2019-04-23

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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LEO accuses SMTD of cutting ‘U’ courses after union won pay raises Lecturers claim classes are being transferred to tenured professors post-bargaining campaign

Pres. Obama adviser talks career, book during event Valerie Jarrett discusses her experiences in the White House, the support of her mom LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter

MAX KUANG/Daily Ian Robinson, president of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization, greets SMTD Dance lecturer Jean-Claude Biza before the Congolese Dance Class showing at the Betty Pease Studio Theatre Saturday.

LEAH GRAHAM Daily News Editor

The Lecturers’ Employee Organization has accused the School of Music, Theatre & Dance of moving to reduce course loads for two lecturers following LEO’s successful bargaining campaign last year.

According to LEO, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance is trying to shift classes taught by lecturers Missy Beck and Jean-Claude Biza to tenuretrack faculty in order to avoid paying lecturers more under the contract the union ratified over the summer.

Beck, who has taught at the University for more than 15 years, said she was told her course

load would be reduced after she emailed Anita Gonzalez, interim chair of the Department of Dance, in February asking about scheduling sections of a ballet course.

“That’s where she replied that she didn’t even know if I’m going to be teaching next year,” Beck said. “So I wrote back to say, ‘What’s going on, if it’s me, if it’s my performance, I would love to talk to you about that. This was my mission, teaching students and teaching people, so if there is something I could be doing better, please let me know.’”

Beck said she was told SMTD intended to have tenure-track faculty take over the classes she had previously taught.

“It was a bit condescending,”

Beck said. “At one point when they said, ‘You’ve been helping us out, you’ve been so generous to take those classes, but now we need to give them back to the people who they belong to.’”

Following a months-long bargaining campaign, LEO ratified a new contract with the University in July that included salary increases and improved health benefits and job security for nearly 1,700 nontenure track faculty across the University’s three campuses.

Under the agreement, the minimum salary for lecturers in Ann Arbor saw a 47.8 percent increase, going from $34,500 to $51,000 by September 2020.

Starting salaries in Flint and Dearborn were both set to reach

$41,000 by then, a 50.2 percent and a 44.9 percent increase respectively.

LEO says it is because of these raises the Music, Theatre & Dance School moved to cut the dance lecturers’ course loads. According to an email provided to The Daily by LEO, Gonzalez said in February SMTD’s administration was looking to shift as many courses taught by lecturers as possible to tenure-track faculty.

“Because of the large increase in LEO salaries the administration would like to move as many LEO courses as possible to tenure track faculty,” Gonzalez wrote.

See OIE, Page 3

On Monday evening, over two hundred students, faculty and community members filled the Michigan Theater for a conversation between Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and Broderick Johnson, a former White House Cabinet secretary for Obama. The discussion touched on Jarrett’s experiences as a single parent working in the Chicago mayor’s office in addition to her years as Obama’s adviser and close confidant.

The talk, co-hosted by Nicola’s Books and the Michigan Theater, was meant to give the community an inside look into the White House during the Obama years and promote Jarrett’s new memoir, “Finding My Voice,” which was published on April 2.

Johnson, who noted Jarrett is the longest-serving senior adviser to any U.S. president, opened the conversation by reminiscing on their experiences together as University of Michigan law students. Johnson mentioned the two became even closer friends working for the Obama campaign in 2008.

“Over the last 15 years, Valerie and I have become very, very close friends through the campaign, the Senate campaign and then the two successful campaigns for president,” Johnson said.

The conversation flowed between discussion of Jarrett’s childhood in Iran, where she grew up on a hospital compound, and her family’s relocation to Chicago when she was seven years old.

Jarrett said while her years in Iran lent her a greater appreciation for the freedom awarded to citizens in the U.S., they also made her aware of the importance of a cultural crossover and understanding.

“It gave me the sense that the United States is really an extraordinary country,” Jarrett said. “But the other thing I learned there was that … we can learn a great deal outside our shores. So it gave me the context for where the United States fits in. Coming back to Chicago, to my mother’s home and where my father did his residency, they just felt it was great because they were going home. To me, I was going to a foreign country.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

GOVERNMENT

State AG addresses abortions

The Office of Institutional Equity comes into being in 2004. It handles cases of discrimination, but not the student on student sexual harassment cases. Before this time, sexual harassment claims were handled by Human Resources.

2011

2013

In 2011, after the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague Letter to remind schools of the importance of preventing and addressing sexual violence under Title IX, student Title IX cases were transferred to the OIE office.

From August 2011 to August 2013, OIE instituted an interim procedure while the University worked on a more robust student sexual misconduct policy.

2016

In 2013, OIE’s official policy was implemented, utilizing the single investigator model to keep a trauma informed lens without sacrificing fairness.

2017

In 2016, OIE revised its policy to include intimate partner violence and gender based harassment. It also required that there be an annual review of the policy.

2018

In 2017, a district judge dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of a former University student who violated the University’s Student Sexual Misconduct Policy but argued his due process was denied.

In 2018, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals appealed this ruling, and struck down the University of Michigan’s sexual assault investigation model because it did not include a cross-examination. Because of this, OIE amended its process to include an in-person hearing between students involved and the witnesses.

Currently, OIE is working to create a more permanent version of their policy. .

Interview with The Daily: Office for Institutional Equity officials clarify new policy, reporting process OIE sits down to discuss overarching mission, duties, training protocols for investigators at U-M ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Managing News Editor

In the past academic year, the Office for Institutional Equity, the entity on campus charged with investigating complaints of discrimination and harassment, has been widely talked about on campus. After a ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2018, OIE had to change its policy regarding student sexual misconduct complaints to include an in-person hearing between the

accused and the accuser.

In October 2018, The Daily published an article following a student survivor of sexual assault’s painful experience going through OIE’s reporting process. In November 2018, The Daily investigated the University granting Music, Theatre & Dance professor David Daniels tenure after a student reported an instance of Daniels’ sexual harassment to OIE. In light of this heightened conversation surrounding OIE and

the reporting process, The Daily sat down with Jeffery Frumkin, OIE interim senior director, and Elizabeth Seney, OIE senior associate director and interim Title IX coordinator, to talk about OIE’s mission, its new policy, its investigator training processes and other areas of interest.

The Michigan Daily: What would you say OIE’s overarching mission is in helping the campus community? What are the office’s priorities in investigations?

Elizabeth Seney: For the

first question, I would say the overarching mission really is to make sure that the University is responding fairly and appropriately to concerns that exist. Then, of course we also have a role in preventive and educational work as well. So I wouldn’t limit our overall mission to just responding to particular concerns, but I would say that is where we spend a lot of our time and efforts and that’s a significant priority. And that really is in making sure that the process is designed and conducted in a way

that there’s broad access to make reports, broad access to engage in either an investigative process or whatever might be the appropriate and requested resolution, and that all of those processes are both legally compliant but also meet the needs of the community, so they’re fair. People are being treated with respect throughout the process … not causing more harm as much as that is possible. I would say that’s the overall mission.

Nessel discusses role of Roe v. Wade in the state MELANIE TAYLOR Daily Staff Reporter

At the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan conference in Lansing on Tuesday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said even if the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade, she would not prosecute what would then become illegal cases of abortion.

“I will never prosecute a woman or her doctor for making the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy,” Nessel said.

LSA senior Megan Burns, co-president of Students for Choice at the University of Michigan, and LSA senior Annabelle Luescher, the events coordinator for Students for Choice, attended the conference on behalf of their organization.

“Dana was speaking a lot about things she had done in support of women and in support of women’s rights during her time in her new position as attorney general,” Burns said. “She kind of threw it in there sort of randomly.

I think a lot of people were caught off guard.”

See OIE, Page 3 See ABORTION, Page 2

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INDEX

Vol. CXXVIII, No. 106 ©2019 The Michigan Daily

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 CLASSIFIEDS................6

SUDOKU.....................2 ARTS...................5 SPORTS.................7

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ABORTION From Page 1 Burns said, in her experience, she has never seen such a concrete commitment asserted at a conference. She said conferences are usually a place for speakers to voice their opinions to an understanding audience rather than roll out plans.

“This was a pretty unprecedented event,” Burns said. “It says a lot about her commitment to reproductive rights and protecting women in the state of Michigan.”

Kaylee Tegethoff, Michigan’s state captain for Students for Life of America, serves as the spokesperson for the state’s prolife student advocates. She believes Nessel’s announcement does little to protect Michiganders.

In an interview with The Daily, Tegethoff said Nessel’s position on abortion prosecution would only serve to confuse local procedure across the state.

“Dana Nessel is our state’s chief law enforcement officer, and when she picks and chooses what laws she wants to enforce, I think that’s a problem,” Tegethoff said.

“All Michigan citizens should be concerned about that position, whether you’re young or old, in college or out of college.”

In the event, Roe v. Wade is overturned federally, the legal issue of abortion is delegated to individual states.

“Michigan has a law on the books right now that would ban abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned,” Tegethoff said. “I

LEO From Page 1

In an email to The Daily, Gonzalez denied the email existed and said she was “amazed at how many invented facts are

CB IN DA HOUSE

think whether you agree with the law or don’t agree with the law, the attorney general’s job is to enforce the law.”

Luescher said Nessel received the loudest cheers when she justified her decision to selectively enforce state laws by citing her predecessor’s, Bill Schuette’s, choice not to enforce a “single” environmental protection provision over the course of his incumbency.

“I think she knows what she’s saying, and she’s not saying it just to be inflammatory,” Burns said.

“She’s not saying it just to make a stance. She’s saying it because she really is convicted by it and she wants to hold to it.”

Luescher said she sees the attorney general’s announcement as an assurance of security for women in Michigan that their rights will not spontaneously disappear if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

“There is this sense that a lot of people had that suddenly this giant turn in the tide occurred,” Luescher said. “Suddenly a lot of people are against reproductive justice or abortion rights and what the attorney general and the whole conference was saying was that ‘no, there are a lot of people supporting this and proactively working on it.’”

Burns believes Nessel’s announcement positions her well for re-election because her young voters strongly support this portion of her platform.

“At the University of Michigan, we have a large community that supports Students for Choice and supports reproductive

rights, broadly speaking,” Burns said. “The younger generation is more politically favorable of these policies and Dana Nessel’s stances. I also would say that if we are the ones that are going out to vote in the next election, then I think this is a favorable thing for Dana to say because it speaks to our interest and it speaks to our concerns as young people.”

Tegethoff disagrees. She said there are more pro-life young adults than there have been since the Roe v. Wade ruling. Tegethoff believes these young advocates will eventually eliminate Roe v.

Wade.

“Most people are now not saying ‘if Roe v. Wade is overturned,’” Tegethoff said.

“It’s now ‘when Roe v. Wade is overturned.’ The when and how of that has yet to be determined, but we do have a pro-life majority on the Supreme Court, and I do think that in the next few years, Roe v.

Wade is likely to be overturned.”

Tegethoff said she hopes that, along with a change in abortion law, the United States will alter Americans’ perspective on abortion in general.

“Ultimately, I also hope to see that hearts and minds would change,” Tegethoff said. “I don’t just want abortion to be illegal. I want abortion to be unthinkable.

I want women to realize that the unborn is a human being that has value and that we should respect that life.”

Tegethoff said she hopes the law will soon align with her morals and ethics, strengthening the respect Americans have for its authority.

circulating.”

Gonzalez said LEO’s information was “not accurate,” referring press inquiries to David Gier, dean of SMTD. Speaking on behalf of Gier, Universit y spokesman Rick Fitzgerald wrote, in an email inter view with The Daily, only the dean could

represent the SMTD. “The dean has been absolutely clear that SMTD has not and will not make personnel decisions as a result of LEO’s success at the bargaining table,” Fitzgerald wrote. “SMTD is, however, conducting a review of its entire instructional workforce, including all tenured, tenure-track and clinical facult y, lecturers and g raduate student instructors. This review will include an examination of teaching loads and course enrollment.”

