ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Thursday, May 20, 2021
inside NEWS
Vaccine Mandate How the U-M community is reacting to the Housing requirement >> SEE PAGE 2
OPINION
Sexual Misconduct Pursuing systemic change in a toxic U-M environment >> SEE PAGE 5
Daily investigation finds divergence in U-M, outside organization’s handling of allegations against CSE professor Design by Marina Sun
MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Free Palestine “Palestine will be free because the liberation of Palestine is a victory for all of humanity” >> SEE PAGE 6
ARTS
Bright Green Field
Squid’s new album is dedicated to the concept of “no idea is a bad idea”
>> SEE PAGE 8
SPORTS
Perfection
Meghan Beaubien tosses a perfect game to close out the Softball regular season >> SEE PAGE 13
INDEX Vol. CXXIX, No. 112 © 2020 The Michigan Daily
NEWS .................................... 2 OPINION................................ 4 MiC......................................... 6 ARTS.......................................8 MULTIMEDIA........................ 9 STATEMENT..........................11 SPORTS.................................13
NINA MOLINA AND SAMMY SUSSMAN Daily Staff Reporters
This article is the first part of a twopart investigation by The Michigan Daily’s Focal Point team into allegations of sexual misconduct against computer science professor Walter Lasecki and the University of Michigan’s handling of these allegations. It is based on emails, documents, notes and interviews with 12 individuals knowledgeable of these events. Content Warning: Sexual harassment and misconduct wo investigations into four allegations of sexual misconduct against University of Michigan computer science professor Walter Lasecki began in November 2019. One was conducted by the University’s Office of Institutional Equity (OIE). The other was conducted by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a prominent computer science research association. Despite receiving the same allegations, the two investigations reached vastly different conclusions. OIE’s investigation ended on July 13 2020, with the finding that Lasecki’s behavior in all four cases did not violate the University’s sexual harassment policy, Standard Practice Guide 201.89 and with no sanctions against Lasecki. ACM, however, concluded in February
T
2021 that Lasecki had violated its Policy Against Harassment, and Lasecki was banned from ACM events for at least five years. Hired to the University in 2015, Lasecki is an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department of the College of Engineering. He also held a position in the School of Information until March 2020. Three of the allegations against Lasecki came from non-University affiliated graduate students and involved his conduct at social gatherings and industry conferences from 2016 to 2019. The fourth allegation came from a student at the University, who alleges she had been harassed on campus, off campus and at industry events. The four students requested anonymity in interviews with The Michigan Daily, citing Lasecki’s prominence in the industry and their fears of professional retribution. All the allegations shared common characteristics: while joining the students for drinks, Lasecki allegedly made statements that made the students feel uncomfortable. In at least six instances, he allegedly touched them sexually. Lasecki did not respond to multiple email requests for comment from The Daily. He denied all allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct in statements to OIE.
In a statement to The Daily on May 14, University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald declined to discuss the specifics of this case, citing issues of confidentiality. “It is university policy not to publicly discuss personnel matters out of respect for employee privacy. That also means we are unable to discuss details of any matters that may be reported to the Office for Institutional Equity for review,” Fitzgerald wrote. When asked if Lasecki would be returning to the University to teach in Fall 2021, Fitzgerald wrote that “there has been no final determination at this time.” The allegations against Lasecki are not the first to rock the University’s Computer Science and Engineering department. In Feb. 2020, an article in The Verge uncovered numerous previously undisclosed allegations of sexual harassment against CSE faculty member and former Clinc CEO Jason Mars, who continues to teach courses in the CSE department despite pushback from students and faculty. In January 2021, CSE faculty member Peter Chen — and interim chair of the department from January to July 2020 — was placed on leave after criminal sexual misconduct charges of the first degree with a victim under 13 years old were filed against him. University spokesperson Fitzgerald offered a brief summary of the College of Engineering’s commitment to
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addressing matters of culture and inclusivity in a statement to The Daily. “CSE is committed to fostering an inclusive environment, where all community members feel safe and welcome,” Fitzgerald wrote. “Efforts to broaden participation and improve climate in CSE have been underway for years, including mechanisms to improve climate, educate employees and students on inclusivity, increase representation and remove roadblocks. These can be seen in detail in the annual DEI Climate Report.” Fitzgerald also highlighted a specific initiative by Alec Gallimore, dean of the College of Engineering, to improve the CSE department’s climate. This group, known as the CSE Climate Assessment Committee, investigates and manages the department’s culture, according to Fitzgerald. The formation of this committee came after faculty members called for its creation in a Feb. 1, 2021 open letter. According to Fitzgerald, this climate assessment will be led by a third-party and a final report will be released this summer. “CSE has not demonstrated that it can fully resolve culture and climate issues internally, and CSE would benefit from outside perspectives,” the open letter reads. “Michigan conducts program reviews for internal academic improvement. We propose a regular climate-related program review for CSE, similar to such academic or graduate program reviews.” Sexual harassment and misconduct allegations at the University of Michigan are not unique to the College of Engineering. The School of Music, Theater and Dance has seen allegations against two former professors Stephen Shipps and David Daniels, while the School of Literature, Science and the Arts has seen allegations against English professor Douglas Trevor and former American Culture professor Bruce Conforth. In January 2020, Provost Martin Philbert — who previously oversaw OIE — was placed on leave and later resigned after multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him were reported to the University. The allegations were later investigated and corroborated by law firm WilmerHale. Another WilmerHale investigation released earlier this month found hundreds of credible allegations of sexual abuse against former University doctor Robert Anderson over a 37-year period. The Anderson report concluded that the allegations represent a “devastating pattern” of abuse that was known to University officials. Read more at michigandaily.com
2 NEWS
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A preview of the 2022 Ann Arbor City Budget
DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily The Ann Arbor City Council is set to vote on a proposed $470 million budget Monday night.
JUSTIN O’BEIRNE Daily Staff Reporter
The Ann Arbor City Council will vote on the proposed city budget for fiscal year 2022 at the council meeting on Monday night. A meeting was held on May 3 for residents to express thoughts and concerns about the roughly $470 million proposed budget. Covering issues ranging from policing to deer population control, the proposed budget contains many hotly contested items. Police The budget includes $155,000 for the Ann Arbor Independent Community Police Oversight Commission (ICPOC), which serves as a bridge between residents and the Police Department. The ICPOC was established in 2019, partly in response to the fatal shooting of Aura Rosser, a Black woman with mental illness, by Ann Arbor police. At the May 3 meeting, Ward 5 resident Ralph McKee urged the council to follow recommendations from the ICPOC as well as Dr. Lisa Jackson, chair of the ICPOC, who also spoke at the beginning of the council meeting. “I would really urge you to really engage (Dr. Jackson) in depth on (police funding),” McKee said. “She has really studied that. Many of the rest of us are what I would call parttimers on that issue. We’re interested in it, but we really haven’t studied it to the level she and other activists have.” Many Ann Arbor residents want to see mental health professionals, not police, respond to emergency calls when appropriate. City Council passed a resolution in April asking the City Administrator to create plans for
an unarmed first responder program for mental health crises in Ann Arbor. At the meeting, Ward 2 resident Jeremiah Simon said he wants to see police funding redirected to mental health professionals. “The current budget proposal increases the police budget from $30.7 million to $31.4 million from 2021 to 2022,” Simon said. “The city should shift responsibility for mental health and substance use crisis response away from the police, and therefore should shift money to a new, autonomous, unarmed crisis response program.” City Councilmember Kathy Griswold, D-Ward 2, told The Michigan Daily she supports having unarmed mental health professionals with proper oversight and training respond to appropriate emergency calls. “The county is responsible for the 911 Dispatch… (if we) say we want to be treated differently you have to have the dispatcher know when to send out a police officer and when to send out an unarmed mental health professional,” Griswold said. “That’s going to be difficult, but it’s going to be possible. We have to have a lot of training and a very clearly defined implementation plan.” Ann Arbor resident Michelle Hughes called in to the Council meeting to show her support of increasing the amount of money for unarmed responders which is currently at $234,000. “We should have more money spent on unarmed responders this year, shifting the enforcement of traffic things away from the police,” Hughes said. “The amount that we have on our budget for the new unarmed response program is not zero, and I very much
applaud that, (but it) is much closer to zero than I would like it to be.” Pedestrian Safety Ann Arbor’s Healthy Streets program which aims to provide safe options for pedestrians and bikers in the city was of particular concern to residents. The program, which was designed to allow for proper social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, was first passed by City Council in July of 2020. The city employed several methods to increase outdoor recreational space for pedestrians, including street closures, sidewalk space expansion, new bike lanes and
reducing vehicle lanes. At the Council meeting, Ann Arbor resident Shannon Hautamaki said paying for the Healthy Streets initiative is vital for the wellbeing of children in Ann Arbor. “For families with young children, I don’t see a return to normalcy happening that quickly. Vaccines for young children are still several months, if not a year away,” Houtamaki said. “Children will have to do most of their socializing outside where transmission of COVID is Read more at michigandaily.com
CSG response to the Israel-Palestine conflict draws mixed reactions from U-M community GEORGE WEYKAMP Summer News Editor
Leaders of the University of Michigan Central Student Government (CSG), including its president and vice president, issued a statement via the CSG Instagram page on Monday condemning Israel’s recent actions in the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict. The statement was released after reports of the deaths of over 30 Palestinians, including ten children, due to Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City. The attack came after rockets launched from the Gaza Strip reached the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The statement was signed by CSG President Nithya Arun, CSG Vice President Carla Voigt, CSG DEI Coordinator Zaynab Elkolaly, CSG Cabinet Member Eman Naga, LSA Student Government Vice President Zackariah Farah, SAFE, the Arab Student Association (ASA) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA). It was not approved as a resolution by the CSG Assembly. In the statement, the CSG leaders said Israel is responsible for the death and destruction of the Palestinian people and property since the state of Israel was established by the United Nations in 1948. “For the past 73 years, this violence has displaced, harmed, and killed indigenous Palestinians,” the statement reads. “This is not a ‘conflict,’ but emblematic of Israeli settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.” The CSG leaders went on to claim that anti-Palestinian and proIsrael sentiments were rampant in our campus community. The statement acknowledges that CSG has
participated in pro-Israel events, such as funding yearly trips to Israel for Jewish students. “We also must recognize CSG’s prior complicity with Israel’s violence through participation in events such as yearly trips to Israel that supported the settler-state in its apartheid and occupation,” the statement reads. The CSG leaders ended their statement by calling on the University to divest from Israeli companies and by vowing to use their platform to uplift and represent Palestinian voices and work with Palestinian student groups, such as Students Allied For Freedom and Equality (SAFE). “The University of Michigan remains complicit by choosing not to divest from Israeli companies profiting off the settler state’s occupation,” the statement reads. “As such, CSG is determined to correct these wrongs by working with SAFE and other organizations advocating for Palestinian liberation to curate actionable steps that will be released at a later date.” The statement comes less than five years after CSG voted against calling on the University to divest their investments from Israeli companies in 2016. CSG passed a resolution in 2017 calling on the University to form a committee to look into divesting from said Israeli companies, but that resolution was ultimately rejected by the Board of Regents. Student reactions The statement drew mixed reactions from the campus community, with some believing that the statement was biased and onesided, and others believing that CSG did what was necessary to support Read more at michigandaily.com
