2021-03-10 by The Michigan Daily

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Big Ten university leaders used private, third-party platform to discuss fall reopening, football season U-M President Mark Schlissel asked staff to move communications to keep them hidden from public eye LILLIAN GOODING Daily Staff Reporter

Big Ten university leaders — including University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel — used a private network exempt from public record laws to communicate about fall COVID-19 outbreaks on campus and the 2020 football season, the Washington Post reported Friday. Through public records requests, The Washington Post accessed emails between the chancellors and presidents of Big Ten universities. In these emails university officials asked to move their discussions to the Big Ten portal, a platform hidden from the public eye. “Just FYI — I am working with Big Ten staff to move the conversation to secure Boardvantage web site we use for league materials. Will advise,” Schlissel wrote in an email to

other Big Ten chancellors and record. I know I’m not the only one “becky, if you simply delete presidents. for whom this is true,” University emails after sending, does that Though each individual Big Ten of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor relieve you of FOIA obligations? university is subject to Freedom Rebecca Blank wrote. I share your concern of course,” of Information Act laws, the In a direct private email back Schlissel wrote. conference as a whole represents to Blank, Schlissel responded According to The Washington a private, third-party entity not by suggesting they delete their Post, there is not significant required to share their records. emails. evidence that implies either Blank Despite a football season ridden with COVID-19 outbreaks and forced game cancellations, The Washington Post was unable to find evidence of significant discourse involving both coaches and administrators. There is no indication as to why Big Ten leaders reversed their original decision to cancel the season. Instead, from an exchange of emails from August 2020, The Washington Post identified university leaders expressing their shared concern to not disclose any information to the public. “Mark (Schlissel) and others MADDIE FOX/Daily & ALEC COHEN/Daily — please note that anything that University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel and other Big Ten university leaders arrives in or is sent from my communicated through a private network exempt from public record laws about campus email can be requested as a public COVID-19 outbreaks and the 2020 football season.

or Schlissel acted on this idea and deleted their communications. As Blank then informed Schlissel, the Freedom of Information Act prohibits public leaders from permanently deleting their messages. The Washington Post requested the release of all emails, including those sent over the private platform, but was unsuccessful, as university representatives said they belong to the Big Ten Conference. Many Freedom of Information Act experts, including David Cuillier, associate professor at University of Arizona, and Chip Stewart, professor at Texas Christian University, said these communications between public leaders on a third-party server can still be accessed by the public under the Freedom of Information Act. Additionally, senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Information

Act expert Adam Marshall said to the Post he believed it was “troubling and wrong” for public leaders to try and evade public information laws in this way. In an email to The Michigan Daily Friday afternoon, University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald wrote Schlissel uses several different means of communication with colleagues, and the conversations in question were not moved to the Big Ten portal. “U-M President Mark Schlissel regularly communicates with the presidents of other Big Ten universities in a variety of ways on many topics,” Fitzgerald wrote. “President Schlisel notes that this was simply a conversation among colleagues trying to help each other by sharing information on how to navigate a novel, shared challenge – COVID-19 on campus.” Daily Staff Reporter Lillian Gooding can be reached at goodingl@umich.edu.

Schlissel: Well-being days ‘U’ ends hiring, salary freezes for fiscal year 2022 don’t ‘solve the problem’

merit raise program at June meeting Announcements on Fall 2021 semester expected mid-March Board of Regents to vote onalsoreinstating stabilized.” this as, ‘hey, we did our part,’ and CALDER LEWIS, JARED DOUGALL & CHRISTIAN JULIANO Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporters

The Michigan Daily sat down with University President Mark Schlissel March 2 to discuss the University of Michigan’s fall planning, well-being days and sexual misconduct processes. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Mark Schlissel: Things are actually going well now and the number of cases are coming down all across the country. The number of student cases are coming down, and staff and faculty (cases) have remained low. So, I just want to compliment and thank everybody for continuing to put up with the incredibly disrupted lifestyle for the sake of keeping as many people healthy until we can vaccinate everybody. I’m more optimistic now than I’ve been at any point in the last year. We’re also getting good compliance with the mandatory testing. Basically all of the dormitory

students are complying, and then many off-campus students. We’re up to about 21,000 tests a week, and the percentage positive is quite low — it’s below 1% positive. As it gets warmer, it’s going to be easier too, as we’ll be able to spend more time outdoors, and it’s safer outside. TMD: It’s common nowadays in college classes for students to be asked by their professors or instructors to self-evaluate their performance. As U-M’s President, what grade would you give yourself, out of 10, for your response to the COVID-19 pandemic now a year into it — especially when compared to other institutions of higher education? MS: What we’re talking about is actually a group project — it’s not an individual project. It involves the leadership of the campus, our medical and public health experts, our faculty, our staff and then all of you. It’s not a project where any one person can be responsible or do it alone. We’ve had some successes, and other things haven’t gone as well. So, amongst the good news is students are progressing towards their degrees. Our enrollment is

normal enrollment. Students whose families have run into difficulty, we’ve been able to help them stay in school by providing special financial aid. Our health system has done spectacularly well. We’re the largest public research university in the country that was shut down during the height of the epidemic, but we ramped up again. Our labs are at 75% capacity now, and we’ve published over 1,000 papers on COVID; so, a lot of things in that area are going well. Our public health experts are advising the state government — all of the government’s plans are based on our expertise — that feels good. The challenge is there have been lots of student cases in particular. When we do the tracing of those cases, the overwhelming majority are due to contacts being made off campus, usually in social circumstances, too high density and not being as rigorous about masks. I wish we had fewer cases, but we’ve only had two (brief) hospitalizations, so I’m glad that no one’s taken more seriously ill amongst our student community. See SCHLISSEL, Page 3

