THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2020 | ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM | MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Big Ten votes to postpone Fall sports season Decision reached following multiple days of speculation
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KENT SCHWARTZ
Summer Managing Sports Editor
T
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INDEX Vol. CXXIX, No. 126 © 2020 The Michigan Daily
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here may finally be some clarity surrounding college football. After a meeting on Tuesday morning, Big Ten Presidents and Chancellors voted to postpone fall sports. “The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said. “As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to
allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.” Men’s and women’s soccer and cross country, field hockey, volleyball and football will all be affected by the decision. The unprecedented move comes in times dominated by confusion. The decision was made a day after the Big Ten refuted multiple reports that the college Presidents of the conference voted to cancel fall athletics over the weekend. Reports are that the PAC-12 will follow the Big Ten’s path and postpone its season, with hopes of a Spring season for the sports affected. “For the second time in five months, the Big Ten Conference made the unfortunate but necessary decision to postpone an athletic season in order to protect the health and well-being of our student-athletes, staff, and community members,” Michigan athletic directory Warde Manuel said in a release Tuesday. “As a result, all fall sport schedules have been postponed. This latest decision was reached after careful consideration and the grim knowledge that this pandemic continues to affect our country adversely. I am deeply saddened for our student-athletes and remain committed to our ongoing promise to provide them with a world-class education. We remain grateful to our global Michigan family for their unwavering support.” The decision to cancel contradicts the wishes of its players and coaches, who took to Twitter Sunday to tweet support for playing football. Jim Harbaugh on Monday released a statement in support of playing football, saying his program has been able to limit the spread of COVID-19. Nebraska coach Scott Frost said Nebraska will explore every option to play football, even if the Big Ten votes to cancel. “Our football team, our coaching staff, our support stadd in Schembechler Hall have all stepped up, followed every rule, and done everything in their power magnificently to give all the opportunity to compete,” Harbaugh’s new statement on Tuesday said. “I am extremely proud, thankful and appreciative of our team and how they have conducted and represented our program and university.” A spokesperson for the football team told The Daily that the team will continue to hold voluntary practices, meetings and strength and conditioning for 20 hours per week, including practice on Tuesday. The statement released by athletic director Warde Manuel says that
all athletic activities will be suspended immediately, including practices. The Daily was told that line will change on the announcement, as the Big Ten cleared Michigan to work under the 20-hour rule. University President Mark Schlissel released a statement on Twitter supporting the decision to postpone, in contrast with Harbaugh. “I fully support the difficult Big Ten decision to postpone fall athletics competition,” Schlissel wrote. “There are too many poorly understood health and safety concerns unique to intercollegiate athletics to move forward with practices and competition at present -- and the impact of extreme physical exertion on the health risk of COVID-19 has not been well-assessed. “I join athletic director Warde Manuel and everyone at Michigan Athletics in expressing my empathy to all who were looking forward to competing, coaching, supporting and cheering us on as members of the Wolverine family. I particularly feel badly for our student-athletes who gain so much from participation in their sports and are such outstanding representatives of the university. We will work hard to return them safely to competition.” The delay gives both America and colleges time to contain the spread of the virus and adjust to the return of students, one of the biggest hurdles that still faces colleges trying to return safely and educate its students. In order for there to be sports, first the student population on campus must be healthy and the Big Ten needs to know the impact that students have on the numbers of COVID-19 cases. “While I know our decision today will be disappointing in many ways for our thousands of student-athletes and their families,” Warren said, “I am heartened and inspired by their resilience, their insightful and discerning thoughts, and their participation through our conversations to this point. Everyone associated with the Big Ten Conference and its member institutions is committed to getting everyone back to competition as soon as it is safe to do so.” Time, right now, is all the Big Ten has that can make the possibility of any sports a reality, something that schools across the country have been trying to get more of throughout the summer as the decision has been delayed time and time again. Now, it has until spring to make a the final decision. Nicholas Stoll and Emma Stein contributed to the reporting of this story.
2 NEWS
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘U’ updates sexual misconduct policy The new regulations set to take effect on Aug. 14 IULIA DOBRIN
Daily Staff Reporter
In an email to students and faculty Monday, University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel outlined the new interim policy on sexual and gender-based misconduct, which will go into effect Aug 14. The policy will apply to students, faculty, staff and third parties on all three campuses and Michigan Medicine. “Improving how we prevent and address sexual and genderbased misconduct in our community must always remain a foremost priority at U-M,” Schlissel said. “We strive to do better, always, and creating an umbrella policy that covers all members of the U-M community is one key measure we are implementing.” The policy includes definitions for prohibited conduct, separate procedures for addressing allegations against students and allegations against employees or third parties, and clarifies confidential resources and ways to report misconduct. This policy, which was originally set to be released in early 2020, was postponed in order to take the Department of Education’s new regulations into consideration. The new regulations, announced in May by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, announced new title IX procedures and protocol which will change the policy draft shared by University administration in the fall. According to the University Record, one of the most significant changes is the new federal regulations having a more narrow definition for sexual harassment. Rather than the previous definition, which said sexual harassment is conduct that is “severe, persistent, or pervasive,” the new definition says it is conduct which is so “severe and pervasive and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal
access to education.” The new University policy includes a definition of Title IX regulations to meet federal regulations, as well as a broader definition that includes sexual and gender-based misconduct outside of federal regulations. It also includes two separate procedures for staff, faculty and third parties, depending on which definition the allegation falls under. The policy also retained reporting obligations, despite federal regulations removing references and requirements related to responsible employees. Individuals with reporting obligations are identified and obligated to report information regarding prohibited conduct to the Office of Institutional Equity. For students, new federal regulations also require that cross examinations be held by a student’s adviser. These advisers can be outside attorneys provided by the University for students who need them. Public Policy junior Emma Sandberg is the executive director of Roe v. Rape, a nonprofit organization that advocates for sexual assault survivors. In an interview with The Daily, Sandberg emphasized the policy changes announced by Schlissel are a huge improvement over previous policies. “One thing that we have been advocating for throughout the past year is for the University to provide students with free attorneys, rather than advisors for cross examination,” Sandberg said. “According to the University Record, it looks like U of M has this demand in their policy changes, which is a major win for survivors.” According to Sandberg, the group was also glad to see the University maintain the preponderance of evidence standard and continue to investigate off campus sexual misconduct, both of which were not required under the new federal regulations. Both of these were among the seven demands made by a petition that circulated in May regarding the new regulations.
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Abuse in research goes unreported
Students allege ineffective filing system due to major flaws MICHAL RUPRECHT Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan prides itself on being one of the nation’s top public research universities. Across all three campuses, 20,540 graduate students and 8,598 faculty members study and work at the University, many of whom are active in research. In addition, over 1,500 undergraduates participate in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program at the Ann Arbor campus. Despite the thousands of researchers, the University’s anonymous reporting system received only seven reports in 2019 related to “issues arising in the research setting,” according to University spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen. A Michigan Daily investigation found that flaws in the system deterred student researchers from reporting alleged abuse. The Daily spoke to three students who claimed the small size of their lab prevented them from using the University’s reporting system to report alleged misconduct. The Daily also found that little oversight of research supervisors strengthens the hierarchical system in research labs. Jason Altom, a graduate student in Harvard University’s chemistry department, died by suicide in 1998. Two of the three suicide notes
Altom left called for changes to the department that he felt could have prevented his death. “Professors here have too much power over the lives of their grad students,” Altom wrote in one of his notes. After extensive coverage by The New York Times, Harvard’s chemistry department adopted a series of changes, including a threemember committee to monitor student researcher progress and free, confidential access to a therapist. Since Altom’s passing, journalists have uncovered alleged research abuse at other institutions like Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In a report released last month, WilmerHale, the law firm hired to investigate former University of Michigan Provost Martin A. Philbert’s sexual misconduct allegations, found he harassed women, including graduate students who worked in his research lab. Philbert made comments about their bodies, redireced conversations toward sex and insisted on receiving hugs. In 2005, specific allegations of sexual assault arose in which one of Philbert’s research assistants reported Philbert had “asked her for sex, to marry him, to run away together and to ‘have caramel (sic) colored babies’ with him.” The report found “significant evidence that Philbert engaged in a wide range of sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment, for at least fifteen years.”
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Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS 3
Union reopening sparks memories Students and staff contrast the current changes in the building with its pre-pandemic state CALDER LEWIS
Summer News Editor
‘U’ urged for more details about fall semester plans
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Over 1,400 community members sign open letter calling for transparency CELENE PHILIP & KRISTINA ZHENG Daily Staff Reporter & Summer News Editor
Just weeks before fall classes start, over 1,400 University of Michigan community members signed an open letter urging the University to provide transparency in the reopening plans for this fall and an analysis outlining exactly how these plans will keep the community safe. The letter — written to the University July 27 — drew professors, staff members and graduate and undergraduate students to call for the logistics and proof of what a “public-health informed” fall semester will look like. Though class instruction modes have been adjusted and planned for classes still meeting in-person, the letter explains, little information has been released regarding containment of the virus. “We have heard very little about other key containment strategies such as widespread testing, contact tracing, and isolation of the sick,” the letter reads. “The implementation of these containment policies across the whole campus would be quite complex and, with
just one month remaining, we have not seen a demonstration that plans are in place.” Physics professor Dante Amidei, one of the contributors to the letter, said it is a call for transparency. “We — the folks who are going to be bearing this risk — believe that as a public institution, the University has a responsibility to put all the cards out here on the table, to show us the plan and show us an analysis of that plan that says that this is going to be safe,” Amidei said. “We understand that nothing can ever be risk free, but there are many examples of analyses like this that can take these factors into account and estimate the risk or not of a plan.” On Aug. 3, the University released several updates for the fall semester, including a requirement that all students self-quarantine for 14 days prior to returning to campus. The announcement also alluded to providing all students living in University Housing with COVID-19 testing. There are no details regarding whether faculty, staff and students living offcampus are included. Though the University has released details to testing and isolation methods, Amidei said the University is still responsible for providing reasoning for how these decisions protect its community. According to Amidei, the writers
have since drafted a second letter calling for greater transparency on the risk analysis. “We’ve seen the plan, but there was nothing in that message about point two, which is asking to see a critical analysis of the plan that shows why it is safe,” Amidei said. “We believe this is a public health issue that can be addressed by science. We want to see the science. We would like to see the metrics that are being used and the expected impact of this plan on the health of the surrounding communities.” Rackham student Jeff Lockhart is a member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization’s COVID Caucus. Lockhart said detailed guidance and procedures surrounding employee infections for those currently on campus, including researchers and maintenance staff, has been provided. “There has been, all summer, detailed guidance and updates on what to do if you have symptoms and who to go to in terms of your supervisor,” Lockhart said. “If someone in your workplace is out getting tested, you know what to do with their workspace and who you can and can’t share the information about test results with because there’s privacy concerns there.”
