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Ann Arbor, Michigan
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Matisyahu performs at Hill Auditorium Monday.
Matisayhu, Nadim Azzam perform at Hill Auditorium Students say Music Matters concert falls short of propeace message By LARA MOEHLMAN Daily Staff Reporter
Jewish-American reggae and alternative rock artist Matisyahu joined Ann Arbor native Nadim Azzam,
a Palestinian-American performer, for a concert intended to promote peace and unity at the University of Michigan Monday night. Following the event, many students said they were impressed by both Azzam and Matisyahu’s presence and musicality. However, several also noted a lack of content explicitly engaging with the theme of unity. The stop was part of a nationwide college tour for Matisyahu, who is
known for his political and social activism, with the selfprofessed aim of promoting peace. The concert, hosted by the University’s Hillel and the student organization MUSIC Matters, drew a crowd of roughly 500 students to Hill Auditorium. In a March interview with The Michigan Daily, Matisyahu said he conceived the college tour idea after he was asked to make anti-Israel comments at
a music festival in Spain last summer. After he refused, he said he was kicked out of the festival before being invited back to Spain to play another concert amid the controversy. He then played despite protests from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement protesters throughout his performance. “This concert series and these shows is really not about politics,” he said in March. See MATISYAHU, Page 3
Average of 80 individuals relocated to Washtenaw County annually By BRIAN KUANG Daily Staff Reporter
Editor’s note: The name of a refugee in this story has been changed because of potential implications on his family or future refugees, denoted with a star. For over half his life, Hassan* has been without a country to call home. As a small boy, he f led from Somalia in 1992 amid a civil war, arriving in Kenya alongside hundreds of thousands of other Somali refugees. Now, Hassan, his wife, and his four children — the oldest six years old, the youngest one year old— are starting their life again in Washtenaw County. About 80 refugees per year
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Cull activists call for resignation of councilmember Opposition group says Lumm’s e-mails show bias on deer management plan By BRIAN KUANG Daily Staff Reporter
Opponents of the Ann Arbor deer cull accused the body of unethical behavior prior to the cull’s approval in 2015, calling for the resignation of Councilmember Jane Lumm (I– Ward 2) at Monday’s City Council meeting. Local residents opposed to the city’s deer management program — a long-termpolarizing issue that concluded its first iteration in early March — accused Lumm of having an unethically close relationship with deer cull advocates from 2014 to 2015. The activists, led by Ann Arbor resident Sabra Sanzotta, said Lumm has an undisclosed relationship with the pro-cull advocacy group Washtenaw Citizens for Ecological Balance. Sanzotta and other activists cited several of Lumm’s e-mails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, as a basis for their argument. Similar charges were leveled against Lumm and WC4EB in January from a different set of e-mails. Ann Arbor resident Jennifer Robertson cited those e-mails to claim Lumm had forwarded city documents to WC4EB before they were made public, and that WC4EB provided personal information on public
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opponents to the cull through 2014 and 2015. “We are being poisoned by toxic cronyism and the indifference of our elected officials,” Robertson said at Monday’s meeting, calling on Lumm to resign. In response to the charge, multiple council members and Mayor Christopher Taylor (D) came to Lumm’s defense, drawing angry responses from many residents in attendance and causing Taylor to call the chamber to order multiple times. Taylor specifically noted that though he was the only individual to vote against the cull and often disagrees with Lumm, he did not believe any of her actions were unethical. “I’ve endorsed opponents of (Lumm)” Taylor said. “If she runs again, I’ll probably do it again, because we don’t vote the same on many issues. However, I have heard nothing that shakes my confidence in Councilmember Lumm’s ethical behavior in this matter. Building coalitions with citizens and colleagues is democracy in action … she has been an effective public servant in this regard, although I disagree with it.” Councilmember Chuck Warpehoski (D–Ward 5) also said Lumm’s involvement with local activists was in no way unethical, comparing it with his own involvement with a summer youth work program sponsored by the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department. “I don’t that there is some cronyism that puts me in the pocket of the ‘summer jobs’ See COUNCIL, Page 2
are resettled by Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County, the only resettlement agency in the area. Hassan and his family applied through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for resettlement as asylum-seekers in 2009. After seven years of screenings and waiting, he learned he was one of the few to have his application approved. According to UNHCR, less than 1% of all refugees registered with the United Nations are resettled in new countries. Continuous warfare and famine has prevented many refugees like Hassan from returning to Somalia — one group of many worldwide that are finding their home countries inhospitable. More than 400,000 Somali refugees remain in Kenya — primarily in decades-old refugee camps — according to the UNHCR. However, while in the country they are not issued legal work See REFUGEES, Page 3
At SACUA visit, Warde Manuel talks athlete aid Body also consider sexual misconduct policy, appoints new chairs
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By ISOBEL FUTTER
Rackham student Britany Moore raised concerns regarding tuition rates and the lack of scholarships at Michigan universities in the Michigan League on Monday.
Coleman, Schlissel discuss higher education funding Current, former college presidents explore need for public universities By LUCAS MAIMAN For the Daily
Mary Sue Coleman, University of Michigan president emerita, returned to campus Monday night to discuss accessibility in public higher education alongside current University President Mark Schlissel. Schlissel and Coleman joined other panelists to address the goals of the Lincoln Project, a policy discussion headed by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences which aims to consider the implication of reduced state investment in public education and the role of the federal government in funding public research universities. Coleman
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currently serves as the president of the Association of American Universities, and is a co-chair on the Lincoln Project. In his welcome and call to order at the event, Schlissel said research universities allow students to engage in interactive and innovative modes of learning. “At a research university, your children learn from faculty that are creating new knowledge,” Schlissel said. “They’re defining what the current limits are of human knowledge and what the next questions to be answered are. Students get to participate in the act of discovery.” Coleman said the Lincoln Project has cast a light on the importance of public research universities. The Lincoln Project has produced four publications about the importance, shift in funding, economic role and finances of these institutions. Other panel members included Patrick Doyle,
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president and CEO of Domino’s; M. Roy Wilson, president of Wayne State University; and Lou Anna K. Simon, president of Michigan State University. The leaders all discussed how investments into public universities serve as fuel for driving the nation’s economy. In Michigan, Simon said the Lincoln Project highlights why the portion of the education budget that is a part of the research at universities has declined. In 2011, Gov. Rick Snyder (R) cut state funding to higher education by 15 percent, funding has gone up in small increments since then. In the 2017-2018 fiscal year recommendations, Snyder recommended increasing higher education allocation to pre-2011 levels. Doyle, who also serves as the chair of the board of directors for the Business Leaders of Michigan, said public higher education is See LINCOLN, Page 2
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Daily Staff Reporter
Warde Manuel, University of Michigan athletic director, emphasized the seriousness he places on academics for student athletes at Monday’s Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs meeting. “We drive our student athletes to be very successful academically,” Manuel said. “Not just for eligibility purposes, but for themselves and their lives.” Manuel, who was appointed in January to succeed Interim Athletic Director Jim Hackett, visited SACUA for the first time since his appointment to talk about the relationship between the Athletic Department and faculty. SACUA Chair Silke-Maria Weineck, a professor of comparative literature, said correspondence between the Athletic Department and faculty has lessened in the past few years. “I think there’s a bit of a sense from your predecessors that the faculty and the Athletic Department have drifted apart, for lack of better words,” Weineck said. “And there hasn’t been a lot of interaction between the Athletic Department and the faculty.” Faculty members echoed Weineck’s statement, saying they felt faculty members were not given a voice due to poor See SACUA, Page 3
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