Fitzgerald explained this review was “a normal part of what any school and college on our campus does on a reg ular basis,” adding SMTD and the Universit y would follow the process outlined in the LEO contract if any workload changes would impact lecturers.

According to LEO, Biza, a lecturer who has taught Congolese dance at the Universit y for more than 30 years, would be facing a two-thirds reduction in his course load. Both Beck and Biza are “long-ser ving ” lecturers, a categor y def ined by the 2018 contract as someone who has been a lecturer for at least 12 years.

LEO Vice President Kirsten Herold said despite Beck and Biza’s seniorit y, the union could not do

puzzle by sudokusyndication.com

“If we all have disrespect for the law, just think about what the result is,” Tegethoff said.

“That’s kind of scary. Pro-life or pro-choice, we can all agree that respect and adherence to the law is important.”

Burns worries that even if the law changes, it will not be adhered to by communities privileged enough to ignore it.

“This is not really a big concern for a lot of students at the University of Michigan because the University is filled with a lot of upper middle-class white students who will always have access to reproductive rights and health care, whether or not it’s criminalized,” Burns said.

“That’s not to say that it will be easy moving forward if Roe is overturned, but it is to say that the people that are truly at risk here are low-income, marginalized communities.”

Luescher said Nessel’s plan will benefit marginalized communities such as people of color or low-income.

“Not only is (Nessel’s plan) going to help all women, but it’s going to make sure that lowincome women who are already burdened aren’t going to be burdened further by legislative maneuvers that are done, I think, quite carelessly,” Luescher said.

Luescher, Burns and Tegethoff all agree the state legislature will lead the way in how abortion law is implemented in Michigan.

“Whether Roe v. Wade is overturned in the next few years or further on down the road, that’s really just the start of the

much to f ight any personnel decisions made by SMTD. “ We can’t tell the employer, you know, who teaches what classes,” Herold said. “If they decide they want to g ive a class that a lecturer has taught to a g raduate student, they can do it. If they want to g ive it to a tenure-track facult y member, they can do it.”

At a performance put on by students in Biza’s class at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance on Saturday, about a dozen LEO members distributed f liers protesting the alleged cuts to Beck’s and Biza’s teaching assig nments.

LSA senior Zi Yang performed at a showcase.

She said the class was appreciative of Biza and his teaching.

“He’s been a rea lly g reat lect urer a nd we rea lly appreciated his class,” Ya ng sa id. “ We hope that he ca n teach for as long as he wa nts to because he’s in his sixties, but he has so much energ y. Ever yone thinks he’s 40.”

Biza sa id SMTD had not informed him of reductions to his scheduled course load, but that Beck told him. He sa id that while he had not hea rd a ny thing f rom the Music, Theatre & Da nce School in rega rd to the reductions, he was still

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concerned.

“This is the only job I have,” Biza sa id. “I’m a pa r ttime teacher a nd I don’t get those ma ny hours, so if they cut that, that mea ns I have to look for some other job, I have to look for some other job or do something to suppor t my fa mily.”

Beck sa id she had not been g iven of f icia l word f rom SMTD. She sa id the school would have to inform her of its decision by April 30 — the day her contract ends.

Herold sa id she was doubtf ul of cla ims f rom SMTD that the school had not yet reached a f ina l decision. She sa id if there was misinformation, it was because SMTD “has g iven us dif ferent information ever y time we ta lked to them.”

“Basica lly they haven’t g iven us a ny a nswers about why it ’s her a nd not less senior, less highly pa id people, none of that,” Herold sa id. “They ’re just stonewa lling, so that ’s why we’re just extremely f r ustrated at this point. I

rea lly think, you know, we were told they haven’t made up the rea l f ina l decision yet. I don’t know a nybody in the school believes that …

They ’re just tr y ing to wa it until st udents a re gone a nd then to ma ke the suddenly miraculously ma ke the f ina l decision to lay them of f.”

Biza sa id he had not reached out to SMTD about the course load reduction, but added he did not feel the responsibilit y was on him to do so.

“If you have a boss, they will tell you what ’s going on usua lly in a professiona l way — you ca ll a meeting a nd you expla in in deta il what ’s going on,” Biza sa id. “(Then) I ca n express myself, we ca n have a conversation … This is a big thing happening, so you ca n’t just send a n ema il to somebody. You need to come sit dow n a nd g ive (a n) expla nation.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

OIE From Page 1 (Regarding OIE’s priorities in investigations,) that’s a little bit of a difficult question because I would say our priority of course is always to address all of the matters, right. And as quickly as possible, which is difficult to do, especially as we’ve had really significant increases over the last couple of years and the number of reports that we’ve received, and to do them again in that fair and appropriate way, make sure that people are supported.

We are not advocates; we’re neutral, so we’re not advocates for anyone, but making sure that people do have the information and the ability to connect with resources that they might need for support. And then at the same time, of course, when things come in, we have to assess things like, is there an immediate safety threat? What is the impact on our community? Is there a risk of ongoing and continuing harm to members of the community?

And so we have to look at that and assess those things.

So of course, that doesn’t mean that sometimes things come in that need a more immediate response. We’re never wanting to drop anything or let anything fall through the cracks or drop off the plate in order to do that.

But that does necessarily mean that if something comes in and it’s an urgent, recent (allegation), there might be an immediate safety issue. We need to drop everything we’re doing to call the police. We might need to reach out to someone and make sure that there are appropriately connected with officers at other places pretty quickly. There’s sometimes some actions or investigations that we need to move forward because we need to address potential ongoing issues.

Jeffery Frumkin: I think we spend… an appropriate amount of time in the initial assessment of the complaint that comes in.

Oftentimes, there’s a third-party person who’s reporting it. And so we try to get in touch with the person that it’s about. They may or may not want to talk to us.

We still have to go through the same kind of assessment that is, is there something that needs to be looked at further either from a safety standpoint or from a policy violation standpoint? So it’s not as “clean” as, “I feel that I have somebody has violated the policy against me and I’m filing a complaint.” Oftentimes a complaint comes much farther down in the process. But yet there is still work being done trying to get to that point.

TMD: On campus, you’re mainly associated with sexual misconduct investigation — that’s where most of the conversation is. What else does OIE do?

ES: So the only student cases that we address are the sexual and gender-based misconduct. But we also do all of the discrimination and discriminatory harassment complaints related to faculty and staff. So that would mean any protected class identified under the University’s nondiscrimination policy: age, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, height, weight, marital status, all of those protected classes that are identified if someone has … all of those things … then those would be things that we would look into. And just like with the student sexual and gender-based misconduct, that might mean an investigation.

Sometimes we do climate assessments of particular areas … if a staff member files a grievance through the staff grievance process, they could do that instead of filing a complaint with OIE, particularly if they have other concerns that might not relate to one of those protected classes.

TMD: Can you describe the process once a claimant or complainant files a complaint or claim, specifically noting this increased use of adaptable resolutions?

The Daily created a flow chart summarizing Seney’s explanation of OIE’s process. [insert flow chart] JF: And how many of these have we actually been able to do?

ES: One of them has been completed so far.

JF: So it’s that longer process as well at the court order last October.

ES: Well, right. It wouldn’t generally take that one, but of course, because we had cases that were open at the time that we’ve had to revise the policy and the court had ordered us to change the policy including for those cases.

JF: We had to ramp up for the new policy. Fortunately or unfortunately, cases that were in queue just had to be put on hold until the new policy was up and running.

TMD: How are OIE investigators trained? What is that process like?

ES: … One of the first things is to spend some time looking at case files and reading reports and going through how an investigation happens, reading what the analysis is and why, going to talk to the investigator to talk about any questions, or what about this piece of it, or they might agree or disagree or whatever it might be. At the same time that they’re doing that to familiarize themselves with that in a real case kind of way. They also will shadow other investigators.

So if parties or witnesses are comfortable, they would sit in on interviews, they might help in preparing those statements and have someone else, the more experienced investigator look over the statement. They would work closely with investigators that are already in the office and the assistant and associate directors and senior director to walk through cases. … Then amidst all of this we have materials that are a combination of University policies, some documents that we’ve put together outlining what the standards and principles are behind these investigations and these processes, and things like government guidance and all of that. So people are getting a well-rounded expertise in the legal framework, in the things that have come from our particular policies and also our institutional values. So this might not be written into a policy, but an institutional value, obviously, is we want to treat people with respect. We want people to feel comfortable when they’re coming in to meet with us and to feel like they’re being heard and to be heard. So we want to do those things. … And then there’s lots of external sources that we use for training too when someone starts out, but also on an ongoing basis. So things like webinars, attending conferences, attending trainings.

We might have someone come in sometimes to provide some education and some training or continuing education on an area of particular expertise. For example, we had someone come in related to intimate partner violence when that became part of the scope of the policy. So that’s a lot of what it looks like at the beginning, but then that continues as well.

TMD: Throughout this, is there any kind of sensitivity training?

ES: There is — I would say that’s woven throughout it.

So that’s definitely part of the written materials. That’s definitely a strong part of the conversation that when you’re sitting in, when an investigator is sitting in and when they are taking the lead that the other staff would be talking about the more experienced investigators, the assistant director, associate director would be talking about those things … So there’s not a point where we sit down and say, okay, now for 90 minutes we’re going to talk about things to say and things not to say. … And typically, I mean, when we’re hiring someone, they generally — we hope and, and this has been the case, thankfully — want to do this work because they already know why it’s important and they think it’s important for it to be done well. But that’s still not something that we would just assume that everyone knows or is experienced with. This is a different, again, people have come from different educational and different professional experience backgrounds. … But that’s definitely something that we talk about at the very outset. … This is not my original thought, so I’ll, I’ll credit it to our last, our most recent senior director of Pam Heatlie. She’s said this more articulately than I probably will. But this really, I

News feel like resonates with probably everyone in the office, is that you can do this work. And as I said, it’s compliancy … and you can do this work in a way that’s compliant but not done well.

And it’s really important to us to not just check the compliance boxes, but to actually do it well.

So I think that’s actually one of the very initial conversations about how all of the interactions need to go.

JF: The interview process itself involves a small public presentation. So we get an opportunity to see how the individual is interacting outside of the search committee setting.

In some cases, it has been very determinative one way or the other as to whether or not we think the person can do more than just what are the facts.

Because you are dealing with human beings, and at various levels in the continuum.

Students or faculty and staff depending on what the case is, who have a problem, and they want somebody to help them with the problem. And we’re also dealing with people who are maybe scratching their head as to why they’re being called in there. Plus the witnesses in between. So yeah, it’s important.

TMD: How do you handle situations of investigators mishandling cases?

ES: So mishandling cases could mean any number of things. So, if a concern is brought to our attention, and certainly it’s the case that these are not pleasant things. So no one is going to be like, “Oh, that was a great time. I’m super glad that I got the opportunity to go through that process.” No one on any side of it feels that way, no matter what. It can be done the best it possibly can and it’s still not going to be pleasant.

Having said that, of course we want to do the best we can to mitigate the extent to which it is additionally unpleasant, beyond it’s an inherently stressful situation. So all of that is to say that it is not uncommon that someone might have a concern or feel sort of unhappy and that might be general or it might be about one specific aspect.

For example, if they felt like someone said something to them that was offensive or they didn’t feel respected in an interaction.

That is definitely feedback that we welcome and want.