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Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
U-M community reacts to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students in on-campus housing hope was that in two years, we would
JUSTIN O’BEIRNE, LIZ HWANG & have a vaccine that might be effective ISABELLE REGENT at the 50% level,” Jacobson said. “We Daily Staff Reporters
University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel announced on Apr. 23 that any students who decide to live in on-campus housing for the 2021-2022 school year must be fully vaccinated to be eligible for housing. Students planning to live in the residence halls must provide proof of vaccination by July 15, barring limited exemptions that have not yet been laid out. A large contingent of higher education institutions have set forth vaccination requirements for their students, while other universities and colleges are reluctant to mandate vaccines due to legal and ethical reasons. In an email to The Michigan Daily, Dr. Robert Ernst, Associate Vice President for Student Life and Executive Director of the University Health Service, wrote that the University will accept COVID-19 vaccinations that are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization. The accepted vaccines currently include the Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson/Janssen, and AstraZeneca (Covishield) vaccines. The University recommends that all students, regardless of living location, upload proof of their COVID19 vaccination to Wolverine Access before the beginning of the fall semester. Ernst said this information will be used to inform plans for the fall. Ernst said that Michigan Housing is working on a specific plan for how exemptions will be managed and will share this information soon. Students who are vaccinated will not be required to adhere to on-campus testing requirements in the fall semester. “This (vaccine) information will be used to protect our community in many ways, including waived testing and quarantine requirements, social distancing needs, public healthinformed housing decisions and administrative planning,” Ernst said. Professor Emeritus Peter Jacobson, professor of health law and policy, said that although the vaccines did not go through the normal three-phase process of approval, they are still safe and effective. “Nothing is perfect, but just think of it this way: a little over a year ago, the
now have, in one year, a vaccine that’s effective in the 95% level.” Regardless of the public concern, Jacobson said the vaccine mandate at the University will protect the overall community as long as the University gives students and staff of different socioeconomic backgrounds equal access to the vaccine. Jacobson said he is a firm believer in vaccinating everyone, with the exception of certain students and staff due to medical reasons. “You’re in a small community,” Jacobson said. “You’re in dorms, you’re in classes, you’re exposing professors. You’re exposing U-M staff. It seems to me that the University has every right to protect itself.” Some critics argue that vaccine mandates are a violation of the Nuremberg code, which was created after World War II to
increased testing and mask wearing. “Given the politicized environment we’re in, there is this threat of backlash and I think before we go there, we should consider there’s a lot of options on a continuum here,” Roberts said. Additionally, Roberts said, clear and early communication to all campus community members is vital to the peaceful enforcement of vaccine requirements on the U-M campus. “Historically, there was great trust in government public health, and even reasonable trust in the pharmaceutical industry not so long ago, but you think both of those actors have suffered from a loss of public trust,” Roberts said. International Students Even if international students arriving on campus in the fall are unable to get vaccinated in their home country, Ernst said the University will provide easy access to vaccination. The University has partnered with Michigan Medicine, the Washtenaw
TESS CROWLEY/Daily Students and staff following COVID-19 precautions in Bursley Hall.
protect people from non-consensual experimentation. Jacobson said the vaccines are not experimental because there is concrete evidence the vaccines are not harmful to human beings. “How do you then have so few side effects after millions of doses — after a hundred million doses — in the U.S., two hundred million shots in the U.S.?” Jacobson said. J. Scott Roberts, professor of health behavior and health education, said each university should set policies according to the needs of their specific community. One example of this, according to Roberts, is the execution of soft mandates, where colleges set consequences for students and staff who do not get vaccinated, such as
County Health Department and several local pharmacies to help the campus community get vaccinated. Ernst said students who arrive on campus unvaccinated, including international students who were not able to get vaccinated before the fall, will be expected to undergo surveillance testing until they are fully vaccinated. At the time of publication, 12.2% of people living in China have been vaccinated against COVID-19. China is using the Sinopharm vaccine, which has a lower efficacy rate than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. In 2020, there were 3,493 Chinese-born students enrolled at U-M. Read more at michigandaily.com
NEWS 3
It’s been one month since the FDA paused the Johnson & Johnson vaccine: Here’s how vaccine hesitancy has been impacted EMILY BLUMBERG & MADELEINE BAUER Daily Staff Reporters
The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a joint statement on April 13, recommending an immediate pause on administering the Johnson and Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine “out of an abundance of caution.” The ensuing 11-day pause was a result of six reported cases in which women ranging from 18 to 48 years of age experienced severe blood clots — a new condition known as thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) — less than two weeks after receiving the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. By the time the vaccine had been brought to a halt, 6.8 million doses of the vaccine had already been administered in the U.S. The J&J vaccine is one of three CDC-authorized and recommended COVID-19 vaccinations, along with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The J&J vaccine is currently only approved for those 18 and over and was reported as 66.3% effective in clinical trials at preventing COVID19 two weeks after vaccination, compared to Pfizer and Moderna, which were 95% and 94.1% effective respectively. Despite the lower efficacy, the J&J vaccine was 100% effective in trials against hospitalizations and death from COVID-19. Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccinations, the J&J vaccination does not need to be stored at sub-zero temperatures and is administered in one shot rather than two. The single required shot makes administration and distribution easier for communities with limited access to health resources and may be more attractive to individuals with needle anxiety or busy schedules. Less than a week before the recommended pause of the J&J vaccine, University President Mark Schlissel sent out an email to the campus community announcing that 7,500 doses of the J&J vaccine would be available for students to receive at locations across the three University of Michigan campuses at no cost. After the recall was announced, student appointments for the J&J vaccine were either switched to Pfizer
vaccine or cancelled altogether. On April 23, Martino Harmon, vice president of student life, announced that being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 would be required for all students living in on-campus housing for the Fall 2021 semester. The University said students are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving a single dose vaccine — like J&J — or two weeks after receiving the second shot in a two-dose vaccine series. On that same day, the FDA and CDC put out an additional statement lifting the pause on the J&J vaccine, publicly reaffirming that it is both safe and effective. As of May 14, including the six reported cases before the pause, there have been 28 total confirmed cases of TTS — six of them males. All of them were individuals who had recently received the J&J vaccine, and three patients died as a result. Campus community remains confident in Johnson and Johnson vaccine safety Although there were concerns regarding the J&J vaccine’s safety after the recall, a national poll conducted by the de Beaumont Foundation reported that 76% of those surveyed were just as likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine as they were before the pause. Additionally, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 18% of Hispanic women, 11% of Black men and 7% of white women said the news regarding the TTS cases made them less likely to get vaccinated. U-M students have also expressed minimal concern about the recall of J&J or campus vaccination requirements. As of May 13, Michigan Medicine had administered over 126,000 COVID-19 vaccines with no signs of slowing down. LSA sophomore Sophie Rogoff received the J&J vaccine prior to the recall and said she has no concerns about the safety of the vaccine. She mentioned her experience with using birth control, which the FDA states has between a 0.09% and 0.3% chance of causing blood clots. The risk of developing TTS after receiving the J&J vaccine is significantly lower than the blood clots occasionally caused by birth control. Read more at michigandaily.com
4 OPINION
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
BENJAMIN DAVIS | OPINION COLUMNIST
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AMIR FLEISCHMANN | CONTRACT COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR
O
GEO’s Fight for the Right to Boycott
n Thursday, April 22, representatives from the Graduate Employees’ Organization met with University of Michigan administrators to discuss an important campus free speech issue — the right to exercise freedom of conscience through the refusal of letters of recommendation. The discussion revealed the University’s policy for what it is: an attack on academic freedom designed not to protect students or faculty, but only to shield the University from controversy and liability. This right has been under attack at the University of Michigan since 2018, when two instructors, in separate incidents, declined requests for recommendations from students wishing to study in Israel. Writing these letters would have gone against the academic boycott of Israel in support of Palestinian human rights, and both instructors declined them for that reason. Even though Professor John Cheney-Lippold was exercising his constitutional right to free speech, University leaders nevertheless issued severe sanctions, including the loss of his upcoming sabbatical and a denial of a merit-based raise for one year. The graduate student instructor received a formal letter of admonishment from her department chair with implied threats of dismissal from the graduate program if such behavior were to happen again. What’s more, President Schlissel and then-Provost Martin Philbert issued a public statement that denounced both instructors.
The punishment meted out to Professor Cheney-Lippold and the public statement from the most powerful University leaders was meant to warn campus faculty of the price for academic freedom, and potentially had a chilling effect on those who might otherwise speak out if they did not feel threatened. But the University wanted to make sure this wouldn’t happen again, so they convened a so-called Blue Ribbon Panel to devise a policy that would govern letters of recommendation. The resulting policy is a strident attack on free speech. It doesn’t prohibit instructors from denying letters of recommendation for political or ethical reasons, but only from vocalizing those reasons. This did not sit well with GEO members, who voted overwhelmingly to oppose the policy in our 2020 contract negotiations. Much has been written about “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech,” which describes the way norms of freedom of expression are so often bent to exclude those who would speak out for justice in Palestine. Despite the ongoing assault on Palestinian lives and human rights, however, our problem with the University’s policy on letters of recommendation is not just about Palestine. More and more, instructors are starting to see letters of recommendation as an important site of political opposition and learning. There is a growing movement among mathematicians to refuse to write letters for privacy-
violating surveillance organizations, like the National Security Agency. There is also the longstanding trend of declining recommendation requests for Teach for America applicants. We can think of a whole host of objectionable organizations — ExxonMobil, Raytheon, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s, R-Ga., congressional office — to which an instructor may want to vocally refuse to write letters of recommendation. Being able to voice the reason for denying a letter of recommendation is a critical component of any boycott, and GEO is proud to stand against this indefensible policy. GEO ultimately won a meeting with U-M administrators to discuss the policy and how it will be implemented. The discussion left us only with a clearer sense of how poorly thought-out and difficult to implement the policy is. While U-M administrators made repeated reference to fears of discrimination as justification for the policy, they were never able to explain how Teach for America applicants could be understood as a group that could be discriminated against. Read more at michigandaily.com Amir Fleischmann is the Contract Committee Co-Chair at the University of Michigan’s Graduate Employees Organization and can be reached at contractchair@geo3550.org.