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As the Michigan Union reopened Monday morning for the second time this calendar year, University of Michigan alumni Isabel Williams, Amanda Wasserman and Lucy Rosenthal stopped to say goodbye. The trio, who met their freshman year, roamed the silent, empty halls, reminiscing on game days and late-night food runs together one last time before their senior year housing lease ends later this week. “It’s definitely very sad looking not seeing everyone else running around here,” Rosenthal said. “I think everyone was so excited to explore the new spaces and see what this building had to offer, because they put so much time and money into making this a great place for student events.” When the Union opened its doors Jan. 13 after a two-year, $85 million renovation, students were greeted with a 500-person line, food trucks and a ceremony with a speech from University President Mark Schlissel. That same day, a woman in Thailand was hospitalized with a “novel pneumonia virus” — the first known COVID-19 case outside China. The century-old building, where John F. Kennedy introduced the Peace Corps and Martin Luther King Jr. met with student leaders, closed its doors only three months later. When students come back to campus in the weeks, physical distancing and face covering requirements will be in place. The contrast between the Union’s reopenings strikes Rosenthal. “It could not be more different,” Rosenthal said. Thinking back to simpler times, Williams passed by the old Sweetwaters location and remembered milestones of her four years in Ann Arbor. “I was like, this is where I had this meeting, and this is where I booked that flight, and this is where I studied for that test,” Williams
said. Yet as Wasserman scanned the one-person tables and spread apart chairs in the north study room, she worried about incoming students getting the same college experience they had. “Even studying wise, like going somewhere to study with a bunch of friends or getting a study room, I don’t know how that’s gonna work anymore,” Wasserman said. Williams said there’s an added level of fear every time a student goes to a public place. “It’s like is this actually safe?” Williams said. “Should I be doing this? It’s sad and it’s a stress that they shouldn’t have to deal with … I don’t know how I would balance it. I’m so glad I don’t have to make that decision.” LSA sophomore Madeleine Lynch is one of tens of thousands of students who will have to make those decisions shortly. She stood in the north study room Monday morning, impressed with the safety precautions. “I think they’re doing a pretty good job keeping everything safe,” Lynch said. “I’ve seen all the oneway signs and I used some Purell that was around there. I liked the way it was all over the place. I noticed there’s only like three people at each of these tables, and it seems like it’ll be a pretty good space. I’d feel safe studying here.” Lynch is hopeful for a good year despite the circumstances. “I’m still hoping for a pretty good experience, even though you have to stay far away from other people,” Lynch said. “I’m hoping it’s still gonna be a meaningful experience.” A floor below, Blue Market manager Ann Heiden said many students over the years sign up for their first job at the basement retailer freshman year and keep punching in until graduation. “It becomes a family,” Heiden said. “You work with these people — it’s just beautiful.”
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4 NEWS
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
In Conversation with Gary Peters Michigan Senator and The Daily discuss COVID-19, student loans and police reform CALDER LEWIS
Summer News Editor
Students criticize mandatory two-week quarantine, housing
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University policy prevents working before classes start VARSHA VEDAPUDI Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan recently announced students must adhere to a mandatory two-week quarantine before they arrive on campus in the fall. This policy received criticism from students who are currently working and those who are living in on-campus housing. Business junior Kayla Hurd said in a tweet that the University’s reopening plans do not consider low-income students who have inperson jobs. Business sophomore Madelyn Larson worked as a pool attendant all summer and said the announcement of the two-week quarantine came very late, not giving her enough time to give her boss a two-week advance notice. “It was very much just a blanket statement,” Larson said. “I understand that (the administration) have obviously a lot going on … but I think that advance notice could have been given since they have known since March that there is a pandemic.” LSA sophomore Riann English also voiced concerns about the
mandatory quarantine, saying there was no way the University could determine whether someone has followed the proper protocol of enhanced social distancing. “I think, in theory, it’s a good idea, but in practice and in reality, (you) cannot control what people do,” English said. “You don’t know where other people have been or what they’re carrying.” University spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen directed The Daily in an email to the enhanced social distancing section of the announcement sent Monday. She also wrote that students who are in Ann Arbor are allowed to break their quarantine to work. “Students are not prohibited from working once they are in Ann Arbor,” Broekhuizen wrote. “This 14-day period of enhanced social distancing is designed to minimize the spread of COVID19 as our students return to Ann Arbor from all over the country.” Working on campus will also likely look different this fall as many campus employees — including students — will continue to work remotely if they are able. Larson further explained how the guideline puts low-income students at a disadvantage of contracting COVID-19 and losing pay. “On top of the 1.9 percent tuition increase, the jobs that are available are much more likely to be in-person, necessary jobs
which are obviously more risky and could lead to coming into contact with somebody who is positive (for COVID-19) and then you’re gonna have to take another two weeks (off ),” Larson said. Some students also expressed concerns about the upcoming semester and the risk of the COVID-19 virus spreading on campus, including in dorms and community spaces such as frat houses. LSA sophomore Rakira Urquhart said she was worried about the confined dorm spaces on campus. “I know that the room sizes are like 12 by 12, so it just didn’t make sense to me that, you know, they were going to have people living to people in such a small space with everything going on,” Urquhart said. “Who knows what my roommate, or what I would do … outside of the room?” English also noted she doesn’t understand why there are not more restrictions on housing given the current COVID-19 pandemic. “I feel like everyone should be in a single,” English said. “I know the other universities have tried to do that, to a certain extent — in my knowledge — but (Michigan) hasn’t done that in any capacity at all.”
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The Daily spoke with Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., on July 24 about his re-election campaign to the U.S. Senate, the federal government’s COVID-19 response and racial inequality. John James is the Republican nominee running against Peters for the Senate seat in this November’s election. The James campaign declined multiple requests for an interview. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. TMD: Why should young people, and college students in particular, be excited about your campaign? GP: Well, a big focus for my campaign is to make sure higher education is affordable for all students. No matter who they are, no matter where they live, they should have the opportunity to achieve their version of the American Dream and get the education they need in order to do that. That means we need to make college education more affordable. One way I’m working to do that is for those students who are taking out student loans, we need to lower the interest rate for student loans. At a time with record low interest rates, the rates that students pay should also be tied to those lower rates. That’s why I worked on legislation with Elizabeth Warren to lower those rates and we’ll continue to work to get that passed, but getting that passed will require a Democratic majority in the Senate. We’re going to keep working on that. Additionally to that, for those students, it’s not just about taking loans. We should expand Pell (Grant) eligibility, so that students can get the grants they need to pursue their education and not be saddled with high loans. The other issue that is critically important to me and one we have to be focused on as a society — and one that’s going to particularly impact students in the years ahead — that’s the existential threat of climate change. I am passionate
about protecting our environment and understand that climate change is a critical issue. We have to set ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions and do common sense things like put the United States back into the Paris Accord after Donald Trump pulled us out of the Paris Accord. The United States needs to be a leader in dealing with climate change and we need folks who are passionate about it in elected office, and that’s me. TMD: Where would you place yourself in today’s Democratic Party, ideologically? GP: Well, I think folks would consider that I would be a moderate Democrat, somebody who is willing to work in a bipartisan way in order to get things done, but is also a proud Democrat, a very proud Democrat. I think part of that — the fact that I’m willing to work in a bipartisan way— is that I do believe that we have to get things done. Government has to actually come together in order to solve the very tough problems that we face as a society. There is an organization called the Center for Effective Lawmaking. It is a nonpartisan center that was put together by the folks at Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia. And they actually ranked all senators and congresspeople based on their effectiveness, which means their ability to get legislation passed... The last ranking they put out was the last Congress, and out of the 48 Democratic Senators in the U.S. Senate, I was ranked the fourth most effective. And that’s in my first term (as a senator) in Washington (D.C.),and in the U.S. Senate, seniority matters. The longer you’re there, the more ability you have to get things done. And yet just in just my first term, I was ranked the fourth most effective. TMD: As a member of the federal government, how would you evaluate the federal government’s
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OPINION 5
RYAN SCHILDCROUT | CONTRIBUTOR
Power and responsibility in crisis
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EASHETA SHAH | COLUMNIST
W
Back to school, not to normal
hat felt like a distant reality for the past six months is finally here. In just a few short weeks, students across the nation will be reckoning with school start-ups — whether that means cautiously moving into a new apartment on campus or logging onto Canvas from your hometown. As we gear up for the long-anticipated fall semester, inboxes are filled with campuswide public health-advised guidelines for courses, clubs and sports, and I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic for a time before COVID-19 and masks. The optimist in me had hoped that summer would be the end of it, but now a corona-less future seems unimaginable — or at least until 2024. Working at a local grocery store this summer, I feel my current cynicism deepen with every customer that refuses to wear a mask during their 10-minute grocery runs despite Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s statewide orders — that, and seeing videos and Snapchat stories of “COVID-19 petri dish” parties and gatherings. I’d like to think my peers and I will be more responsible and considerate on campus, but higher risk of infection on college grounds across the country has already been deemed inevitable by a New York Times survey prior to the new academic year. Unfortunately, this is not all that surprising given the night-life crowds that took over Ann Arbor bars after Whitmer’s rescinding of the Safer at Home Order in June and Theta Chi’s careless summer kickback. Our image as the Leaders and the Best was rightfully scrutinized then, and it is bound to face even heavier surveillance during this experimental semester. As university students, it’s high time our increasingly expensive schooling be put to productive use this semes-