I think it’s really important for us to have the opportunity to make something right if we have made a mistake, and to learn from, if it’s something that’s applicable. I think people have different preferences about different things and there will be some things that might feel bad or someone might think is inappropriate and someone else might actually find that to be supportive and helpful and vice versa. And having said that, I appreciate if we can get that feedback so that we can know about it and address it.

So when those concerns are brought to our attention, we look pretty carefully at what has happened… If we find that we have made a mistake in some way, I think it’s hard to answer to that sort of globally what we would do, because I think it depends on the mistake. So if we’ve made a mistake that’s impacted a case, that would certainly be something that we would need to remedy in a pretty tangible way. If it’s more about something that has happened where an interaction wasn’t as comfortable for someone as it could have been, then I think we would want to address that, but it would also depend on what they would want. Would they like to have a chance to talk to the investigator about it and express how they felt about it? Would they like to just have a different investigator? Where are we in the process? So it really depends on the specific circumstances, but I would say I think it’s really important.

JF: I think I’ve had, since I started back in October, probably four, maybe five, either complainants or respondents, a request to come talk to me about some aspect of the of the process. Each one has its own circumstances, but they kind of fall into two categories. One is procedurally, the investigator made a mistake. And then the other one is they don’t like the outcome.

Procedurally, if an investigator has made a mistake, the investigator and I will talk about that before the

individual comes in. I have an operational standard, which is the truth is as bad as it gets.

If we made a mistake, we’re going to own up to it and we’re going to admit it. If it’s had, as Elizabeth said, a material impact on the case, we’ll go back and try and correct that and its implications as much as possible.

And I apologize. Sometimes that is all that is necessary. Other times people decide they want to complain to others in the University, that’s fine. We have those conversations face to face.

And usually the investigator is in the conference with me. The other one, the other category is when they say, well, you just got it wrong. There’s not much we can do about that other than to listen. We’re not going to re-litigate, to use that term, unless there’s some new material piece of evidence or information.

And of course we will take that and look at it. If somebody has come in to complain that they have been sexually harassed or discriminated in some way and they’re told that whatever happened, it didn’t rise to the level of violating our policy, they don’t like to hear that.

But that’s a responsibility that we have is that, is to be clear that if everything the individual has said to us is absolutely true, and yet in our judgment, and there’s … two or three different levels of review on this. If everything the person said is true and yet it still doesn’t rise to the level of whatever the standard is in the policy, then we’re not going to say that the policy’s been violated. That doesn’t mean that what happened to the individual didn’t happen. Those are tough conversations to have and we recognize that.

TMD: In general, so not counting when you had to leave cases open while you revised the policy, what is the ideal timeline of an investigation?

ES: So we have timeframes laid out in the policy right now on a student sexual misconduct policy for whole, start to finish an investigation, any sanctions, any appeals, et cetera. I think that whole process is 120 days. What we used to have in the policy has been 60. At one point it was 45, which was based on guidance from the federal government that they felt that schools should be able to investigate cases, sanction if there’s a finding of a violation and hear any appeals in 60 days.

In most cases, 60 days is not realistic. And so we have had that in our policy. We would be transparent with people up front that that is absolutely what we’re striving for. It very well may not be the case. So now we’ve, we’ve changed those timelines to reflect that we haven’t taken anything out of the process and we have given people longer to review (the) preliminary report and evidence file and we have this whole extra step of a hearing. And so it’s necessarily, it’s going to take longer. And this is one of the things about the hearing model. That is what it is. We try not to have to go to a hearing model as an institution, and have a ruling that we have to.

So it is longer than that typically.

And I would say we still have that conversation at the outset of speaking to people. It’s really hard and this is, it’s frustrating for us. I’m 100 percent sure that it’s much more frustrating for the people who are participating in this not as their job like it is for us, but because it’s stressful for them, they’re in it, they’re in the middle of it, it’s their life and they’re trying to balance all of the other things going on in their life at the same time with this hanging over their head, whatever their role in it is. … But we’re still working on getting caught up in terms of staffing resources to make sure that we can handle the case load that we have. And you know, certainly with #MeToo, with Larry Nassar, I think it’s probably safe to say that’s contributed to an increase in case load. So that’s great. We don’t want to ever say we have too many cases right now, so we’ll call you back in three months and then maybe you can report then. We’ll take all of the cases. But then that does mean that they might all take a little bit longer. And then in any given case, there might be requests for extensions or law enforcement holds or unavailability of a witness who has super critical information or whatever it might be.

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 — 3

LANE KIZZIAH/Daily

So that’s a long answer to a short question. The short answer is we’re always driving for 120 days. It’s often going to be longer than that. We just try to do our best to stay within it and be transparent with people about it.

TMD: How frequently do you keep the complainants and respondents updated?

ES: So this is part of, I think something that’s great about having the OSCR case manager, is I think that we will able be able to really improve and make that better. So we’ve always tried to do that sort of regular intervals.

If we said we’re striving for 60 days and it’s getting to be 60 days, then we are going to want to check in.

There’s regular check-ins throughout the process anyway.

At a minimum because of the process. So I’m sending you your statement, I’m sending you the preliminary report, whatever it might be. We also check in at points like, “Spring Break is coming up, if I have something for you, are you going to be available? Just want to let you know where the case is going,” all of those things. So we try to do that pretty regularly and we also encourage people, they should feel free to reach out to us, too, even though we’re trying to proactively keep them involved.

And having said that, there are times when you’re investigating a case where there might be a long period of time where you’re talking to witnesses and you’re working on it every day …

I know I’m working on it every day cause here I am doing it. I’m thinking about this case all day, every day and the parties might be thinking, why haven’t heard from her in two weeks, what’s going on? So we try to stay on top of that… We do try to encourage people if they want updates to check in, but we also, the OSCR case manager will be doing quite a bit of that now, which I think might be helpful.

For parties’ comfort, in reaching out to the case manager that’s a little bit more removed from the actual investigation process, and that also might create a little more space for some more regular check ins.

Anyone who’s moving right through an investigative resolution or an adaptable resolution, they have this primary point of contact where they can say, “I need an interim measure, I need an academic accommodation. Where is my investigation? I have questions about this process.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Opinion

4 — Tuesday, April 23, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SOLOMON MEDINTZ | COLUMN

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FROM THE DAILY

Our university’s hypocrisy on crime, safety and inclusion

O

n Feb. 1, the University of Michigan made effective a new policy requiring faculty, staff, student employees, volunteers and visiting scholars to disclose if they are charged with or convicted of a felony.

Immediately, there was strong criticism across campus, drawing complaints of the potential impact this will have on members of the University community. Moreover, upon review, the policy is vague and unclear.

In response, the Michigan Daily Editorial Board pushed for more transparency on the policy, how it works and its impacts on specific communities. As the semester has progressed, we are becoming increasingly apprehensive of the University’s felony disclosure policy, especially considering the University’s purported goals to promote inclusion on campus.

The initiatives and projects set out in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion plan are meant to be deeply intertwined with the University’s mission of providing an excellent public education for the public good.

It is, consequently, an ambitious undertaking, encompassing 49 plans developed by school, college and campus units.

Any provision made by the plan is considered to be not only an aspect of the DEI plan itself, but as essential to the University’s goal of creating a more welcoming campus where all students have an opportunity to thrive. Indeed, the DEI plan is consistently championed as a concrete example of the University’s genuine interest in promoting an inclusive campus.

In the 2018 Strategic Plan Progress Report, University President Mark Schlissel writes, “Our Strategic Plan remains a pledge that will guide our focus as we work to live up to our most cherished ideals.”

While we applaud the DEI plan in its mission, we also find that University support of policies such as the felony disclosure policy call these “cherished ideals” into question. The felony disclosure policy requires employees to disclose any felony charges and convictions after Feb. 1, 2019, within a week of the charge or conviction, and was created for the purpose of maintaining campus safety. However, in the wake of its announcement, many groups have found fault in the plan’s lack of transparency, potential violation of due process and contradiction with DEI. We as an Editorial Board believe this policy is underdeveloped and misinformed, and its impact becomes the reverse of its intention: It hurts and isolates communities at our university.

The felony disclosure policy undermines the University’s DEI initiative by ignoring how the criminal justice system in Michigan disproportionately affects people of color. In Michigan alone, for example, Black people are overrepresented in prisons, accounting for 49 percent of the incarcerated population, but only 14 percent of the state population. This picture of over-criminalization is true nationwide as well, where people of color are more likely than their white counterparts to enter the criminal justice system. One of the main drivers of this disparity in the racial makeup of prisons is racial bias, and therefore is necessarily a concern for advocates of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The fear POC communities feel in regard to the felony disclosure policy is a detrimental effect of the policy and indicative of its contradictory nature. The obvious disparities between white and POC groups in regard to their experiences with the criminal justice system has even proven itself on our campus in recent years. During the 2017 home football game between Michigan and Michigan State, Black and Latino fraternities reported receiving several citations and arrests, coupled with aggressive tactics from the Ann Arbor Police Department, while the predominantly white Interfraternity Council fraternities reported no police presence or citations. This, along with other campus events, added to existing mistrust between police and POC, and a call for greater communication between police and POC organizations.

The felony disclosure policy, while impacting all University students and faculty, has a disproportionate effect on minority groups who already face adverse policing and treatment in the criminal justice system. The implications of this are both tangible and social, from actually preventing minorities from being employed at the University to creating a campus atmosphere that pegs POC members as “other.” If the felony disclosure policy is meant to promote a feeling of safety, it fails in its attack on these marginalized communities.

While legislation such as ban-the-box laws attempts to combat racial discrimination, the felony disclosure policy does the opposite, actively contradicting DEI. In September 2018, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a ban-the-box law to remove the question, “Have you been convicted of a felony?” from state job applications. In doing so, a huge barrier to employment and societal inclusion was lifted for those entangled in the criminal justice system.

With the felony disclosure policy, the University is moving in the opposite direction, making it harder for groups disproportionately targeted by over-criminalization to obtain employment.

The University cannot justifiably say it supports diversity, equity and inclusion while simultaneously promoting discriminatory policies such as felony disclosure. Since the University has already heard strong critique from voices on this campus — including the ACLU, the Carceral State Project and numerous professors and alumni — continuing to uphold the policy represents strategic ignorance. This is the same type of strategic ignorance that haunts debates of University inaction on issues like carbon neutrality, potentially emerging as a harmful pattern of behavior where the ideals that the University holds up to the community are diametrically opposed to the policies it actually supports.

While the felony disclosure policy’s presumed goal is to make our campus safer, especially in the wake of tumultuous events such as the School of Music, Theatre & Dance sexual assault allegations and the false shooter alarm, it lacks the structure and logic to actually carry out this mission.

The policy should theoretically filter out University students or employees that could be a threat to campus or student safety. But the policy is fulfilled by entering information into a simple online form, followed by a subsequent review process carried out by the University’s Human Resources department, making it a subjective and unclear process that gives employees little clarity about how their information will be evaluated.

Heather Ann Thompson, a professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, affirms this idea that the policy actually holds no true impact: “The irony here is that these policies cause harm and do not make the public safe,” Thompson said.

“Frankly, some of the evidence says when you criminalize people and you make them feel fearful of reporting, then in fact you increase danger.”

The halfhearted effort of this policy does not ensure student safety as it lacks an objective, structured procedure, and could actually have adverse effects.

Additionally, in the wake of the sexual assault allegations, it is clear that the University could have better focused its attention on creating helpful policies or programs for survivors of sexual misconduct on campus, rather than the overarching felony disclosure policy. Survivors not only have to deal with the emotional and physical trauma following their assault, but also an intricate and often unpromising legal process in order to get justice or to finally feel safe on campus.

