ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Thursday, October 10, 2019
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Michigan woman takes case on Washtenaw discrimination to Supreme Court County sprayed Aimee Stephens fired from job after telling her boss she was transgender
to combat the spread of EEE
Deadly disease with no cure or vaccine can lead to rare brain infections MICHAL RUPRECHT Daily Staff Reporter
DESIGN BY LAUREN KUZEE
MADELINE MCLAUGHLIN & BEN ROSENFELD Daily Staff Reporters
Garden City resident Aimee Stephens became a funeral director for one reason: to help people. Despite facing hardship in her personal life, Stephens found comfort in the knowledge she enabled individuals to memorialize those they loved. Stephens, a transgender woman, said she knew she was a woman from the age of five. After a lifetime of suppressing her identity,
Stephens began to live as a woman, dressing as a man only while at work in the funeral home’s distinct male and female uniforms. Stephens had worked at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home in Garden City for nearly six years. In 2013, her lifelong internal struggle with gender identity came to a head, and Stephens decided to announce her intention to live fully as a woman to her co-workers. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Stephens described the
moment she told her boss her gender identity — through a letter. “We just went into the chapel to talk … I gave him the letter, he read it, he folded it up and put it in his coat pocket, and he said, ‘I’ll have to think about this,’” Stephens said. She went on to recount the moment her boss fired her. “That was pretty much all that was said for two weeks … he comes back in one afternoon and he says … ‘This is not going to work.’ That’s
pretty much all he said, and he handed me basically a letter firing me and offering me what I took it to be as hush money to keep my mouth shut, and basically sign away any rights I may or may not have,” Stephens said. Instead of accepting the money, Stephens sued with the backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency enforcing civil rights law against workplace discrimination. See DISCRIMINATION, Page 3A
A por t ion of nor t her n Wa shtenaw Count y wa s aer ia lly sprayed to combat t he spread of a mosquito -bor ne v ir us la st Sat urday n ig ht , according to Susa n R ingler Cer n iglia , Com mun icat ions a nd Com mun it y Hea lt h Promot ion Adm in ist rator at t he Wa shtenaw Count y Hea lt h Depa r t ment . The decision to conduct aer ia l spray ing ca me a f ter t he M ich ig a n Depa r t ment of Hea lt h a nd Huma n Ser v ices cont acted WCH D on Sept . 29 about t he spread of t he v ir us ca lled Ea ster n Equine Encepha lit is. M DH HS recom mended WCH D a nd Liv ing ston Count y Hea lt h Depa r t ment pa r t icipate in aer ia l
Transfer Religion professor discusses book students on Latinx Muslim community talk credit Dr. Harold D. Morales speaks at event in honor of Latinx Heritage Month challenges ACADEMICS
JASMIN LEE
Individuals also cite having to re-take entry level courses, discuss issues with graduation ALEX HARRING Daily Staff Reporter
When LSA junior Zoe Garden arrived on campus this semester as a transfer student, she had completed many beginner and upper-level courses in communications — including an entry-level communication studies course — at her previous school. Yet, because of the University of Michigan’s transfer requirements, she found herself enrolling in Communication Studies 101 this semester. “I always say that I feel like a freshman here on campus, because I obviously don’t know the campus as well and stuff like that, but sometimes being in these classes with all these freshmen, you just kind of feel like you’re out of place,” Garden said. “You come here to Michigan for more opportunities, but I feel like I’m being set back more than pushed forward sometimes.” Garden, who transferred to the University from Oakland University, a four-year college located in Auburn Hills, Mich., said introductory communication courses at the two schools were comparable — both were 100-level courses in the Communication & Media department covering similar subject matter. See TRANSFER , Page 3A
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Daily Staff Reporter
About 56 students, faculty and community members came to Haven Hall Wednesday to hear Morgan State University professor Harold D. Morales speak about his new book, “Latino and Muslim in America: Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minority.” The event was sponsored by the Romance Languages and Literature, Global Islamic Studies Center, Department of American Culture, Multi-Ethnic Student
Affairs, Latina/o Studies and La Casa. Morales started off with statistics of Latinx Muslim representation in the United States population. According to Morales’s research, there is a high concentration of Latinx Muslims in Northeastern and West Coast states, including California and New York. In addition, he said by the year 2043, the United States will be the first nation where the current racial minority populations will outnumber the racial majority population.
As an example of a prominent Latinx Muslim, Morales shared a video of Hamza Perez, a Puerto Rican-American rapper who converted to Islam. In the video, Perez labeled himself as “America’s Worst Nightmare” because of his shared identities as Puerto Rican, Muslim and a rapper. Morales said he disagrees with the idea that being a minority is a negative feature. “So, he’s got all of these things that are often portrayed as negative stereotypes and they’re lumped all together, and
all of a sudden, it’s amplifying the negativity somehow,” Morales said. “Why in the world would you choose to increase your marginality? Why would you choose to increase the discrimination that you will experience? There are certain assumptions that are being made about what is lacking and what is Islam or Islamic identity, and I think that’s really telling and important to keep in mind.”
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
spray ing a f ter a n a n ima l w it h EEE wa s found in neig hbor ing Liv ing ston Count y on Monday, Sept . 30. Cer n iglia sa id WCH D wa s g iven shor t not ice about t he proposed spray ing a nd ended up pa r t icipat ing in t he M DH HS - coordinated spray ing. “A s a loca l hea lt h depa r t ment , we have to pr ior it ize reducing t heir r isk of a potent ia lly deadly infect ious illness,” Cer n iglia sa id. When t ra nsm it ted by mosquitoes to a not her org a n ism , EEE ca n lead to a ra re bra in infect ion. According to t he Centers for Disea se Cont rol a nd Prevent ion , t he v ir us is fat a l to 30 percent of t hose infected. There is no cure or vaccine for t he v ir us. The CDC a lso noted See EEE, Page 3A
ADMINISTRATION
University to consider two tenure revisions
Working group formed after SMTD Prof. David Daniels accused of sexual assault by students LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter
This month, the Universit y of Michiga n a nnounced the creation of a facult y working g roup dedicated to recommending revisions to t wo Regents bylaws addressing the dismissal of tenured facult y. The t wo bylaws include the Universit y ’s sta nda rd procedure in cases of facult y dismissal, as well as severa nce pay. The a nnouncement of the working g roup comes af ter School of Music, Theatre & Da nce Professor David Da niels was accused of sexual assault by former st udent Sa muel Schultz in Aug ust 2018. Just a few months later, A ndrew Lipia n, a nother former st udent of Da niels’s, f iled a lawsuit claiming he was sexually assaulted by Da niels in Ma rch 2017. In July of this yea r, the Universit y bega n the process of f iring Da niels, who was placed on paid leave af ter Schultz’s allegations were made public.
MICHAEL BAGAZINSKI/Daily Dr. Harold D. Morales, associate professor at Morgan State university, discusses the changing demographics in the United States and the relationship between Muslim and LatinX identities at the LatinX and Muslim in America Lecture at Haven Hall Wednesday.
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INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 9 ©2019 The Michigan Daily
NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 CLASSIFIEDS................5
See TENURE , Page 3A
SUDOKU.....................2 SPORTS...................6 ARTS.................1B