Let America’s educators teach science without the stigma
I
once had an interaction with my high school physics teacher that has stuck with me ever since. During one of the weekly chats we’d have in her classroom after school, I wondered out loud why neither evolution nor the Big Bang theory were covered in the biology or physics curricula. My teacher explained to me that being in a town drenched in parochial ideology, there was a don’t ask, don’t tell policy covering the teaching of evolution. Science instructors were encouraged to not teach the subject and to only field questions when asked. While not surprising to me in light of the culture of my hometown — Ortonville, Mich. — it was infuriating to know that social pressure was pushing my science teachers to avoid evolution in their general science courses. No law was restricting them. Only the fear of becoming a social pariah was in the way of them providing students with a scientifically complete education. What is happening in my hometown is not an anomaly in the contemporary United States. A 2019 survey reported that only 67% of public high school biology teachers present Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection as the scientific consensus. This is an increase from past surveys, but still quite low given that the theory of evolution is one of the most championed theories in all of biology. One out of every three teachers is not portraying evolution by natural selection as the robust scientific theory that it is — a theory that has been fortified with new evidence every year since it was first proposed. This presents obstacles to students who wish to further their science education at postsecondary institutions. More worrisome is that evolution denial propagates ignorance and scientific illiteracy — issues all the more pertinent in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Legal prohibitions on the public instruction of evolutionary theory do not hold anymore, but teachers’ apprehension about teaching evolution as agreed-upon science indicates that traditionalist mores still weigh down the American public education system. Bans on teaching evolution in public schools is as old as the theory itself. One of the first major conflicts between scientific
educators and conservative policy makers in U.S. history was the Scopes Trial of 1925. This legal case concerned a Tennessee public school teacher who taught evolutionary theory despite a Tennessee law prohibiting instruction of human evolution in any school that received state funding. This trial catalyzed the debate between creationism and evolutionary theory. From then on, legal challenges to the instruction of evolution and natural selection in public schools have been mounted by many Christian groups — usually those from evangelical traditions — with varying degrees of success. Now, I cannot criticize those 1920s Tennessee creationist policy makers too virulently, as at that time evolution was not a majority-held belief among Christians nor society at large. But criticism is warranted for contemporary teachers and education boards who are still reluctant to teach evolutionary theory and natural selection in light of the now 160 years of evidence — including the crucial discovery of DNA and genes — that provide robust support for evolution. And while I understand that some regions of the country have intense negative social sanctions against anti-creationist rhetoric that can be hard for teachers to overcome, it is more important that teachers plan science curriculum around empirical observations than socially-pressured traditional beliefs. This is not to say that learning about religious practice has no room in education — just that it does not belong in scientific curriculum at the expense of silencing scientific fact. A more apt place would be in the domain of social studies, with an emphasis on the diversity of religious practice. But having evolutionary theory not presented to students within their science courses promotes widespread ignorance and scientific illiteracy, two issues detrimental if a society wishes to better itself. Denying students the knowledge that many biologists view as foundational to their discipline serves ideology much more than it serves education. Read more at michigandaily.com Benjamin Davis is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at bendav@umich.edu.
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
CECIEL ZHONG | SOPHOMORE DUAL-DEGREE
OPINION 5
Beyond empty promises: The pursuit of systemic change to the University’s toxic environment of gender-based violence
Content Warning: This article discusses gender-based violence, which includes but is not limited to sexual violence. ngaging in student activism was not part of my plan in 2019, but like many others, to stay calm was to ignore the horror and anger caused by the new interim sexual assault and misconduct policy. This policy, among other things, allowed direct cross-examination for survivors who came forward. Despite the outcry, the University of Michigan did not change its procedure, insisting to wait for former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos’s new regulations to come out. The University’s position drifted with the unstable political climate and in turn, allowed survivors of sexual violence to be re-traumatized through this interim policy. Administrators claim that they “take allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously.” The words seem
E
clear: “Sexual misconduct will not be tolerated in the University of Michigan community.” However, in the past two years, it is hard to count the times when high-profile cases on campus arose with one hand. The University administration has made its stance well known through words and statements, but how has institutional change truly been implemented so far? To look at that we need to understand that sexual assault is about power and control. The University, as an institution, exerts institutional power that ostracises survivors through inadequate report addressments, resulting in institutional betrayal. This pattern has been exemplified through highprofile cases at the University such as Robert Anderson, Martin Philbert, and David Daniels, to name a few. Institutional betrayal created a mass of known perpetrators spreading across schools and departments, including SMTD, EECS, Michigan Athletics,
Michigan Medicine, and OIE itself, a place that everyone was told to go to if an incident occurs. Meanwhile, campus organizers witnessed an apparent disconnect between the administrators and the people whom the policy directly impacted. What was consistent among the headlines is that the University knows of perpetrators at the institution, but continues failing to act promptly and comprehensively, both in retrospect and in foresight. To “act” would be a series of steps toward justice, which includes both individually and systemically addressing where the failure occurred, rethinking and transforming the institutional structures and power relations that enabled harm. In the class-action lawsuit against former University of Michigan athletic doctor Robert Anderson, that abuse occurred years ago is not an excuse for fractional justice and no change. Appropriate actions extend beyond
JOSIE GRAHAM | JUNIOR
Beyond empty promises: Why I signed onto the class action lawsuit against U-M for students affected
Content Warning: This article discusses gender-based violence. Genderbased violence “ … refers to harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms.” write this article in honor of the survivors of gender-based violence filing the class-action lawsuit against the University of Michigan for allowing Robert E. Anderson former U of M athletic doctor’s decades of abuse to continue unabated and for all other survivors of gender-based violence. This story belongs to them and to all of the survivors who go unheard and continue to be failed by oppressive systems, which perpetuate violence and inequity against marginalized groups, on this campus, in this country and across the globe. I am no expert; I do not hold all the answers to solve this complex, nuanced issue. I write this, first and foremost, to call for justice for survivors, a form of justice defined solely by them and what they need to heal, varying on a case-to-case basis. They deserve better. To all survivors, thank you for protecting all of us in filing this suit. The University knew of its abuse and failed
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all of you and the rest of our community by enabling it. If the University cares about its students, it would take responsibility for this unimaginable injury and validate these survivors. Second, I write this as a call to myself and all of us to continue to reckon with the reality of gender-based violence, a reality we construct and maintain and to start to think of and pursue solutions to deconstruct it. I hope this op-ed encourages further debate, reflection and action when it comes to addressing and dismantling the oppressive systems that create gender-based violence. *** Zoom In. Case I: Former U-M provost Martin Philbert sexually harassed multiple people over two decades throughout his entire career at the University, rising in ranks from professor to Dean to Provost, the head of the office that oversees cases of gender-based violence. University officials, including President Mark Schlissel, knew of the rumors, now proven true, circulating about Philbert’s misconduct and failed to launch investigations until the 20182019 school year. Case II: More than 150 survivors have come forward in filing indi-
vidual lawsuits and a class-action lawsuit against the University in response to the University’s handling of sexual abuse of students by former athletic doctor Robert E. Anderson dating back to the 1960s. The University received over 460 complaints against Anderson, starting this February. Worst of all, former football coach Bo Schembechler and former athletic director Don Canham knew about Anderson’s actions and failed to do anything in response at the time. Anderson worked until his retirement in 2003, despite being demoted for his behavior in 1979. Case III: The Michigan Daily uncovered 40 years of harassment and sexual misconduct allegations against SMTD faculty Stephen Shipps. Case IV: Employees at Clinc, an AI start-up, made allegations of sexual misconduct against Clinc’s CEO and EECS professor Jason Mars; some faculty wrote a statement calling for Mars to take a leave of absence. He taught an undergraduate course during the Winter 2021 semester. Case V: In 2019, the University conducted a survey on sexual misconduct. Critical results include: 12.4% of women and 1.7% of men experience rape on campus; 20.4% of women and
providing verbal support to adopting institutional courage, which means cherishing the whistleblower, creating a culture of transparency, and using institutional power to protect community members, not assaulters. Despite the long-standing myths of false reports ruining one’s life, “the alleged” seldom face expulsion from the University, as reflected by OIE’s Annual Report in 2016, 2017, and 2018. In the workplace, three out of four sexual misconduct cases go unreported, and over 60% of people who committed sexual assault are repeated offenders. This reality is played out in Philbert’s rise in ranks despite years of rumors and Anderson’s decades of abuse, which harmed hundreds of students. Statistics and numbers numb me, as do all of the released “official statements.” Actions, not words, are the true criterion of our community values. When protecting survivors is solely treated as a checkbox to maintain fed-
eral funding and reputation, the campus climate will not improve. When the Sixth Circuit Court discouraged personal confrontation — recommending agents, not students themselves to conduct cross-examination — but the University’s interim policy still maintained to not provide representatives for students who need them, we ask, how could we count on the procedure to be trauma-informed? When a professor with pending sexual misconduct lawsuits was appointed to teach a large course in the upcoming semester without considering the community, we ask what the University has learned from the WilmerHale report that was released not long ago? Read more at michigandaily.com Ceciel Zhong is a sophomore dual-degree student in the School of Information and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She can be reached at xizhong@umich.edu.
AMBIKA TRIPATHI | OPINION CARTOONIST CAN BE REACHED AT AMBIKAT@UMICH.EDU.
4.2% of men experience nonconsensual sexual touching on campus; 34.3% of undergraduate women remain most at risk for experiencing nonconsensual touching and penetration on campus; 17% of undergraduates, 26.4% of women, experience unwanted kissing and sexual touching prior to coming to the University; 6.7% of undergraduates,
10.6% of women, experience unwanted penetration or oral sex prior to coming to the University. Read more at michigandaily.com Josie Graham is a junior in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and can be reached at josiekg@umich.edu.