In the fall, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals required that universities allow for crossexaminations of the accuser in sexual misconduct cases. This has caused deep concern in the community, as the process of cross-examination, often times carried out by the accused, can unnecessarily distress the survivor. We believe that the University should direct its resources and energy toward protecting these survivors, by implementing a thorough policy that has clear and direct impact.

Not all felonies are sexual assault charges, of course, and the policy is not explicitly meant to address those findings.

But we do believe that uplifting and supporting sexual assault survivors is a huge part of promoting campus safety and is especially relevant now.

The felony disclosure policy does little to help this group of students feel safe.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

O

We need a new divestment policy

n April 9, in response to demands from climate activists for the University of Michigan to divest from fossil fuels, University President Mark Schlissel gave his interpretation of the University’s divestment policy at a carbon neutrality public session: “Essentially, we don’t divest … If we begin the process of narrowing what the endowment can invest in, based on very valid arguments and concerns from sincere people, the ability to invest shrinks, the value of the endowment goes down and the institution suffers. We’re just not going to divest.”

Though I will not talk about the merits of divesting from fossil fuels specifically, the recent talking point from our president opens the door for a larger discussion about the University’s endowment divestment policy and the student body’s role in endowment investments. But first, it is important to consider why students care about divestment, since our commitment to divestment is so quickly brushed aside by the administration.

As students, we are drawn to divestment discussions because they offer an avenue where we can tangibly express our beliefs on issues over which we have little control. In a prestigious, high-minded academic institution, there is a disconnect between the issues we think about and the amount of control we have over them. In our classes, readings and conversations with peers, we are discussing the most pressing and salient global issues, yet we have little agency over them. The issues we do have influence over — campus and Ann Arbor policies — are not stressed in our academic settings, and consequently (amazing campus organizing aside) these policies do not receive the student attention they deserve.

When activists are spoken down to, we are told we should express ourselves by voting. We do that, but if the issues our votes have real influence over (municipal and statewide elections) are so important, why are we not learning about them in the classroom? We are told we are learning about global issues to become global leaders, but we do not feel we have the power to enact change on that scale. The University’s endowment, which totals approximately $12 billion, is among the only significant, tangible thing we can immediately and forcefully express our values and beliefs on issues that we have

minimal influence over. And this — Schlissel has stated — is off limits.

We are also drawn to divestment because if we want to change the world, we have a responsibility to shape our institutions in accordance with our values. The right kind of changes are not going to come from top-down policy mandates, but from people taking ownership of our campus issues.

The University does not want to talk about divestment because it opens up uneasy and controversial political discussions that could alienate donors, faculty and potential students. Furthermore, the University wants its financial safety to be cushioned in case of an emergency so that it can continue to function at full capacity. These are both worthwhile concerns, but this mindset ignores the tangible harm our investments cause as well as how they reflect on our values as an institution. Like many students, I want the University to change its divestment policies, or at least clarify them.

In his response at the town hall carbon neutrality public session, Schlissel accurately depicted current University policy: The issue is that the policy is unclear. The University tries to shield its endowment from political issues, but it acknowledges that exceptions are sometimes necessary. If an issue is labeled an exception, the University’s Board of Regents creates an ad hoc committee to look closely at the issue in question and decide whether to recommend divestment. The only two issues granted divestment were South African apartheid in 1978 and the tobacco industry in 1999.

In 2005, the University spelled out the three criteria that need to be met to achieve such a status: 1) “The concern to be explored must express the broadly and consistently held position of the campus community over time;” 2) “There must be reason to believe that the behavior or action in question may be antithetical to the core mission and values of the University;” 3) “There must be reason to believe that the organization, industry or entity to be singled out may be uniquely responsible for the problems identified.”

If the University is trying to construct a rational divestment policy, criteria one and three require revisions, or at least, clarifications.

The first criterion is flawed because there is no threshold for evaluating the campus position. The campus community will never reach

a uniform opinion. Consequently, the University can pretend there is no campus-wide consensus if it does not want to discuss divestment, as there are no tangible points that determine whether the campus community supports divestment. The University should establish specific procedures and benchmarks for determining if particular divestment issues have broad and consistent campus support.

The third criterion needs changing because it requires that the companies being divested from are uniquely responsible for the issue being objected to. This criterion should be broadened to include those companies that bear responsibility in all levels, not just “unique responsibility” as the policy states.

Lastly, if the University wants to abide by these criteria for divestment, it should be proactive in evaluating whether its endowment is supporting companies the campus community objects to. The University should not have to wait to be pushed by campus activists — it should seek to reflect campus values in the endowment. One way to do that would be to publicize the endowment portfolios, allowing the community to offer input.

Perhaps these criteria are intentionally vague so the administration can make divestment decisions unilaterally. If that is the objective, they should not pretend that there is any logic to the decision of whether to discuss divestment and admit that it is just political positioning. If the criteria are just a facade for unilateral decisionmaking, the University should scrap the criteria entirely.

The University cannot have it both ways. If the policy is truly that the endowment will never be impacted by political issues, then it should eliminate the criteria for divestment procedure. It has not done this because there are obviously issues our endowment should not be financially supporting and because the way we spend our money reflects our values. If the University acknowledges that some divestment claims are valid, it should engage in these conversations honestly.

Divestment conversations are always going to be messy, but the University should welcome students taking ownership over the institutions we care about.

Solomon Medintz can be reached smedintz@umich.edu.

ADITHYA SANJAY | COLUMN

The looming economic downturn might not be as bad as you think

I

t’s no surprise that the economy is booming. For more than 10 years, the market has been on a tear, and after overcoming the threat of recession in 2018, it does seem like we have a couple of years before the market takes its next major downturn. In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has already rallied to recover nearly all of its losses it incurred over last year’s turbulent slump.

Accordingly, the March jobs report that recently showed the addition of of 196,000 jobs nationally is not especially shocking. The stats show an unemployment rate of a fiery 3.8 percent, about 1 percent lower than the commonly accepted threshold for full employment (4.1-4.7 percent). But amid all of this positive data, should we still be concerned of the impending crash that everyone seems so anxious about? In short, yes and no. Yes, there will be an economic downturn in the near future, but no, there’s no indicator that it will necessarily be close to a full-on recession.

One potential area for concern in this regard is the aging nature of the tax cuts. The Trump-backed measure that reformed taxes and managed to widely revitalize the market is now about a year and half old and many expect its benefits will continue to fade. Without that driver, the economy will be suddenly exposed to the elements once again, potentially creating a catalyst for a recession in the future. However, this can be combated with good policies from the Federal Reserve, which has recently done a fairly good job in managing inflation. Their decision to stop the planned rate hikes in 2019 was a smart one, having allowed the economy to

escape the chokehold the fists of recession almost dragged it into.

Perhaps a more dire forecast, however, is the one offered by the bond yield curve. The March jobs report came on the heels of the first inversion of the bond yield curve since 2007. While such news means next to nothing to the average person, it was enough to send the financial world into panic, with the Dow Jones dropping nearly 500 points in response.

The bond yield curve is simply a graph representing the balance in yield between long-term and short-term Treasury bonds. The classic ratios include the 10-year to the three-month and the 10-year to the two-year. While the latter remained in the green — albeit barely — the former dipped under zero, indicating that long-term bonds had less yield than short-term bonds.

In short, the market has higher expectations for economic expansion today than it does for the future.

Conditions like this are especially conducive to recession. In fact, all of the past nine recessions since 1955 have been prefaced by a yield curve inversion within two years prior to the recession. And the one time the yield curve inverted without an ensuing recession, the economy hit a downturn nonetheless. While the history may not directly correspond to the situation of the economy today, this precedent is still cause for concern.

But this doesn’t mean you should run to the banks right now and liquidate all your assets.

Most don’t expect a coming recession until 2021 — late 2020 at the earliest. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund “(predicts) a rebound later

this year and slightly stronger growth next year for the world economy.” A lot of this can be further delayed given that the U.S.-China trade talks continue to make progress and will come to a final agreement. In fact, according to Scott Minerd, the global chief investment officer of Guggenheim Investments, “The economy could grow more than 2 percent this year. I think that’s going to be the big surprise.”

Another indicator to watch is the unemployment rate.

Similar to the yield curve, the unemployment rate is also a potent indicator of recession.

Historically, whenever the unemployment rate falls below 4 percent, a recession occurs in the near future.

While the converse of the statement is not equivalently true, the recent jobs report did indicate an unemployment rate of 3.8 percent, keeping the labor market below the aforementioned threshold.

Could it be that the same thing investors are rejoicing about with the jobs report will end up being the deciding factor in the upcoming economic downturn?

All that said, there is much to be optimistic about the economy at the moment. The recent figures show the effects of over a decade of expansion, and the economy is rejoicing in its success. There’s even the strong possibility that there won’t be a major recession at all at the culmination of this business cycle. The growth can just as well end in a minor downturn before the economy starts back again. But I guess we’ll have to wait until 2021 to actually find out.

Adithya Sanjay can be reached at asanjay@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 — 5

BOOK REVIEW

TV REVIEW

‘The Wheelchair’ depicts a dead end in gentrification EMILY YANG

Daily Arts Writer

One unexpected effect of live theater is that it makes writing accountable to speech, in a way reading fiction aloud doesn’t.

Watching people interact as characters means that a theater writer has to recreate human interaction to some extent, and in a lot of plays the first thing to “get past” is the total non-resemblance of the script to real speech. In what world do people always say exactly what they mean, or at least the exact right thing for a set of clearly devised situations? Plays make the inner workings of fiction — plot, “characterization,” narrative structure — visible (and audible) for the viewer.

Of course, there’s a very good reason why most playwrights don’t try to replicate speech.

Speech is frequently illogical and often bizarre, carrying with it highly detailed shorthands that demonstrate people’s relationships to each other.

If people are unsure of their relationship to each other, verbal communication frequently doesn’t work at all. The 2018 play “Wheelchair” by Will Arbery demonstrates this in its style, which saturates the page with tics, half-sentences and whole conversational threads that don’t go anywhere. It can be frustrating to read.

GORDON Can we Um How does that feel?

DEVON The wine?

GORDON Yes. DEVON Good, I love wine. Thanks sorry, I had the craziest day, so when I saw the wine, I was just GORDON Yes it’s Can we Pause.

DEVON What Pause.

GORDON

What was crazy about your day?

This is a completely contentless conversation that continues in this fashion for pages and pages, but try reading it out loud! It’s not only recognizable as speech, it captures a subtle and rather common feeling of being stuck in a weirdly transactional situation, trying to bridge a gap between people who are unsure of their relationship to each other.

Gordon, a Jewish man in his sixties, is giving away all his furniture to Devon, a 19-yearold Black man, for free. We find out later that this is in advance of Gordon’s eviction from the building in West Williamsburg, which is being redone as “artist studios.”

Gordon first has a strangely

The Wheelchair Will Arbery 3 Hole Press July 1, 2018

intimate interaction with Devon and later with his niece Sascha, who is evicting him.

The nervous impersonality of the overall tone is coupled with the instability of the whole scene. The stage directions at the beginning of the play indicate that the action should be underscored both with the sound of construction and a low hum which is “enough to get in our brains.” There’s a Beckett-esque sense that the theater the play is staged in is some kind of limit: at one point Gordon says, cryptically, “Going out there — I will dissolve.”

The characters seem either anxious to leave or to be left alone, and they sometimes seem to not be directly addressing each other. This makes it that much more jarring when characters declare their love for each other, apologize for longstanding hurts and speculate about religious concerns and the nature of correct action. Additionally, two vaguely-related monologue-rants that Devon and Sascha embark on completely shred the discursive fabric of the play. They read like emotional vomit, like a torrent of thoughts that burst some kind of dam.

