ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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CRIME
Crime alert delay due to detail issues, UMPD says South Quad residents express concerns for lack of timely info on sexual assault ZAYNA SYED
Daily Staff Reporter
DANYEL THARAKAN/Daily
Sociology professor Sandra Levitsky, recipient of the 2018 Golden Apple Award, gives her ‘last lecture’ on “Sociology and the Political Power of Optimism” at the Golden Apple Awards ceremony in Rackham Auditorim Monday.
Sandra Levitsky talks power of optimism at Golden Apple lecture
Award-winning prof. says social change occurs through examination of status quo AMARA SHAIKH Daily Staff Reporter
In her last lecture, Sandra Levitsky, an associate professor in the Sociology Department, presented “Sociology and the Political Power of Optimism.” That is, the topic outlined her “ideal last lecture” — an annual event held Monday evening for this year’s Golden Apple Award Ceremony and recipient, Levitsky. Levitsky is the 28th recipient of
the prestigious, student-selected faculty award and was chosen out of nearly 700 nominees. Each year, the Golden Apple Award Ceremony offers the honoree an opportunity to present their “last lecture” to students and other individuals who appreciate their work. Along with her lecture, attended by over a hundred University of Michigan community members in Rackham Auditorium, Levitsky also decided to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union. Before Levitsky took the stage, LSA junior Kyle Riebock, Golden
Apple Award Committee president, welcomed the audience and spoke to the quality of Levitsky’s role as a professor and as a mentor for students at the University. Riebock also noted her work with Sociology Opportunities for Undergraduate Leaders, which helps first-generation students academically and professionally, and her research on various social issues. “Professor Levitsky is truly a wonderful example of a professor deserving of this award,” Riebock said. “When the committee
surprised her, I was really able to hear a lot of heartfelt sentiments from her student and peers that truly moved me … Her research investigating social needs and inequality is truly inspiring and impactful.” Riebock also praised the legacy Levitsky has created so far and expressed his desire to follow in her footsteps. “As a future teacher myself, if my legacy inside and outside of the classroom can amount to even half of the legacy Professor Levitsky See APPLE, Page 3
After a third-degree sexual assault in South Quad Residence Hall at the University of Michigan was alerted last Friday, some residents were concerned about the two-day delay in the crime alert. The assault, which took place on March 27 and was reported to DPSS on April 4, was not reported to the entire student body via a crime alert until 3:40 p.m. on April 6. LSA freshman Cassandra Ritter, a South Quad resident, said she was confused as to why the crime alert was delayed seeing as though it impacted the immediate safety of residents. “I took issue with the fact that this incident was reported on April 4th, and we didn’t get any notification about it until the 6th, and all of (the previous DPSS crime alerts) were reported a couple of hours after, and some of them even an hour after,” Ritter said. “I don’t understand
why this incident, they didn’t let us know until two days after, even though this is something that directly affects us because it happened in our dorms.” Melissa Overton, University deputy chief of police, said the delay was due to lack of information from the initial report and could not be avoided. “We had to do some further investigation based on the original information we had,” Overton said. “We were trying to determine exact location, things like that. It just depends on what’s originally reported to us.” According to Overton, this was not due to doubt of the victim’s account but to ensure the accuracy of the crime alert. “The way we evaluate (a case) for a crime alert is we determine at the time, with all the information that we have, whether or not we deem it to be a public safety threat,” Overton said.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Black students recount incidents of Alum talks Victims of ambitions, racism, discrimination on ‘U’ campus Syrian war
CAMPUS LIFE
CAMPUS LIFE
diversity at University
Patterns of bigotry emerge in the classroom, social environments, say student accounts
Dreams2Reality program helps underrepresented minorities navigate ‘U’
A Black LSA sophomore has to think twice before any decision they make: once as an individual, and again as a member of the Black community. For this reason, the subject of this interview requested his name not be used in this article. He has to consider the impact of his words on how people view him as a Black person, he said. “I have to be mindful that I’m a student, but I’m also Black here,” he said. “Sometimes the intersection of that, it becomes a double workload. So, a lot of times I feel uncomfortable even voicing my opinion on certain things because I don’t want to be perceived as a radical, or against white people.” This idea of living a double life, or as this student put it, “thinking with your regular eyes and with the mind of a Black person as well,” is encapsulated in activist W. E. B. Du Bois’s term “double consciousness.” According to the sophomore, this double-consciousness permeates every aspect of his life, even in something as simple as a white female student asking to call an Uber from his phone when he was with his friends at a Black fraternity house. “I had to think consciously about it,” he said. “I had to think with two minds. I want to help her, so I’m going to allow you to order the Uber from my phone,
LEAH GRAHAM Daily Staff Reporter
More than a dozen Detroit high schoolers descended on the University of Michigan’s campus Monday afternoon for more than an average Campus Day tour. Members of PILOT, a student organization that works with first-generation and underrepresented students, showed the prospective students around campus on Monday as part of Dreams2Reality, an event offering college planning assistance and empowerment to high school freshmen and sophomores from underrepresented minority backgrounds. LSA freshman Ihunanya Muruako is PILOT’s financial director and a Dreams2Reality committee member. She said one of the goals of the program is helping the students learn more about social justice while helping them “get accustomed to college.” “We just hope that a lot of the conversations that we have are more in-depth and get them thinking about themselves,” See PILOT, Page 3
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ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Daily Staff Reporter
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but I also have to keep in mind that if you’re in this house with a lot of Black men, you could try to flip this into something that completely did not happen because you’re drunk, and they would believe you because you’re a drunk white woman and we’re Black men.” This caution, this obligation to constantly think about one’s race and these ways of thinking are shared by many members
of the Black community at the University of Michigan. Early experiences of racism created them, and the continued racism they experience at the University engrain them deeper in Black students’ minds. Large-scale, more publicized racist incidents have plagued and continue to plague the University, the most recent one being a student posting a blackface
Snapchat mocking the #BlackLivesMatter movement. 50 years after the first Black Action Movement began with students taking over the Fleming Building following the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr., racism still pervades in social interactions, in classrooms, at parties, on the street and more.
written in Diag chalk
Students organize to write names of 1,000 victims on Diag following attacks MOLLY NORRIS Daily Staff Reporter
See DISCRIMINATION, Page 3 On Monday morning, the names of 1,000 men, women and children who have been killed in Syria by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were written in chalk across the Diag at the University of Michigan. These represented only a fraction of the more than 400,000 Syrians who have been killed during the conflict, now in its eighth year. While the demonstration was motivated by the conflict in general, the chemical attack in Douma, Syria on Sunday was a call to action according to LSA freshman Basil Alsubee, who participated in the demonstration. “It is a response to the overall situation for the past couple years, but I think that what happened on Sunday really triggered this sense of, ‘We have to demonstrate,’” Alsubee said. “Sometimes we get a little complicit, and we start taking it for granted that humanitarian crises that are happening abroad are just going to happen. CHRISTINE MONTALBANO/Daily
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No.108 ©2018 The Michigan Daily
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................6
See SYRIA, Page 3
SUDOKU.....................2 CLASSIFIEDS...............6 SPORTS....................7