6 MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Performative Diversity in Netflix’s Shadow and Bone
SAFURA SYED MiC Columnist
When I arrived in Ann Arbor in January, I embarked on a quest to survive my second semester of college. Along my epic journey, I faced powerful foes such as Calculus 2 and second year-level Japanese. Night after night, I crossed swords with Taylor polynomials and kanji characters. Despite several defeats over the course of the semester, I vanquished my last final exams and claimed the ultimate treasure, an ancient relic I had long since forgotten: free time. Immediately after my Calc 2 final, I swiftly exited Gradescope and navigated over to Steam; it was time I enjoyed myself with a good video game after months of nonstop work. Combing through my backlog of games, I stumbled across “Omori,” a psychological horror game set in a deceptively bright and colorful, nostalgic, 8-bit fantasy world brimming with amusing characters and heartfelt moments. I bought Omori just a few days after its release after seeing a video showing the game’s cute art style on Tiktok. I had anticipated the game’s horror
elements from its description on Steam; nevertheless I was still a little shocked when my player character began in a sparse, eerie white room called Whitespace. After poking around the area and obtaining a knife as a weapon, a door became accessible and let me venture through the world with other friendly characters I met. The pastel world design and charming characters were so adorable that I pretty much forgot that this was a horror game. And because I was familiar with the fairly simple combat system found in other turn-based role-playing games like “Pokémon,” I was immediately comfortable with Omori. As a result, I never wondered why there was an inaccessible menu option labelled “???” on the top-left corner of my screen (Since I was still in the tutorial, I figured this would be a normal tool that would open up to me later). And when my character learned a combat skill bluntly labelled “stab,” I never viewed it as anything more than a basic element typical to the genre. This comforting familiarity combined with Omori’s exaggeratedly adorable world design lulled me into a false sense of security and quietly set me up for calamity.
After I spent about 30 minutes learning the in-game combat mechanics, becoming acquainted with the main cast and marveling at the charming world and character design, one of the supporting characters suddenly became enveloped by a mysterious darkness. Completely unexplained, the player character is teleported back to Whitespace, except now the door I once passed through is gone. The sudden ejection from my pastoral fantasyland back into the sinister Whitespace left me trembling as I yearned for the sense of comfort I felt just minutes prior. With no clear way out in an infinite and empty room, I wandered around aimlessly, desperately searching for the exit but to no avail. Out of options, I opened up the in-game menu in order to search for an item or something to use. “STAB,” written in a bold red font, replaced the “???” option I had previously ignored. Once I apprehensively selected the “STAB” option, the game prompted me to confirm that I wanted to stab my player character. Read more at michigandaily.com
The PI in AAPI is silenced ANDREW NAKAMURA MiC Columnist
The month of May brings warmer weather and millions of posts under the Asian American Pacific Islander hashtag across all social media platforms. It is AAPI Heritage Month, a time for every Asian American and Pacific Islander to celebrate their respective cultures. AAPI commemoration was first officially recognized in 1978 as just one week in May, and the celebration didn’t expand into a month and didn’t become annual until 1990. At the same time, the U.S. Census Bureau was using the Asian Pacific Islander label they had used starting in the 1980s. However, while the Census Bureau separated the two groups in the year 2000, the label has continued to persist in colloquial use and in names such as AAPI Heritage Month. From celebrities to “woke” corporations and Instagram activist accounts, everyone has started using the AAPI label, yet the term never felt right to me.
As the word AAPI has risen in popularity in recent months, I began to wonder if people really had Pacific Islanders’ interests in mind when they used the AAPI label. I grew up in Hawaii, and as I met more people from mainland America, I realized just how little people know about the Pacific Islands. Most of my mainland American friends didn’t even know the three regions composing the Pacific Islands, yet all of a sudden, it seemed like everyone was discussing violence against Asian Americans AND Pacific Islanders. As I read article after article with AAPI in the headline, I noticed that I found nearly no quotes from Pacific Islanders. I waded through a flood of Asian-focused writing until I found articles specifically centering Pacific Islanders’ opinions on the AAPI label. The AAPI label continues to spread online without people understanding its flaws. Despite comprising half the acronym, Pacific Islanders, composed of Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian ethnic groups, are often left out of the
discussion surrounding AAPI issues. In reality, AAPI in most contexts just means Asian, more specifically East Asian, yet tacks on Pacific Islanders like an afterthought. While AAPI and Asian American seem like innocuous and interchangeable terms to us non-Pacific Islanders, our carelessness with the label harms the Pacific Islander community we claim to want to uplift. In an attempt to be inclusive, the use of the AAPI can end up causing more harm than good. Pacific Islanders are often drowned out by the comparatively large influx of Asian American voices. As a result, the issues and needs of Asian Americans are projected onto Pacific Islander Americans, misrepresenting the actual struggles Pacific Islanders face. For example, according to research compiled by APM Research Lab, Pacific Islander Americans are facing COVID-19 infection rates nearly two times higher than Asian Americans. Read more at michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color Collective Statement on Palestine
Design by Marina Sun
MICHIGAN IN COLOR STAFF Disclaimer: This collective statement is written under the crucial understanding that Israel is an occupation and apartheid. It is an occupation in that it controls who goes in and out of Palestine and continuously and illegally occupies Palestinian land through Israeli police aggression and Israeli “Defense” Forces, which we will more accurately refer to as the Israeli Occupation Forces throughout this statement since “defense” falsely implies an equivalent power to defend against. Israel is an apartheid in that the Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated as less than by the Israeli government on issues from a lack of civil rights compared to Jewish citizens of Israel, to medical discrimination, to a lack of clean water, and property expulsions. Israel exists at the expense of Palestinians, and for that, this piece is centered on the importance of a liberated Palestine. Introduction Saturday, May 15 marked the annual commemoration of the Nakba (Nakba is the Arabic word for “catastrophe”). Since 1948, the ongoing Nakba has resulted in the displacement of over 7.2 million Palestinians, the brutal genocide of over 1,240,000 Palestinians and the destruction of over 927 Palestinian villages. This day signifies yet another year of oppression and forced immobility for the Palestinian people as they continuously suffer from the structurally violent state of Israel that works to oppress, dispossess and displace Palestinians. The oppression of Palestinian people is commonly mislabeled as a “conflict” between two sides. This false characterization serves as an erasure of Palestinian oppression and suggests Palestine’s defense is equally oppressive. Israel
has one of the most extensive armies in the world, while Palestine does not have a unified military and has restricted access to weaponry; it’s clear that “bothsidesism” and the notion of an equal conflict are not only inapplicable, but dangerous. The magnitude of Israeli settlercolonialism, the development of the apartheid-state and the ongoing ethnic cleansing committed against Palestinians indicates that this oppression should more accurately be termed a humanitarian crisis. The oppression of Palestinians is rooted in Zionism: a racist, ultra-nationalistic ideology that, while based on the desire for Jewish self-determination, strips Palestinians of their rights on their own ancestral land and justifies the continuous perpetration of inhumane war crimes towards Palestinians. The bigotry and violence birthed from Zionism is the direct reason that Israel violently targeted Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on May 7, killed over 197 Palestinians in Gaza with airstrikes in the last week, murdered at least seven people in the occupied West Bank and violently attempted to dispossess Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. May 15 of 2021, Nakba Day, commemorates 73 years of pain for Palestinians, characterized by years of air strikes, innumerable violations of humanitarian laws — including the denial of basic rights for Palestinians such as the right to own property or vote — and relentless weaponization of international aid in support of Israel. Much of academia, from students to scholars, dismisses the oppression endured by Palestinians as complex, but in reality it is quite simple to understand — Israel is the oppressor and Palestinians are the oppressed. Read more at michigandaily.com
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR 7
Stuck In The Middle... Alone LEENA SHARBA MiC Columnist
It’s 6 a.m.: My mom has just woken up. I am sitting at the kitchen counter with a blanket around my shoulders, coffee cup in hand while lectures play on double-speed on my laptop. Finally convinced to go to sleep, I set my alarm in time for my 11 a.m. meeting with my internship supervisor, exasperated at the reality that this is what my life has become: zoom calls, sleepless nights, days in sweats, family arguments and isolation. Sighing, I scroll through my social media feeds, a nightly regimen, only to find photos of people on vacation, hanging out with friends, taking road trips… having fun. These photos fill me with anxiety — aren’t we still battling a global pandemic? Shouldn’t we be proceeding with caution? However, I also felt tinges of sadness and frustration because I am jealous — I wish I could have as much fun, but the pandemic wasn’t all to blame. I am nearing my last semester at the University of Michigan and I cannot confidently say I have made many good friends here. I have two to three friends whom I speak to regularly,
meaning at most once a month since the pandemic. Nevertheless, my struggle to foster friendships and have a “normal” college life did not only start in March 2020 but has been ongoing since the beginning of my freshman year. My time at the University so far can be best described as a tug-of-war: on one end were my parents, and I positioned myself at the opposite end and extended a rope between us. As I was the first member of my family to attend college in the United States, my parents and I found ourselves in territories we’ve never been in before: Who gets to make the decisions about my outings? When is my curfew? Who decides who comes into my room and who doesn’t? When my parents held and tightly pulled on the rope, it meant constraining the freedoms I found essential: studying in friends’ rooms, staying up late and attending events without permission. To them, I was neither an independent adult nor a needy child. I had the responsibilities of a college student but not the freedom of one, an in-between space that’s not one or the other. They tugged the rope according to those expectations and when I felt that pull, I yanked even harder the other way. I often
Living as the Exception ELIYA IMTIAZ MiC Columnist
Every so often I hear about Hazaras in Afghanistan. I just did last week — it was mostly children who died. I remember how Khaled Hosseini so beautifully and eloquently painted a heartbreaking picture of the recent history of Afghanistan. and how To this, students in classes at my predominantly white high school analyzed questions such as “why did Hassan and Ammar get treated so differently?” “What was the basis of discrimination and subjection for Hassan and his family?” Every so often I hear about a blast in Pakistan, and every so often I meet a family friend whose uncle, cousin, or sibling was killed in these blasts. Just yesterday, I found out about the Gilgit massacre of Shias, initiated over a difference in Eid dates. I stared blankly at my laptop screen wide-eyed, shocked at the abhorrent events, and shocked that I just heard of it. I think about what makes me different to freely practice my Shiism here, until I wonder — what is free
when yes, I openly use a sajdiga for my daily prayer, but still have to hear the the classic ‘why do you pray on a rock’ joke, still have to feign toleration at events with the overall community when I hear “we’re allowed to marry Jews and Muslims, just not Shias.” Every so often when I hear the news, I turn to the only method of denoting solidarity in this day and age — Instagram social activism. This metric is by no means indicative of genuity, but is telling enough in the sense that many Muslims will post about all social justice issues, until it comes to Shias. Ironically, these are the same Muslims who retweet “when it’s Muslims, the world is silent”, as though oppression is a competition in the first place. For me as a Shia and my best friend as an Ahmedi, there’s another layer to that silence- when it is us, even Muslims will be silent. The sense of solidarity that ever so often arises among Muslims is always amazing to see, but a part of me knows that this same unity will never be granted to Muslim minorities. Read more at michigandaily.com
lashed out in defiance of my parents, tightening my grasp on the rope and causing tension to build. But no matter how much we pushed and pulled, no matter how sore our hands became and exhausted we grew, we stayed in place and made no progress in either direction. I started questioning ideas supposedly fundamental to my identity: Why should I adhere to these rules? What does it mean if I didn’t? How did these rules come to be? Is this something all Syrians followed? What about all Muslims? What does our faith say about this? As I came into my own, I felt the weight of these choices growing like rocks on my shoulder. Often, I shared thoughts or opinions that made my parents worry, especially when I didn’t share their views on some of the issues most important to them. Instead, my actions and ideas were sometimes labeled as wrong and harmful from approaches to social justice to even my ideal career path. Additionally, due to the intersectionality of my identities — Syrian, Ismaili Muslim, immigrant woman — there was no community on campus that I closely identified with. I became a foreigner in both Syrian and American spaces, not enough