DOMINIC COLETTI Daily Staff Reporter

Starting July 1, the University of Michigan will end its yearlong hiring freeze and employees will be once again eligible for a merit raise program, after the University halted both programs last April in response to lost revenue caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Board of Regents will vote on reinstating these programs at their June meeting. At the University’s weekly COVID-19 briefing on Feb. 26, Provost Susan M. Collins said the University’s financial situation is strong despite being dependent on how much money the state of Michigan allocates it in 2022. Last month, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that the state budget would offer a 2% increase for Michigan’s public universities relative to the previous fiscal year. “2021 total application volume is actually up about 26 percent compared to 2020,” Collins said. “Our current enrollment remains steady. The financial position of the University of Michigan has

But Collins said the University’s finances will remain constrained as units such as University Housing and Michigan Athletics continue to suffer from lost revenue. Despite that, she said, the University is prioritizing efforts to support faculty and staff affected by the pandemic. Collins also said a merit increase program for faculty will be implemented for the upcoming fiscal year after the 2020 program was scrapped due to the pandemic. William McAllister, executive manager for transportation and waste management, told The Michigan Daily that the merit increase program reaffirmed his confidence in the University’s financial situation. “To hear Provost Collins mention that there’s going to be some sort of modest merit increase… further solidified the feelings I had about (the University’s financial position),” McAllister said. “It just shows what we did as employees… (that) made a huge difference financially for the University, and I think a lot of people look at

now the University is going to do their part by reinstating the merit program.” In an email to Michigan Medicine staff published in the University Record, Marschall Runge, executive vice president for medical affairs, said the hospital would reinstate several of its own benefits programs, including paid time off, merit and competitive pay raises, tuition reimbursement and departmental professional development programs. Michigan Medicine restarted its retirement match on Jan. 1. “You have played a critical role in helping Michigan Medicine return to routine operations and a stable and positive financial outlook for the current fiscal year,” Runge wrote to hospital employees. “Thank you for your ongoing commitment to our mission of advancing care for Michigan and the world, especially during the peaks and valleys of COVID-19.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Second lawsuit against U-M OIE director alleges mishandling of Title IX case while at University of Nebraska First suit accused Tamiko Strickman of violating sex discrimination and civil rights law at UNL JULIANNA MORANO Daily Staff Reporter

Another lawsuit was filed Feb. 28 against Tamiko Strickman, associate vice president of the University of Michigan’s Office of Institutional Equity, alleging she and other University of NebraskaLincoln personnel mishandled a student’s sexual misconduct report. The first lawsuit, filed in July 2020, accused Strickman of violating sex discrimination and civil rights law at UNL. The July 2020 lawsuit also states that Strickman was terminated from UNL in December 2019, a claim that both University of Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald and UNL spokesperson Leslie Reed denied to The Daily in July. The suit names nine current or former UNL students as plaintiffs.

Strickman did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment in time for publication. Strickman previously served as the UNL interim Title IX coordinator and director of the UNL Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, but she left in 2019 under disputed circumstances. The February lawsuit, filed by Title IX lawyers Karen Truszkowski and Elizabeth Abdnour, details a new set of allegations against Strickman and other UNL personnel for their handling of a former graduate student’s report of alleged harassment. The student alleges that a professor harassed her while she was enrolled in a Ph.D program at UNL. A copy of the lawsuit was obtained by The Daily. The new lawsuit states the student experienced “numerous violations of her rights” in UNL’s

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reporting and investigation process. Strickman is specifically accused of pressuring the student to drop her case, making false statements about the investigation to the student and ignoring the student’s questions about the investigation, among other allegations. “When Plaintiff went to the IEC (Institutional Equity and Compliance) office to check on the status of her case, Strickman made Plaintiff feel like she was the harasser rather than the victim,” the lawsuit reads. “Strickman would speak to Plaintiff in an angry tone that made Plaintiff feel like she was wasting her time.” The unnamed plaintiff in the Feburary lawsuit was a graduate student at UNL from 2014 to 2017. She alleges that her unnamed faculty adviser, referred to as John Roe in the court filings, kissed her on the lips in his office without her

consent. She was 26 years old and married at the time of the alleged incident; he was over 60. After she attempted to limit interactions with him after the incident, she alleges he started a “retaliation campaign” against her to limit her interactions with other instructors, increase her financial dependence on him and humiliate her in front of her colleagues. The alleged romantic advances also escalated from there, the lawsuit states. In what the lawsuit describes as the “worst” instance of retaliation, the professor allegedly demoted the student from first to second author on a research paper without giving her prior notice, a decision which compromised her ability to fulfill degree requirements. During the investigation, which took place during the summer of 2016, the plaintiff’s

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ALEC COHEN/Daily A lawsuit was filed against Tamiko Strickman, associate vice president of the University of Michigan’s Office of Institutional Equity, Sunday evening.

primary points of contact were Strickman and fellow UNL IEC employee Susan Foster, according to a letter to the student mentioned in the lawsuit that was signed by Strickman. Following the conclusion of the investigation in August 2016, a no-contact directive was put in place between the student and professor. The student alleges the harassment from the professor did not stop, leading her to file a second report with IEC in October 2016. According to the lawsuit, no investigation was opened into the second complaint. This led the student to transfer to

another university and begin her program again there. “Plaintiff had been hopeful that UNL would protect her from Roe’s harassment and retaliation, but her faith in the school had been completely broken,” the lawsuit reads. In an email to The Daily March 1, Abdnour, one of the Title IX lawyers on the case, wrote that the new lawsuit has much in common with the July 2020 one, as both reveal discrepancies between UNL’s policies and their practices.