“What am I doing? I hate talking.

Everyone always cuts me off midsentence or replies with ‘Oh.’ or ‘Yeah.’ and I hate it, damn it. I’m scared to go outside. I’m scared all the angry old people can’t see how free I am … I can’t even do drugs, and can’t do anything right.”

To this Gordon replies “That feels like an error. What you did just felt like an error.” In a way, the overcorrection for the nervous tics of everyday life constituting its own kind of solipsistic fakeness. There’s no easy way out of the awkwardness of the situation, no good way to institute “normal” human interaction given the banal inhumanity of the situation. The long rants and confessions of various kinds that the characters give to each other land them right back where they started.

The discursive dead end “Wheelchair” depicts points to the larger context that frames the play.

Devon taking Gordon’s furniture for free on the brink of his eviction can be read as an allegory for what’s happening in New York City as well as cities around the US, as longstanding residents of cities get evicted to make way for younger and richer people.

The journalist Peter Moskowitz describes gentrification as “a theory of governance that places the needs of capital over people.”

While gentrification in the United States is usually talked about in terms of individual gentrifiers and, much less often, the people it displaces, the frameworks that hold it up are less commonly discussed. Moskowitz shows that to understand gentrification, you have to understand the history of urban planning, real estate speculation and the almost half-centurylong legacy of neoliberalism in the United States. “Wheelchair” recognizes that Gordon, Devon and Sascha are swept up in a process largely outside of their own control, and it’s sympathetic to all three of them without excusing their faults and flimsy justifications.

The play seems, at times, to be approaching the question of how to continue living in a world like this, rife with alienation and at times downright cruel. All three characters largely fail at this: Sascha starts out by excusing her callous behavior with the folding of her nonprofit and devolves in her monologue to rapid-fire and contradictory buzzwords. Devon has so thoroughly internalized competition and individualism that he’s terrified of other people.

Gordon makes recourse to lying about his past and proclaiming that he’s a “lamed-vavnik,” one of the 36 righteous people for whom God preserves the world. The play seems to suggest that these failures are all very human, and it doesn’t make sense to punish people for them.

The question of justice just out of reach, the play settles for a question of empathy.

UNDERCOVER CRIME SERIES

WARNER BROS.

Henry Hill in ‘Goodfellas’ ANISH TAMHANEY Daily Arts Writer

“When I was broke, I just went out and robbed some more. We ran everything. We paid off lawyers.

We paid off cops. Everybody had their hands out. And now it’s all over.”

The relationship between organized crime in film and the reality which it is based on is both distorted and uncomfortably close. Often, on the silver screen, crime is sensationalized, a

guiltless opportunity to root for the bad guys. But as I articulated with both previous installments of this series, I found that organized crime can expose dark truths about identity and American values. We don’t just consume mob mythology for the wisecracking and the brutality; under the surface, we connect with something deeper.

With that said, the best way I can conclude this cultural thread of the series is by digging deep on one of the most accurately told mob movies ever: “Goodfellas.”

The mafia-fascinated journalist Nicholas Pileggi, who penned the film’s nonfictional source material “Wiseguy” ensured that nearly every scene is based on an event that actually happened, every line of narration an anecdote from the stories’ actual gangsters.

The result is a nuanced spectacle of the mafia that points out both the humanity and lack thereof among its members. Henry Hill, the story’s sharp, laconic main player complicates his sense of cultural identity when he joins the mob. While working at his

ESPN

Junior Seau and the grim truth of CTE in football

remember him greeting MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN everyone he met.

Daily Arts Writer But as each NFL season passed, director Kirby Bradley the damage I stopped watching football illustrates, last year. Even before Kap football was inf licting on took a knee, the NFL had been Seau grew more conspicuous. driven by a certain noxious He announced a short-lived from football brand of culture warring: retirement the massive penalty f lags, a through what his agent collective shoulder shrug at remembers as a bizarre, public speech domestic violence. The “clean incoherent hits” didn’t feel especially in San Diego. He went on clean. The tackles seemed to to play a final season with be getting louder. Or maybe the Patriots, but it ended in it was just me. The sad thing heartbreak with a loss at Super about sports is that they can be fun until you think about them too hard, and once you do, you can’t escape the ugliness. For every player I loved to watch — OBJ and that preposterous one-handed catch, the ESPN+ speedy, elusive Russell Wilson — I was haunted by an Aaron Hernandez. Or a Junior Seau.

“Seau,” a new “30 for 30” documentary from ESPN, follows the tragic undoing of the charismatic linebacker, Bowl XLII. Seau had been whose suicide in 2012 ignited happily married and a doting a long-overdue national father but began to withdraw conversation about the from family life and turned to likelihood of football players gambling. After retiring, he to suffer chronic traumatic divorced his wife and spent encephalopathy (CTE), a less time with his children. degenerative brain disease. Everyone who knew him Drafted by his hometown San was baff led by the dramatic Diego Chargers in 1990, Seau change in his mood and played nearly 20 years in the personality. When a neighbor, NFL, making two Super Bowl an MLS soccer player who had appearances and earning 10 suffered a concussion, told All-Pro selections. His death Seau about his symptoms, the came as a shock not only linebacker scoffed: “I’ve had a because of his stature in the headache since I was 15.”

For years, the NFL’s token league, but also because of his cheery demeanor. “Buddy!” response was that playing his friends and teammates football was unrelated to

30 for 30

neighborhood’s seedy cab stand is all he’s ever wanted, he can never truly be one of the family.

“My father, who was Irish, was sent to work at the age of 11, and liked that I got myself a job,” Hill says. “And my mother was happy after she found out that the Ciceros came from the same part of Sicily as she did. I mean, to my mother, that was the answer to all her prayers.” Henry’s half-Irish, half-Italian heritage prevents him from securing a position in the upper echelons of the mafia. His existence as an immersed outsider to the roiling, brutish politics of Sicilian families not only gives the film a unique perspective, but shapes Hill’s bitingly sardonic worldview.

For playing a boozing, robbing, racketeering wiseass, Ray Liotta’s performance as Hill is surprisingly quiet. Hill’s cool reservation is linked to his isolation from the mob, his hesitation to always speak in sharp contrast to the vitriolic comedy of Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito. Tommy, a total Sicilian, is something of a foil to Hill, a hypothetical path of even greater reputation and criminal success if Henry weren’t part Irish.

One of the subtlest moments in the film that lays out this parallel is when the two are eating dinner at Tommy’s mother’s house along with Robert DeNiro’s Jimmy Conway. “Henry, what’s the matter? You don’t talk too much.

You don’t eat much, you don’t talk much,” his mother observes.

And with his signature calmness, Henry replies with a chuckle, “I’m just listening.” To that, Tommy’s mother launches into a joke about a similarly tight-lipped man, concluding that “In Italian, it sounds much nicer.” What better way to articulate Henry’s permanent feeling of exclusion from the Sicilians around him?

The most hilarious part of this conversation, though, is that from Tommy’s car, a gagged mob boss, Billy Batts thuds against the inside of the trunk. Later on, when Billy, Tommy and Henry must dig up Batts’s body and rebury it, the movie goes a step further in distinguishing Henry from his brutal companions. Tommy jests while hoisting his Batts that they’re going eat wings at his mother’s house that night. Henry, in arguably the most realistic response to that comment, turns away and wretches. As much as he accepts and partakes in the mob’s violent deeds, he has a conscience.

His isolation not only blocks him from becoming a “made man” like Tommy eventually does, but makes him less desensitized to gore than his fellow wiseguy.

The other fascinating aspect of Hill’s ethnic separation from the mob is that it may be the reason that he was spared from life in prison. In “Wiseguy,” Pileggi draws from Nassau County

degenerative brain disease.

“Seau” is a damning look at the lengths the NFL went to to ensure that Seau’s death didn’t become a real problem for the league. Despite decades of research on the lasting health effects of a football career, it was only very recently that the NFL even acknowledged the possibility of a link to CTE. And though they’ve made various rule changes, the fact remains that the tackle, the animating force of football, is what makes it so dangerous.

Junior Seau’s fight won’t be won so easily.

The NFL Draft is this week.

Roger Goodell will saunter on and off a stage in Nashville to announce the picks, everyone there will boo him and when the weekend ends, there will be 254 rookies in the league. Some of them won’t get much playing time in their careers, but some of them will. A few will be linebackers, like Seau, and in a lifetime of play, they’ll endure subconcussive blow after blow to the head. Over time, clumps of tau protein will build up in their brains until they strangle nerve cells.

The research says CTE can make a 40-year-old man’s brain look like an 80-yearold’s. Years after these players retire, they’ll find themselves becoming angrier, more depressed, more confused, more forgetful. And cowards like Goodell and Jerry Jones, who spent years peddling doubts about the link between this vicious sport and lasting trauma to the brain, will be laughing their way to the bank.

Narcotics Detective Daniel Mann to reveal exactly what made Hill an precious potential informant for the FBI. “Henry, in fact, was neither of high rank nor particularly vicious; he wasn’t even tough as far as the cops could determine. What distinguished Henry from most of the wiseguys who were under surveillance was the fact that he seemed to have total access to all levels of the mob world.” In other words, Henry’s ability to scale effortlessly between various echelons of the organization the reason he could inform on each of them.

In the end, Henry’s illegibility to become a “made” boss with his own unit working under him saved him from the heat. His outsider status was a blessing in disguise. In examining “Goodfellas” through a lense of cultural division, it becomes apparent that, what separates us from those around can shape us for the better.

Henry Hill is certainly not a defensible character. He is at his best a charismatic natural mastermind, and at his worst, a paranoid, drug-addicted, convict.

And yet, he somehow gives us all someone to root for in the underworld of crime. Henry is at once a shimmering, impossibly magnetic image of the mafia’s verve and a wide window into the harsh realities of organized crime — a brute and a sympath.

Arts

6 — Tuesday, April 23, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

ALBUM REVIEW

SMTD’s ‘Sweeney Todd’ exceeds all expectations SAMMY SUSSMAN Daily Arts Writer

Not every theater company can attempt “Sweeney Todd.”

Between its dark humor and sophisticated, fast-paced text, “Sweeney Todd” has many potential pitfalls. For those unfamiliar with the show, the complex plot can also be incredibly confusing upon first viewing.

This past week’s production of “Sweeney Todd” by the University’s Department of Musical Theatre put all these concerns to rest. It was a tourde-force in quintessentially Sondheimic writing, a captivating and convincing take on a famous yet flawed work.

The production made use of the Power Center’s large stage and extensive lighting capabilities. In the opening number, when the cast sang from the front of the stage, lights from the pit orchestra shone up on the ensemble, casting eerie shadows on their faces.

The set was simple yet sufficient. Foggy factory-esque windows and pseudo-industrial brick walls cast a mechanical backdrop for the play. It was a barber shop and bakery at times and a judge’s home at others.

While I usually don’t focus on set design in my reviews, I must take some time to acknowledge the barber’s chair — it was easily my favorite aspect of the production. As Sweeney Todd slit the throats of his victims, he turned them away from the audience. A mere press on the petal at his feet turned the chair into a ramp, delivering his victims into the meat pie oven many floors below.

For those unfamiliar with

the plot, Todd is a convict who has recently escaped prison. He believes his wife to be dead and his daughter adopted, and he vows to avenge these acts. After winning a bet with a rival barber, Todd opens a barbershop above an (admittedly) terrible meat pie shop. The pies are made out of the flesh of his victims as he slits the throats of various barbershop patrons.

Abysmal as this plot may sound, Sondheim manages to give the plot a humorously peculiar spin.