of either to completely fit in. Most of my peers had a very different outlook at things: College was a monumental moment in our lives where we learn to be independent and find ourselves and dream about our futures. While I did identify with their sentiments and the idea of a transition, it was difficult for me to adopt that perspective. I could not be American enough for my peers’ advice and I could not be Syrian enough for my parents’ expectations. Even other Syrian Americans I knew had college experiences on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. During the winter semester of my junior year, I decided to take a semester off because it all became too much to deal with while also being a student. It was unthinkable to my parents that I spend this semester anywhere but home, especially Ann Arbor — a place that to them, was full of bad influences. Staying home presented its own challenges. Two months into that semester, COVID19 hit and arguments erupted almost every day regarding questions of where I would be living for the hybrid academic year. Even as I grew and my empathy for my parents grew, it also had limits: I still could not fathom
why they would not let me be on campus. Now, instead of being home for four months, I have been home for a year and five months. This period has only advanced my isolation and further distanced me and my friends. My social life was replaced by occasional facetime calls and once-amonth day trips I would take to Ann Arbor for visits. As I reflect on these past months, I realize I may have acted out of a lack of empathy — fixating on my own negativity rather than considering how my family was feeling too. I dismissed large compromises and efforts that my family had made for assimilating into “the American life,” like allowing me to go to my first sleepover or inviting my friends over for a surprise birthday party. I focused too much on our disagreement and overlooked the tremendous amount of love we shared that allowed my parents to sacrifice so much for us with big smiles on their faces always. While I positioned myself and my parents on opposite sides of the rope in this game of tug-of-war, I realized tugging was not a way to freedom, but letting go was. Read more at michigandaily.com
Transparency in FKA Twigs’ “Cellophane” MARIAM ODEH MiC Columnist
After a dormant three years, English singer-songwriter FKA Twigs has given me the first song of my playlist titled, “Banshee Vibes: I wanna rip my heart out and scream, but in a good way.” Her hit single “Cellophane,” an extremely vulnerable piano ballad centers around leading a relationship in the public eye and the toll it takes on one’s self-esteem and image. With a Grammy Award nomination for Best Music Video and named the best song of 2019 by Pitchfork, “Cellophane” unravels the raw human emotions that envelop love, loss, and everything in between. Twigs’ delicate and soothing voice offers a stark contrast to the song’s heart wrenching lyrics; uncomplicated words dripping with complicated feelings, pushing and pulling at all of our hearts. FKA Twigs opens “Cellophane” with a series of emotional questions seemingly directed at her former lover, Twilight star, Robert Pattinson. It seizes our heartbroken souls from the start, ensuring Twigs is getting
her point across without drawing it out while also engaging the slightly psychotic—like me—who listen to sad songs, especially at the height of their joy. Littered with rhetorical questions, accompanied only by the majestic keys of a piano playing in D Major paints Twigs in an anguished state, begging the question “Why was I not enough to be worthy of your love?” She goes on to repeat the chorus twice more in the middle of the song, pinpointing this message of worthiness in the face of adversity without explicitly stating it. Talk about self-esteem issues, sheesh. Throughout the remainder of the song, Twigs uses very powerful, yet simple diction. Using repetitive verses like, “They wanna see us, wanna see us alone They wanna see us, wanna see us apart,” She’s able to highlight the pain and vulnerability that accompanies the meddling and scrutiny of the world’s selfish eyes. During her three year relationship with Robert Pattinson, she received constant criticism and hate from Twilight fans who were upset that Pattison was no longer
dating his white co-star, Kristen Stewart. I don’t know about y’all, but anything is still a better love story than Twilight, especially the beautiful Twattinson couple…actually, Pigs is probably our best bet.The criticism turned into racism, and fans all over the globe began targeting Twigs’ biracial background, comparing her to a monkey regardless of what she did. She also spoke on how this constant racist barrage made her feel dysmorphic for close to a year especially when she saw photos of herself. Her seemingly effortless word choice and repetition gives the illusion of simplicity whilst her groaning, cracking voice bears the weight of the world and all its problems. The contrast between the delicate piano playing, while her vulnerable vocals shine through allows us to relate to her relationship problems, even if not at the same level as that of A-list celebrities. Twigs’ word choice, while reveling in the phrase “short, but sweet,” is extremely impactful and never overstays its welcome. Read more at michigandaily.com
8 ARTS The anomaly of “17776: What football will look like in the future” Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MEERA KUMAR Daily Arts Writer
Our time will come to an end. But what if it doesn’t? What would you do? Would you quit your job and travel the world? Take a nap? “17776,” a hypertext speculative fiction narrative by Jon Bois, proposes a different answer on behalf of humanity: play football. As a deeply conditional football “fan,” this piece has to be my favorite thing I’ve ever read (and truly, I believe that “17776” should be experienced with little prior knowledge). Published online in 2017 at SB Nation, a sports-focused media outlet owned by Vox, “17776” is a deeply odd and oddly deep fictional narrative that questions how the scarcity of time affects existence. Set 15,755 years in the future, Bois creates a world where birth, death and the suffering in between ended on April 7, 2026. People live free of financial and health concerns; instead, in the United States, many focus their energy on an ongoing nationwide football game,
where participants play or engage in fanfare. The story is narrated by three sentient space probes, who jokingly converse about the state of the universe while observing the game. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. First, the format: a mixture of monthly calendars, group chat records, historical documents, podcast transcripts and Google Maps of a landscape different from our own. “17776” is a narrative that pushes the boundaries of fiction, especially on the internet: it’s one of the most well-known additions to the internet genre of hyperliterature, in which online fiction uses unconventional, expressive forms to convey its “function.” While newly-awakened space probe Nine’s (Pioneer 9) group chat messages are formal, insistent and laden with question marks (most commonly “What?” followed by questions like “We don’t do anything, right?” and “This is the end, right? The end of this story?”), Ten’s (Pioneer 10) and Juice’s (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) texts are much more casual,
with less grammar and more jokes, like this one about Lunchables: “neatly partitioned meats and cheeses appeal to me on an aesthetic level ok mfer.” Ten and Juice are deeply familiar with the state of the universe and have no sense of time or urgency — they don’t ask questions or bother with most things, really. Compared with Nine’s insistent questioning and existential dread, they seem uninterested in “serious” questions of the world around them. Juice would much rather discuss football, like many of the humans on earth. The lack of “productivity” infuriates Nine, from the late 20th century, who begins angrily texting messages such as “I’m appalled… disgusted, I guess,” overcome with the lack of “purpose.” Ten and Juice then slowly and calmly text back, explaining to Nine that “wasting” time is simply impossible — time has ceased to be a finite resource, and life goes on forever. In “17776,” human beings are no longer under the jurisdiction of the natural world. But for creatures who’ve learned to define their existence with constraints such
as time, money and physical ability, immortality is terrifying. Since, instead of uncertainty or stress, “boredom is their only enemy,” so humanity turns to sports to deal with being alive. The sheer amount of thought put into “17776” is impressive. With plenty of newspaper clippings, historical facts and believable vignettes, the intricate worldbuilding makes the piece feel like an irreverent, entertaining study of history. Looking at historical documents such as certificates and newspaper clippings makes me feel like I’m trying to answer a Data-Based Question for my high school American history class again (in a good way, this time). The montages of documents over a course of 15,000 years have a way of making you feel incredibly inconsequential in their magnitude. Most of the “historical” vignettes narrated by the space probes’ group chat gave me genuine goosebumps, as I absorbed the stories in which people grapple with the pain of an endless existence. The tales weave in and out of the football game, making
the unnatural seem profoundly mundane, and the every day seem truly otherworldly — an alwaysburning light bulb is sacred, and New York City has all but disappeared into an underwater ghost town. Additionally, “17776” remains the only true “utopian” piece of literature I’ve ever read; absent of suffering, it’s impressive that the piece so thoroughly captures attention without the traditional ideas of “conflict.” Instead, it draws readers in through thorough worldbuilding, crafting a reality wholly different but strangely similar to our own. Ultimately, within the story, many Americans turn to football to pass the time, like we always have. Many, including Nine, could easily call playing football a waste of time. But, in our world and theirs, humans’ need for sports goes beyond expectations of productivity and profit; Bois shows us that to unite in this fashion and bring uncertainty and excitement to a life filled with mundanity is anything but useless. Read more at michigandaily.com
Squid becomes its own narrator on ‘Bright Green Field’ DREW GADBOIS Daily Arts Writer
It feels like the name Squid has been circulating around the music blogosphere for half a decade at this point. The band has maintained an almost elusive aura, only sparking further intrigue with every subsequent single and EP released. What’s more, the music they were trickling out to the public evaded any surefire categorization, to a point where critics and enthusiasts alike have piled them with other oddball U.K. groups as something they call “New Weird Britain” — which is just a fancy way of saying “unclassifiable guitar music from across the pond.” Although, if we’re to take this niche seriously, the associated bands are certainly making a statement this year with shame and Black Country, New Road already releasing critically hailed projects. However, if there is any record that people were expecting from this supposed subgenre, it is Squid’s debut. Bright Green Field follows the pattern of the music Squid has been teasing up until now,
which is that it doesn’t really follow any pattern at all. Without a doubt, there will be people who simply call it art rock and move on, but that would be a strong generalization of what the band manages to construct. Bright Green Field is an album so dedicated to the concept of “no idea is a bad idea” that it
mess. Fortunately, it would seem the last five years have properly conditioned Squid. Bright Green Field successfully avoids the pitfalls of such a process and amounts to one of the most unique rock albums this year, and on their first go no less. Of course, Squid’s inspirations come through clearly — Talking
Courtesy of Julian Wray
fully commits itself to throw everything at the wall. Naturally, this is quite a risky endeavor, and for the less prepared, this surely would have been an unmitigated
Heads and Pere Ubu are two that come to mind — but it’s the instability of how these influences are combined and transfigured that demonstrates the group’s
originality. For example, the track “Boy Racers” starts with a groove and adds layers of guitar riffs into something both upbeat and off-kilter. Much like some of the other lengthy tracks on the album, it builds pace and alters itself several times, but then gives out abruptly halfway through into something that can only be described as if Throbbing Gristle decided to take up vaporwave. It’s unbelievably bold, totally irrational and expertly executed. Another track that follows this mold is “2010,” with its complex guitar patterns — sounding straight out of In Rainbows-era Radiohead — that switch to allout thrash metal on a dime. It’s one of the best songs on the album, acting as a perfect centerpiece to the chaos. Lyrically speaking, Squid likes to keep things compact and esoteric. It’s a bit of a nebulous effort to try and decipher some larger connected meaning. However, an overarching theme of corporate mundanity and its stale purposelessness does pop up across the album. The track “Narrator” describes the desire to dictate one’s direction
in society, with vocalist Oliver Judge chanting out to the world “I’ll play my part” as if expecting some universal reply. The song “G.S.K.” is a direct reference to the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and goes on to create devastating imagery about a “Concrete Island.” This strange duality between the bombastic fun of the music and the crushing core of the lyrics contributes a certain mood to the album as if someone took a happy face and stapled the smile in place. Perhaps the Bright Green Field they are referring to is actually astroturf. When it was announced that Squid was signing to legendary electronic label Warp, it only added to the immense anticipation that the band had already accrued. Warp has built a reputation for signing nonelectronic groups just as they make their big breakout into the musical landscape; they did it for Grizzly Bear, Danny Brown, Battles, Stereolab, Broadcast, Yves Tumor and countless others. With Bright Green Field, Squid is staking their claim as a member of this list.