ter. According to a New York Times article, we are impulsive, risk-taking college students that study together, live together, party together and sleep together. And they’re right. As thousands of students are welcomed back, campuses will become what psychologists call a strong situation in which external environmental forces define the desirability of potential behaviors despite an individual’s personal tendencies and personality. This is especially true in cultural systems like that of universities where the norm is the often anti-intellectual nature of college student culture. The enduring coronavirus calls for a reevaluation of hookup culture and reckless school spirit, and we must be the ones at the forefront of this battle against amateur human tendency. While reopening campuses seems like a doomed endeavor from the beginning, we should take this opportunity to redefine our college experience apart from tailgating and Thursday night excursions — whether that means spending more time on Zoom meetings and nights in, or looking deeper into the flaws of our own college culture. Amid a global pandemic that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon, it’s time for a cultural reset, if you will — one that encompasses a little more accountability for our actions. The only question is: Are we up for the challenge? For everyone’s sake, I sure hope so. This quarantine period has woken America up to the glaring systemic issues of highly politicized public health initiatives, structural racism within every established institution and the collateral damage from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies. It would be for naught if we did not bring
those issues back to our own schooling as many have done with the newly resurfaced review and reassessment petition for the University of Michigan’s Race and Ethnicity requirement as well as the student-led petition in response to ICE’s recent international student regulation. A return to normalcy is not necessarily in order. Rather, heavier precautions and inquiry imposed by administration and the student body is vital to ensure that we do not succumb to the normal we once knew. We must keep demanding more from our institution and from our peers as privileged pioneers of higher education. This fall will be extremely uncertain, but one thing is for sure: Public health must be a priority in the eyes of every individual on campus. In the best of scenarios, our collective efforts to reduce risk of infection in an environment that thrives on social interaction will still result in unforgiving blame for any campus-related cases. So don’t give our academic administration another reason to look down upon the fickle and instinctive college population. As future leaders, having experienced this hardship will make us more perceptive to better problem solving and policy making. We will have experienced the frustration and courage to let disproportionately unheard voices be heard as we pursue a new normal. This semester will be trying for us all, but I remain — perhaps naively — optimistic in the fact that we will come out of this as better change makers, six feet apart. There’s nothing I hate more than being disappointed, so wear a mask, wash your hands and don’t be a jerk. Easheta Shah can be reached at shaheash@umich.edu.
A
mid the global COVID-19 pandemic, the American people are struggling to find a healthy routine. Across the country, people are recklessly jumping the gun, looking to return to pre-pandemic life while their fellow American brothers and sisters die. Bars and restaurants are packed, parties rage and crowds gather with reckless abandon, often without masks. Our immediate future seems bleak and irredeemable. These pivotal times, while uncertain, present an opportunity to explore the potential good of humanity. In the United States, from large corporations to small businesses, people are working to mitigate the devastating impact of this virus. Any innovation, from the simplicity of curbside pickup to the advanced science of vaccine development, pushes us toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Many manufacturers — including the auto industry — have switched gears to provide our hospitals with ventilators and face shields. Non-essential workspaces have closed their doors and switched to contactless business models. Grocery delivery has minimized the number of people in public spaces. Video interface technology has made athome work possible for countless people, saving countless lives. Nevertheless, we have not done enough. The novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on our country. Thousands are dying. Yet, we press on. The University of Michigan’s leaders have concocted a plan for hybrid and in-person classes, for moving into apartments and dorm rooms and for finding public spaces to study. They have sent emails detailing plans for a “safe” return, stressing the importance of masks, social distancing and have encouraged a self-imposed quarantine before returning to campus. Our schedules have been altered, spring break is no longer and all final exams will be held online. This is certainly a great start, but it is clearly not enough. Aside from the unassailable reality that many of the proposed rules (especially the self-imposed quarantine) are impossible to enforce, the crux of the matter is this plan’s failure to address the bigger picture. In order to not only contain this virus, but to keep our economy afloat, feed our people and provide proper social services, many still need to put themselves in harm’s way. These essential frontline workers bear the brunt of this pandemic to ensure the safety of others. If we truly cared about their well-being, we would do everything in our power to physically distance, stay home and avoid all public buildings and crowded spaces. Those with the ability to distance themselves have a responsibility to do so in order to reduce the risk to those without the
same luxury. This same logic applies to returning to school in the fall. Whether it is public, private, elementary or college, those of us who do not have to go back should be leaving space for those who have no other choice but to return to school. The basic rules and requirements in place will not necessarily stop the spread of the virus. The University’s leaders have set aside quarantined housing for sick students, implying they foresee a number of students falling ill due to their return to campus. What happens if just one student dies? Does school continue? Do they send everyone back home, exposing their families and communities? Would it have been worth it to put students back in the classroom? If the return to in-person classes results in one mistake, one accidental transmission, the sickness and possible death that follows will be the consequence of our lack of innovation. There is an opportunity for the University to show the country what the Leaders and the Best can do when faced with an unthinkable challenge. Just as car companies have switched gears to manufacture medical equipment, the University could switch gears to provide an education to their students that is worth the tuition — sans the risk of exposure to the virus. Adapting classes for virtual instruction, educating our students about the impacts and science of this pandemic, implementing new software and project creation tools and providing sanitary spaces for faculty to virtually lead labs and demonstrations from campus is just the tip of the iceberg. Beyond the coursework, the University could utilize the planned tuition increase to fund laptops and internet access for students who do not have proper resources at home, establish curbside pickup routines for University services such as dining halls, use dorms to exclusively house students that live in difficult home situations and provide ample advising resources for students to improve their access to the University’s myriad of resources. This can be accomplished while almost entirely limiting in-person interaction. While no solution is perfect, we have the responsibility and the power to innovate, adapt and overcome this pandemic. Challenges of such magnitude will continue to cost lives, and the more we push the envelope to allow for a “normal” college experience, the farther we fall behind in our ability to lead others to a brighter, and healthier, future. Ryan Schildcrout is a fifth-year senior in the College of Engineering and School of Music, Theatre and Dance and can be reached at ryanseth@umich.edu.
6 OPINION
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ELIZABETH PEPPERCORN | COLUMNIST
I
Want to drop your chapter? Change it
n the past month, I have observed friends and peers drop their fraternity and sorority life memberships due to the historic and current racism embedded in the institution. Every year, there are more videos of historically white fraternities and sororities (HWFS) chanting racist slurs or being exposed for racist practices in their rush strategies. As a new member, there have been many mandatory educational trainings on not being a bystander when it comes to sexual assault or alcohol abuse, but I was never educated on racism in Greek life. It was never prioritized in our discussions on what needed to change. Greek life members must understand the institution they are associating themselves with and supporting. When HWFS were first establishing themselves on college campuses across the country, there were few people of color permitted into higher education institutions. However, even as the population of students of color grew, rules and regulations were put in place to keep on-campus organizations, including Greek life, white. For example, codes of exclusion were added to many fraternity and sorority charters, mandating that members be white and Christian. Even before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, in the 1950s, many states enacted anti-discrimination laws that pushed fraternities and sororities to desegregate. While official practices of exclusion based on race were removed by the 70s, national chapters never pushed for diversity. Through favoring legacies in recruitment, requiring hair to be done a certain way for events, rushing for girls that “fit into our group” and not prioritizing diversity, HWFS have remained — for the most part — white and from a higher social class. At the University of Alabama, there was only one Black woman offered a bid into a historically white sorority from its founding in 1904 up until 2013. Moreover, in 2015, a video surfaced of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma singing a racist chant that uses racial slurs and supports lynching. Just recently, fraternity members at the University of Arkansas mocked the death of George Floyd. Many organizations on campus are made up of people that have similar backgrounds, cultures and values. It is human nature for people to want to congregate with people they relate to. So what is wrong with Greek life being this way? The differ-
ence between Greek life and other organizations on college campuses is that Greek life events often make up the majority of members’ social and philanthropic activities. When members live with their chapter, party with their chapter and do community service through their chapter, they aren’t simply surrounding themselves with people from the same background: They are only surrounding themselves with people from the same background. This environment allows members to live in the glorious ignorance of white privilege and face little to no consequences for their racist and oppressive actions. When I joined Greek life, I made a promise to myself that I would not allow it to take over my entire life. I am involved in other clubs, have separate groups of friends and have made my chapter only a fragment of my university life. So, I had to ask myself, what harm am I causing by supporting my national chapter, both physically and financially? A social media post has circulated from a Duke University anti-Greek life Instagram account that discusses the “FratPAC” — a political-action committee dedicated to increasing Greek life presence in Congress and to “enhance the fraternal experience.” The post claims that Greek life membership dues are going to this PAC. The FratPAC donates to both Democrats and Republicans and claims to be unbiased. However, the list of senators receiving donations in the 2020 cycle is predominantly white. Pushing for more Greek members in government is pushing for more white people in government. Another issue with the FratPAC is the legislation it lobbies for. One example is the Safe Campus Act, which would prevent universities from being able to independently investigate sexual assault allegations or punish the accused until the case is closed by the police. Not only does this violate Title IX, but criminal cases can take years and this would allow the accused to remain in their chapter with the opportunity to continue to perpetuate harm within the campus community. Other legislation they have lobbied for includes a requirement of more proof for sexual assault cases, tax breaks for Greek houses and less punishment for hazing measures. What the social media post from Duke does not acknowledge, however, is that it is individual donors and chapters who donate to the PAC, not national Greek organizations.
