ANN ARBOR, MI | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2020 | MICHIGANDAILY.COM
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Four women allege sexual misconduct against former Michigan tight end Mustapha Muhammad ETHAN SEARS & SAMMY SUSSMAN Managing Sports Editor & Daily Staff Reporter
Content warning: This story contains descriptions of alleged sexual misconduct, and may be distressing for some readers. In the summer of 2018, Addy Walker found herself alone with Mustapha Muhammad in his Alice Lloyd dorm room. At the time, Muhammad was an incoming freshman on the Michigan football team. He was also in Walker’s Comprehensive Studies Program. A few hours earlier, Walker had confided in Muhammad that she was a survivor of sexual assault. She had shown him and a few other friends a tattoo on her left forearm inspired by one Lady Gaga got in solidarity with other sexual assault survivors. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Walker, now an LSA sophomore, said Muhammad began their encounter by kissing her with her consent. But she alleged that he soon began touching her without her consent. “He got on top of me and got really aggressive,” Walker said. “ … And I said no many times. ‘No, no, no, stop. No, no.’ And he would not stop.” Walker remembers Muhammad bringing up his status as a football player in response to her repeatedly saying “no.” “Really, you don’t want to do it with a U of M football player?” she recalls him saying. Walker told her roommate about the incident soon after leaving Muhammad’s dorm room. They both decided Walker should not report the alleged sexual misconduct to the University — they feared Muhammad’s standing as an incoming football player would affect the school’s response.
In an interview with The Daily, Walker’s roommate recalled their conversation about potentially reporting the incident. Walker’s roommate requested anonymity, citing privacy concerns. “Because he was a football player … she was scared what would happen if she had spoken about it, whether it be him hurting her … (or) any retaliation from the University,” Walker’s roommate said. Walker is not alone. An investigation by The Daily uncovered four previously undisclosed allegations against Muhammad ranging from sexual harassment to misconduct, including stalking dorm residents and unwanted touching. The Daily also found evidence the University was made aware of at least two of these alleged incidents in January 2019 in a report submitted to residence hall staff about accusations of sexual harassment. It is unclear if the University began an investigation into this report or if a finding was ever reached. Muhammad did not reply to multiple texts and emails from The Daily requesting comment for this article. Another female dorm resident alleged that she had a similar experience with Muhammad a few months after Walker. This former resident requested anonymity, citing privacy concerns. In this article, she will be referred to as Jane. Jane first met Muhammad during the summer term. She lived near him in Alice Lloyd Residence Hall — her room was across the hall from Walker’s. One night in November 2018, Muhammad invited Jane to his dorm room in West Quad Residence Hall. His roommate was out for the weekend. They began watching a
movie together. “He was just, like, asking me questions, like if I had a boyfriend, was I interested in having a boyfriend,” Jane recalled. “And I just said I wasn’t really interested.” About 20 minutes later, Jane alleged that Muhammad began touching her arms. “He was … touching my arms and my stomach,” Jane said. “And then he, like, as time (progressed) … he kept moving to places I didn’t want to be touched.” Jane remembered repeatedly motioning for Muhammad to stop touching her. “Every time I would try to move his hands, he would move them back,” Jane said. “And then eventually it just got to the point where he actually, like, put my hands on his penis. And I was just like, I’m not — that’s not cool.” Jane left Muhammad’s dorm room that night determined never to speak with him again. Though she continued to see him around campus and some of her friends continued to interact with him, she avoided speaking with him at all costs. Jane remembers struggling to share her story with her friends. In the few instances that she did tell her story to someone else, they said they had heard similar rumors about Muhammad. “I told a few friends, not in detail … maybe like three or four months later,” Jane said. “When I did tell them more of the details, they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, you have to watch out for him … he has the reputation for doing that.’” Walker’s roommate confirmed the content of these rumors. She remembers hearing them while living near Muhammad during her freshman year. See ALLEGATIONS, Page 3
MADDIE FOX/Daily
DESIGN BY CHRISTINE JEGARL
GEO votes to strike in Bridge Scholars Program protest of fall reopening becomes increasingly white
Graduate Employees’ Organization members held a “die-in” on the Diag to protest the University’s reopening.
Frustrated with administration’s plan for a hybrid semester, Changing demographics alter the make-up of an initiative graduate students’ union plans for a major work stoppage originally established to help Black students thrive at the ‘U’ DOMINIC COLETTI Daily Staff Reporter
The Graduate Employees’ Organization, which represents more than 2,000 graduate student instructors and graduate student staff assistants, announced Monday that its members have voted to strike in response to the University of Michigan’s fall reopening plans. This move could substantially disrupt academic operations through the course of next week. This is
the first GEO strike since 1975. In a press release announcing the strike, which is set to begin Tuesday, GEO noted the gravity of the decision. According to the release, 79 percent of GEO voters supported the work stoppage. “This is an historic moment; GEO membership has voted to strike in the middle of a pandemic at the beginning of the academic year, and is prepared to withhold our labor in pursuit of a safe and just campus for all,” the statement
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read. In a Twitter thread outlining its plans, GEO said the union will hold an emergency virtual general membership meeting Monday night ahead of the strike, which will feature both in-person and remote components. “Much of our picketing will be in person, and we’ll make sure that safety is paramount. Masks are required, and we’ll be physically distant on the picket line,” one tweet read. See STRIKE, Page 3
PARNIA MAZHAR Daily Staff Reporter
A program started in the 1970s to help Black students adjust to life at the University of Michigan — a predominately white institution — has become increasingly white itself in recent years. The Summer Bridge Scholars Program grew out of Black student activism at the University and was created for Black students. But in recent years, white students made up the largest portion of the program’s
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participants, according to Kierra Trotter, director of the Comprehensive Studies Program. To Black students like LSA sophomore Rhianna Womack, a Bridge participant in 2019, the changing demographics of the program are disheartening. “Having something made for you because of all of the historical … discrimination, but then seeing that one thing being taken away or being limited, it’s pretty messed up,” Womack said. “It’s something that a lot of white students even don’t understand.” Established in 1975, the Bridge
Vol. CXXIX, No. 129 ©2019 The Michigan Daily
program emerged from the efforts of Black student activists in the 1960s and 1970s. Students held protests demanding that the University increase Black student enrollment to 10 percent — a goal that administration never achieved. As a result of these and other protests, Black faculty fought for the creation of programs like the Comprehensive Studies Program and Bridge that focused on Black students’ education and transition into the University.
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See SCHOLARS, Page 3
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