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MULTIMEDIA 9
Hundreds march in Dearborn in support of Palestinians JARETT ORR
Daily Staff Photographer
A few thousand Detroit and Dearborn residents gathered to rally against Israeli airstrikes and evictions of Palestinians Saturday afternoon. Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement and endorsed by the Party for Socialism and Liberation – Detroit, protesters of all ages marched through the streets of Dearborn with chants of “Free Palestine!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags of all sizes, along with many signs with the hashtag “#SaveSheikJarrah.” The group expressed vocal outrage at what they perceived as support for Israel and inaction on behalf of the Biden administration. Beginning at the Arab American National Museum, the crowd listened to speeches from various organizers and activists calling for the end to American military investment in Israel, through a movement known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). The group marched, biked, and drove down Michigan Avenue, with many bystanders showing their support as they passed by, sometimes waving flags of their own. When the protest entered the neighborhood streets of Dearborn, some residents stood on their porches expressing support, and others even joined the march. The protesters blocked westbound traffic, marching down the M-153 highway, and the group halted under a bridge, where organizers hung flags
from the overpass. Ultimately, the group gathered outside the Dearborn Police Department, where organizers voiced their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, drawing connections between Black Americans’ struggle against systemic racism and the push for Palestinian liberation. As the protesters left the Dearborn Police Department, some planted small Palestinian flags in the grass with the names of Black people killed by police written on them, including those of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Once the group returned to the Arab American National Museum, organizers gave a few final speeches and ended with a call to action to come out to protest Joe Biden’s upcoming visit to the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center on Tuesday, May 18.
10 MULTIMEDIA
Thursday, May 13, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The Show Must Go On
DOMINICK SOKOTOFF Daily Staff Photographer
The Michigan Theater and State Theatre, located in downtown Ann Arbor, have been home to countless movie screenings and performing arts events for the Ann Arbor and U-M communities in their respective 93 and 79 years of operation. The pair of historic theaters, operated by the Michigan Theater Foundation, have faced a year rife with challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In early March 2020, as COVID19 began to take hold in the state, the Michigan and State theaters closed their
doors as per an executive order signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The closure was intended to last for two weeks, but as the pandemic worsened, the theaters stayed closed indefinitely, with the marquees displaying reassuring messages such as “Flatten the Curve, See You Soon,” “Good Health to All,” and “Thank You Frontline Heros.” Through the pause, the theaters offered virtual screenings, custom marquee messages, and concessions to-go. Nevertheless, the theaters averaged a weekly loss of $10,000, and as of September, the theaters had suffered a total loss of more than $1.3 million. One of the theaters’ primary sources of
support during the pandemic came from local community members, who rallied together to contribute via memberships, donations and sponsorships. Although the theaters were able to reopen in October 2020, they quickly had to close back down due to a statewide order in November. In late January 2021, the theaters were able to reopen for limited in-person screenings. The Michigan Theater symbolically reopened with the film “A Hero for a Night,” which played at the original opening of the theater in 1928. I visited the theaters in April during a sparsely attended matinee screening. As masked patrons entered, they were faced
with temperature checks, hand sanitizer, distancing markers, and plexiglass barriers. Inside the theaters, there was room for distancing, as the ticketing system guarantees at least six feet of space for each patron and attendance is capped at 50 percent. The concession stands were notably empty and the water and soda fountains closed, in part because masks are required in the theaters. When the film started, employees wiped down surfaces in the lobby, and tended to tasks, such as changing poster displays and the text on the marquee. Although the movie-going experience was significantly different, patrons said
they were excited to get back out into the community and begin a return to normalcy. In a January interview with MLive, Russ Collins, CEO and executive director of the Michigan Theater Foundation, remained optimistic about the theaters’ futures, while acknowledging it may take time for some to be comfortable attending in-person screenings. “The reason that television and subsequently streaming and DVDs and all of those kind of things didn’t put an end to going out (to) the movies is not because you can watch something at home,” Collins said. “It’s about going out. There definitely is a future.”
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
STATEMENT 11
What Macomb County can teach us about American politics
BY IULIA DOBRIN, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT
Design by Brianna Manzor
B
ack when blue and red were just Crayola colors to me, I remember sitting around the reading carpet at my elementary school in Macomb County, Michigan, as everyone went around and talked about what their parents did for a living. Almost everyone seemed to have at least one parent who worked for a car company. With my dad working at Chrysler for nearly three decades, I was proud to be a part of something. Although I moved away from Macomb County years ago, I lived at the Oakland-Macomb border and had strong ties with friends and family in my former area that gave me reasons to be there frequently. Up until high school, Macomb was not much more than a place I called home — full of memories in places that I knew almost innately, like recognizing my own reflection in the mirror. But as I grew past elementary and middle school, I started to follow political trends.
Around the same time, I started talking to my dad more about his time working at Chrysler. I stayed up late last year following the 2020 elections, hearing national news networks talk about Macomb as a representation of the country’s blue-collar workers in the 2016 election — typical blue voters who turned red for the last election. I heard phrases like “growing disgruntled” and “feeling neglected” by both parties. Having grown up in Macomb, I was surprised to hear this. I felt that I had grown up in a relatively diverse area, at least from all perspectives that I was aware of as a second-grader. Although I knew my dad had his stresses about work, it didn’t seem to be any more than any other work stresses I had seen in TV shows and movies. Nor did my neighbors seem as if they were disgruntled; but then again, 8-yearold me wasn’t talking about politics with my playmates’ parents. I was
curious how far the generalized disillusionment spread. But this sentiment dates back to before 2020, even before 2016. Stanley Greenberg’s 1995 book “Middle Class Dreams” called Macomb “the site of real drama in our political life” because of its battleground status. Between what the media was telling me and what I knew from my family’s personal experiences, I wanted to dig deeper and see what was really happening in Macomb. Has the media exaggerated the claims of political shifts in Macomb County, or has the dominant ideology really shifted significantly over the years? Has the area become a political microcosm of working-class America? *** My mom recently sent me an article: “White angst keeps Trumpism alive in Macomb County”. This echoed the sentiments of the national media headlines I had seen before, but I wondered how recently
this “angst” started. The way I had perceived Macomb County from general media, I was expecting a large shift for the Republicans in 2016 and 2020 compared to a history of Democratic voting before that. When I looked at election results, I was surprised to find smaller margins than I expected. Trump had won with 53.6% of the Macomb vote in 2016, whereas Clinton had 42.1% of the vote. However, there were still more Democratic straight-party voters — voters who chose all candidates of one party on their ballot — than Republican that year. The gap slightly closed in 2020, with 53.4% of the vote going to Trump and 45.3% going to Biden, but more Republicans than Democrats voted straight party this time. I also looked back at voting data and was surprised to see Republican nominee Bush holding the majority as recent as 2004, with his father holding it in 1992. From media
portrayal, I had expected Macomb to elect the Democrat candidate every time except Reagan and Trump. With this in the back of my mind, and knowing the importance of the auto industry to Macomb’s economy, I set out to talk to Macomb auto workers about what politics look like on the plant floor. *** Kevin McWilliams is a team leader at the Chrysler plant in Macomb, where he has worked since 2010. Prior to that, he had worked at Chrysler plants outside of Michigan since 1995. As a member of the United Auto Workers (UAW) — one of the largest unions in North America, representing workers in a variety of economic sectors — McWilliams felt his and his coworkers’ voting was occasionally influenced by who the UAW endorses. Read more at michigandaily.com
12 STATEMENT
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The j word: journalism at Michigan
BY EMILY BLUMBERG, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT
Design by Erin Ruark
T
he debate of the college major is an endless uphill battle; you can ponder and argue and make all the decisions you want without ever truly knowing if you’re making the right choice. It is impossible for a major to guarantee personal success, yet choosing one can feel like closing yourself off to only a select few career paths. The majors that are most valued by academic institutions constantly change as society shifts its priorities and goals. If I had known what I wanted to do before entering college, there is a good chance I would not have ended up at the University of Michigan. I have always been a writer and wanted to pursue that in some form, but my work with The Daily opened up my love for journalism. Since realizing what I wanted to pursue, I have buried myself in deciding what major and classes are the “next best thing.” History, communications, sociology and psychology are only a few of the phases I’ve gone through just in this past semester. The University’s lack of a journalism major has made me wonder whether or not I necessarily need to major in it at all. For students interested in journalism like myself, the debate of practicality versus academic value for undergraduate majors becomes
even more concentrated. A major in journalism can offer plenty of benefits: direct writing and reporting training, a specialized curriculum and access to professors who have had work experience in the news sphere. However, a journalism degree could be too specific and prevent students from experiencing a more theoretical, well-rounded education. In a report from the Knight Foundation, a non-profit committed to keeping journalism alive through investment and grants, Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian puts it bluntly: “Journalism schools are teaching journalistic techniques rather than subject matter. Journalists should be cultured people who know about history, economics, science. Instead they are learning what is called nuts and bolts. Like schools of education, journalism schools should either be reintegrated intellectually into the university or they should be abolished.” Here at the University, they have chosen the latter. After a complicated, century-long revamping of what is now the Department of Communication and Media, the original journalism program at the University was eradicated. Although it’s unclear why this choice was made, many opponents of the decision saw it as an elitist way
of weeding out students interested in a vocational education. Professor Derek Vaillant, who is also associate chair of undergraduate studies within the Communications and Media department, explained the combination of numerous extinct programs (Journalism, Speech, Theater, Cultural Studies, etc.) into the department we know today. The committee that chose to shut down the journalism program, Vaillant says, was charged by many faculty and students for being elitist and condescending. Many argued that the University’s journalism program “lacked national impact.” “(Saying ‘lacked national impact’) is a sort of a way of saying: it’s not very prestigious, it’s not very good,” Vaillant said. “Was it not very good for training professional journalists? I’m not sure. Was it not very good in the way that it seemed kind of vocational and like something that state schools do to pay the bills? Maybe that’s closer to the truth.” In an attempt to stay true to being the “leaders and best,” the University removed a program with consistent student and faculty interest. Prioritizing the liberal arts and academic thought over vocational training is a staple in America’s most selective universities, such as those in
the Ivy League. Other highly ranked public schools such as the University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley and the University of Virginia also utilize this liberal arts approach. By abolishing our journalism program, the University is seemingly leaning into the identity of an elite institution rather than the large public university that it is. Beyond the fact that few journalism courses exist here to begin with, many of them reside under aliases such as “immersion writing,” “creative nonfiction” and “public writing.” The word “journalism” has become somewhat of a four-letter word to academics who prioritize abstract ideas over practical skill training. We hear very little of what Peabody award winner and visiting professor in the Department of Communication and Media, Robert Yoon, refers to as the “J word” within U-M academics.