While your chapter may be donating to the FratPAC, being a member of Greek life does not automatically mean your money is supporting this committee. Linked is the list of donors for the 2020 cycle. Members of Greek life have the power to demand that their chapter does not donate. I have not dropped Greek life because I believe members have the power to cause a change in the organization. While I cannot speak for other chapters, I am proud of the internal changes and efforts my chapter has made in recent months. These changes include forming a guide with petitions and educational resources, a new Diversity and Inclusion chair position, a list of classes that members feel have helped them gain new perspectives, a fundraiser for The Bail Project and Detroit Justice Center and the formation of a book club to support artists from different cultures/backgrounds. This is not to say that my sorority is different from the “bad ones” or is not a part of the problem. This is to say that members of Greek life who choose to remain members should support change, inclusion efforts and diversity in their chapters and condemn their chapters when change is being rejected. For Greek life to truly change, however, there must be efforts at both the local and the national organization level. The national headquarters of HWFS need to make inclusion and diversity a priority in their efforts moving forward. Educational programming should include training on white privilege, supremacy and racism. Social media accounts should not just be a plethora of white faces in expensive clothing on vacations. If Greek life wants to remain on college campuses, they need to not only accept change but be a part of the effort. Racism is a rampant issue in America, and while Greek life is not the root cause of it, it does currently perpetuate segregation, white privilege, ignorance and racism on college campuses. Members of Greek life across the nation need to change the structure and culture of the entire institution by holding their chapter, organization and peers accountable for conscious progress towards inclusion and against racism. Elizabeth Peppercorn can be reached at epepper@umich.edu.
SARAH GARDNER | CONTRIBUTOR
Reimagine Title IX processes
O
n July 31, details from the independent investigation of former University of Michigan Provost Martin Philbert confirmed years of unchecked sexual harassment, a pervasive fear of retaliation and inaction by the University. In an open letter following the report, University President Mark Schlissel said the University administration “should make any changes necessary to prevent this from happening ever again.” And yet, on Aug. 14, new Title IX regulations from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will erode institutional responsibility and strip away protections for those brave enough to report sexual violence on campus. As a member of Student Sexual Assault and Harassment Legal Advocacy Service, an independent project by law students to advocate for survivors reporting sexual misconduct through the University’s Title IX process, it is clear to me what needs to change — and it is clear to me that I need to speak up now to advocate for that change. Ourinstitutionstandsatthecrossroads of an opportunity to reimagine and recreate its Title IX processes and an impending mandate to strip away many of the measures that protect survivors. The University has not announced its plans for changing policies to comply with the new federal requirements, and it will have little choice but to follow these new rules, no matter how misguided they may be. But federal regulations establish a floor, not a ceiling for reform, and there are more insidious problems with the Title IX policies: problems for which the University itself is responsible. These problems are not often visible to those who haven’t gone through the reporting process themselves. But they are problems the University has full power to change. In light of Philbert’s harmful behavior and the institutional indifference that enabled it to continue for over a decade, the University should use this moment to change. Oversight of OIE: In his message regarding the Philbert investigation, Schlissel includes among the recommendations proposed that when sexual misconduct involving the Office of the Provost is reported, the Office of the Provost should not oversee the Office of Institutional Equity (which conducts Title IX investigations) as usual. This is an excellent start. I challenge the University to go further. There should be independent oversight of OIE in all instances — not just those in which its supervising office is implicated. The Office of the Provost is charged with oversight of a wide
swath of departments at the University, including Academic Human Resources, Office of Financial Aid, Office of Undergraduate Admissions and the deans of every college and school on the Ann Arbor campus. Conflicts of interest thus do not only occur when a sexual misconduct report is made involving an Office of the Provost employee or faculty member; they are present when a report is made involving any of the other units reporting to the provost. It is not enough to merely have different administrators responsible for different divisions. Intimidation and fear of institutional retaliation are possible in many different ways from many different places. It matters little whether the University considers such intimidation or retaliation likely — what matters is that such fears are keenly felt by survivors. I should know. I felt those fears myself when I reported a sexual assault as an undergraduate at another university. It’s vital that survivors feel secure in reporting assault or harassment when it occurs. If they don’t feel sure that those overseeing their reports will react and behave independently and appropriately, or if it seems that there are far too many people who could influence or become involved in their reports, horrendous acts by students and faculty alike will continue to be kept secret by those who suffer them. Part of supporting survivors is trusting their accounts of flaws and risks in this process. What comes to mind in terms of oversight is the structure many universities have in place for their ombuds offices: In order to assure true independence, the ombudsperson must report directly to the highest position in their independent institution. If the University wants sexual misconduct investigations to be truly, securely independent, it should consider the same for OIE. Broad Discretion of Hearing Officers: The University’s sexual misconduct policy provides that, when an incident of assault or harassment is investigated and goes to a hearing, the lone hearing officer “has absolute discretion to decide upon a format for the hearing.” Giving one individual responsibility over the hearing and its outcome, and then giving that individual “absolute discretion” over how the hearing is to be conducted, is a recipe for disaster.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com Sarah Gardner is a 2L in the University of Michigan Law School and can be reached at segard@umich.edu.
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
BOOK REVIEW
‘Milkman’, an unforgiving look at gender
SUMMER SERIES
JOHN DECKER Daily Arts Writer
Always keep dancing ZOE PHILLIPS Daily Arts Writer
In the prologue of his 2019 memoir, choreographer Mark Morris wrote that “the live aspect of performance is what appeals: the dancers, the musicians, the audience — all living beings in the same room. People might say they’ve watched a dance on YouTube and they have. But they haven’t. It isn’t live.” Morris is so passionate about this point that he reiterates it in almost every subsequent chapter. By the time the book is finished, his emphasis of live dance set to live music feels practically annoying. And yet, on May 29, the New York Times published an article on Morris’s new adventures with Zoom — the choreographer used the video communication platform to create four new works, all now available on YouTube. While Zoomed choreography may feel like a monotonous phrase as we approach the second half of August, Morris was one of the earlier pioneers in this world of digital dance creation. In the May article, dance critic Gia Kourlas framed the process as inventive; she was excited by the now-customary technique, curious about his inspiration to still create amid stay-athome orders. Morris told Kourlas that he felt annoyed by the idea that our lives must be on hold throughout this pandemic. “This is how we’re living,” he said, “and there’s no real reason to fight it” — an admirably quick adjustment for someone who, just last year, published a book so adamantly in favor of live performance. At the beginning of May, I sat on my living room floor and wrote the introduction to this series, telling the brief story of theatres that still remain dark today. I asked readers: What happens when we’re left with a stage wholly mediated by posts, shares, comments and likes? At the time, I’m not sure if I thought the ghost lights would be off by now, at the end of The Daily’s summer editions. In May, many ballet companies still planned to return to their stages come fall; many summer festivals
ARTS 7
still had not announced cancellation. And yet, as the days grow shorter, most American stages remain completely empty. Thus, as this series comes to a close, it seems my question should remain at our forefront — what happens when we’re left with a stage wholly mediated by posts, shares, comments and likes, and what happens when that digital stage continues indefinitely into the future? I have several potential answers, many of which I hope remain embedded in my various installments of this series. I wrote about Christopher Wheeldon’s “Within the Golden Hour” and examined how the blooming natural world can provide in-person beauty when ballet goes online. I wrote about Tiler Peck’s online dance classes and the larger movement of celebrity accessibility afforded by COVID-19. I examined and analyzed the many ways in which this pandemic exposed structural failures of artistic funding: Companies now face fiscal meltdowns in part created and aggravated by a government that does not acknowledge the economic importance of an arts sector. Millions of dancers and backstage workers will likely be out of work for over a year. With the rise of national protests for Black lives, I wrote about the deep-rooted racial prejudice of ballet’s past and present along with this art form’s substantial role in the ripples of white supremacy that permeate our shores. I wrote about ballet’s structural failures to support Black artists and suggested that quarantine be used as an active moment to listen, learn and lean into the acknowledgement of such wrongdoings. I also wrote about my deep love for this art form. More than once this summer, the sounds of ballet’s music and the patterns of its movement have eased my head and heart of depressing anxiety generated by our country’s sociopolitical reckoning that is no doubt far from over.