At one point, for example, Todd and Mrs. Lovett (the pie shop baker) sing a lengthy, comical song about the various professions of their victims and the types of pie that they will produce.

The talents of SMTD seniors Allie Re (Mrs. Lovett) and Jamie Colburn (Sweeney Todd) were on full display in this scene.

Colburn was horrifying at times and humorous at others, repulsive at points and yet impossible to ignore. Re was hilarious throughout, particularly when it came to her feature numbers (“The Worst Pies in London” standing out the most to me.)

The seemingly indefatigable energy of the large cast of the show also carried it through its nearly three-hour run time. Though not heavily choreographed in a traditional sense, the cast frequently walked hurriedly across the stage or the upper balcony. I felt as though I were amid a bustling 19th-century lower-class community in London.

And while Sondheim and Wheeler’s lyrics have a tendency towards wordy complexity — a complexity only heightened by the strange vernacular of colloquial British English — the

Classifieds

cast managed to land much of their jokes. Though it was hard to understand every word, I was constantly engaged, more than willing to put forth the effort to understand the text.

The unusual orchestration of the musical gave it another twist.

It feels more like operetta at points then it does modern musical theater — a harp and nine strings are not exactly components of a standard musical theater pit — and yet this production was approachable and engaging even as it was slightly unusual.

In the end, as Todd accidentally murders his wife, intentionally murders Lovett and then is murdered himself, the production managed to maintain the humorous tone that had carried through the work thus far. One common pitfall that I have found in other productions of the work is that it becomes unbelievably morbid at this point. This production, however, managed to maintain a light tone even despite these deaths.

As soon as the show ended, the audience was on their feet for a rowdy standing ovation. This was easily the most enthusiastic response to a University production that I have ever seen, perhaps even on par with the great enthusiasm at MUSKET’s “In The Heights” last year.

From lighting to singing and set design to acting, this production seemingly had no faults. And when it came to applause, the audience (and this critic) surely took notice. As I left the theater, I found that I had forgotten that this was a student production.

Had I walked out onto Times Square in New York City, I would not have been particularly surprised.

Call: #734-418-4115 Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

Release Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

FOR RENT

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Barcelona buddy 6 Scattered, as seeds 10 Rifle filler 14 Hopeless case 15 Fast-food legend Ray 16 Enjoy a comic book, say 17 Small plucked instrument 19 Fall back (on) 20 “__ Been Awhile”: Staind song 21 Columnist Landers 22 Israeli president, 2007-2014 23 Blackjack card 24 New York region, or its narrow bodies of water 27 Petit or grand crime 29 Docking fee 30 Hog’s nose 31 Objective 32 Fisher-Price product 33 Tropical tree leaf 38 Busy IRS month 41 Not at home 42 China’s Zhou __ 46 Doesn’t miss a thing 49 Forbes publisher Forbes 51 Fluttering pitch 53 Dainty taste 54 Gelatin dish 55 Slugging legend Mel 56 Canonized Fr. female 57 Slimming surg.

58 Popular necktie knot ... and a hint to the starts of 17-, 24-, 33- and 51-Across 62 Cookie cooker 63 Big on 64 Vital heart line 65 “Bill & __ Excellent Adventure” 66 Cap’n’s underling 67 Wyoming’s __ Range

DOWN 1 Ten-percenter: Abbr.

2 Native American in a Cooper title 3 Not yet born 4 Precious stones 5 Mars or Venus 6 Like teenagers in the comic strip “Zits” 7 Chimp kin 8 Was victorious 9 Sgt. or cpl.

10 Unpaid debt 11 Kalahari mongoose 12 Source of machismo, perhaps 13 Epic journey 18 Tylenol target 22 Gaza Strip gp.

23 Capp and Capone 24 Greek cheese 25 Mideast ruler 26 NFL analyst Tony 28 Trophy shape 31 Toward the tiller 34 Hang around 35 Grand Canyon animal

36 “Little” Dickens girl 37 Org. hacked at its Watergate offices 38 Require much (of) 39 Lost in thought 40 Signed on for another tour 43 Skill rarely practiced now 44 Not aligned with 45 Little rascal 47 Descendants

48 “Best in Show” org.

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Don't give up!

GLASSNOTE ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

Jade Bird bids a strong hello with debut album MADELEINE GANNON Daily Arts Writer

Jade Bird’s self-titled debut album, Jade Bird, functions as both a grand announcement of her advent to stardom and a declaration of who she is and who she hopes to be. Bird enters onto the world stage with a string of singles and EPs already notched under her belt, strong and unafraid. The album feels like a firm handshake and a knowing smile. Bird doesn’t seek validation from the audience or critics — let alone amateur college writers like myself. Instead, the pervading sentiment of the album is that Bird knows she’s good — really, really good — and this album is simply her way of letting us know.

There’s no arrogance, however, in her music.

Jade Bird’s album may trumpet her long-awaited arrival, but it’s a celebration of the self (both Jade, and the listener), not a display of hubris. The 12-track album contains an enticing mixture of vulnerability balanced with strength, heartbreak countered by confidence. Bird seems comfortable within her own skin — her own voice — singing “And that’s my motto / Don’t let ’em near enough to let me down” in the song “My Motto.” She’s open about her vulnerabilities, but sadness is seemingly unwelcome in the powerful display of self-

love and acknowledgment that is the album Jade Bird.

Yet, while the album is named after herself, Jade Bird is honest about the struggle of knowing one’s self. “Ruins” open the album with energy and gentle acoustics, laying bare Bird’s beautiful vocals. This vulnerability is accentuated with the Bird’s echo of “I’m not sure who I am” — an admission that strikes at a deeper question

Jade Bird Jade Bird Glassnote Entertaiment Group

of what releasing an album can signify to an artist. Yes, it’s a mark of success, talent and hard work. But the release of Jade Bird skyrockets the artist to new heights. Suddenly, the woman named “Jade Bird” is more than who she was. This essential question of who Jade Bird is hangs heavy over the entirety of the album, hinting that this vital introduction is also the artist’s exploration of her own identity.

Soul-searching doesn’t last for long, though. Bird blasts

through with anthem-level songs like “Uh Huh,” making one almost forget her previous uncertainty. The amount of pure power Bird wields throughout the song is enough to entice the listener to their knees while she sings of control, authority and dominance. “Good At It” and “Love Has All Been Done Before” are full of heartache, but again, Bird doesn’t welcome pity or pining into her music.

It’s heartache done the way it should be –– full of passion and vivacity.

The album closes on a gentle note with “If I Die,” full of beauty, with the warmth of a piano in the background. By the end of the album, it feels as if Bird has come full circle.

From opening with a poignant question of identity to final assertions of “I’m ok with who I am” in her final song, Bird has seemingly found herself, and conversely, the listener has finally found Jade Bird. “If I Die” is heart-wrenchingly lovely, as Bird croons that “If I die, don’t put me in stars / Put me in words, not hallelujahs / They come from the heart and they’ll ring true.” Bird never asks for love, or admiration or acceptance. But here, in these final words, she earns it a thousand times over.

Here, at least, this writer can immortalize the songs and memory of Jade Bird as she requests — in unworthy words that can only beg redemption by their bone-deep sincerity.

FILM NOTEBOOK

Our film favorite endings To honor the end of this school year, a few of us in the film beat have decided to pay homage to a select few of the greatest endings in movie history.

For me, no other movie ending better captures the beauty of cinema and the power of nostalgia than that of “Cinema Paradiso.” The scene is simple. Salvatore, our protagonist, much older than he was at the beginning of the film, watches a compilation of old movie scenes made for him by Alfredo, his childhood mentor. No words are necessary — we can tell everything we need to know through his eyes, which quickly fill with tears. The scenes remind him of his childhood years working at a movie theater, all the things he once felt and all the things he’s lost. Despite the tears, Salvatore has a smile on his face. Although the past is gone, his memories of it will never leave him. “Cinema Paradiso,” especially its ending, is a profound love letter to cinema and its ability to help us remember our own stories.

— Elise Godfryd, Daily Arts Writer “Good Will Hunting” is one of my first cinematic loves and it continues to rank in my top 10 for a number of reasons, including killer music, a knockout cast and some of the most quotable lines ever. But perhaps the greatest charm of Van Sant’s masterpiece is its, truly flawless ending.

In the final scene, Sean (Robin Williams, “Mrs. Doubtfire”) opens the mysterious note in his mailbox from Will (Matt Damon, “The Martian”), and grinningly reads the unforgettable phrase, “I had to go see about a girl,” the same last line from the story he told Will months before about how he met his wife. Cutting to the open road and Will’s batteredup car, we are filled with the same sense of satisfaction as Sean, proud at Will for driving off into the sunset after Skylar (Minnie Driver, “Grosse Pointe Blank”).

Simple, yet profound, the final moments of the car coasting down

the interstate, accompanied by the iconic Elliott Smith ballad “Miss Misery,” fall perfectly in line with the tone of quiet profundity reflected throughout the film, and distinguish this ending as one of the most gratifying and full-circle of all time.

— Samantha Nelson, Daily Arts Writer “Annihilation” is not a perfect movie. The loose adaptation from the first part of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy was a quilt of fascinating ideas executed poorly.

And yet, many of its flaws are forgettable because of the film’s truly horrifying final 20 minutes.

In what has to be one of the strangest dance-offs ever conceived, a colorful pulsating alien transforms into a doppelganger of Natalie Portman’s Lena. What follows is a jarring, skin-crawling series of physical maneuvers. The most revolting aspect is that the alien is not attacking her; It is simply mirroring her movements. When she reaches out her hand, it punches her back.

When she runs for the door, the alien pins her against the door so it too, can escape.

The finale of “Annihilation” is a testament to the realization of heady themes into a simple yet effective conclusion. It demonstrated some of the most ambitious filmmaking of 2018 and, for the most part, redeemed the movie.

— Anish Tamhaney, Daily Arts Writer I’m cheating a little bit, but Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Nobody Knows”) made me. My ending scene is not technically the final one from “Shoplifters,” but rather the perfectly unsatisfying rift that Osamu (Lily Franky, “The Devil’s Path”) and Shota’s (Jyo Kairi, “Erased”) informal father-son relationship comes to under Kore-eda’s artful direction. In it, Shota boards a bus and leaves the surrogate father

who failed him, Osamu desperately chases, calling Shota’s name, and all Shota can do is watch. But as he watches, he whispers, calling Osamu “Dad” for the first time.

What a way to elaborate on one of the best lines of “Shoplifters,” spoken several scenes earlier. “If they really loved you,” Osamu’s partner Nobuyo (Sakura Andô, “100 Yen Love”) tells Yuri (Miyu Sasaki, “Samurai Gourmet”), whose birth parents neglected her, “this is what they’d do,” and surrogate mother rocks daughter back-and-forth in her arms.

If you know the harsh reality of love in families, this is the scene you end with: full of hesitation, of waiting too long to say important things, of not knowing how to say goodbye.

But in those futile pursuits, Kore-eda seems to see the purest kind of love in the act of trying anyway. I see it, too.

— Julianna Morano, Daily Arts Writer Go ahead. Make your jokes.

I’ll wait. “Which ending are you picking? Hurhurhur.”

Now tell me: Which of the endings to “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” are you going to cut? What catharsis are you going to you going to deny the audience, you monster? Is it Aragorn’s coronation and the Hobbits finally getting recognized as heroes? Is it their return to the Shire, where they realize that despite everything they did, life in their home has gone on and will continue to go on as usual?

How about Frodo leaving MiddleEarth because he can’t cope with everything he went through? Oh, I see, you’re going to take away Sam’s happy ending, because even though he’s the one person to resist the call of the One Ring, he doesn’t deserve to settle down and have a family who loves him as much as we do. No, these endings are all perfect, and this movie is perfect.