University strives to associate itself with top-tier academia rather than career preparation. “Especially if you look at the English department, there are all these kinds of creative writing programs and (the euphemism “long form reporting”) is one of the genres,” Vaillant said. “I think (the English department) has incorporated some of this form of education, but it’s done very carefully because they don’t want a perception of overemphasizing vocation at the expense of this more idealized life of the mind, humanities sort of ideal, which is the ideal of the modern university.” Although I understand the University’s desire to remain a place of higher learning rather than of vocational training, this sentiment represents faculties’ disregard for students’ interests. The decision to eradicate the journalism program was made by faculty even though Undergraduate journalism degrees, hundreds of students continue to with a few possible exceptions be involved in student publications. from top-tier universities such as Instead of focusing on teaching what Northwestern University and the students are most passionate about, University of Southern California, this decision seems to have been made seem to be associated with lucrative job in order to ensure that every U-M training rather than academic thought. program was deemed better than the By diluting these journalism courses rest. into the English and Communication Read more at michigandaily.com and Media departments, the
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan to travel to Seattle for NCAA regional PAUL NASR
Daily Sports Writer
The D-1 Softball Committee revealed on Sunday that the Michigan softball team will travel to Seattle in the NCAA regional. The Seattle regional is a double-elimination bracket consisting of the home team in No. 16 Washington, Michigan, Western Athletic Conference champion Seattle, and Big Sky
Michigan enters the NCAA tournament hot, winning 15 of its last 16 games. Matching up with Washington on its home field, however, will most likely be the team’s most difficult test of the season. In a meeting with reporters following the selection, Michigan coach Carol Hutchins voiced her displeasure in the committee’s decision to send the Wolverines to Seattle, in a regional housing a top five team in the nation, as
JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily Michigan will travel to Seattle for the NCAA regionals.
Conference champion Portland State. Michigan will face Seattle to open its regional battle on Friday night. Although Washington was ranked 16th by the committee, securing the final regional host site of the tournament, its resume suggests that they are a far-stronger team than that. The Huskies were ranked No. 5 in the nation entering the final weekend of the season. They went 41-11, and will pose a serious challenge for the Wolverines. Due to Seattle being the 16th and final regional host in the tournament, Michigan will most likely be forced to travel to Norman, Okla. to face the No.1 Oklahoma softball team, should it survive the difficult Seattle regional. The selection comes after a strong season for the Wolverines. They partook in a conference-only schedule in the Big Ten, posting a 36-6 record, and winning its 22nd conference title. The Wolverines’ resume is highlighted by key series wins against Northwestern and No. 23 Minnesota, the two other teams representing the Big Ten in the NCAA tournament.
opposed to hosting the regional at Alumni field after her team produced a successful season in the Big Ten. “(The committee) absolutely did not do a very good job,” Hutchins said. “They disrespected our entire conference … I’m not very pleased with (them) at all.” Last season’s NCAA softball tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the last installment of the tournament in 2019, Michigan hosted a regional in Ann Arbor, where they fell to James Madison University. Michigan has reached the NCAA tournament in every season since 1995. In that span, it has advanced to the super regionals 18 times, and continued to the College World Series 12 times. It won the national championship in 2005. The Wolverines have failed to advance to a super regional in their past three attempts, marking the longest such stretch since their NCAA tournament streak began in 1995. They will look to end their dry spell this weekend, with regionals beginning on Friday.
SPORTS 13
Beaubien’s perfect game highlights doubleheader sweep CONNOR EAREGOOD Daily Sports Writer
Rutgers pinch hitter Megan Herka walked to the plate ready to play spoiler. No. 18 Michigan had denied the Scarlet Knights a spot on base all game. Now, marking the potential last batter of the day, it was Herka’s job to ruin senior left-hander Meghan Beaubien’s perfect slate. It looked like Herka was going to do just that, as she took three straight balls to start her plate appearance. The game wasn’t on the line, but a career milestone was. Facing a tough count, Beaubien kept her composure. “If I threw another ball, I was gonna walk her anyway,” Beaubien said. “So I’m just staying loose and telling myself that if I stay loose and I throw this pitch, then it’s going to be a good one and trusting that they’re not going to hit it.” Feeding Herka a strike and forcing a foul tip, Beaubien worked Herka back into the corner the Scarlet Knights had been stuck in all game. The final pitch careened toward junior catcher Hannah Carson and nestled itself in the well-worn leather of her glove. Ball game. Perfect game. As Beaubien leapt into the air to celebrate an achievement that most pitchers can only dream of, Michigan
celebrated an 11-0 win that could only be described as dominant in every measurable way. A key part of that was the Wolverines’ defense. Out of 15 batters, 13 were put out by the field. As much as the perfect game is an accomplishment for Beaubien, it also speaks to Michigan’s ability to back up its pitchers. “I give a lot of credit to the defense today,” Beaubien said. “I didn’t have a lot of strikeouts, but the defense is making some great plays so I think that was a really big team effort and proud of my outfielders and I think everyone did a great job.” Part of that team effort came from freshman catcher Keke Tholl, who made a spectacular catch on a foul ball in the fourth inning. First baseman Gabrielle Callaway tipped the ball in the air toward the first base line. Tholl popped out of her stance and chased it, diving forward to make the play. The outcome suggests Rutgers’ at-bats were lackluster all game, but hitters were able to put the ball in play, sometimes deep. Every time that happened, though, they couldn’t find the gap and the Wolverines made an out. No matter what the fielders could do to help her, the perfect game came down to superb pitching from Beaubien. The Scarlet Knights couldn’t get comfortable at the plate, and the edge that she had gained in Friday’s win meant she was attacking
everyone that stepped in the batter’s box. Rutgers was forced to deal with poor pitches that left them empty handed. Often, those led to quick, easy outs. Beaubien’s two strikeouts over the five innings is an uncharacteristically low count considering she averages around 9.88 strikeouts per seven innings. She didn’t need to get many, though, because the Scarlet Knights did the work for her. In fact, the biggest challenge for Beaubien to overcome may have been keeping focused on the game itself rather than the upcoming milestone. That meant returning to the methodology that has guided the Wolverines all season. “I was just trying to focus on one pitch at a time,” Beaubien said. “I didn’t want to get too excited about that possibility. The second you get too excited and start thinking about that, that’s when you’re most likely gonna give it up.” Beaubien’s perfect outing was a fitting way to end what could be the last home start of her career. As the NCAA Tournament looms and Michigan focuses on winning its upcoming regional, this game proved that Beaubien’s not done yet. “I tell you, there’s some things I want from Megan Beaubien that are bigger than that,” Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said. “I want her to play on the biggest stage. And I want her to help take us there.”
JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily Meghan Beaubien threw the first perfect game of her career against Rutgers.