Read more at michigandaily.com
It takes only a page or two of reading to realize that the cover of “Milkman” is deceptive. The binding of the 2018 winner of the Man Booker Prize depicts an innocuous, fluorescent-pink sunset — one of those once a year, stop-and-snapa-photo sunsets that makes “Milkman” stands out among its fellow books. The sedative lightness of the cover seems to admit innocuousness. But “Milkman” is not innocuous. Nor is it gentle, or quiet, or apologetic — nothing that the cover may suggest about a subdued, romantic narrative. To say I wasn’t excited to read the Booker winner would be a lie — based on the superficiality of covers and excerpts, I have rooted for “Milkman” since its nomination on the long-list — but the way I fell in love with reading “Milkman” was not in the pleasant, blushing manner I had expected. It was a cycle of shock, recoil and return. Anna Burns’s third novel narrates the story of an 18-year-old girl (referred to as “Middle Sister,” as none of the characters in “Milkman” are prescribed actual names) over the course of two months. Her unnamed town is saturated with violence — violence from the ubiquitously demonized enemy countries “over the water,” violence from the renouncers of the state that control Middle Sister’s town and violence from the state police as they intervene in a village of scattered revolutionaries. Surprisingly, though, this war-zone setting is but an offhand normality in the book. Instead, it is Milkman, a paramilitary that begins making unwarranted advances on middle sister, that takes the place of chief antagonist in the book. At first glance, Burns lays out an invidious landscape that seems to hyperbolize the dark experience of growing up as a woman in the late 20th century. Maybe, Burns seems to suggest, the descent of society would look like this for all genders. But on second thought, the landscape Middle Sister walks — and how her hyperaware, rightfully-paranoid thoughts congeal in it — becomes painfully real. Middle Sister’s encounters with Milkman while walking, her fears of being drugged, the pernicious comments coming from third brother-in-law, all resonate uncomfortably with the realties meeting women today. This daring, critical kick at that experience of being a woman pays off. The apotheosis of the book’s dark and applicable portrayals is perhaps Tablets Girl,
a “girl who was actually a woman,” that is one of the local outcasts in Middle Sister’s town due to her propensity to poison people. This usually takes place, most suitably and without retribution, in bars. People flee from Tablets Girl, people watch their drinks when Tablets Girl is around. It’s not just Burns’s clear allusion to date-rape that that is to be appreciated here, but her spiked humor and exaggeration also. This is not to reduce “Milkman” down to a forced, constricted focus on genderpolitics though. Burns’s writing alone is remarkable (something I refuse to say passively). “Milkman” is brimming with endlessly long paragraphs, lose-yourtrain-of-thought stretched sentences and digressing thoughts from Middle Sister that render the book incredibly complex. At first, I was perturbed by this formal and royal-esque writing, especially upon an encounter with a paragraph spanning four, almost five, pages. But as I continued, I found myself — in an unlikely way — reading Middle Sister’s voice in an uninterrupted pattern even more critical and translucent than I expected possible. This is assisted by Burns’s near-perfect draw of synonyms through the book, making her writing appear dependably careful and personal. I was enamored by the characters in “Milkman” and the abrasive humor that was tacked onto them. It isn’t often that I get a full cast of characters (narrator, antagonist, family) that are so real, so exciting to encounter. Most memorable are the “wee sisters,” Middle Sister’s three younger sisters who, despite their young ages, are infatuated with topics such as French revolutionaries, going through “Kafka phases” and eavesdropping every moment they get. Characters like the wee sisters offer unexpected gratification along Burns’s dark timeline of events. The real humor displayed make “Milkman” all the more authentic and pleasurable. I love “Milkman” because it is a fruitful attempt to offer me hints of a human experience I will never be able to understand, let alone be familiar with. Perhaps the most evocative and vivid account in the vein of social-rebellion and unwanted-gaze I have ever encountered, “Milkman” is a narrative that has been told repeatedly, even frequently in the 21st century. Burns’s unequivocal writing turns this narrative into a fearsome chant, one well worth shouting along to.
8 ARTS
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILM REVIEW
MUSIC REVIEW
‘The Living Dead’ is a thrill and a warning ANDREW WARRICK Daily Arts Writer
The White House briefing room seethes with reporters. Many are confused, enraged and even terrified. All, though, are dead focused on the press secretary. “I think we are very much still in a discovery period regarding who They are and what They want,” she says. A reporter interrupts her. “These are very dangerous words, you understand? They? Them? To anyone in this country who looks differently, or speaks differently, or behaves differently? Do you see how using language like this, right now, could lead to more civilian deaths?” The press secretary doesn’t respond to the question, because Fox News butts in — “Isn’t it possible this is an act of radical Islamic terrorism?” So begins the apocalypse in George Romero and Daniel Kraus’s “The Living Dead.” Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with the American government bungling its response to a devastating pandemic, and fanning the flames of division at a time when everyone needs to pull together. Sound familiar? George Romero, who created, or at least finalized, the modern concept of the zombie, had been working on this novel for decades before his death in 2017. Daniel Kraus, co-author of “The Shape of Water” novel, swooped in to finish it. The book, at 635 pages, is thick enough to be wielded as a weapon if the dead do indeed walk (and in the last half of 2020, who knows at this point?). “The Living Dead” has a breadth Romero, whose films were usually low budget and independent, never achieved. Without needing to rely on special effects, which even in Romero’s masterpieces weren’t always the most convincing, Romero and Kraus’s zombies shamble through, and destroy, a wide range of locales all over North America. An aircraft carrier off the coast of California and Toronto’s Fort York are two highlights. The characters also vary in color, gender and sexuality, continuing and expanding on Romero’s interest in America’s diversity and how the American mainstream responds to it, which has been clear since his first zombie film, ’68’s “Night of The Living Dead.” Kraus and Romero maintain a light, page-turning prose, with a descriptive flair, reminiscent of Stephen King at his best. The novel also has a razor sharp sense of time, averting the potholes that long, apocalyptic fiction usually stumbles into. Stephen King’s “The Stand,” while a masterwork, tears forward as a virus destroys America, but stalls
after the outbreak ends, and never quite captures its initial tension. Even the ever-popular “The Walking Dead” series, both on page and screen, loses its momentum as the narrative leaves behind the horrifying intensity of total, apocalyptic chaos. “The Living Dead,” unlike its shambling creatures, rockets forward until the very last page. It knows when to draw out tense moments of uncertainty, when to explode in bloody horror, and when to condense and summarize. This helps since the narrative is split between a number of viewpoint characters, and takes place over 15 years. When the virus ceases to be a threat, like in “The Stand” and “The Walking Dead,” things are no less intense since the factors that let the disease run rampant, America’s myriad divisions, have only worsened. This book is terrifying cover to cover as its plot, while full of the gore, bullets and ironic, sanguinary Romero wit fans will expect, has a crushing, almost prophetic relevance. In “Night of the Living Dead,” a Black character survives hordes of zombies, only to be killed by white militiamen in the film’s final frame. In “Dawn of The Dead,” zombies are drawn to a shopping mall, and wander dead-eyed through its saccharine halls. In “Land of the Dead,” the rich live on the upper floors of a skyscraper, while the lower classes make dangerous supply runs to maintain their lavish lifestyles. “The Living Dead” packs these satirical threads into one epic narrative, threading together Romero’s interests in America’s prejudice, consumerism, wealth gap and institutional failure. By doing so, it unintentionally analyzes what is helping the COVID-19 pandemic utterly destroy America. The zombie attacks begin in nursing homes and low income areas. Middle and upper class Americans ignore them as long as possible, and the government does not offer a coordinated response, instead playing down the danger until the last possible moment. This is nothing far-fetched. As one character puts it, “It’s Regan laughing off AIDS. It’s Bush saying, ‘Mission accomplished.’ ” It is also Trump and his cronies ignoring COVID-19. “If our inattention is part of why this started where it started, and why no one can stop it . . . Maybe it had to happen,” another character laments. “It feels like we’ve been sleepwalking through a dreamworld we convinced ourselves was working just fine for everyone. It may be too late, but at least we’re waking up.”
Read more at michigandaily.com
‘Alphaville,’ a tour de force of the grotesque ANISH TAMHANEY Daily Arts Writer
Imperial Triumphant’s newest album, Alphaville might be the most versatile album of the year. To call the black metal trio strange would be an understatement; their latest work is a raging, depraved inferno that combines brutal death metal, jazz and even doo-wop to disorienting effect. Despite Alphaville’s colossal battery and sheer weirdness, the album has its mellifluous moments. The constant variation in genre, tone and energy expertly paints a picture of Imperial Triumphant’s worldview — metropolitan and decaying, yet tangible and stimulating. One needs to look no further than the album’s vexing opener, “Rotted Futures,” to get a taste for the band’s verve. The song swaps feverishly between organic whirring, whimsical blast beats and a haunting, odd meter guitar riff. “Value established / Society elated / Alas, the eclipsing hour / Where our fear turns to profit” singer Zachary Ezrin bellows, describing consumption and decay as two sides of the same coin. Mind-boggling rhythms become a crucial trait of Alphaville, especially in the opening melody of “City Swine” and the overpowering dirge of “Atomic Age.” Musical patterns are anything but uniform; they more closely resemble the erratic thuds of a Godzilla on his nightly rampage than even beats. The album’s perspective on modern existence is bruised and warped, so its time signatures are too. Beyond provoking some crazed headbanging and horrified facial expressions, Alphaville incorporates beautifully intricate melody amid the madness. The opulently jazzy intro of “Transmission to Mercury” is a breath of unpolluted air before the song diverges into primal growls and breakneck speed. Yet, the most satisfying aspect of the track — and largely the album
itself — is its willingness to bring together the angel and the demon sitting on its two shoulders. The dancing brass notes eventually do return to “Transmission,” overlaying death metal drums and a dissonant choir. The record is at its best when it adamantly refuses to sacrifice one style for another. Creating an entire runtime dedicated to these clashes in genre would have likely been too inaccessible for any audience. So instead, Imperial Triumphant opts for something more multicameral, patiently building up contrary ideas until there is no choice left but to fuse them. The results are short lasting but explosive, perhaps most successfully on the bridge of “Atomic Age.” This passage, a few ascending melodies smashed violently onto a wall of sonic chaos, always incites a relisten from me. Predictably, another one of these exultant peaks arrives at the title track’s chorus, which can only be described as a cross between “The Twilight Zone” and symphonic metal. The juxtaposition of a feeble, Vaudevillian tune over brazen, guttural chanting haunts me. It’s simply glorious, like the sun flares of a dying star shining through storm clouds from another dimension. Between Code Orange’s Underneath and Loathe’s I Let It in and It Took Everything, 2020 has been a fascinating year for metal fusion. Alphaville fits nicely into this dynamic, despite being the quirkiest of the bunch. While the inherent barrier to enjoying such an experimental release may shorten its staying power, Alphaville is undeniably one of the freshest and most challenging metal albums of the year. Even though listening to the entire album in one sitting can be an overwhelming demand, Alphaville is more than worthwhile.
