CELEBRATING OUR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Friday, December 5, 2014
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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GOVERNMENT
University presidents attend D.C. conference Obama hosts national Day of Action on college affordability
VICKI LIU/Daily
Steven Salaita speaks about his rescinded job offer from the University of Illinois Thursday at Hutchins Hall. His offer was rescinded over the summer after he criticized Israel’s military action in Gaza, part of the Palestinian territories.
SAFE hosts de-hired prof. from University of Illinois Steven Salaita highlights importance of academic freedom
this year, spoke at the University Thursday evening in an event hosted by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality. Salaita, who was set to begin a tenured position at Illinois this fall, had his job offer retracted after a number of donors, students and faculty at the school contended that he was antiSemitic. The charge stemmed from comments Salaita had tweeted from his personal Twitter account during the summer
By SHOHAM GEVA Daily Staff Reporter
Indigenous studies scholar Steven Salaita, who was dehired from the University of Illinois amidst controversy earlier
amidst escalating tensions between Gaza and Israel, in which he condemned Israel’s July bombing of Gaza. The bombing resulted in an estimated 2,000 deaths in the area. Speaking to a receptive crowd of nearly 100 professors and students in Hutchins Hall, who gave him a standing ovation before he began speaking, Salaita discussed the circumstances surrounding his exit from Illinois, along with broader themes of academic freedom.
UMPD has relatively little military surplus By MAX RADWIN Daily Staff Reporter
Like many other schools across the country, the University has participated in a federal government program to obtain reissued equipment from federal agencies over the last two years, but on a relatively limited basis. Since 2012, the University has obtained a range of secondhand equipment from the federal government, including riflescopes, computer hardware and privacy scene barriers, according to documents obtained by The Michigan Daily through a Freedom of Information Act request. The 1033 program, which began in 1997, aims to reuse “excess property” from military units — which can include air conditioners, clothing, computers, as well as weapons — by recycling it to local and state police departments, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. The DLA claims that $2.2 billion worth of property is distributed each year. The University has obtained two riflescopes since 2012. Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the University’s Department of Public Safety, said the
WEATHER TOMORROW
University applied to obtain the riflescopes in an effort to evaluate whether it wished to make use of a similar type of scope on its existing rifles. However, she said the riflescopes that were obtained from the program were in such a state of disrepair they could not be evaluated. The scopes would be used with long-gun rifles, which Brown said are standard-issue to University police officers. She said the rifles are lawenforcement grade, not military grade. A standard long gun is also issued to officers in addition to a sidearm. The University has also received six “Scene Privacy Barriers” since 2012, which are used to tent over a victim on the ground during a crime scene, according to Brown. In addition, two listings of “Computer Repair Equipment” appeared on the equipment inventory list, which Brown said were “small tools to work on computer hardware.” The Washington Post reported in September that many police departments responsible for enforcement on public school districts — including the Los Angeles School Police Department, the San Diego Unified Schools and Florida’s Pinellas County Schools Police Department — received much more equipment than the University from the 1033 program, including several M16 rifles and utility vehicles. Joy Rohde, an assistant proSee SURPLUS, Page 3
HI: 39 LO: 27
Daily Staff Reporters
Several members of the University community participated in the White House’s College Opportunity Day of Action in Washington D.C. Thursday, a national event focusing on increasing the number of students able to attend college. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were keynote speakers at the event. More than 140 top college executives attended, including Daniel Little, chancellor of University of Michigan-Dearborn. Several other higher education officials and researchers, including Public Policy Prof. Susan Dynarski, also
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PUBLIC SAFETY
Defense Dept. supplied computer repair equipment, protective barriers
He said reactions to his firing have run the gamut of politics and opinions, but what disappointed him most is what he characterized as a lack of honesty. “If you want to support what the (University of Illinois) did, I don’t begrudge you,” he said. “What I ask of you though, is honesty. I don’t want you to say that Salaita wasn’t actually hired yet; anybody who has spent any time in academe knows full well See SAFE, Page 3
By AMABEL KAROUB and ALLANA AKHTAR
attended the event. “(The speakers) focused on the social justice importance and the economic importance of extending access to disadvantaged people in our country and being able to help a segment of our population that is historically very disadvantaged,” Little said. “They expressed values I think all of us buy into.” In a conference call Wednesday, Josh Earnes, White House Press Secretary; James Kvaal, a deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; Celia Munoz, deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the College Opportunity Day of Action is a continuation of a similar event that occurred in January of this year, which included more than 100 leaders from different higher education institutions around the country. They added that they hoped to outline progress made since the first summit and brainstorm ways to improve. See AFFORDABILITY, Page 3
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
‘U’ program encourages high school innovators Startup High School initiative aims to garner over 1,000 project pitches By MICHAEL SUGERMAN Daily Staff Reporter TERESA MATHEW/Daily
LSA junior Brenda Martinez makes a caramel apple spice drink in the Union Starbucks on Thursday.
CAMPUS LIFE
Harvard professor talks sexual violence and war Reports show rape during wartime associated with recruitment tactics By ANASTASSIOS ADAMOPOULOS Daily Staff Reporter
Dara Kay Cohen, assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University, spoke at Weill Hall at the Ford School Thursday, sharing details from her book examining rape in modern civil wars. The book, which is yet to be published, is based on statistics from a number of civil wars and draws on her fieldwork in
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Sierra Leone, El Salvador and East Timor. Cohen discussed her work, describing the occurrence of rape during civil wars and across different factions within the same wars since 1980. The event was hosted by the International Policy Center. “There is a huge amount of political will to do something about the problem of rape and other forms of sexual violence during war,” Cohen said. She added that there is no consensus on the causes and consequences of rape during wartime and that most literature on civil war violence is focused on lethal violence. Unlike other studies that have examined this type of conflict, Cohen’s focus is on the perpetrators themselves
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INDEX
and what types of armed forces are more likely to engage in gang rape. She noted that traditional arguments explaining sexual violence in civil wars are opportunism, greed of perpetrators, ethnic hatred and gender inequality. In her book, Cohen develops her own argument, which she calls “combatant socialization.” The method of recruitment is an important factor in this argument, suggesting that groups with forced recruitment have to build cohesion. The level of cohesion within armed groups is an important predictor of whether and how frequently costly group violence occurs. She noted that criminolSee CIVIL WAR, Page 3
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Two years ago, members of MPowered — one of the University’s main entrepreneurshipfocused student organizations — went into classrooms at Ann Arbor’s Pioneer High School to pilot a program of small entrepreneurship workshops for students. After receiving positive feedback, MPowered established the initiative as a permanent program called Startup High School, and expanded to cater to schools in Metro Detroit for the 2013-2014 academic year, offering workshops only to students who are selected through an application process that involves pitching startup ideas. This year, Startup High School will enter its third cycle, seeking innovative high school students not only from Detroit and its surrounding suburbs, but also from Grand Rapids. The group’s online application closes Dec. 31. Engineering junior Eric Yu, codirector of Startup High School, said in the program’s first official year, the organization received more than 350 pitches from high school students in Detroit. This time, it’s aiming to garner more than 1000. See STARTUP, Page 3
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