14 SPORTS
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ABBAS KAGAL
Daily Sports Writer
Sophomore infielder Ted Burton stepped into the batters’ box at the bottom of the second with the full intention of hitting the ball. After an embarrassing loss to Indiana the day before, Burton knew giving his team a chance to score could make the difference in the game. After a 0-1 count, Burton lined the ball through left field for a single, giving life to the Wolverines’ offense and setting the tone for the entire game. Burton went on to hit three-offour on the day, boosting Michigan for a win over the Hoosiers 6-1. The Michigan baseball team (2513 Big Ten) played No. 21 Indiana (2412 Big Ten) on Sunday for the final game of the series. The Wolverines opened the game with a swift relief of Indiana’s offense. Left-hander Jacob Denner and the Michigan defense allowed a single through to left field but quickly grounded out the remaining Hoosier batters to give the Wolverines a scoring
Big hits power Michigan over Indiana, 6-1 opportunity. “Talking to (redshirt sophomore left-handerSteven Hajjar) and (sophomore right-hander Cameron Weston) really helped me,” Denner said. “Really thinking about a game plan to attack those hitters, who are all extremely talented.” In the second inning, Michigan capitalized. Fifth-year shortstop Benjamin Sems and Burton had backto-back singles to put the Wolverines on first and third. After a sacrificial flyout by fifth-year catcher Griffin Mazur, Michigan put the first score on the board. Sophomore infielder Tito Flores continued the hitting barrage by crushing an RBI double into left field to push the Wolverines up 2-0. Michigan added another score in the fourth after Burton hit a double to center field and finished with a run on a wild pitch. Burton was able to initiate the Wolverines’ offense when it mattered most — which would allow the defense to continue to flourish. “We say our best defense is our offense,” Proctor said. “To show
that we can put up those types of numbers gives our pitching staff and defense all the confidence in the world.” Despite allowing a lone home run
seventh, immediately striking out the first Hoosier batter he faced. After giving up a single, Beers and the Michigan defense cleaned up with a critical ground out to maintain the
BECCA MAHON/Daily Michigan defeated Indiana on Sunday to win the series.
in the fifth, Michigan continued to negate Indiana’s offense and give itself opportunities in the batters’ box. Senior right-hander Blake Beers pitched in relief for Denner in the
Wolverines’ lead at 3-1. “For (Beers) to jump into a role as a high-leverage reliever is a huge boost for us,” Michigan coach Erik Bakich said. “He throws 95, 97 with a nasty breaking ball as well. When
he’s filling up the strike zone with those two pitches like he was today, he’s really good.” Junior right-hander Willie Weiss replaced Beers in the eighth, striking out Indiana utility player Drew Ashley, who had given the Hoosiers quality offensive production the day before. The Wolverines made another pitching change after Weiss gave up two walks, putting junior right-hander Will Proctor on the mound. “Something that’s been instilled in us since the fall is a ‘next man up’ attitude,” Proctor said. “If one guy can’t get it done, it’ll be the next guy. That attitude is the bread and butter on this team.” Proctor and the Michigan defense quickly got themselves out of trouble, grounding out Indiana to maintain the Wolverines’ lead and looked to close out the game. Almost mirroring the second inning, Sems and Burton again hit singles to put runners on base, and Flores had another RBI double to put Michigan up 4-1. Read more at michigandaily.com
Denner deals, pushes Michigan past Indiana in crucial win SAM BERNARDI Daily Sports Writer
Redshirt sophomore left-hander Steven Hajjar and sophomore righthander Cameron Weston have provided Michigan with a formidable 1-2 punch at the top of its rotation. Hajjar sports a 4-0 record with an impressive 3.02 ERA while Weston, the number two starter, has posted a 5-3 record and has an excellent 2.85 ERA. After those two, however, the Wolverines continue to search for consistency. On Sunday, sophomore left-hander Jacob Denner showcased himself as a pitching option. Denner has had a good 2021 campaign as the team’s third starting pitcher. He has shown flashes of brilliance, but there is still room for improvement. As the schedule winds down, each game increases in importance and in perhaps the biggest game of the year, Denner was lights out. On Sunday afternoon, Michigan met No. 21 Indiana in the rubber match of its three-game series. Considering their proximity atop the Big Ten standings, it had the feeling of a postseason tilt. In one of the most important games of the
season, Michigan coach Erik Bakich needed a big outing from his third starting pitcher. “Coach Bakich does a great job of shrinking the moment,” Denner said. “Just taking it one game at a time, one inning at a time, one pitch at a time. That’s really the mindset he’s put into us, win every pitch and good things will happen.” The New Jersey product had arguably his best, and most clutch, game of the season versus the Hoosiers. He went six and one-third innings, gave up four hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. From the get-go, he was in control of the strike zone. He overpowered Indiana with his fastball and his changeup had good movement. He dictated the pace of the afternoon and allowed the offense to operate on their own terms. Denner’s lone mistake came in the top of the fifth. Hoosiers’ outfielder Morgan Colopy lined a ball into right field that carried over the wall. Despite the slip up, Denner remained poised. He went through the rest of the inning with ease and propelled the Wolverines into the seventh with a two-run lead. With the win, Denner improves to 4-3 on the year and his ERA is nearing the 4.00 mark. “He attacked with three pitches,”
Bakich said. “That’s a tough lineup to navigate, they’re very good players. To only give up a solo home run and get us into the seventh inning was huge.” During game two on Saturday, the
Wolverines’ bullpen was decimated by Indiana. They allowed nine runs during the seventh and eighth innings. More importantly, however, was that Michigan had an opportunity to pull
off the comeback before the bullpen collapsed. Sunday afternoon, they redeemed themselves. Read more at michigandaily.com
BECCA MAHON/Daily Denner’s pitching was the key to Michigan’s win on Sunday.
Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS 15
Beniers, Power selected to play in World Championships JOSH TAUBMAN
Summer Managing Sports Editor
Michigan will have the chance to see a couple of its young stars compete for their national teams later this month. On Thursday, it was announced that freshman forward Matty Beniers would be suiting up for Team USA at the 2021 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Championships — taking place in Riga, Latvia. Beniers will be joined at the tournament by freshman defenseman Owen Power, who was named to Team Canada’s roster. The collegiate teammates will now face-off as international rivals. Beniers has prior experience playing for Team USA, as he was part of the World Juniors team that won gold in January. Beniers had a quiet tournament, with just one goal and two assists, but the experience is something that will stick with him forever. “I think that’s one of the best moments of my life so far, definitely the best hockey moment I’ve experienced,” Beniers said in January.
“It was just an awesome experience to play with such great players on my team and definitely an awesome experience to play with such great players against us.” After helping Team USA win gold at World Juniors for the first time since 2017, Beniers is hoping to help the team end a much longer medal drought at the World Championships. Team USA has not won gold since 1960, and most recently won Bronze in 2018. At just 18 years old, Beniers will be the youngest member of Team USA. Youth was no issue for Beniers during his freshman campaign with the Wolverines, as he racked up 10 goals and 14 assists on the year and earned a spot on the Big Ten all-freshman team. He’ll hope to build on his Juniors performance and collect the second gold medal of his young career. Power, meanwhile, will make his long-awaited debut for Team Canada. The defenseman was expecting to compete with Beniers while playing for his country at World Juniors but, facing the prospects of missing the first half of the collegiate season due to COVID-19 protocols with the Canadian team, Michigan coach
Mel Pearson made a controversial decision to hold Power out of the tournament. “I think the decision to have me
stay here and play was fine. I think either way it was a good decision,” Power said after not going to Juniors. “I think just being able to stay here and
just develop with the team was a good decision.” Read more at michigandaily.com
MILES MACKLIN/Daily Matty Beniers, along with teammate Owen Power, will compete in the IIHF World Championships later this month.
Michigan falls to Pepperdine 4-0 in round of 16 When the No. 3 doubles tandem of sophomore Andrea Cerdan and senior Bella Lorenzini jumped out Chiara Lommer felt the weight of to a 4-1 advantage, it looked like the world on her shoulders. Michigan could do just that. After dropping her first set 6-1, the Yet the Wolverines’ lead fifth-year senior was down 5-3, 40-0 evaporated, as the Wave’s Jessica — one point away from Michigan’s Failla and Anastasia Lamachkine season and her illustrious career as a rattled off six straight games to Wolverine coming to a close. steal the doubles point from the Lommer would not go away, Wolverines and take a 1-0 lead. playing relentless defense to eek out “I thought Pepperdine played really well,” Michigan coach Ronni Bernstein said. “That’s a team I think that could possibly win (the Championship). We needed to play a perfect match and we did not do that.” At No.1 singles, freshman Kari Miller was stacked up against threetime All-American Ashley Lahey. While Miller took advantage of errors from Lahey to take an early lead, Miller was unable to close, as Lahey staved off multiple breakpoints to scrap her way to a 6-4 victory in the first set. Despite a deflating loss in the first set, Miller came out with vengeance GRACE BEAL/Daily in the second set and took control. “Kari is in every match she plays,” Michigan battled but came up short in its Sweet 16 matchup with Bernstein said. “It’s a little bit that Pepperdine. ALEX WALKON
Daily Sports Writer
two straight points to chip away at a nearly insurmountable lead. In the following point, her outstretched backhand sailed just wide, giving No. 5 Pepperdine (22-3) a 4-0 victory over the Wolverines(19-3) in the round of 16 at the NCAA Team Championship. Up against a deep, talented singles lineup from Pepperdine, the doubles point offered the Wolverines the opportunity to take an early lead.
she’s young because she was up 40-0 a couple games in the first set and had a lot of opportunities. But Kari at the top of the lineup has been incredible for us. She’s up in the second set and still fighting and the kid she’s playing is a fifth-year and was number one in the country last year. That just shows you what Kari Miller is going to be for Michigan.” Fellow freshman Jaedan Brown found herself in an early 3-0 deficit at No. 4 singles against Shiori Fukuda. After strong play from the baseline got her back in the match, Brown’s struggles serving lead to a 6-4, 6-1 defeat. The Waves’ Taisiya Pachkaleva moved Cerdan all around the court to take a dominant 6-0 victory in the first at No. 3 singles. Cerdan kept her composure, jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the second set, but Pachkaleva quickly retook the lead en route to a 6-3 win. At No. 5 singles, Senior Alyvia Jones found herself in a back-andforth affair against Lisa Zaar. With her team falling behind, Jones delivered a dominant serving performance complemented by 5 aces to earn a 6-4 first-set victory, hoping
to be a catalyst for the rest of the team. Jones’ success continued as she was leading 5-1 in the second before Pepperdine clinched the victory. “She was so close to getting us a point there,” Bernstein said. “She’s a great kid and she cares so much about our program and fought hard today. She’s one that’s asking the score and wants to know what’s going on (with her teammates).” As Michigan’s three seniors continued to fight to close the Waves’ 3-0 lead, the weight of the moment set in. “These guys play tennis for I don’t know how long,” Bernstein said. “I think they realize it’s the end at some point. They’ve done so much for our program. They’ve brought so much leadership. Bella, Chiara, and Alyvia were great Michigan players and are going to be part of our program for a long time.” While the seniors will move on, the exceptional play from the Wolverines’ freshman players throughout the season put the rest of women’s tennis on notice. This team is young and getting better. Read more at michigandaily.com