Read more at michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR 9 Bon Appétit: how racism hides behind the screen
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A letter from the editors CHERYN HONG & GABRIJELA SKOKO
JENNY CHONG
MiC Managing Editors
As the summer comes to a close, and our time as Managing Editors is now complete, we would like to close off with a letter and a hope for MiC — an ode to a summer of revolution, if you will. Neither of us could have predicted what we signed up for, but we are more than proud of what we were able to accomplish. Thanks to a group of brilliant and talented writers and staff, we were able to pull off a summer of enlightening and educational series of writing which not only shared personal experiences or reflections, but provided scholastic and experiential insight into the many departments and institutions that feed the Black and Indigenous plight in America — a truth that is often rejected and whose existence is perpetuated through journalism. Not only did we learn so much from our peers, but we are so grateful to have been given this opportunity to amplify issues in our country which have been occurring since the genesis of our nation, and which built the nation. These issues will persist until we confront them in every system through which we function — social, governmental, economic, etc. — we hold our peers accountable for this same confrontation, actively educate ourselves on how these systems affect society at micro and macro levels and utilize that education to grow and change with an united front. Michigan in Color started out as a safe community exclusively for BIPOC to write and share their
MiC Staff Writer
experiences at the University of Michigan and in the broad United States. We tried our best this summer to uphold MiC traditions while also adjusting to inevitable change and pursuing necessary actions as a section to carry on the change we instigated this summer. Before we give up our positions, we would like to remind others, especially at The Michigan Daily, that the sentiment of change which began this summer can not and should not stop here. The newspaper’s responsibility does not only rest in its published content, but in the team that they hire to write, edit and administrate that content for the paper. In all of our efforts to expand content and staff, we must be adamant about centering the Black and Indigenous voice — especially those of womxn. As the MiC section, we also want to hold each section accountable for this responsibility as individual groups — it is not enough to have Michigan in Color at the paper; this work must be demonstrated by each and every section at the paper. Simply put, MiC cannot and will not be your excuse or your teacher. We must treat MiC as an individual section which operates on our own basis. We are not diversity issue
scapegoats and we must operate as a whole group to rectify our wrongdoings for a greater future. But this conversation and demand for accountability is far greater than the paper — we would like to inspire a bigger call to action for our readers, as this time is one to take advantage of. We have sat comfortably for too long in great periods of performative activism. As we continue to stand complacent in the visual apologies granted to us by large corporations and brand names who participate in oppressive systems, we ourselves perpetuate them and we ultimately oppress one another. Amidst this pandemic and simultaneous civil rights and liberation movements sprouting globally, we have been given the opportunity to demand more from ourselves, from one another and from those who puppeteer these systems. We encourage you to be intentional and reflective with each pursuit of activism you engage in: Is this truly the most beneficial way for you to wield your privilege and/or space for the liberation movement at hand?
my meal swipes at the dining hall. I’ll no longer have to begrudgingly change my outfit before I leave the house. Soon, it will be completely up to me to make the decisions that ultimately represent who I am, and in turn, it will be up to me to uphold the values and standards that were taught to me in my ethnic household. In high school, I often struggled to find a cultural balance between my ethnic home life and my school life, and even then, I got to return home every afternoon. In two short weeks, I’ll no longer have this privilege, and I am still trying to grapple with my contradicting
feelings of unease and eagerness. Despite being physically distanced from my family, I am hopeful that I’ll still be able to recall their moral guidance while simultaneously developing my character and finding myself in an overwhelmingly new environment. Initially, I perceived my family’s Middle Eastern values as a sort of setback when thinking about beginning college. I felt as though I had a reputation to uphold and the pressure to behave in whichever way would make my parents the happiest.
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On Thursday, popular food magazine Bon Appétit lost three employees of color as a result of racial discrimination in the workplace and weeks of unsuccessful contract negotiations. The news comes two months after a 2013 Instagram photo of Adam Rapoport, Bon Appétit’s former editorin-chief, in brownface resurfaced, which sparked criticism around the publication’s systemic racism and calls for Rapoport’s resignation by staffers. Soon after, the staff of the magazine posted a public statement on Instagram recognizing their complicity in a racist workplace culture and planning to make change for their BIPOC staffers as they “begin to dismantle racism.” With over 6 million Youtube subscribers, the Bon Appétit channel has amassed a large following — many of whom watch their Test Kitchen series featuring video contributors of color Priya Krishna, Sohla El-Waylly and Rick Martinez. Amidst the magazine’s declaration in early June to instill an equitable work environment for BIPOC staffers, the three chefs went into weeks of contract negotiations asking for compensation and video appearances equal to what the publication offered their white counterparts. However, Bon Appétit and its parent company, Condé Nast, failed to meet their demands. El-Waylly, a Bengali-American assistant editor, publicly accused the magazine of only compensat-
ing white editors who appear in the Test Kitchen videos and not the people of color. She also revealed that, even with over fifteen years of professional experience, she was making a salary of $50,000 to assist white editors with much less experience. She believes she was “pushed in front of video as a display of diversity” and told BuzzFeed News how they asked her to stand in the background of photo shoots and video shoots amongst other exploitive measures for tasks she did not sign up nor get paid for. After speaking out about her mistreatment, she received a new contract offer on June 8, which included a raise but nothing close to the salary of her white coworkers. Consequently, El-Waylly recently announced she would no longer be appearing in Bon Appétit videos but would still be contributing to the magazine’s recipes and articles. Krishna and Martinez reportedly received offers on June 8, which would have guaranteed 10 video appearances per year — significantly less than their white co-workers, some of whom were guaranteed up to 60 appearances. Both refused to accept these offers. In a Twitter post, Krisha, an Indian-American food writer, stated their diversity and equity plans were “all lip service” and said the contract would actually give her a lower wage than how much she currently earns. She also stated how non-white members...
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Transitioning to college life as a POC
GRACE GARMO MiC Staff Writer
In exactly two weeks, I will have finished moving into my dorm room in Bursley Residence Hall, and my parents will have just given me a final goodbye hug. As each day passes and the beginning of my college life draws closer my anxiety-ridden thoughts are met with the realization that for the first time, I will have to function independently. I’ll no longer have to speed home with angst to meet curfew. Instead of sitting around the kitchen table in anticipation for my mom’s homemade tabouli and hummus, I’ll be using
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Design by Hibah Chughtai
10 MICHIGAN IN COLOR AAKASH RAY MiC Staff Writer
Thank you for changing my diapers when I was a baby to being my biggest cheerleader growing up. I never feel lonely because of you. For saving me from drowning in countless pools, fountains and other near-death experiences I’m sure I had. I always feel comfortable testing my boundaries because of you. For downloading my first iPod with all your music and making me hip by introducing me to artists like Maroon 5 and Eminem. I have incredible music taste today because of you. For giving me food every day after school when our mom started working. I never went hungry because of you. For keeping every secret I’ve ever told you. I never have to deal with my thoughts eating at me alone because of you. Thank you for teaching me right
Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Because of you
from wrong when our parents couldn’t. I learned early on not to use words that can hurt other people and the importance of family because of you. For helping me pass through every step of school by proofreading my essays, pushing me to think about my career and giving me general life lessons when they were most timely. I learned to be a functional adult because of you. For covering for me whenever I needed support, whether that be when my car broke down in the middle of Ohio without our parents knowing or when you invited me to your apartment in Chicago and let me get away from the noise of college. I always know the first person I can call because of you. For always dealing with our parents in the most civil way and never saying anything without precise calculation. I recognized the significance of emotional intelligence because of you.
I was raised by you and our mom, although at very different levels. While our mom bore the responsibility of being an authority figure in the household, you are the one who could empathize with me as my equal — who shares many of the same childhood memories that I vaguely remember. You take all of what someone else might perceive as my flaws and make me feel comfortable with them. You forgive me for not speaking as much, knowing I enjoy time to myself, but still somehow earnestly push me to escape my bubble. You respect my decisions, fears and dreams no matter how irrational or unplanned they may be, vowing instead to work through them with me. You stand as an equal no matter how much older and more successful you become and never let distance keep us apart. All relationships change with time, but I know you will always
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be my biggest role model. You were the first person who taught me self-awareness and showed me disagreement is worthwhile when combined with integrity and
respect. And I know you have many more lessons you will teach me in the coming years and beyond.
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Understanding burn-out for BIPOC womxn VICTORIA MINKA MiC Staff Writer
This summer has held some of the ugliest as well as the most radically beautiful moments of my life thus far. In its entirety, this season has taken it out of me. By it, I mean my energy, my tears, my heartache and my time. While I appreciated all of the work I was doing while trying to cope with living in a pandemic, I can’t say that I always did it well. I have a habit of dropping off the grid for periods of time, letting myself drift into a hermetic state and only popping back up after several days. It is even harder for me to name this as something that is a symptom of larger problems rather than a quirky flaw that I have. I get burned out, and instead of dealing with guilt or stress, I disappear. Over the past few weeks, I have had this conversation with multiple friends who identify as womxn, and there seems to be a recurring pattern. We put so much pressure on ourselves to be the best students, look beautiful always, advocate for ourselves, live as models of what womxn should be, act as supports for our friends and family and thrive romantically. I am not saying all of these equally affect all womxn or that they encompass all of our troubles, but I acknowl-
edge that they’re deeply real. The spinning plates of life are hard to grapple with and contribute to this burnout. When I say burnout, I am referring to the World Health Organization’s definition, of a syndrome of chronic workplace stress that has not been well managed and has led to energy depletion, exhaustion, as well as other symptoms. Women are more likely to experience burnout than their counterparts, particularly in the workplace. We hold ourselves to the highest standards, both at home and at work, and we so often are not recognized for our efforts. This is an exhausting cycle to live within, and it is impossible not to be tired from it. Womxn, especially womxn who identify as black, Indigenous and people of color, hold themselves to a standard that is unattainable, but we don’t know any other way to be. We were taught to try to thrive with breadcrumbs, tricked into believing there was only so much to go around so we would have to settle with less. We were made to believe that by making ourselves smaller, there would be ways for us to slip between the cracks and make it through. In reality, shaping ourselves to the cisgender, white, heteropatriarchal system only means erasing or drowning out aspects of our cultures, histories and iden-
Design by Hibah Chughtai
tities. I think burnout in BIPOC womxn has everything to do with being told to change ourselves to fit an oppressive system. The first step in realizing there is a problem is naming it. Naming that we suffer from burnout gives us back our power. It lets us recognize that we are human and all of the effort and toil we put in
does place stress upon us. I found that when I name my burnout and take care of myself best is when I am surrounded by womxn who are strong enough to know when to lean on others. They allow me to share how I am doing with them and affirm me in the direction I am growing. By working together to weave our own support networks
and lift each other up when we’ve fallen, we can begin to change the narrative around how we talk about ourselves and the challenges we face. Going into this upcoming fall season, I will continue to appreciate the wonderful...
