man threw down a dunk worthy of his size. On the bench, John Beilein sat, helpless, the heel of his palm resting on his chin. For the remainder, the Wolverines helplessly waited for the clock to run out on a season that once held endless potential. All season, Michigan looked for a bucket-getter who could save it in just that situation. On Thursday, Ignas Brazdeikis led the team in scoring with 17 points, most of them after the game was out of hand. Matched up against a defense equal to its own, the Wolverines fell into the same listless offensive basketball that defined much of their struggles this season. “We tried our best to get ready in two days for, even a different type of switching defense,” Beilein said. “But it wasn’t enough to get ready for a team that’s been doing that for 100 practices and 36 games. They were just better at it.” Michigan took 19 3-pointers and the only make came with 22 seconds to go — far too little and far too late. It never found a way to get to the basket against the Red Raiders’ defense and, to boot, turned it over 14 times. “We were really good,” Beilein said of the season. “Tonight was, we were not.” And now, the Wolverines have six months to think about it.

We tried our best to get ready in two days...

We were really good. Tonight was, we were not.

The night nothing went right THEO MACKIE

Daily Sports Writer

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Amid an eerie silence, bowed heads and tear-filled eyes, one telling phrase rung through the Michigan locker room: “Bad day to have a bad day.” It came from Jordan Poole. It came from Jon Teske. It came from Isaiah Livers. But most of all, it came from Luke Yaklich, the Wolverines’ defensive mastermind of an assistant coach who watched his carefully curated pièce de résistance get shredded in a humiliating, 63-44, season-ending loss at the hands of Texas Tech. The phrase came from Dan Muller, the head coach at Illinois State during Yaklich’s four-year tenure in Normal, Ill. Muller, though, never had to use it to explain the sudden end of a team that had started its season 17-0, nearly ascended to the nation’s top ranking and then spent the rest of the year in the top-10. Late Thursday night in Anaheim, Yaklich had to do exactly that. The explanation included crediting the Red Raiders — “Because Texas Tech’s really good,” he responded when asked why the Wolverines couldn’t climb back into the game — as well as a requisite dose of frustration: “The rubber ball didn’t hit the iron rim the right way for us tonight.” But to those around Yaklich, the “why” doesn’t matter. As he spoke, Zavier Simpson aggressively did not. The junior point guard sat in Yaklich’s shadow with his head buried in the same March Madness towel that was broadcast to the nation moments earlier as he rested on the Michigan bench, tears forming in his eyes. This time, his face was buried deep in his hands, facing his locker but looking straight into the ground, only his back visible to the room. No matter his attempts to hide them, his stifled tears spread through the room. Back on the court, Simpson kept his poise for as long as possible, broadcasting the message of “We’re gonna win this game” through every

Wolverines’ huddle. On this night, though, that was wishful thinking. “It was a little helpless at times,” said head coach John Beilein. As Michigan charged out of the halftime tunnel, mired in a precarious 24-16 hole, the Wolverines took their spots for their midgame shootaround. Moments later, they fired five balls up in unison. All five clanged harmlessly to the ground. For Michigan, it was just that kind of night. After the buzzer sounded to signal the resumption of play, the night only worsened. Junior center Jon Teske went to the line with a chance to start the half on the right foot and cut into the deficit. An hour later, he sat emotionless in the Wolverines’ locker room, reflecting on a first-half shot that would have tied the game. Only it hadn’t. For a split second, the ball was down and the score was knotted at 13. Then, it flew out of the cylinder, just like each of Michigan’s first 18 3-point attempts. “Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of great looks. Mine was three-quarters of the way down, not even halfway down,” Teske said. “... Their defense bothered us a little bit, but our shots weren’t falling. “As coach Yak said, ‘It was a bad day to have a bad day.’ ” The rebound, though, landed in freshman forward Ignas Brazdeikis’ hands. The Wolverines wouldn’t tie the game, but they would cut it to one on a putback that Brazdeikis could hit in his sleep. But not on this night. On this night, that putback rimmed out, just as Teske’s three had. On this night, the ensuing loose ball caromed off Brazdeikis’ arms and out of bounds. On this night, Texas Tech’s Matt Mooney fired off a turnaround three two possessions later, striking the backboard just as the shotclock turned to 1 and dropping through the net a split-second later. “We had a lot of open looks,” Poole said. “A lot of them didn’t go in. That happens. I’m just gonna use the quote, ‘It was a bad day to have a bad day.’ “