— Jeremiah VanderHelm, Daily Arts Writer

Sports

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 — 7

‘M’ extends losing streak in tightly contested battle DREW COX

Daily Sports Writer

With under four minutes remaining in the game’s final quarter, Decker Curran swept across the the top of the box towards his right and dodged down the alley, firing an overhand shot past the head of Rutgers goalkeeper Max Edelman to bring the Wolverines within one goal, 10-9.

His second of the day, Curran’s goal brought hope to the Michigan men’s lacrosse team that it could tie the game up, produce a win and end a frustrating seven-game losing streak.

However, over two minutes later, Scarlet Knight attackman Adam Charalambides maneuvered past the Wolverines’ defensive unit and snuck a shot past senior goalkeeper Gunner Garner, notching his sixth goal on the day to end those hopes.

Despite the efforts of senior midfielders Curran and Brent Noseworthy, who together contributed five of the Wolverines’ nine goals, Michigan (3-9 overall, 0-4 Big Ten) fell to Rutgers (7-6, 2-2) on Saturday in an intense, back-and-forth chess match for contention in the Big Ten Tournament.

“It’s really, really hard to win Big Ten lacrosse games.

Every team in our league is disciplined, organized, incredibly talented and physical,” said Michigan coach Kevin Conry. “If we don’t have that discipline and physicality ourselves, that’s when 9-9 turns to 11-9.”

Despite the ill-favored result, the Wolverines battled with the Scarlet Knights from the opening faceoff to the final whistle.

The first quarter began the same way the fourth quarter ended, with Curran and

Charalambides exchanging goals in the first two minutes.

By the end of the quarter, Michigan and Rutgers both stood tall, as the game remained tied, 4-4, with Noseworthy contributing a pair of goals and sophomore attackman Alex Buckanavage also contributing a goal to the Wolverines’ tally.

The first quarter foreshadowed what looked to be a high-scoring affair between two dynamic, experienced offenses.

However, in the second quarter, each side only managed to reel in a single goal.

In one of the few offensive highlights of the quarter, following a feed behind the goal from sophomore attackman Kevin Mack, Noseworthy found himself with his hands free seven yards out from the goal, cocked back his arms and rocketed a high-to-high goal past Edelman, earning his third hat trick of the season and

tying the game once again, 5-5.

With his assist, Mack extended his point-streak to 12, notching a point in each game this season thus far.

“We all settled into the game,” Conry said. “Both defenses settled in and played a controlled game.”

Taking advantage of the Wolverines’ persistent faceoff and possession struggles, the Scarlet Knights picked up ground balls and gained possession on 5-of-6 faceoffs in the third quarter, allowing their offense to outscore the Wolverines 4-1 in the quarter. “(They) did a really good job of controlling the initial draws and maintaining possession,” Conry said. “They were a little more patient with their game.”

Trailing 9-6 going into the fourth quarter, Michigan refused to give up and let the game slip away from it, as Mack and junior midfielder Avery Myers each contributed goals

within the first five minutes of the quarter to cut the Scarlet Knights’ lead to 9-8.

However, two huge goals from Charalambides warded off Michigan’s desperate attempts to overcome its onegoal deficit and iced the game for his team Nevertheless, with a season filled with tight battles and shortcomings winding down, Conry keeps in perspective the long-run vision of the program, celebrating the trials and tribulations of putting talented freshman like attackman Bryce Clay and defenseman Andrew Darby through the wringer in games like these early in their college careers.

“They were baptized in fire.

We threw them in a situation … with injuries mounting up, (we said) ‘Let’s get (them) in and have them make some mistakes now, so (they) can be better for the future,’” Conry said. “It’s creating a map for their future.”

ZACHARY GOLDSMITH/Daily

Senior midfielder Decker Curran scored twice in an 11-9 loss to Rutgers as the Wolverines remain winless in the Big Ten.

Foster’s first-place finish a focal point MATTHEW KENNEDY Daily Sports Editor

On March 29, in Palo Alto, Calif., Chloe Foster finished first.

Three weeks later, history repeated itself.

Competing at the Cardinal Classic in Palo Alto on Friday, the sophomore again topped the field in the 400-meter hurdles, finishing with a time of 59.69 seconds. Three weeks earlier, at the Stanford Invitational, Foster came in first with a time of 59.65 seconds — on the same track.

“It gets them used to the venue,” said Michigan coach James Henry. “(It) makes it easier to adjust to the competition.”

Foster wasn’t finished after the 400-meter hurdles, however. Competing in the 400-meter run on Saturday, Foster ran a careerbest 54.47 seconds to capture her second victory of the weekend. Junior Julia Hall also ran a career-best time of 55.52 seconds to finish third in the event, while sophomore Emma Lane rounded out the top five, posting a 57.84.

Elsewhere, Michigan saw success from two debutants.

Sophomore Alice Hill, participating in her firstever collegiate 3,000-meter steeplechase event, placed fourth with a time of 10:04.58.

In the 5,000-meter run, sixthyear senior Erin Finn returned to action for the first time since the 2018 season, coming in fifth with a time of 16:09.94.

The Wolverines saw another strong repeat performance

in the 800-meter run from freshman Aurora Rynda. At the Stanford Invitational, Rynda placed fifth in her career-debut in the event. This weekend, Rynda improved upon her performance, finishing third in a field consisting of runners from Stanford, Indiana, Oregon and others.

“I thought the middledistance and distance groups did well, as well as the 400 and 400-hurdle groups,” Henry said. “We accomplished some of the things we were out to get, and that was to improve our performances, get regional times and set ourselves up for the Big Ten meet.”

Michigan also had some success in the sprint races.

Hall finished fourth in the 200-meter sprint and junior Tiana Luton placed fifth in the 100-meter hurdles.

With the Cardinal Classic in the rearview mirror, the Wolverines have only one more meet — the Len Paddock Open in Ann Arbor — and just three more weeks until the Big Ten Outdoor Championships.

It is not all time to prepare, though, as the Michigan runners also have to deal with end-of-semester projects and final exams over the next few weeks.

“That’s the challenge that we have, but that’s the great thing about the type of athletes that we have,” Henry said. “They can be focused on their competition, as well as be focused on their studies in between. And many, if not all, of our athletes are able to do that.”

(It) makes it easier to adjust to the competition.

Michigan outplayed by Iowa on Mixed results at Las Vegas Lake Sunday in regular season finale for fifth-ranked Wolverines PHILIP CALDWELL Daily Sports Writer

In the waning moments of a Sunday match against Iowa, Michigan freshman Patrick Maloney faced the task of keeping his team alive. Down 5-4 in the third set, Maloney knew committing a single error would clinch the overall match for the Hawkeyes.

He tossed the ball high in the air and swung his racket with force, delivering what looked like a strong serve, at least until it landed just outside of the service box.

Maloney’s opponent realized instantly that Michigan would be called for a double fault, and he pumped his fist as his teammates sprinted onto the court to celebrate their upset win over the Wolverines.

Following Maloney’s close loss in singles, the No. 19 Michigan men’s tennis team (16-7 overall, 7-4 Big Ten) fell 1-4 to Iowa in the last meet of the regular season, after an uncharacteristically flat performance.

The Hawkeyes (17-9, 6-5) set the tone from the get-go as they dominated the doubles sets,

winning 6-0 at No. 1 doubles and 6-3 at No. 3 to clinch the doubles point.

“We have to be way more aggressive in doubles,” said Michigan coach Adam Steinberg. “We have to move harder, we have to move more, we have to get (the doubles point) on the doubles court and it’ll transfer over to singles and really help the guys.”

Losing the doubles point to Iowa set the Wolverines on a downhill course as they entered singles matches. The Hawkeyes won the first set in four out of the six singles matches. And when sophomore Mattias Siimar and senior Gabe Tishman both lost in straight sets, Michigan quickly found itself in a deep hole, down 3-0.

Freshman Andrew Fenty’s performance was the one positive element of the day for the Wolverines. Fenty came back from a poor loss in the first set of his singles match to win the next two and secure a 1-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory at No. 1 singles.

That win kept Michigan alive in the match until Maloney’s close defeat and improved Fenty’s record to a team-best 25-5.

“Iowa did great,” Steinberg

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Freshman Andrew Fenty was one of the few bright spots for Michigan.

said. “They played really, really well. I don’t think the guys responded well to their energy, their fight and their tennis, and Andrew was pretty much the only one out there who did. So it’s tough to win a match when you only have one guy really playing to win, and the other guys were playing really tight and not being themselves. …

We’ve had a lot of great matches this year as well but today was not one of them.”

Perhaps most surprising about Iowa’s thorough defeat of the Wolverines was the fact that just two days earlier, Michigan played one of its most complete matches all season against Nebraska.

The Wolverines cleanly swept the Cornhuskers, picking up the doubles point and all six singles points for a 7-0 victory.

Though Nebraska’s record is poor, Michigan’s near flawless performance in Lincoln was a stark contrast to the team’s showing on Sunday.

Despite the disappointing outcome of the regular season finale, Steinberg was proud of the regular season résumé his team has earned, and how his players managed to earn a top20 ranking in the nation for most of the year after losing four seniors from 2018.

The Wolverines now have their sights set on the postseason, with the Big Ten Tournament starting play this Wednesday in Ann Arbor.

“It’s a new season, the postseason, for us,” said Steinberg. “It’s a big slate clean.

We’re going to have a new attitude and erase this match and go forward, and I know they’re looking at it that way.

Especially that we get to host the tournament next week, and the guys always feel very confident at home. I know they really only get one chance out of every 12 years to host the Big Ten Tournament, and this is the perfect time, especially after this match today.”

LANE KIZZIAH Daily Sports Writer

This weekend, Michigan couldn’t find its rhythm.

The fifth-ranked Wolverines experienced mixed results against No. 1 Washington and No. 6 Ohio State at their regatta in Las Vegas.

The closest race of the day was in the 2V8 category. While Michigan was solidly in second place for most of the race, the Buckeyes became a threat in the final 750 meters. Powering through the sprint, Ohio State ended the race in a photo finish with the Huskies coming in first. The Wolverines edged out the Buckeyes by 0.08 seconds to claim second.

Michigan’s only victory came in the 1V4 category in which it beat out Washington by two seconds and Ohio State by 12.

The 1V8 came in third, crossing the finish line with open water separating it from its competition — 10 seconds behind Washington and six seconds behind the Buckeyes.

The 1V8 came off of the line strong, rowing a powerful start — a strength of the program.

Trouble came after the first 500 meters when the boat didn’t settle to its typical base pace.

“Our 1V8 struggled to establish a good rhythm,” said Michigan coach Mark Rothstein.

“They just really lost the race in the middle thousand and wasn’t able to get back in terms of Ohio State or Washington.”

In the last 500 meters, the Wolverines gained a few seats, but it wasn’t enough to get them out of third.

This wasn’t their first matchup against the Buckeyes.

The two faced off last weekend in Columbus, where Michigan fell to its rival by a much smaller margin. The boat this weekend wasn’t entirely the same as the one that came in behind Ohio State last weekend. Rothstein opted to switch two rowers from the lineup possibly accounting for the lack of rhythm this weekend.

“I think it was changes in the lineup and not really getting a lot of time to practice base pace in that lineup,” said senior Caroline Hendershot. “I think

that it was still a really good race for the short amount of time that we’ve been together in that lineup from stern to bow.”

And the changes are far from over.

“The lineups will continue to evolve over the next couple weeks,” Rothstein said. “We’ll see where they land but I think we have a lot of depth and a lot of parity so a lot of possibilities for lineups which is a good thing.”

Added Hendershot: “Coming away from a race can be hard if you don’t know what to work on.

I think all of us understand that we have a really good start and a really good finish and it’s that middle thousand (meters) base pace that we’re really trying to find.”

Sports

8 — Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Michigan’s star recruiting class from 2018 continues to deliver AIDAN WOUTAS Daily Sports Writer

Some referred to them as the best recruiting class in program history.

The Michigan baseball team’s 2018 incoming class received plaudits nationwide for its talent and balance. It was ranked No. 10 in the country — the highest ranking a Big Ten recruiting class has ever received — and tallied seven freshman All-American awards. Almost two years in, they’ve lived up to expectations.

“It’s a really good class,” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich.

“When we put it together, we felt like it was a balanced, dynamic class with star potential – guys that had a chance to play for a long time and be high draft picks in three years.”

As sophomores this season — now a year older and more mature — they have continued to make an impression.

Players up and down the lineup, as well as on the mound, have begun to take on a more active role. Right-hander Jeff Criswell transitioned from the bullpen into a starting role this year with fellow sophomore Ben Dragani’s seasonending injury. In his Sunday-

starter role, he has helped carry the Wolverines to dominant wins against conference opponents Ohio State and Minnesota, holding them to few hits while pitching more innings per game than he ever has before.

“He’s hopped into the Sunday role and I feel like he’s really starting to come on,” said Michigan assistant coach Nick Schnabel. “That’s a guy with electric stuff.”

Left-hander Angelo Smith, meanwhile, has brought to the table both strength as a starter as well as poise and reliability as a reliever, pitching the team out of jams consistently.

Last year, outfielder Jordan Nwogu was a solid if not unremarkable presence on the team. This year, he’s leading off Michigan’s lineup while being key in scoring runs throughout the season, leading the team with a .366 batting average. His performance this year represents a significant improvement and has been a pleasant surprise to the coaching staff.

“When these guys came in, we had no idea Jordan Nwogu would become Jordan Nwogu,” Bakich said. “And that’s been a great surprise — the way he’s inserted

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Sophomore outfielder Jordan Nwogu leads the Wolverines in batting average.

himself into the team since the middle of last year has been just huge.”

Jack Blomgren, Joe Donovan and Jesse Franklin have likewise been clutch components of this season’s offense with 16 home runs between the three of them thus far.

The man primarily responsible for assembling this transformative group of players is Schnabel, who made countless phone calls, hosted plenty of prospects and took trips around the country to assemble the 2018 team. He is loath to take too much credit, however.

“Well, it came together with a lot of work from our entire staff,” Schnabel said. “It was totally a team effort.”

Bakich, who played alongside Schnabel during their shared time at East Carolina, was unsurprised by his modesty — “as a team we try to emphasize the ‘our, us, we’ mentality instead of ‘my, I, me’ ” — but emphasized the importance of his role.

“Recruiting is one of those things that’s 365 and 24/7,” Bakich said. “Coach Schnabel has no off switch. It’s the first thing he thinks about every morning, the last thing he things about before he goes to bed.

“He’s the best at what he does and a big reason why we have so many good players to coach.”

With senior heavyweights Jimmy Kerr, Blake Nelson, Miles Lewis and Ako Thomas on their way out, the sophomores will likely need to fill an even bigger role come next year. But the team seems eminently confident in that.

“I absolutely think they can take the mantle,” Schnabel said.

“Obviously in terms of their ability they can, but also in what kind of kids they are.

“They’re serious about the game and about their growth and maturation personally and most importantly, they’re a team that wants to win.”

With postseason looming, ‘M’ showing grit at the perfect time AKUL VIJAYVARGIYA Daily Sports Writer

Facing the Big Ten’s best offense this weekend, the Michigan softball team showed it could win ugly.

On Friday, the Wolverines jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead in the first inning but found itself tied heading into the seventh. Rather than being fazed by the surging crowd on the road, Michigan was able to string together a couple of hits and drive in the deciding run.

Saturday’s scene was quite the opposite.

Michigan was scrambling for any sort of momentum, both at the plate and in the field, as it faced an 8-5 deficit after six innings.

“I don’t exactly know what the biggest struggle was,” said senior second baseman Faith Canfield.

“You just have those days where things don’t click, when things aren’t gonna go perfect. … Those days are gonna happen but take it for what they are, just work to get better at them.”

The Wolverines were in a similar position just two weeks ago. Trailing Indiana by two runs heading into the final inning, the seniors led a comeback that was catalyzed by an offensive showing Hutchins has been seeking from the team all season.

On Saturday, Michigan showed that the scoring it had discovered against Indiana hadn’t disappeared after one showing.

One seventh inning later, the scoreboard flashed 9-8 in favor of the Wolverines — another narrow one-run win on the weekend.

“There’s nothing sweeter than coming from behind to win a game,” Hutchins said. “Those are great moments that hopefully give us a continued confidence and belief in ourselves when we get behind. We’ve played well from behind. I’m really pleased

with that.”

Putting on such offensive clinics during the crunch time of conference games is more than just correct mechanics, though.

This team has something far more important than hot bats and welltimed swings. It has grit.

The same team that struggled to secure close games and mount comebacks against the likes of South Dakota and North Carolina has won 21 of its last 22 games.

And though the Wolverines may not be ranked as highly as other Michigan teams of this past decade, this team is showing just as much heart, if not more, late in games.

There’s nothing sweeter than coming from behind to win...

“I think (the grit) came from the start of the season,” said freshman outfielder Lexie Blair.

“We took those losses at the start of the season to make us tougher and just provide a bigger, stronger mentality toward our next games… We’ve faced so much adversity from the start, and that’s what we use to just get us through the season.”

With just seven games left before the postseason, the Wolverines are showing they can win on days when pitches aren’t finding the strike zone and bats are connecting with the ball.

They’ve shown that they can win with their backs against the wall. And they’re playing with a toughness that few teams around the nation can rival.

After Sunday’s win, Canfield summed up this mentality best: “If they’re gonna throw a punch, we gotta throw a punch back.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wildcat woes help Wolverines complete a weekend sweep at home ABBY SNYDER

Daily Sports Writer

Eight runs.

That’s how many the Michigan baseball team scored off Northwestern mistakes this weekend.

The Wolverines put runners on base with walks and hitby-pitches, advanced those runners on wild pitches and stolen bases and kept them alive on fielders’ choices and errors. In a weekend series that was closer than anticipated at times, much of the Wolverines’ success came when they were able to capitalize on their opponents’ mistakes.

“You take anything you can get, whether it’s a walk, or an error — anything,” said Michigan coach Erik Bakich.

“You just try to do whatever you can to get on base and put pressure on the other team.

It’s why there’s such a high importance of battling with two strikes, because when you put it in play, that’s what could happen. A guy could make an error, and you could get yourself on base.

“And a lot of times, just being aggressive and putting pressure on the other team can force errors. So, just by being aggressive, we got some huge opportunities today.”

In Saturday’s 4-1 game, just two of Michigan’s four runs were earned. The first was from sophomore shortstop Jack Blomgren, who reached base on a walk before scoring on a throwing error from Wildcats second baseman

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Sophomore shortstop Jack Blomgren scored on a throwing error Saturday.

Shawn Goosenberg.

The first game of Sunday’s doubleheader saw more of the same. After advancing to second when Blomgren walked and moving to third on a fielders’ choice, sophomore designated hitter Jordan Nwogu scored on a fielding error from Northwestern third baseman Charlie Maxwell in the bottom of the first inning to put the Wolverines up, 1-0.

In the seventh inning, with the game tied at 2-2, the Wildcats’ errors again came back to haunt them.

Junior centerfielder Christian Bullock walked to lead off the bottom of the inning. He then stole second and advanced to third base on a throwing error from Northwestern catcher Michael Trautwein before scoring the deciding run on a fielding error from Wildcats second baseman Alex Erro to bring the final score to 3-2.

“It just feels great scoring

To score the winning run today, it was just amazing.

runs for this team, for the University of Michigan,” Bullock said. “To score the winning run today, it was just amazing.”

In Sunday’s second game, a 10-1 rout, Michigan finally overpowered Northwestern to run away with the series. They beat up the Wildcat pitchers for 10 runs on 14 hits, including senior third baseman Blake Nelson’s first home run of the season and a three-run shot from junior center fielder Christian Bullock. Both home runs came in the bottom of the second inning; Bullock added an RBI on the day with a single in the bottom of the eighth that scored senior catcher Matthew Schmidt.

As the team prepares for next weekend’s home series — another Big Ten matchup against a Rutgers team that’s won seven of its last 10 games and is fighting to stay in the race for the conference title — the Wolverines may not be able to rely as heavily on opponents’ mistakes.

But if they can keep finding ways on base — and ways to score — like they did this weekend, they’re looking like a tough team to beat.

Lexie Blair has the potential to be the future of Michigan softball AKUL VIJAYVARGIYA Daily Sports Writer

Lexie Blair confidently stepped up to the plate for a fifth time on Sunday, needing a triple to complete the cycle.

Facing a 3-2 count, the freshman outfielder watched a yellow blur pass her rather than swinging for a chance at that elusive triple. It was a ball, allowing her to keep a 4-for4 hitting performance intact for a team-high 20th multi-hit outing on the year.

It’s this type of plate discipline and acumen in the batter’s box she’s displayed all season.

With seven games remaining in the regular season, Blair is hitting at a .418 clip, leading the next-best batter on the team by .040. She also leads the team in doubles (17) and RBIs (40) — both numbers better than second baseman Faith Canfield’s entire 2018 AllAmerican campaign. The last time a Michigan freshman was able

to put together an All-American caliber season? Sierra Romero in 2013 — she would later become the first four-time All-American in program history.

Different years require different All-American standards, and Blair plays a very different position than Canfield and Romero. But what these stat lines do show is that Blair has the potential to be the future of Michigan softball.

After Sierra Romero’s graduation in 2016, Canfield burst into the scene in style as a third team All-American and became someone Blair looked up to before she arrived in Ann Arbor “Before I even came her, I grew up watching her over her years in Michigan,” Blair said on

Mar. 9. “Finally seeing her as a senior, seeing her doing her thing, being consistent as she is, the past couple weekends have been really amazing.”

Now, Canfield is in the home stretch of her tenured career at Michigan.

With just a few more games guaranteed, she, along with the other four seniors, will have to pass off a team driven by leadership and experience. The other returning starters for 2020 besides Blair will be junior third baseman Madison Uden, sophomore shortstop Natalia Rodriguez and junior outfielder Haley Hoogenraad. They have done their job to support the top of the batting order, but none of them have produced significant numbers throughout this season like Blair.

Blair doesn’t just get the job done as the third batter in the lineup. She has one of the biggest personalities on the team — her walkup song is “Lose Control” by Missy Elliott. She has a handshake with Uden where she poses for Uden’s hand-camera. This energy and excitement Blair has brought to the Wolverines inspires Canfield just as much as Canfield has inspired her. “(Blair’s) a stud,” Canfield said.

“She just has so much confidence.

The way she carries herself is just never too high, never too low. She just goes out there and works hard and gets the job done, which is awesome to look at. And even as a freshman, we can really rely on her which is really cool to see someone really take on that role as a leader so young.”

So it doesn’t really matter that Blair was one triple short of a cycle on Sunday, because she has three more years to achieve that. And when she does, the spotlight will shine straight on her, just like it has been on Canfield, Romero and the rest of the Michigan greats.

(Lexie’s) a stud. She just has so much confidence.

ALEC COHEN/Daily

Freshman outfielder Lexie Blair leads the team in batting average, doubles and runs-batted-in while the Wolverines have won 21 of their last 22 games.