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Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS 11
What postponement means for college athletics, Michigan ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
The Big Ten made it official on Tuesday, ending days of speculation and contradicting reports with a decision to postpone the fall season. In a perfect world, that would be the end of all the questions and things would be cut and dried. But it isn’t a perfect world, it’s the NCAA. And that means this decision opens up a whole lot of questions that Michigan’s athletic department — and every other athletic department in the Big Ten — hoped it would never need to answer. Most of them don’t have answers yet, but we tried our best to lay them out, with what we know right now. Why was this decision made? Put simply, because America didn’t get COVID-19 under control. Back in March, when winter sports shut down, nobody thought fall sports would be cancelled. When Korea brought back professional baseball, Germany brought back soccer and the rest of Europe’s top leagues soon followed, case numbers in the US were steadily declining through May — things still looked good. Then things took a turn for the worse in July, when the effects of states relaxing lockdowns and social distancing took hold, and some refused to impose or continue mask mandates. On top of that, this is still a virus we’re learning about as we go. It’s become almost conventional wisdom that it doesn’t affect kids badly, and certainly the mortality rate is low among the college age population. But recent studies have indicated increased risk of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. College administrators have seen those studies, and that played a role here. Last week, the mother of Indiana offensive lineman Brady Feeney went viral with a Facebook post that detailed her son dealing with potential heart problems after contracting COVID-19. Incidents like that one give colleges pause, both from a health and a liability perspective. By punting to the spring, the Big Ten is giving medical experts more time to develop a treatment and to understand exactly what the lasting effects of COVID19 are. It’s also giving the country more time to get its act together and start putting up numbers in line with what, for example, the European Union is dealing with instead of the
NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily
The cancellation of Fall sports leaves many questions to answer about the consequences of missing a whole season.
tens of thousands of cases America has every day. What are the chances a spring season actually happens? Nobody knows. Anybody who says they do is lying. If the reaction from coaches, players and politicians — including the President — right now is any indication, it will take a lot of political will to completely cancel the season. The financial ramifications would be massive, though athletic departments are already dealing with major hits from the NCAA Tournament cancellation. But the bottom line is, there needs to be confidence that a season can happen safely. As many have pointed out, you can’t bubble college athletes. They’re unpaid student-athletes, a distinction the NCAA would very much like to keep intact. Colleges across the country, including Michigan, are bringing students back in a matter of weeks. Some have already done so. If those students all get sent home by the end of October because of outbreaks, are we really going to have a football season in the spring? Without major changes with regard to a vaccine or therapy for COVID-19 or a dramatic decline in case numbers, it’s hard to see a coherent argument for doing that. On the other hand, if the SEC and Big 12 go ahead and have a full season without a disaster happening, it’s hard to see why the Big Ten wouldn’t want to follow suit. If nothing else, the Big Ten bought itself valuable time by postponing its schedule.
What does this mean for winter sports? Nothing good. Unlike football, soccer and field hockey, most winter sports are indoors — where the virus spreads easier. Smaller rosters for sports like basketball could make things more navigable than, say, football, but money from football pays for nearly every other sport. So without that money guaranteed, would administrators want to hold, say, a women’s gymnastics season with the athletic department facing a major revenue loss already? It’s unclear right now. The only rule the Big Ten, and the NCAA at large, has seemed to adhere to since the pandemic hit is that it won’t make a decision until it needs to make a decision. And even then, it might find a way not to make a decision. All this is to say, speculating about winter sports right now is a fool’s errand. Are athletic scholarships still being honored? There’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t be. Unlike, for example, a professional contract that might have an incentive for games played or be contingent on appearing in games, athletic scholarships aren’t dependent on games happening. Moreover, pulling them would only add to what’s already been a public relations nightmare. Ohio State quickly released a statement that all athletes will remain on scholarship, other schools will follow its lead. What will the financial impact be for Michigan’s athletic department?
Much of that depends on whether there will actually be a spring football season or not. If that happens, it means lots of TV money. It might even mean some fans in the stands if things get better in a drastic and unrealistic way. If that doesn’t happen, the revenue shortfall could easily reach nine figures. Michigan has already budgeted $61 million less than last year and athletic director Warde Manuel wrote in an open letter last week that number “could easily double if the decision is made not to play any sports.” At Michigan State, athletic director Bill Beekman said Monday that no football might result in an $80-85 million revenue loss. Michigan likely has the financial means to avoid cutting programs, but this isn’t the case for everyone (nor is it a stone-cold guarantee for Michigan). Regardless, the impact will be far-reaching, whether there’s ultimately a season or not. What will the football program now? As of now, Michigan has suspended athletic activities, including team practices, until further notice. The release announcing so, however, noted that the University “will decide on organized team and voluntary student-athlete activities as soon as information becomes available.” That leaves the door open for some kind of training. It’s hard to see things shutting down altogether the same way they did in the spring. As Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh noted in his statement Monday, the football team has worked out without creating an
outbreak. Students are still coming to campus. There’s not much reason not to train. As those advocating for a season have noted, football (and other sports) give players structure. It forces them to follow social distancing protocols. A season could still happen in the spring, so might as well be ready for that possibility. What happens with eligibility? It’s completely unclear right now. The Big Ten is in uncharted territory. There’s no rules to govern whether an early enrollee is allowed to play a spring season, because there’s never been a spring season. There’s no rules to govern whether players will retain eligibility in a cancelled season because that’s never happened either. In the spring, the NCAA allowed athletes to retain eligibility but this isn’t necessarily the same. This wasn’t a uniform NCAA decision and some conferences may play in the fall. Moreover, it’s unclear whether the Big Ten will be able to play in the spring or not. What happens with the NFL Draft? Again, nobody knows. The NFL can push its draft date back as far as June 2, but whether it will is another story. Whether draft-eligible players will want to risk injury in a spring season even if the draft gets moved back is another matter altogether. That will likely depend on each individual player. How do the players feel about this? With the caveat that Michigan’s football team shouldn’t be treated as a single entity, a vocal contingent of players publicly stated on Monday that they wanted to play.. A number of players tweeted out “#WeWantToPlay” on Monday and were joined by Harbaugh, who sent a statement outlining the reasons he believed a fall season should happen. All of them had to do with low positive test numbers and strong adherence to protocols within Michigan’s program. But Michigan’s football program isn’t reflective of every other football program in the Big Ten. Michigan State and Rutgers both had to quarantine after positive tests. Elsewhere at Michigan, four teams had to pause practices due to positive tests. Even if 80 percent of players buy into social distancing, a few people can ruin it for everyone. Michigan football seemed to do things right. But that alone isn’t enough.
12 SPORTS Reactions to a devastating day for sports Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
KENT SCHWARTZ & EMMA STEIN
Summer Managing Sports Editor & Summer Editor in Chief
Sitting on practice field behind Schembechler Hall, the Michigan football team learned what most already knew: Their season — like those of the MAC and Mountain West — would have to wait. The Big Ten, the first Power Five conference to do so, postponed their season, with hopes of playing in the Spring. They were in the middle of a break between practices when the news came down. Their meetings Tuesday morning went normally, avoiding the rumors that had circulated the day prior about season cancellation, President’s votes and rogue teams. The second part of their preseason schedule, practice, would start at 3 p.m., but a text from Compliance Services brought them back to Schembechler slightly earlier. “I’m feeling a little conflicted because, you know, there’s been a lot of work put in and it’s a lot of time for us to get right over the summer, and it just getting canceled randomly –– well, not randomly, but getting canceled –– has put a toll on our team and our morale overall,” offensive lineman Trente Jones said. “Right now I’m just a little conflicted.” “We’re pretty devastated, everyone’s pretty devastated,” senior defensive lineman Jess Speight said. “We’re all bummed, but we’re
taking it day by day,” junior quarterback Max Wittwer said. “There were rumors, we heard the MAC canceled their season and we didn’t think it would have any role to play in the decision made by the Big Ten. We heard all the stuff, we just figured that we would surpass them, basically.” The players, like the rest of the college football world, are now left with questions. About eligibility, about when competition returns, about practice, about everything. And those feelings of devastation, dread and loss turned quickly into a grasp on what it all means. “Right now, we don’t know how eligibility is going to work,” Jones said. “That’s why a whole bunch of the seniors are kind of worried, but I feel like the messages have been clear with playing and time and stuff like that. “I don’t know how it would work with the spring season and then having a fall season, or would we go to Spring season every year? That was my thoughts when I initially heard it.” Michigan will continue to practice for 20 hours a week after getting clearance from the Big Ten, and ultimately finished doing so on Tuesday. While Jones is worried about the details, it’s clear from talking to the players that they see this as simply a delay, a roadblock. That if the country does what it needs to, there’s a chance that football can return and that those 20 hours a week will prove vital. “Any season getting canceled
is pretty sad,” freshman defensive back RJ Moten said. “I mean, it just gives us more time to prepare for the season and especially the big games that we have here.” But for that to happen, the players on Michigan know it’s not in their hands. That clichéd line “control the controllables” will only get them so far. The Wolverines controlled what they could, and it still got them a canceled season. The frustration is clear that what they can’t control will end up deciding their sport’s feasibility, that this is a problem beyond Jim Harbaugh’s office or the gridiron. “I hope (we can play later), especially with the whole corona thing,” Moten said. “Everybody needs to know that it’s serious.” “It’s very unfortunate about how this whole situation was handled,” Wittwer said. “I feel if they implemented the programs and protocols that we had here in Schembechler Hall, then this really wouldn’t have been an issue.” The heads of Michigan players as they left practice weren’t held high, smiles didn’t reach past their masks and to their eyes. Carrying boxes of takeout, they hardly spoke as they went to their cars, they looked at their feet and pulled out of the parking lot quietly. All the work they’d put in since last fall, the precautions taken as they returned to campus, those practices and hashtags didn’t work. The dreams of a fall season died on the practice field behind Schembechler Hall.
BECCA MAHON/Daily
Football was postponed Tuesday right before the Wolverines’ second practice of the day, leaving many downtrodden.
NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily
College football players are starting to work together to achieve their goals.
Student-athletes call
for beginning of union ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
After a day in which college football seemed to be on the brink of cancellation, the athletes themselves took to social media to express two things. They want to play. And they want a say in how it’s done. Players from all five power conferences joined in posting a graphic outlining their wishes for the season late Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday morning. “We want to play football this season,” it reads. “Establish universal mandated health & safety procedures and protocols to protect collegeathletes against COVID-19 among all conferences throughout the NCAA. “Give players the opportunity to opt out and respect their decision. “Guarantee eligibility whether a player chooses to play the season or not. “Use our voices to establish open communication & trust between players and officials; ultimately create a college football players association representative of all Power 5 conferences.” Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields were among the high-profile players to share the graphic. From Michigan, defensive back Hunter Reynolds
— who helped create the Big Ten Unity Proposal — tweeted, “#WeWantToPlay and not just P5 football players. There are athletes in other conferences and other sports who put in just as much effort to have as safe a season as possible.” Earlier on Sunday, multiple reports indicated the college football season could be postponed as early as this week. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren reportedly favors moving the season to the spring, and is said to have the backing of the majority of presidents in the conference. Though movements like the Big Ten Unity Proposal have gotten players meetings with Warren, athletes themselves have been left out of the actual decision-making process — both in the Big Ten and in the country at large. That’s no surprise. It’s how college athletics has worked since its inception. And it’s why the idea of a players union shakes the very model on which the NCAA is built to its core. Amateurism does not comport with the notion that athletes are employees, with all the rights that come with being such. With Name, Image and Likeness legislation being debated in Congress and the COVID-19 pandemic throwing the fall season into question, players are seizing the moment. If they can succeed, it’s hard to imagine just how far-reaching the consequences could be.
SPORTS 13 Kevin Warren talks about ‘uncertainties’ that led to Big Ten decision Thursday, August 13, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NICHOLAS STOLL
Summer Managing Sports Editor
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren had a lot to say about the postponement of sports in the conference this fall — unfortunately a lot of it translates to ‘We don’t know.’ “This is a holistic decision,” Warren said in an interview with the Big Ten Network. “There are just too many uncertainties now to go forward and have fall sports in the Big Ten.” Which essentially just echoed what he said in the statement put out by the Big Ten today: “The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward. As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging
Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.” Essentially, the Big Ten, along with its presidents and chancellors, don’t know what the consequences of holding fall athletics will be, and that makes them worried enough to vote the season down. When asked whether the vote was unanimous, Warren demurred. “Our schools, we don’t always agree.” Warren said. “... But I think people understand, and I take that from a passion standpoint, that we will be together in the Big Ten. So I just think it’s important to make that very clear. I would rather not have a detailed discussion about your question of whether the vote was unanimous or was it not unanimous.” Translation for this one: it was
not unanimous. And it’s pretty well known who at least one of the nonunanimous voters are. Nebraska said, in a statement today backed by its system president Ted Carter, chancellor Ronnie Green, athletic director Bill Moos and head football coach Scott Frost: “We are very disappointed in the decision by the Big Ten conference to postpone the fall football season, as we have been and continue to be ready to play,” the joint statement read. Michigan president Mark Schlissel confirmed with a statement on Tuesday that he voted in favor of postponement despite football coach Jim Harbaugh advocating playing in the fall. After tip-toeing ever-so gracefully around the question surrounding unanimous voting, Warren reaffirmed that the season being postponed had to deal with many
factors surrounding the spread of the virus, not just one. Directly addressed was myocarditis, the heart affliction that seems to be worrying medical professionals as a possible effect of COVID-19, but Warren said the new concern over it was not a primary reason for the vote, rather just added to the many concerns and of course
“uncertainties.” Despite all this lack of certainty by the commissioner and conference alike, Warren put on a face to assure the audience of one final thing about the Big Ten before the end of his interview: “We will continue to be absolutely dominant, not just academically but athletically.”
MILES MACKLIN/Daily
Kevin Warren shared his thoughts on BTN following the postponement of fall sports.
Ethan Sears: The stories we’ll miss without a fall season There’s this moment I can’t get out of my head. I haven’t been able to for five months — not since mid-March, when COVID-19 shut down college sports. It’s Duncan Robinson, and he’s standing in the far corner, poised behind the 3-point line. There’s a little over two minutes left and ETHAN Michigan, in a SEARS packed maize and blue Staples Center, is close — so close — to the Final Four. From where I’m sitting, up in the auxiliary press box, up near the ceiling, you can see Robinson’s defender leave him, the ball come to him and then float towards the net. All those fans down there in maize and blue, they lose their collective minds. Robinson turns to the bench and yells. The game is all but over, and that weird, improbable run is going to go for another week on the sport’s biggest stage. In that singular moment back in March of 2018, it feels like the whole world is coalescing around Michigan basketball and every character on that team, Duncan Robinson chief among them. That singular moment, it’s why we love sports.
Robinson’s story has been told again and again. You’ve almost certainly heard it before, but as a quick reminder we’ll rehash it here. Robinson started his college career playing Division III ball at Williams College. He transferred to Michigan and, after sitting a year, worked his way into the rotation as a 3-point specialist. In his senior year, he struggled and got replaced by Isaiah Livers, then a freshman, in Michigan’s starting lineup. He came off the bench the rest of the year, found a key role on a team that went to the Final Four, and it seemed likely that the story would end there. Out of college, he signed a twoway contract with the Miami Heat and seemed consigned to basketball purgatory. Then he started hitting threes for them, too and now he’s in the NBA bubble, playing a key role on a playoff team. When his contract is up, he’s going to make a ton of money. That’s cool as hell. I’m not telling you this because you didn’t already know — this is probably the 100th time you’ve heard Robinson’s story. I’m talking about this now for the same reason I can’t get that snapshot out of my head: When I think about why it’s a shame the Big Ten postponed fall sports, I think about Duncan Robinson. Hold on a minute. Don’t laugh. I know Duncan Robinson plays a winter sport. I understand there’s better reasons to have sports or not,
there’s more at play here than one guy’s human interest story. Playing sports right now might not be the smartest thing. Having students back on campus — especially if, like a lot of schools, your coronavirus mitigation plan amounts to a shoulder shrug and an eye roll — might not end well. The Big Ten’s decision puts moral and public health obligations over financial gains and, all told, it’s the right call. The U.S. has done a terrible job at fighting the coronavirus. We’re reaping what we sowed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t lament it. So let’s get back to Duncan Robinson and all the other stories that make sports worth watching. Remember when Jordan Poole hit the shot? If you’re this far into this story, you probably remember where you were sitting and who you were with. I’ll never forget talking with
Duncan Robinson after Jordan Poole hit the shot. Robinson had fouled out of the game. He thought it’d be his last college game, thought he’d been partially responsible for a crushing loss. The look on his face, the tone in his voice when he spoke in the locker room. That was something to remember. “I don’t think I’ve ever cried tears of joy,” Robinson said that night. “But I was damn close.” Forget, for a minute, about the fact that Robinson is now an NBA player with an NBA career and all the amenities that come with it. Because right then, he was a college kid and the best thing he’d ever been involved in had just gotten improbably extended for another week. Now think about all the athletes at Michigan (and elsewhere), all with
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Without fall sports, the stories that make us love sports will dry up.
their own stories and hours of work and breakthroughs to get to where they are, and what they all must have been on Tuesday when the announcement came down. Think about Nick Blankenburg, a junior defenseman on the hockey team who plays every game for his grandfather, and Nick Granowicz, his teammate, who’s playing for his mom. Think about Mohammed Zakyi and Omar Farouk Osman, who started their soccer careers playing with paper bags and folded clothes, and now likely won’t have their senior years. Think about Paige Jones and all the people in New Bremen, Ohio watching her play volleyball for Michigan. Think about Maddie Nolan working her way back from a microfracture to play basketball for Michigan. Think about what they’re feeling now, after their fall seasons got canceled. Those that play in the winter can’t be feeling good about their chances of having a season either. The Big Ten made the right decision. But as long as we can acknowledge that, let’s also take a minute to appreciate all the stories, all the players, all the games and everything else we won’t get to have this year, because it’s all improbable, and at any moment it could all be over. Now, more than ever. Sears can be reached at searseth@ umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears.