2019-10-16

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Wednesday, October 16, 2019

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statement Nevertheless, she tweeted Boy taken

CAMPUS LIFE

HOSPITAL

Numbers differ on sex crimes

off of life support

Statistics from Campus Climate Survey, DPSS show divergent trends

14-year-old Bobby Reyes dies after examination reveals no brain activity

EMMA STEIN, ISOBEL GRANT & ZAYNA SYED

LIAT WEINSTEIN Daily Staff Reporter

Daily Staff Reporters

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE

Two University of Michigan reports reveal diverging trends in sexual assault and misconduct on campus, according to numbers from a campus climate survey released Tuesday and the Division of Public Safety and Security report from two weeks ago.

The University was one of 33 schools across the country to participate in the Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct, which was sponsored by the Association of American Universities, as a follow up to a similar survey in 2015.

The survey highlights differences in sexual assault rates for minority populations, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and students with disabilities. The rates have decreased overall since 2015.

According to the survey, one in three women report nonconsensual touching or penetration on campus.

first, emphasizing the necessity of the impeachment inquiry in light of evidence of Trump’s unconstitutional behavior.

“Sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics and I think that’s the case with this impeachment inquiry,” Warren said.

“Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences.”

Late Tuesday morning, Bobby Reyes, a 14-year-old boy who was pronounced brain dead after suffering an asthma attack on Sept. 21, died when mechanical ventilation was discontinued in his room at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

After Reyes went into cardiac arrest on Sept. 21, doctors at Michigan Medicine determined Reyes had no brain activity and would be removed from life support on Sept. 27. In response, Reyes’ family reached out to an attorney to request a court order that extended Reyes’ time on life support.

Reyes’ death occurred hours after Circuit Court Judge David S. Swartz dismissed the lawsuit at a hearing. He argued the Washtenaw County’s 22nd Circuit Court lacks any jurisdiction over the case, and only the Michigan Court of Claims could handle the decision.

See DEBATE, Page 3A

See LIFE SUPPORT, Page 3A

Democrats talk impeachment, drawbacks of Medicare for All CNN and THE NEW YORK TIMES

Candidates talk hot-button issues in 4th debate prior to presidential primary KATHERINA SOURINE & JULIA FANZERES Daily Staff Reporters

Hundreds of people attended the fourth Democratic Debate on Tuesday night at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. The debate was hosted

by CNN and The New York Times and was moderated

by CNN anchors Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett and New York Times national editor Marc Lacey.

See ASSAULT, Page 3A

The debate featured a record number of candidates, with 12 presidential hopefuls qualifying under Democratic National Committee rules.

All candidates registered at least 2 percent in four qualifying polls and received donations from at least 130,000 online donors.

This is the first debate to take place since the House of Representatives opened its impeachment inquiry into President Donald J. Trump, which was the first topic discussed by candidates.

All the candidates on stage voiced support for impeachment. Moderators challenged them to justify continued impeachment proceedings despite the upcoming election.

Cooper began the debate by asking the candidates if President Donald Trump’s fate should be decided by the electorate at the voting booth or through an impeachment inquiry in Washington.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts responded

Presidential debate to come to campus in October 2020 University selected to host faceoff between Democratic, Republican nominees weeks before Election Day LEAH GRAHAM & ZAYNA SYED

Daily News Editor & Daily Staff Reporter

The University of Michigan will host a presidential debate in fall 2020, University President Mark Schlissel announced Friday morning.

In the press release, Schlissel said the University has prioritized public service and civic engagement in its educational mission.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the university community to contribute to our democracy, while setting an example of civic engagement and shining a light on the outstanding academic strengths of our institution,” Schlissel said. “Public service and civic engagement are at the core of our great university and its history.”

The debate will be held at the Crisler Center on Oct. 15, 2020.

Schlissel said the University will schedule programming related to the debate in classes and across campus.

“For generations, the University of Michigan has led the way in advancing understanding of our nation’s most pressing issues — and next year our students, faculty and staff will have a novel

opportunity to enhance this essential quality of our mission at the national level,” Schlissel said.

In a statement, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, who represents Ann Arbor, said the choice to host the debate in Ann Arbor will put Michigan at the forefront of the 2020 election.

“This election will be the most important of a generation,” Dingell said. “It is important that we listen to all sides. Democracy relies on vigorous debate and freedom of speech. The University of Michigan is driven by a fundamental belief in the need for open dialogue in the democratic process so its students, the citizens of the State of Michigan, and the citizens across the world engage with and participate in the electoral process.”

Former President Gerald R. Ford is a University alum, and the Ford School of Public Policy, which is helping lead the University’s debate initiative, is named after him. Dingell said the University was perfectly placed to host the debate.

“As one of our nation’s premier public institutions, the University of Michigan is uniquely situated to host a debate experience of the highest caliber at this critical moment in our nation’s history,” Dingell said.

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ASSAULT From above “Undergraduate women remain the most at-risk for experiencing nonconsensual touching or penetration since enrolling at U-M at 34.3 percent, down from 38.2 percent in 2015,” according to U-M Public Affairs.

The survey also said there is a statistically significant

difference in rates of “nonconsensual sexual contact” between heterosexual students and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Non-heterosexual students (gay or lesbian, other or multiple categories) had a prevalence rate of 19.8 percent and heterosexual students had a rate of 11.8 percent,” according to the survey.

LSA junior Sidney Aloisi, co-coordinator of Sexual

Assault and Prevention Awareness Center, discussed how important it is to recognize women are not the only victims of sexual assault. Trans and LGBTQ+ students also experience disproportionately high rates of sexual assault.

“I know, historically, a lot of people in the trans and LGBTQ+ community have a big, drastic difference,” Aloisi said. “I know that they can be

very close to women, number wise. I think that’s something that’s important. I think a lot of times we say women are the only victims, those are the only people that we talk about, and that’s really not the case … for the trans community, it was very similar to the women’s statistics, which is interesting if you think about it.”

See ASSAULT, Page 3A

AirBnB to rent out Goodyear blimp for game day ANGELINA BREDE Daily Staff Reporter

Instead of seeing the Goodyear blimp from 1,500 feet below on game day, people now have a chance to spend a night in the aircraft. In honor of the 150th anniversary of college football, Airbnb is offering two fans the opportunity to stay aboard the Goodyear

blimp in anticipation of the University of Michigan versus Notre Dame football game.

Airbnb spokesperson Jinny deCarlos Davoudi wrote in an email to The Daily that Goodyear was very interested in partnering with the company.

“We have been in touch with Goodyear who was keen to list the blimp as a unique space on Airbnb,” she said. “We loved the idea

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and supported them in the renovation of the blimp so that it is a place that can accommodate an overnight stay and in publicizing the listing.”

In honor of the listing being the first of its kind, Airbnb and Goodyear will collectively donate $5,000 to the Cotton Bowl Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting educational organizations in North Texas.

Vol. CXXIX, No. 12 ©2019 The Michigan Daily

Football fans can temporarily rent the blimp through Airbnb for $150 a night plus taxes on the evenings of Oct. 22, 23 and 24. To ensure people have the chance to book, availability will be added for the three individual one-night stays as reservations will go live throughout the day on Oct. 15.

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

See BLIMP, Page 3A

SUDOKU.....................2 ARTS...................5 SPORTS.................1B

News

2A — Wednesday, October 16, 2019

MONDAY: Looking at the Numbers

TUESDAY:

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WEDNESDAY: This Week in History

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FRIDAY: Behind the Story

Opinions on Clarence Thomas cut across race, sex October 15, 1991 The tumultuous debate that has swept the country over the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings has left University students deeply divided.

Riddled with diametrically opposing forces - Black and white, man and woman - the Senate hearings have yielded student opinions that do not conform to any strict patterns.

Within the Black community, opinions differ among women.

Engineering sophomore Jessica Daniels threw her support behind Prof. Hill.

“My support for Professor Hill has nothing to do with her being an African-American female,” she said. “If she’s

proven wrong she has a lot to lose.”

Baker-Mandela Center (BMC) Director Latrice Dixon also said she considers Hill’s accusations accurate.

Furthermore she said she saw the issue of sexual harassment rather than that of race as the salient issue. “(Prof. Hill) has been a symbol for so many women who are reluctant to bring sexual harassment forward,” she said.

Yet not all women said Thomas should suffer for his past behavior. First-year LSA student Dyann Logwood said she believes Clarence Thomas sexually harassed Anita Hill,

but should not be penalized for his past actions now.

“Since it happened 10 years ago I think he would realize that that’s a mistake that he made and life goes on.”

Rejection from the Supreme Court on this incident alone, she said, would be unjust. Yet other women saw Hill as the opposition’s vehicle to the destruction of a Black Supreme Court nominee.

LSA senior Cherron Rowland said, “She’s being paid-off. The whole thing is a set-up against him.”

“I think they are making him an example that Black people can’t be involved in

the Supreme Court or higher positions.”

Other women denounced the Senate’s handling of the sexual harassment charges and called their actions insensitive.

“What I’m most angry about is that those 98 men will never understand her fear of not exposing this earlier,” said RC senior Abigail Warwick.

In response to Hill’s potential credibility gap of never detailing Thomas’ actions to friends, Warwick says, “It was very professional of her not to talk of the graphic details with her friends who defended her.”

Among men, disagreement also cut across racial

boundaries.

Although opposed to Thomas’ political views, LSA senior Anthony Haralson, expressed remorse over witnessing what he called an “obvious conspiracy” to derail Thomas.

“I feel sad that these are supposed to be the better people of our race and they are being pitted against each other,” he said.

Haralson questioned Hill’s accusation of sexual harassment, “I believe Anita Hill perceives she was sexually harrased.”

But Haralson pointed to Thomas’ otherwise clean record as evidence attesting

to his probable innocence.

“I don’t think when sexual harassment happens, that is an isolated thing.”

LSA sophomore Oscar Daniels agreed that Hill’s accusations may have been merely twisted perceptions.

“They may have had a close relationship where he believed that he could joke around about certain subjects and Anita not be offended by them. She was but she kept it inside… had he known, I think he would have stopped completely,” he said.

LSA sophomore Tony Pitts echoed this sentiment. “It would be different if she would have come forward at the beginning.”

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Former Rep. Sander Levin donates papers to Bentley Historical Library

Ford School event celebrates Michigan legislator’s career in Washington, legacy ARJUN THAKKAR Daily Staff Reporter

After Former U.S. Rep. Sander Levin agreed to give documents from his time in the House of Representatives to the Bentley Historical Library’s archives, the Ford School of Public Policy hosted the Congressman and several members of his family on Monday evening to celebrate his history in public service.

Levin represented Michigan’s 17th District from 1983-1993, 12th District from 1993-2013 and 9th District from 2013-2019. He was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 2010, helped to pass the Affordable Care Act and played a pivotal role in shaping economic policy. Levin is currently working as a professor of practice and Distinguished Policymaker in Residence at the School of Public Policy.

THAT WAS 2 SHORT :(

According to Terrence McDonald, director of the Bentley Historical Library, the library’s archives include papers from former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-District 12, former U.S. Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., — Sander Levin’s brother — as well as several former governors of the state of Michigan.

Materials stored in the Bentley Historical Library’s archives are held in bankers boxes, each of which measures out to one foot.

Sander Levin’s documents equate to over 700 feet, indicating the breadth of material to be collected and accessible to the public for future research in approximately one year.

In an interview with The Daily, McDonald explained the process behind bringing Sander Levin’s documents to the collections.

“We try to contact members of the Michigan congressional

puzzle by sudokusyndication.com

delegation, governor of the state, (and) senators the year before or so their terms are coming to an end,” McDonald said. “We want to build — and we have — a substantial collection of all the officeholders’ (documents) in the state.”

After a brief reception in Weill Hall, McDonald provided opening remarks in the Vandenberg Room, introducing community members to speak on Sander Levin’s history in public service. University President Mark Schlissel praised the Bentley Historical Library and the opportunities for scholarship and research Sander Levin’s papers would provide.

“I’d especially like to thank Congressman Sander Levin for his service to the people of Michigan and to our nation,” Schlissel said. “That service will live on in perpetuity as he’s generously made his papers available to students, faculty and scholars by donating them of course to the Bentley Historical Library. There they can enlighten and encourage and inspire all those who read them and use them.”

Public Policy Dean Michael Barr ref lected on his experiences with Sander Levin when they both held positions in public service.

“It’s been a real honor to have had a chance to work with him when I was in the government and to see first hand the extraordinary work that he did in the halls of Congress fighting for working people, fighting for families throughout his career,” Barr said.

Barr also explained students and staff appreciate the work Sander Levin has been doing at the Public Policy School. Sander Levin currently co-teaches a class with former Public Policy Dean Susan Collins titled “Policy Design, Strategy and Practice” with a particular focus on trade and unemployment policy.

Taubman and LSA sophomore Jared Freeman attended the event because of his family’s connection to the Levin family. Freeman said he enjoyed hearing how the University is using Levin’s experiences to serve students on campus.

“It was cool to hear the perspective on how Sandy can apply his actual experiences battling different legislation in Congress to kind of apply that to his teaching and to the students taking his class,” Freeman said.

At the event, McDonald introduced Sen. Carl Levin to speak about his brother. The two brothers are the longest serving pair of siblings in congressional history. Carl Levin described his brother’s work in public service before being elected to Congress, focusing on the experience the archives will show.

“There’s a goldmine in his archives,” Carl Levin said. “It’s a goldmine of intelligence, of learning, of the lessons of experience from 36 years in the House, the lessons of learning how to fight … for average people who need fighters. And Sandy’s always been there.”

McDonald also moderated a brief conversation on policymaking with Sander Levin.

Sander Levin expressed gratitude for the opportunity to teach at the Public Policy School.

“Carl and I faced this issue as we were retiring: what we would do next,” Sander Levin said. “This University...has provided us with a chance to carry on, and what more could we do … than to be with the next generation?”

Sander Levin ultimately explained his hope that those who interact with the collections will be able to learn from his Congressional work.

“The archives there represent the efforts of so many people,” Sander Levin said. “What Carl and I are trying to do is to take these documents and to extract lessons from them that will be useful for the future.”

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid.

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DEBATE From Page 1A Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., has called for bipartisan support of the impeachment inquiry. Buttigieg said he still supports the impeachment inquiry, which is largely supported by Democrats, with one Independent — Rep. Justin Amash of Grand Rapids — backing the effort.

“Well, it’s a mistake on the part of Republicans, who enable the president whose actions are as offensive to their own supposed values as they are to the values that we all share,” Buttigieg said.

“It’s also about the presidency itself, because a president 10 years or 100 years from now will look back at this moment and draw the conclusion either that no one is above the law or that a president can get away with anything.”

In response to Trump’s call for an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter, Cooper asked former Vice President Joe Biden about the appropriateness of a president’s family having foreign business entanglements.

Biden referenced his son’s statement, which was released Tuesday morning, and dismissed the importance of this topic.

“My son did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong. I carried out the policy of the U.S. government by rooting out corruption in Ukraine,” Biden said. “What we have to do now is focus on Donald

LIFE SUPPORT From Page 1A According to Swartz, any action other than dismissing the case was void. Swartz’s decision reversed the Washtenaw County’s 22nd Circuit Court Sept. 30 order, which delayed taking Reyes off life support indefinitely and allowed the family to seek out other treatment facilities.

At the hearing on Tuesday morning, Swartz said he sympathized with Reyes’ family but only had the power to dismiss the case.

“I have no authority to do anything,” Swartz said. “My hands are tied.”

Mary Masson, director of public relations for Michigan Medicine, wrote in a statement to The Daily that a brain examination Tuesday revealed Reyes had no detectable brain activity and could no longer legally remain on life support.

“Further testing— including an electrical encephalogram (EEG) and

BLIMP From Page 1A Those lucky enough to book a reservation will also earn seats close to the field for the game, according to Airbnb.

According to the listing, the stay will include the complete tailgating experience — minus the back of a pickup truck.

Accommodations include a “football lounge” where guests will be able to watch some of the most historical football rivalry games in college football.

It will also include space for four friends to join the revelry during the day, along with access to a lakefront camping space with a grill, fire pit, cornhole toss and other tailgating festivities.

Jerry Hissem, Airbnb host and pilot of the blimp, said he wants to give fans an unforgettable experience.

“The blimp has always been about the fans and giving them a better way

Trump. He doesn’t want me to be the candidate. He’s going after me because he knows, if I get the nomination, I will beat him like a drum.”

Another hot-button issue — and a conversation continued from the last three debates — was health care. Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont continued their joint effort in emphasizing the push for Medicare for All, while moderate candidates such as Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota criticized such proposals.

In discussing her Medicare For All plan, Warren suggested taxes would be proportionally applied to corporations and the wealthy, while not directly addressing if it would affect the middle class. In contrast, Sanders acknowledged there would be tax increases for the middle class.

“I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up. They’re gonna up significantly for the wealthy and for virtually everybody,” Sanders said. “The tax increase will be substantially less — substantially less — than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.”

Klobuchar argued Warren was not being honest about the true price of her health care plans.

“At least Bernie’s being honest here and saying how he’s going to pay for this,” Klobuchar said. “I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we will send the invoice.”

Klobuchar said the best way to tackle affordable healthcare is to build off Obamacare.

“The difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something that you can actually get done.

And we can get this public option done,” Klobuchar said. “I believe the best and boldest idea here is to not trash Obamacare but to do exactly what Barack Obama wanted to do from the beginning and that’s have a public option that would bring down the cost of the premium and expand the number of people covered and take on the pharmaceutical companies.”

Biden took the mention of the Affordable Care Act as an opportunity to highlight his role in the implementation of the plan.

He claimed proponents of Medicare for All plan are not transparent about its costs and the long process of implementation.

“I think it’s awfully important to be straightforward with (the American public),” Biden said.

“The plan is going to cost at least $30 trillion over 10 years. That is more on a yearly basis than the entire federal budget.”

The group also discussed the threat of automation to American jobs, with entrepreneur Andrew Yang advocating for his cornerstone policy of a $1,000 stipend a month, known as universal basic income.

a cerebral blood f low study — detected no electrical activity and no blood f low to Bobby’s brain,” Masson wrote. “By law in Michigan, an individual is dead who has sustained either irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or irreversible cessation of all function of the entire brain, including the brain stem. Continuing medical interventions was inappropriate after Bobby had suffered brain death and violates the professional integrity of Michigan Medicine’s clinicians.”

After the Sept. 30 ruling, Reyes’ family and his team at Michigan Medicine contacted nearly 20 hospitals in order to arrange a transfer for Reyes to receive alternate care.

According to Masson, all facilities declined to take Reyes as their patient.

After the hearing, William Amadeo, the attorney representing Reyes’ family, said Michigan Medicine’s reputation as a top hospital has made other

facilities around the country reluctant to question the University’s decisions.

“Whenever any qualified (facility) makes a ruling, it’s hard to find a facility to counter that,” Amadeo said.

Amadeo noted there were three physicians at hospitals around the country who believed Reyes had a chance of survival if allowed to remain on life support. He said the case should have been filed in the Court of Claims, rather than the circuit court, and requested a 48-hour stay from Swartz in order to file in the Court of Claims.

After the hearing, Amadeo told The Daily the attorneys were working to file an emergency appeal in the Court of Claims in Lansing. When the Court of Claims declined Amadeo’s request to file the claim electronically, the attorneys drove to Lansing to file it in person.

to experience the game,” Hissem said.

“We’re continuing this tradition by giving fans an experience they’ll never forget by listing the blimp on Airbnb.”

The guests will also get a tour of the Goodyear facilities, located in Mogadore, Ohio, to meet the crew and learn about the blimp’s 100 year history and more than 60 years of providing aerial coverage of college football games. Guests will have exclusive access to the blimp’s 312-yard hangar, where it will remain during the booking. The guests’ sleeping quarters are located in the aircraft’s gondola, which is complete with a bed, couch and a lounging corner.

They will also receive official University football gear to wear to the Notre Dame football game on Oct. 26.

Kinesiology senior Claire DiFranco is a long time Michigan football fan and said the idea is very exciting and unique.

“I think this would be an experience like no other and

the price is very reasonable,” DiFranco said. “I would totally consider doing this before the game … I think it’s a really cool idea and it’ll be very popular for the alumni crowd.”

Shortly after the stay, the blimp will be retired and inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, where it will be the first non-player or coach to be given this honorable distinction.

YouTuber Levi Kelly frequently stays in unusual Airbnbs and announced he plans on making a reservation for the blimp when they become available.

“I actually have a Youtube channel basically around unique Airbnb’s,” Kelly said.

“I stay in some like tiny homes, container homes, or anything that’s special and do reviews on them. So when I saw that the blimp was up for grabs, I immediately wanted to book it.”

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Wednesday, October 16, 2019 — 3A

Symposium discusses efforts to eliminate casteism, racism

Event celebrates work of Dalit Indian statesman B.R. Ambedkar ARJUN THAKKAR Daily Staff Reporter

Approximately 50 people gathered in the Vandenberg Room at the Michigan League Saturday to discuss the ongoing role Hinduism plays in casteism both in India and abroad. The event, “Dismantling Casteism and Racism: A Symposium,” was organized by the Asian/ Pacific Islander American Studies Program and several other University of Michigan organizations in cooperation with the Michigan chapter of the Ambedkar Association of North America.

The symposium aimed to celebrate and continue the work of B.R. Ambedkar, a Dalit Indian statesman famously known as the Architect of India’s Constitution. Dalits, otherwise known as the Untouchables, are considered excluded or at the lowest level of the Hindu caste system and face discrimination and violence in South Asian communities.

Ambedkar sought to fight caste-based discrimination through activist and legal processes, becoming a leader for the movement in opposition to casteism.

Manan Desai, assistant professor of Asian/Pacific Islander studies and American culture, moderated the panel, providing opening remarks on the importance of analyzing the complacency that gives rise to Hindu oppression of different ethnic groups.

“For those of us who have historically enjoyed the privileges — the generational privilege approved of being the right color, or holding privileged caste and racial identities — it is an important time to consider what it truly means to commit to dismantling the institutionalized forms of oppression,” Desai said. “What are the harsh truths that we

ASSAULT From Page 1A The survey also provided findings regarding bystander intervention. According to the survey, out of 15.3 percent of students who witnessed a situation they believed could have led to sexual assault, 75.2 percent took some type of action, with 44.9 percent directly intervening.

Aloisi explained intervening in situations involving sexual assault can be hard. She said this statistic was impressive.

“I was really happy to see that the statistics were going on an upward trend for people that were being bystanders and bystander intervention,” Aloisi said. “I think that was a really surprising statistic for me, just because it is very hard to intervene.”

The DPSS report contradicts the Campus Climate Survey According to the DPSS report, the number of reported on-campus sexual assaults at the University of Michigan has increased significantly. Fortyfive rapes were reported in 2018, compared to the 18 rapes reported the year before.

According to Heather Young, DPSS Director for Strategic Communications, one of the reasons for the increase could be due to survivors feeling more comfortable reporting assaults to the police as a result of the Me Too movement.

“It’s hard to say definitively, but there are a couple of things that are a national trend that I think could help contribute to that increase,” Young said.

“The first thing would be the Me Too movement. And this is actually documented in a government report that has shown that survivors of sexual assault were more likely to tell the police of the incident in 2017 than in the previous year.

We’re seeing that in general, police stations do have a long struggle to make sure that survivors of sexual assault

need to hear internalized and be mobilized by? While progressive-minded South Asians might challenge white supremacy, in what ways can they or we turn a blind eye to Hindu fundamentalism, which is responsible for the ongoing atrocities and lynchings of Dalits and Muslims?”

Desai introduced the panel’s first speaker, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, who is the current director of the study of social exclusion and inclusive policy at Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad, India. Shepherd explained activists and South Asians in the United States inf luence protests and debates in India.

“It is very significant that in America, whatever happens makes news in India,” Shepherd said. “And whatever happens here impacts our lives on almost (a) daily basis. It is in this situation where India is going through a crisis with the coming of the most rapid anti-human forces in power.

This battle has to carried to (a) logical end … therefore this conference is very, very important.”

Shepherd, a member of the Sudra caste, commented on Ambedkar’s legacy in supporting those like him who were members of a lower caste.

He described Ambedkar’s philosophy that underlying beliefs in Hinduism support caste discrimination.

“Annihilation of caste, or destruction of caste, as Ambedkar said, is not possible without dismantling or destroying Hinduism as a religion … Hinduism does not reform, does not change because of the structural problems in the religion,” Shepherd said.

These problems, as Shepherd argued, include Hinduism’s theory of the origin of human existence.

He described Buddhism and Christianity as

religions that both function as a “spiritual democracy” in which divine forces create all humans indiscriminately.

Hinduism, Shepherd claims, is a system of “spiritual fascism” inasmuch as it alleges God only created Indians and created each caste from a different part of the human body, establishing a system of inequality inherent to the religion.

Shepherd continued his criticism of Hinduism by arguing other countries prospered because “dignity of labor” was integral to their religions. He described how Brahmins — considered high caste citizens — lack this sentiment and enjoy the production of other castes.

“Brahmins never worked in the field in production from childhood onwards,” Shepherd said. “But they consume the best food. They drink the milk of both cows and buffalos and abuse buffalo and bison … therefore Ambedkar said, ‘All this philosophy needs to be rooted out.’ Then caste begins to dismantle.”

The symposium featured four other speakers, including activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan and three other speakers from universities in the United States.

Rackham student Shalmali Jadhav came to the event because her research centers upon the intersection of racism and casteism, and Desai, one of the organizers, is her adviser.

Jadhav expressed appreciation for the decision to include both a researcher and a professor in the discussion.

“I think it’s always really important for researchers and activists to be in conversation so that researchers can provide the kind of frameworks that activists need and also figure out how to make their research relevant to the ground reality,” Jadhav said.

report such crimes, but this report suggests the Me Too movement has helped take reporting sexual assault to law enforcement and people feel more comfortable reporting to law enforcement.”

Aloisi also believes the Me Too movement influenced the increase in reports, along with individuals in the University community sharing their stories.

“Looking around us, and seeing what the world’s been doing with sexual assault, a lot of people have been coming forward, and I think that probably has a big influence on why people are choosing to come forward,” Aloisi said. “It can seem almost like healing when you see someone else who’s experienced the same thing be brave and come out and tell their stories. It almost influences a person to want to do the same thing.”

Young also believes DPSS’s efforts to communicate resources to students could have brought about the increase in reports of on-campus rapes.

“From our end, this is hard to measure, but we do invest in our staff and in our communications to our community about the importance of reporting,” Young said. “And we’ve worked really hard to make it more comfortable for survivors.”

Aloisi said while there is always more work to be done, she thinks the University is doing a good job.

I think that we can always do more, there is always progress to be done, but I think Michigan is doing a good job,” Aloisi said. “I think people don’t really know how difficult of a process it is to work with the court system and the legal system surrounding Title IX …

This University is here for us.”

University resources Some of these resources available to survivors include a special victims unit, which specifically serves victims of interpersonal violence, such as sexual assault, domestic

violence, dating violence or stalking.

The University’s police department has also engaged with the Start by Believing campaign, which aims to raise awareness about sexual assault and its victims.

According to Young, the Ann Arbor Police Department, Eastern Michigan University, St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital, Michigan Medicine, University Health Services, the prosecutor’s office and the sheriff’s office have all followed DPSS’s lead and adopted the Start by Believing campaign as well.

Another one of the ways DPSS fosters communication with students in different communities in Ann Arbor is via the work of the DPSS Student Advisory Board, a student-led group at the University that speaks with DPSS representatives to shed light on campus safety concerns and offer feedback on DPSS’s efforts to address different issues in the area.

Stephen Bonesteel, vice chair of the DPSS Student Advisory Board and LSA senior, encourages students to take advantage of the many resources available to them.

“I just would encourage a message to be voiced that DPSS and their Special Victims Unit is really fantastic,” Bonesteel said. “We work with SAPAC every day, and there’s just numerous resources if people don’t want to go all the way with a formal report and investigation.

DPSS, our officers in the Special Victims Unit … They’re here for everybody and they’re here for you … just to make sure that message is heard.”

Bonesteel emphasized the importance of these resources, noting that relying on statistical reports is not enough, particularly when dealing with sensitive issues like sexual violence.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Opinion

4A — Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

EVAN STERN | COLUMN

The wealth tax: an ineffective and dangerous measure

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ALICE LIN | COLUMN

W

Don’t use my race to further your agenda

hen I first heard about the lawsuit against Harvard University’s admissions process for discriminating against Asian-American applicants, I was a high school senior applying to college. I was beginning to understand the debate regarding affirmative action and how it could potentially impact my own admissions results. From a discussion about this in my government class, my understanding was that affirmative action was created to ensure equality of opportunity for students who come from underprivileged backgrounds.

The whole point is that instead of setting quotas — which is illegal — colleges are still able to use race as a factor when considering applications.

The lawsuit claims that Harvard’s affirmative action works negatively for AsianAmericans by focusing their efforts to be more inclusive towards non-Asian-American minorities. It was recently decided that Harvard did not discriminate in its consideration of applications from Asian-Americans, which raises concerns about where affirmative action is going to end up if the case is appealed to the Supreme Court. Since the court currently has a conservative majority, the case might result in the termination of the entire practice, which would be a setback towards equality for underprivileged students. On the surface, it may seem like a win for Asian-Americans if the initial verdict is overruled, but at a closer look, the students who are suing are really being used as pawns to help dismantle an entire system that was created to give those who are more underprivileged a chance.

The problem with the Harvard lawsuit is the person who is heading the protest against the admissions process is a white man. If the case does end up at the Supreme Court, it would not benefit Asian-Americans and other minorities, but rather white students. The purpose of affirmative action is to help support minority groups obtain the same opportunities that white students have, due to the disparity in socioeconomic privilege. If we dismantle this practice, this would not only perpetuate the system of white privilege but also make it immensely harder for non-

white students to advance in society. Furthermore, it would be much easier for colleges to be able to discriminate when considering applicants, which would limit diversity at these institutions of higher education. It is also just outright insensitive and close-minded if we do not acknowledge how privilege and race have a role in inf luencing the ability of students to perform. I’m also not sure if a white man is the best representative for Asian-American voices when it comes to such a racially charged issue; it feels like this case is being exploited so an outcome that would benefit more privileged students at the expense of more disadvantaged groups can be reached. Regardless of the intention here, this is an issue that affects minorities the most and should not be forgotten.

Affirmative action is not the problem here

Affirmative action has become a complicated subject, since past court cases against it arg ue that it holds students of color to less harsh academic standards.

The precedent set by these cases arg ues that white students are hurt by affirmative action because it appears as if minority students do not need to work as hard or that the spots of white students are given away to create artificial diversity. At the same time, Asian-Americans are hurt by affirmative action despite being a minority, because they tend to perform well academically. There are a lot of problems with the way that race is considered in the pursuit of “creating ” diversity and Asian-Americans are constantly overlooked. They are constantly seen as a model minority, meaning that despite all of the disadvantages that come with not being white, they are still able to overcome discrimination and prejudice to succeed and rise.

This perspective is problematic and completely wrong; as someone who comes

from an Asian-American background and community, the idea of success through hard work is deeply ingrained into the culture. Children face a lot of pressure from their parents to achieve certain expectations, and it is due to parental sacrifices and priorities that AsianAmerican children are turned into hard working machines.

The model minority stereotype only reinforces the racial divide between minorities and instead perpetuates discrimination when it comes to programs like affirmative action. The lack of racial privilege that AsianAmericans have compared to white students should not be forgotten; just because the mindset of hard work that exists in Asian culture pushes Asian-American children to perform at a certain standard does not automatically mean that they are less racially disadvantaged. On the other hand, one minority group’s success should not set a precedent or expectations for another. We should strive to remember that privilege exists and varies on all levels.

There is a need to promote equality and ensure that those who begin in more disadvantageous situations are given the opportunity to succeed.

Affirmative action is not the problem here. Sure, it is not the perfect solution to tackling the larger issue of socioeconomic inequality and racial privilege, but we should not attempt to dismantle it. It has been ruled that affirmative action does not hurt white students, so we need to focus on changing the inequalities that are deeply ingrained in our society. Rather, the system can be improved upon, so it does not hurt the groups it was designed to help. Invest more in public primary education or create programs to encourage and lift lessprivileged students to the same level of opportunity.

Don’t pit students who are already disadvantaged against each other at the benefit of a group that has more privilege to begin with.

Instead, focus on ensuring that everyone has the same opportunity regardless so that we eventually will have no need to implement programs that force diversity to be created.

Alice Lin can be reached at alicelin@umich.edu.

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F

or many, taxes have always been a dreaded and inevitable fact of life. Considering the sheer complexity of the system and the stress that often comes with sending the check off to the government, paying taxes — while being essential to the well-being of our society — is ultimately difficult at times.

But amid the divisive 2020 presidential race, the more liberal members of the Democratic field — notably Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — have proposed a dramatic new measure dubbed the “Wealth Tax.” This proposal would bring our government even more tax revenue, trillions of dollars more, as the proposals have outlined.

While our federal government has generally taxed income and property, among other common and current sources of tax revenue, the wealth tax would be a new measure never before enacted in the United States. Differing heavily from present-day methods of taxation, the wealth tax would target only the top 0.1 percent of Americans, taking a considerable chunk of those taxpayers’ total income each year. Under Warren’s more modest, though nonetheless worrisome plan, the government would collect nearly $3 trillion over a 10 year period from this measure, while Sanders’ more ambitious actions would produce even more, cutting the wealth of billionaires in half over a 15 year period, as stated on his website The truth is, what Warren and Sanders are addressing is a serious issue in our nation, with real and concerning economic and societal implications.

Income inequality continues to deepen; with the top 1 percent of Americans holding nearly 40 percent of total wealth, and the bottom 90 percent holding only about a quarter, according to research published in a May 2019 Business Insider article.

A wealth tax would in theory work against this destructive inequality, taking from the top of the top and lifting up the rest of American society through beneficial programs.

As theorized by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the measure “would raise revenue to make public investments and curb growing inequality among Americans.”

However, while millions of Americans are undoubtedly suffering disproportionately compared to the top incomeearners, the wealth tax is ultimately not the answer.

Many in this nation may support enacting it, as recent data suggests, but this seems to come from a common, unwarranted sense of unity against the wealthiest taxpayers.

The staggering divide is surely disturbing, but it doesn’t justify going after the top 0.1 percent. On the contrary, this wealthy taxbase is one of the powerhouses of our economy, serving as a significant source of investment that works to stimulate economic activity and benefit all. Forcing billionaires and others to hand over large portions of their net worths would surely reduce business investment, consequently slowing our economy and hurting everybody.

“You’re going to completely disincentivize capital investment, which is going to be very, very bad for economic growth,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said to the New York Times in an interview from September. In the end, what Warren, Sanders and others are proposing would directly cut off one of the greatest stimulants in our economic system.

Furthermore, the wealth tax would rapidly punish the innovation and audacity that have fostered such great advances in our country. Why would a wealthy business owner set out to invent and sell a revolutionary product if they knew that they could one

day be penalized for making significant profits? Under a wealth tax, there would be fewer incentives to produce and improve on many of the technological leaps of our lifetimes for fear of getting significantly wealthy, only to have a sizable chunk of these earnings taken away. There are few entrepreneurs who would one day want to see as much as half of their wealth taken from them by our federal government. The wealth tax is really an un-American measure disguised as a beneficial one that will work to undermine the spirit of hard work that defines our respected free market economy.

And moreover, the tax is not the necessity that Warren and Sanders market it as.

Proponents claim that we need the additional revenue, but there is great evidence that the federal government has mismanaged its current tax revenue for years. For the war on terror, a widely criticized effort, our federal government spent nearly $2.5 trillion, an amount that could have likely been significantly reduced with better leadership. There is far too much fraud, waste and misallocation of resources in our government’s current operations to consider pumping even more revenue into the system. We all would be much better off supporting a dramatic restructuring of our leaders’ current spending habits before we attempt to weaken one of the key drivers of our economy.

Without a doubt, we have much work to do to address the disturbing income inequality rampant in our society, something we have unfortunately grappled with for generations. But in a nation that has often been admired for its great inventiveness, we surely have the power in us to tackle our problems without killing that same spirit of innovation in the process.

Evan Stern can be reached at erstern@umich.edu.

SAM FOGEL | COLUMN

I

A world falling prey to demagogues

f you’ve been paying any attention to things the past couple years, it can seem like the world is going mad. The Amazon rainforest is burning, the president is using Twitter to defend himself against impeachment, the U.K. is imploding from the pressure of Brexit and Hong Kong is embroiled in a fight for its democracy, among many other prominent struggles. It’s hard to keep up with it all. But in the chaos of the modern era, there’s a dangerous and demonstrable trend that seems to be popping up.

In places all around the world, fascist demagog ues are coming to power. In Poland, the institutions that preside are facing a battle with PiS (Law and Justice Part y), a nationalistic part y that prides itself on antiimmigrant and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. In the Philippines there is President Rodrigo Duterte, a leader who outright kills drug dealers. In India we have Prime Minister Narenda Modi, who uses Islamophobia in the Hindu populace to inspire support and congregate power in the executive branch. In Brazil there’s President Jair Bolsonaro, a man who fetishizes the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. And of course, we have Trump, who stirs up the divisions of this country and strips the press of its credibility through “fake news” gaslighting. Rightwing populism is on the rise, and you should be scared.

Let’s first focus on PiS (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´s´c) in Poland. PiS is a right-wing, nationalistic party that first came to power in 2015 in the wake of Donald Tusk leaving Poland to become President of the European Council.

The party prides itself on a rhetoric of anti-LGBTQ and

anti-immigrant sentiments, with typical nationalist slogans including ( but not limited to) “refugees get out” and “pure Poland, white Poland.” Since PiS came to power, the country has been in a crisis of rolling back constitutional rights, with the party gaining more and more control over the government.

PiS almost passed a law that would require judges to retire based on age, which would almost immediately relinquish 24 out of the 76 seats on the Polish Supreme Court. The law would have expanded the court to 120 judges as well, which would give PiS immediate control over two-thirds of the court by means of the president appointing judges who would follow the party’s whim.

This congregation of power within the ruling party is a g uaranteed way to get oppressive decrees against marginalized groups.

Another example can be seen in the large democracy of Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro was elected president in late 2018 and took power on January 1 this year. Some of Jair’s rhetoric includes antiLGBTQ, sexism and racism.

Conventions too familiar for comfort. Bolsonaro has been quoted saying that criminals “should die on the street like cockroaches,” and is noted as wanting to rid his country of “lefties” and communists.

And he’s gone on record in support of President Donald Trump. By the way, Bolsonaro is selling hundreds of miles of the Amazon rainforest to loggers and farmers. It’s one of the reasons the forest is burning up right now.

In the world’s largest democracy — India — a populist leader was elected on the back of Islamophobia and nationalism. India finds itself embroiled in a decade long rivalry with Pakistan and is incredibly vulnerable

to such toxic campaigning.

Islamic immigrants from places like Bangladesh have been labeled as “termites” and wretches of society by members of Modi’s party.

After Modi’s first election, lynch mobs against Muslims cropped up, and those inciting them got away with their extrajudicial killings.

Unfortunately, India is falling victim to the nationalist wave many in the Western world are succumbing to as well.

The commonality between all of these different instances can be found within the gripes of the people: a failing system with forces acting in bad faith manipulating the affected.

A corrupt government left a power vacuum in Brazil once they were found out; Polish right-wing actors blamed unrelated problems on the emerging migrant crisis; a nation consisting of 0.1 percent Muslim people (38,000) fell to Islamophobic fervor; a nation still recovering from the economic crash of 2008 and faced with a more powerful China is blaming its economic woes on Mexican immigrants who are f leeing their own country at the behest of wealthy legislators.

Unchecked rhetoric can become a malignant movement of far-right extremity. What we can take from this here in the United States is a ref lection of how similar movements can take hold, with an emboldening far right taking advantage of the political turmoil in the Trump era. Keep tabs on the rhetoric being thrown around in discourse, and don’t be swayed in your thinking by demagog ues who prey on your fear. Speak up against bad faith actors putting the blame on marginalized people and demonstrate against injustice. Don’t let your country fall to fascism.

Sam Fogel can be reached at samfogel@umich.edu.

Arts

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 — 5A

MIDWEST COLUMN

FILM REVIEW

Home is where the heart and the Honeycrisps are MAXWELL SCHWARZ

Daily Midwestern Columnist

NETFLIX

The enigma of the ‘Forest’ a tool of exploitation rather than exploration. The divide between those two outcomes of filmmaking is characteristic not only of the movie that Shin creates, but of “Forest” itself.

Where the movie loses the cogency of its ideas is “The Forest of Love,” directed by Sion Sono (“Why Don’t You Play in Hell?”), follows the hazy in its absurd, macabre final hour. Though he hangs adventures of a group of young filmmakers, a over the story in vignettes and flashbacks, the slick con man and two girls with dark high school permanent entrance of conman Joe Murata (Kippei memories. The film is highly experimental without Shina, “Hand of God”) irreversibly transforms a close reference in genre or style, but the closest “Forest” into psychological horror. He clutches onto that comes to mind is “Mulholland Drive.” The the film’s intimate revelations, its haloed innocence two movies share a similarly fragmented narrative and burns them to the ground with a nihilism that is structure and gauzy harshness to their aesthetic, more than shocking — it’s assaulting. The contrast is stark and uncomfortable, exchanging the film’s but differ vastly in their atmospheres. slow treatment of a few A major strength ideas to the intense, of “Forest” is its unforgiving focus of characters. Each of just a few. them bursts with life, While this violent, from Shin (Shinnosuke stomach-churning Mitsushima, segment of the “Forest” “Kingdom”), a loner Netflix is sure to turn off some who finds his passion viewers, I found it a in Tokyo when remarkable example of approached by a pair how far a director can of aspiring filmmakers, to Mitsuko (newcomer Eri Kamataki), a mysterious both sharpen and discard the rules of a story, so recluse struggling to overcome the ghosts of her unbound to logic or his viewers that each new turn past. As zany as the movie eventually becomes, the film takes is as affecting as the last. In other the audience’s connection to these characters is words, the filmmakers begin to fall into the lunacy of their characters, an idea that ultimately consumes ultimately what keeps “Forest” afloat.

The film’s first 90 minutes are especially “Forest” behind and in front of the camera. To compelling, powerfully juxtaposing the themes experience that downward hedonic spiral of isn’t of buried sexual anxiety and zealous adolescent necessarily enjoyable or entertaining, but it shook spontaneity. The screenplay is easy to follow but me to my core in a way that few films ever have. In never predictable, riding the line between the sacrificing the wit and tangible message of the ideas genres of comedy, horror, romance and thriller it initially presented, “Forest” forces viewers into without cost to its vibrant characters. “Forest” the tattered psyche of its own director.

To say I’ve never seen anything like “Forest” is not makes an interesting point about the fantastical gravity of filmmaking, comparing it to a kind of completely accurate. I’ve never seen anything that superpower through which to see the world. The even approximates the clawing, bruising torment lens of a camera can be an enlightening way to of this film. That realization was both exciting as capture the entire world and to garner praise (for it was frightening during the movie, but I finished Shin and his friends, this means winning at a local it feeling more enlightened than anything else. For film festival). Of course, that superpower has its those looking to expand the limits of their movie consequences too; when placed in the hands of the watching, “Forest” is the perfect pick, especially for lonely, sexually depraved schoolboys, it becomes October.

ANISH TAMHANEY Daily Arts Writer

The Forest of Love

It’s October in Michigan. The pale, mossycolored fields lined with skinny trees in tangled rows. Scarlet dotting the wild leaves, peeking out like a secret. The air is light and sharp, the chill nestled in between the knits of your sweater.

The surrounding trees are ablaze in bonfire shades. Donut in one hand, cider in the other.

For Michiganders, October is not a month — it’s a tradition. October isn’t understood in days or events. It’s understood in memories. All of the dirt roads and trails that lead through the tumbling October airs of yesterday lead Michiganders to one place: orchards.

Apples decorate the bushels of my memory.

My father worked on an apple orchard when I was a kid. My childhood is filled with the faint recollections of trees and pumpkins. Scattered around in my head is hay and cinnamon. Haunted hayrides and canvas bags full of apples — these are the things that made me. Each October brings with it the sweet scent of Gala or Ambrosia. Without them, I don’t imagine I would be the same. I don’t imagine Michigan would be the same, either.

My father worked at Miller’s Big Red, an orchard that’s been resting on a sprawling 90 acres of Washington, MI land since around since 1876. He used to take me to work with him, letting me ride on the back of the tractor or follow him around while he tended to the trees. He let me try the cider he would make, or pick apples down off branches for me. In many ways, I was raised on orchards.

Michigan is the third-largest producer of apples

in the country. It produces, by far, the most apples in the Midwest. With over 11 million trees across 825 family farms, the Mitten is an autumnal cornucopia. Michigan’s orchards rest in a palm of plenty, cradled in the insulating embrace of the Great Lakes. Please try Blake Farms in Armada.

They’ve been providing pomaceous delights to Macomb County since 1946. Or perhaps Franklin Cider Mill in Bloomfield Hills. It’s an old-style cider mill in a wooden-building where they press their own apples. A creek runs through it. If you don’t go there for the cider, you ought to go for the beauty. Maybe Dexter Cider Mill is more your taste, with its honored spot as the oldest continually operating orchard, operating along the Huron River.

Pies and fritters. Cider and donuts. Turn the fruit into butter or pick them right off the tree and eat them. Apples make autumn worth experiencing. For some, apples symbolize the fall of man. For Michigan, it’s the last beautiful thing we get all year. It’s our most valuable fruit crop. It feeds our deer. It’s the treat we get for making it through a whole year.

Whether you’re in Michigan for a lifetime or a moment, it’ll stay with you. You don’t have to be born and raised here to be one of us. You’re a Michigander so long as you love this place. If you’ve made it through a whole year in Michigan, you’ve earned an October. Go to an orchard.

Pick an apple. Scoop up a pumpkin. Drink some cider. Make Michigan your own by making some Michigan memories. When you bite into a honeycrisp that you just picked off a tree, with the chill of an October gust hugging you under the arms, you’ll know where you belong. You deserve it. Welcome home.

Whether you’re in Michigan for a lifetime or a moment, it’ll stay with you. You don’t have to be born and raised here to be one of us. You’re a Michigander so long as you love this place.

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

TV REVIEW

Hill Auditorium Open ‘Rhythm’ is an alright reboot House is ready for you SOPHIA YOON Daily Arts Writer

ALIX CURNOW Daily Arts Writer

How many times have you been to Hill Auditorium? Would you be able to pinpoint on a map where it is? What it’s primarily used for? If you struggled to answer any of these questions, you’re not alone. Oftentimes, University of Michigan students don’t experience all the performances Michigan has to offer. The numerous opportunities to see the profound talent that lies within the city of Ann Arbor can feel overwhelming.

There are so many websites to look at, so many brochures to open up, links to follow and people to network with. However, thanks to the University Musical Society (UMS) Student Committee, events such as the Hill Auditorium Open House allow students to explore the various offerings at the University.

The Hill Auditorium Open House will feature a free tour of Hill Auditorium, as well as the opportunity to explore some areas that only performers have access to. Students will have the chance to learn about the historical significance of Hill Auditorium and discover what famous musicians and performing artists have been featured on its stage. The Open House will also feature information regarding upcoming UMS performances and other opportunities.

I had the opportunity to sit down with the two co-presidents of the UMS Student Committee, School of Music, Theatre & Dance senior Jamie Sharp and LSA senior Jacob Gibson. The two planned the event in hopes that it would bring more attention to the opportunities UMS provides for students

across campus.

“A lot of students don’t even know that we have Bert’s tickets, which allow freshmen or sophomores at the University to see UMS events for free,” said Sharp. Bert’s tickets give every student at the University a free ticket to a UMS show. Sharp and Gibson are both passionate about student accessibility to arts. The primary function of the student committee is to allow students to be informed of these types of opportunities.

“The Hill event in particular is a way to bring students to a space that is on their campus, one that they likely walk by every day, but they may not have had a chance to see a performance there or be on the stage,” said Gibson. Oftentimes, the only students with an opportunity to set foot on the stage of Hill Auditorium are the students who perform there. This event gives those that perhaps would never get another opportunity to experience what it is like to perform on the stage a chance to see it first hand.

“I have performed in there for the past three years, and in preparation for the event I am learning so much about the space that I honestly didn’t even know,” Sharp said about the rich history of Hill Auditorium. The Open House is a perfect opportunity for students to be informed of its history as well as to take a moment to appreciate the gift that this auditorium is for the University.

Even if you are not able to attend the Open House on Friday, Oct. 18, I encourage you to further explore not only UMS, but the other performance outlets and venues available to the students on campus. We only have a few years of our life to spend at University, why not take advantage of all the glorious resources it has to offer?

For years, the American music competition show has been a staple genre in television. It’s reliable — it’s always the same sad stories, the same person covering “Firework”

by Katy Perry, and the same person that thinks they’re gonna change up the music industry. You’ll find the same reliability in Netflix’s first rap music competition, “Rhythm + Flow.” It’s a refreshing new take on music competition shows like “American Idol” and “The Voice,” streamlined into the hip hop genre. It’s necessary; nobody ever really auditions to these classic competitions through rap or hip hop, and when they do, they rarely ever make it that far.

“Rhythm + Flow” keeps it authentic, using rap industry icons Cardi B, Chance the Rapper and T.I. to judge the contestants. The main judges band together in the first round of auditions in Los Angeles along with guest judge, Snoop Dogg to kick off the show, then break apart to go to their native cities to find the next rap icon. When they break apart to find worthy contestants in their native cities in the later episodes, it feels a bit like the family’s broken apart, and it never feels like the guest judges have much of a say in the decisions of who gets to move on or not. Had the main judges stayed together and rotated the guest judges out, they could have brought similar and reliable chemistry to each episode. After all, the audience sticks around for the Simon Cowell, not for the rotating-out Luke Bryan.

Familiar music competition tropes are followed, but the focus on hip hop allows us to see contestants with different backgrounds and origin stories than your average suburban

pop star. This ensures that the sob stories and contestant motivations aren’t regurgitated from typical competitions, and we get to see another side to the music industry. The tears are limited and don’t seem overdone, and it’s just enough to attach the audience to these individuals and their stories. But like Cardi B mentions, everyone in the industry is going to have a sob story — it’s about who can redirect it into their music and sell records with it.

Its intentions are different than other music competition shows out there. They’re not looking for the next “American Idol” — they made it clear in the beginning that they were looking for someone with star quality who can collaborate with other rap artists to make money and get signed to record labels to turn a profit. They don’t bullshit the purpose of music competitions like some others do. The judges know that the contestants are there to start their career, not win an ephemeral competition. It feels directed toward a purpose, like the judges are really there to support the up and coming music artists of the rap industry.

However, like all competition shows, “Rhythm + Flow” also has a tendency to drag on. Especially without the presence of all the main judges in each episode, episodes featuring dry guest judges make the critiques bland and repetitive, and it often feels like the main judge is holding up the ship on their own. That being said, the stories and relatability of some of the contestants makes it easy to get attached and root for the people you believe in. If they push together the main judges further on into the season and figure out how to separate themselves from average music competitions a little bit more, “Rhythm + Flow” can jumpstart several careers and have a good Netflix run.

Rhythm + Flow Series Premiere Netflix Wednesdays

Hill Auditorium Open House Friday, Oct. 18, 2019 @ 9:30 a.m.

Free

NETFLIX

Arts

6A — Wednesday, October 16, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

BOOK REVIEW

The complex highs and lows of the love triangle in ‘Dominicana’ are riveting but feel somewhat regular EMILY YANG

Daily Arts Writer

In the acknowledgements section of her third novel, “Dominicana,” Angie Cruz writes that the novel is inspired by her mother’s story of immigration. Cruz writes: “...she said, who would be interested in a story about a woman like me? It’s so typical.”

“Dominicana” is a portrait of the 15-year-old Ana Canción, who is from the countryside town of Los Guayacanes in the Dominican Republic. She is married off to Juan Ruiz, a man twice her age, and resettles in New York City with the expectation of bringing her mother and siblings after an interval. This plan is complicated when the abusive Juan moves back to the Dominican Republic to protect his restaurant during a civil war. Ana is left with his charming but f lighty brother César, who is a completely different, supportive presence in her life and with whom she soon falls in love. Close to the middle of the novel, Ana is suddenly conf licted between her distaste for Juan and her love for César on one hand, and her obligations to her family on the other.

In an essay on the Paris Review blog, Cruz details how her mother’s young marriage, the basis for the novel, is in a sense typical of the immigrant experience — parents make tough decisions for the sake of their children. “For many years, I vilified my grandmother for marrying off my mother, for not giving her a choice, for coercing her to sacrifice her body, desire, and liberty. She was just a child. But then I think my grandmother was trying to save her.” To be in Ana’s position means that no decision is merely personal — she has to think of her mother and her siblings as well.

Ana’s predicament thus resembles a classic novelistic situation — many, many novels center around a love triangle that energizes a social milieu, makes its internal workings visible.

“Dominicana” doesn’t quite work like this, though. It’s ultimately a novel where not much deviates from the expected course of affairs, a sense one reaches long before the plot with César emerges. Ana’s actions of resistance do not develop the plot, but have a quality of furtiveness, futility. After Juan chokes her, she decides to try to escape back home to her mother, anticipating the abuse she would endure upon arriving.

“On the table she’ll have laid out a plastic slipper, my father’s leather belt, a sack of uncooked rice, a ream from a tree, the f ly swatter, and a wire hanger.”

She is eventually stopped by César, whereafter she resigns herself to staying in New York. After another abusive episode, she tries to make Juan sick by feeding him a meal made from a pigeon she caught from her fire escape, which he “survives without even a stomachache.”

The novel has a tendency to short circuit its narrative before it begins. What remains is, more often than not, minutiae: She cooks food for Juan and her few friends, she endures Juan’s abuse and the restrictions he places on her life, she tries to make money via odd jobs, she thinks absentmindedly about home. This is all done in scenic rather than expository writing — we are in the room for every routine preparation of a meal, for every time Juan comes home exhausted and drunk from work.

Several storylines move under the surface but fail to fully assert themselves above the noise of the everyday. Ana gives food to and tries to communicate with several elderly people in her building who seem to live on their own; Ana befriends a woman named Marisela who disappears one day; Ana starts a business selling Dominican food to workers at a textile factory. Each story doesn’t ever really pose as a serious contender for dominance over the central story of Ana’s endurance for the sake of her family. Even the plot with César, which most threatens to destabilize Ana’s tenuous hold on her situation, simply fizzes out toward the end of the novel without any real sense of closure or even change. It never comes into the open or forces anyone to confront anything.

The plot of the novel is quiet, living more in gestures than arcs. Obligation asserts its hold everywhere in a way that is likely about as realistic as it gets for someone in Ana’s situation.

Good writing can come out of this mold — the short stories of Yuko Tsushima come to mind — but it requires an attention to detail that isn’t exercised here. The prose style is clipped, with

YOUTUBE

little in the way of sensory detail. The novel is built out of statements rather than emotions, emotion factual rather than sensual: “We walk back to the apartment, both too hungry to speak.

He carries my bag. I loop my arm around his. The sun beams on us. The wind whips paper cups up from the corner garbage cans. I want to scream, sing, spin, laugh. I’m having a baby!”

It’s a kind of writing that is at times bright and pointillistic but doesn’t let a whole lot of internality through, even when it depicts pain or desire. It’s an odd choice for a story where not much out of the ordinary actually happens — the book is dry, brittle, factual. I didn’t feel like I was let into much of Ana’s world at all.

More than anything, Cruz spoils a lot of the narrative for herself by her tendency to editorialize as things happen, clipping the narrative by essentially glossing its meaning. When César is arrested, Ana pauses at one point, like someone recalling something: “I hate you!

I continue to scream. You don’t know what it’s like for us. How hard it is trying to survive in this big city. How many times César has been screwed, even if he always walks in a straight line.” Glosses like this tended to take me fully out of the narrative into Cruz’s attitude toward her subjects, one that is respectful but ultimately distant.

Ultimately, it feels like Cruz is trying to do something with the form of the novel that it doesn’t naturally do well: stand in for a collective, “typical” experience. I’m reminded of Julie Otsuka’s novella “The Buddha In The Attic,” which is told from a collective we. Cruz’s title, as well as the voluminous research she underwent to write the novel, seems to indicate that she is trying to do something similar with one woman’s story. Otsuka’s novella works because the collective we can accommodate a great range of contradictory experiences. If a single character needs to stand in for a place, a time, or a people, she runs the risk of losing the ability to speak for herself. Ana’s character, in the end, feels less like a real person and more like a synecdoche.

She both has a saintly devotion to her family and a desire for freedom, and because she stands in for the Dominican-American experience writ large, this contradiction isn’t allowed to complicate matters. It feels like Ana’s desires are not her own but those of her potential readers, who Cruz imagines as white Americans. “Stories like my mother’s, although common, are rarely represented in the mainstream narratives available to us,” she writes in the acknowledgements. I’m starting to wonder whether the desire indexed by this statement might create a set of expectations that the form of the novel can’t fulfill.

It’s a kind of writing that is at times bright and pointillistic but doesn’t let a whole lot of internality through, even when it depicts pain or desire.

Dominicana Angie Cruz Flatiron Books Sept. 3, 2019

TV REVIEW

Release Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Give a little 5 Under-the-sink cleaners 9 Spherical 14 On the protected side 15 Ward of “FBI” 16 Author Zora __ Hurston 17 EllingtonStrayhorn hit to which Johnny Mercer later added lyrics 19 Mistreat 20 “The Addams Family” cousin 21 Device for scratch removal?

22 Something found under a chest 24 Viagra competitor 26 Letter starter 27 Storied Alpine rescuer 32 Useful 35 Drop off 36 Motes may be seen in one 37 Two-time Indy winner Luyendyk 38 Two-__-one 39 Air Jordan company 40 Thing on a ring 41 Bodily fluids 43 Filled with wonder 45 Spot treatment 48 Senate helper 49 “I must be seeing things” 53 Reliable income source 56 Coll. aides 57 Feel poorly 58 Tablet download 59 Social networking service ... or an apt portmanteau for the starts of 17-, 27- and 45-Across 62 Nary a soul 63 Snap, in ads 64 Radiation units 65 In good shape 66 Movie lab helper 67 Skip over

DOWN 1 Pesto herb 2 Really excite 3 Hulu service 4 Opus __: “The Da Vinci Code” sect 5 ’60s “journey” 6 Coast Guard rank 7 Angled piece 8 Self-service food station 9 How some silly things are done 10 Spiritually awakened 11 Gale family creator 12 Otherwise 13 Cook Paula 18 Birth-related 23 “I’ve __ busy” 25 “It’s clear now” 28 Clock change hr. (though most do it sooner) 29 Nev. neighbor 30 Golf bunker tool 31 Like green hair 32 Symbols of strength 33 Fingerboard bar

34 Casual greeting 38 Coffee shop amenity 39 DEA operative 41 Ate at the theater, say 42 Proof word 43 One who takes off a lot 44 High-scoring club?

46 Selfie stick attachment

47 Decides one will 50 Sultan’s group 51 Marlins’ home 52 Title loc. in six horror films 53 Coin often left in a dish 54 Peek-__ 55 “Are we there yet?” reply 60 Yule quaff 61 Miracle-__

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

By Roland Huget ©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

10/16/19

10/16/19

‘The Birch’ is menacing, but stunted MAXWELL SCHWARZ Daily Arts Writer

The streets of Ann Arbor are peppered by about 1.45 million trees. Elm, ash and honeylocust line the sidewalks and fill up the spaces between the buildings. Each one makes living in Ann Arbor that much more pleasant. Now, imagine if an overcaffeinated Literature student summoned one of the many ashy-barked birches in the Arb to life to stalk and strangle their enemies. This is the kind of existential questioning Facebook’s newest show, “The Birch,” asks of its viewers.

“The Birch” follows the interwoven stories of three high schoolers in a sleepy Oregon town. Evie Grayson (Xaria Dotson, “American Vandal”) is a purple-haired loner who longs for her deceased mother. Thurston Polk (Dempsey Bryk, “The Silence”) is a drug dealer with a heart of gold who manages to get tangled up in a murder. Lanie Bouchard (Midori Francis, “Good Boys”) gives birth to a baby girl who will ultimately be raised as her sister to protect her father’s political career. The thread that connects them is the Birch: A chaotic tree spirit with a maternal sensibility who can be summoned for malevolent and violent protection.

Evie accidentally catches Thurston and two of his more delinquent acquaintances standing over a dead body. Then, they catch Evie spying. Thurston’s associates ensure that Evie won’t talk by inf licting a small amount of pain. But when one terrorizes Evie more than he ought to have, Evie accidentally summons the Birch, who takes care of the boy.

As a show, “The Birch” is based on a 2016 horror short with a similar premise. Each episode is a quick 15 minutes, but the plot manages to move very slow. Facebook Watch released three episodes of the 15-episode series, but not much plot manages to find its way into those three episodes. The show is partially suffering due to its format, but it’s also suffering due to poor writing. We’ve received slim, quick biographies about each character and we know they’re all connected. But that’s mostly it. It took three episodes for the Birch to be summoned, and a key part of its mythology has been left out so far.

Part of what makes the Birch such a thorny antagonist is

The Birch Episodes One-Three Facebook Watch Fridays

that its services are not free. Summoning the Birch — and it killing someone on your behalf — comes at a price. The idea is that the amount of pain it inf licts on others and gives to you will be equal. Which can be a very terrifying concept. Yet, the show hasn’t sold itself on that yet. Too much is given away, not enough is hidden. The monster is in plain sight, which only draws attention to the fact that the true horror is the show’s stunted, messy plot.

A mother’s love never dies. This can make the mothers of horror quite intimidating and terrifying. Consider Guillermo del Toro’s “Mama,” a film that, while not the best, was certainly fun for all its shape-shifting and affectionate terrorizing. Yet, that fun and terror seems to be missing from “The Birch” thus far.

What the writers have is incredibly rich material, even if it might not seem like it. The monster is akin to a maternal demon.

It’s a play on eco-horror, invoking the very plants that help give this world life. The plot points are very basic, allowing for a lot of room to play with the what’s revealed. But, it still misses the mark. It doesn’t know how to pace itself, things are given away almost immediately, and it isn’t even particularly scary. That’s to say nothing of the dialogue, which doesn’t really inspire a whole lot of emotions. “The Birch” probably never will be incredible.

I’m not sure it’s meant to be. It could at least be fun. We have 12 more episodes to see whether or not it can deliver.

statement T H E M I C H I G A N DA I LY | O C TO B E R 1 6 , 2 0 1 9

Nevertheless, she tweeted

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE

2C Wednesday, October 16, 2019 // The Statement

statement T H E M I CH I GA N DAI LY | O C TO B E R 16 , 2019

Managing Statement Editor Andrea Pérez Balderrama Deputy Editors Matthew Harmon Shannon Ors

Designers Liz Bigham Kate Glad Copy Editors Silas Lee Emily Stillman

Associate Editor Eli Rallo

Photo Editor Danyel Tharakan Editor in Chief Maya Goldman Managing Editor Finntan Storer

My Ann Arbor: Saying goodbye to Rin

BY MARTINA VILLALOBOS, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

S

eneca, the Roman philosopher once advised to really let the idea of a friendship sink in, in fact the word he used was ponder. “Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship.” However, the most important lesson Seneca leaves us with is, “but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.”

Losing Rin, the one I had welcomed into such intimate spaces of my life, is my grief. Losing a friend is the hollowing of the heart, the misplacement of the being. Losing a friend is inevitable. We all we lose a beloved friend at one point or another, for any of a million reasons. y grief is the slow realization that the key of my Ann Arbor now lies in the impossibility of a friendship that once was. It is knowing I will not hear her laughter. I will not feel annoyance at her persistent tardiness. It is knowing that my Ann Arbor is locked in the memories of what was. It is in this moment that I have begun my true mourning — for nothing can replace Rin. Nothing will come close to the beauty of shared memories, of trials endured together, of fights and reconciliations. My Ann Arbor sits idle in my mind. promised Rin to hold her well. I hoped that all the parts that weighed in her mind were proven light in my arms. I hoped that the love I held for her flowed into her soul. I hope she felt it when I was gone. I hope she feels it when she smells lavender.

I hope she still feels it now: honest and imperfect.

I thank Rin for her unnerving ability to love, and daring to see the good in everyone. I thank Rin for the many nights she picked up the phone when I called from Germany, for the nights I didn’t have the courage to hang up so she would let me fall asleep on the phone. I thank her for giving me the space that allowed me to safely remain myself.

I hope Rin is out in the world living her truth. I hope we all can be a bit more like Rin. To embrace our capacity to love — hers was certainly powerful, warm, and rare. y heart breaks daily as I walk the streets of Ann Arbor. My heart breaks daily at the memory of my Ann Arbor. I have resented her absence in my life more than I could have ever imagined. I will forever be grateful to Rin. But more than anything, I hope that despite the hurt I have caused she still holds the key to her Ann Arbor.

That she can still feel the love that was.

M

I

haven’t always loved Ann Arbor — I don’t know if I love it right now. Its quintessential charm is lost upon me. But, there are things about it I have learned to love, most of all my late night walks across campus when the rest of the world is fast asleep.

There is a certain beauty to walking around the buildings on campus when the air is crisp and cold. I listen to music on these walks, which gives me the pretentious feeling of walking in my own indie film. These silent spaces are the moments when I feel most alive.

But there is an Ann Arbor I loved that no longer exists. So now, when I go on these walks, I am walking in the shadow of what once was. Next to me are the memories of my Ann Arbor.

We often talk about grief as the uncontrollable disbelief of something gone, and we portray it as the tears that stain our faces. But I think Joan Didion was right when she wrote that when grief comes, it “is nothing like we expect it to be.” She says that grief is the tidal force that makes us reconcile with the axis of our being.

Saying goodbye to Rin is the tide of grief that has

ILLUSTRATION BY KATE GLAD

crashed upon the shores of my Ann Arbor. I know that she is no longer on the fourth floor of North Quad. I know that she is no longer on the other end of a phone call. I know that, for me, she now only exists in my Ann Arbor: the Ann Arbor that was.

Grief is the demand for attention, something that turns us on our sides, where North and South switch, a state of being where we are lost. It consumes our lives. Grief, is the momentary impossibility of forming a future, because the past has too tight a hold on our present. wrote Rin a letter before I left for Germany, while she was fast asleep next to me. I wrote in my big cursive letters, “I don’t know how it is that we lived next to each other for so many years, met at a random gathering for the French Club, and then ended up having to go to France to be friends.

Whatever reason the universe delayed our beginning it doesn’t matter because we have now found each other.” Rin was my friend. Rin was my best friend in my Ann Arbor.

I

I

M

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 // The Statement

3C 3B

A girl in Mickey Mouse pajamas

BY IVY CAI, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

M

y Friday nights are always the same: after grimacing through heavy deadlifts and squats, I hurry back to my room with a takeout box in hand. There’s always salmon, broccoli and brown rice, my three favorites (and a wonderful excuse to skip the ludicrously busy “daily special” line in the school cafeteria).

Soon, my room is perfectly quiet except for the crunching of broccoli stems and the muffled breathing of my roommate, Margaret, who shares my appreciation of peace, quiet and early bedtimes. After the food is gone, I wipe off my table until I can’t see a single crumb, plug in my headphones, and queue “Columbo” on my computer. Yes, I not only share the domestic habits of a 1980s housewife, but her taste in TV shows as well. When I finally get tired of Peter Falk, I head to the communal shower and prepare for a squeaky-clean hour of reading a novel, before I slip off to sleep. The night repeats every week.

For me, it’s a paradise.

Unfortunately, it’s always about this time that the noise starts up down the hall. Every Friday night, I hear them through the walls — the other freshmen girls who occupy every inch of space in front of the bathroom mirror. They giggle and adjust their makeup and miniskirts, as I hold my bathroom urges until the last minute. Eventually, I brave the crowd at the mirror and sneak past them on my way to the stall to avoid any small talk. Admittedly, I admire their makeup skills, but I can’t imagine telling them so — especially when I’m in my Mickey Mouse pajamas. I often wonder if the sound of me flushing the toilet will be buried among their freshman memories. ne Friday last spring, right when I was chewing my broccoli as usual, a hint of perfume slipped into my nose. I turned my head and miraculously discovered Margaret putting on eyeshadow. As she reached for the zipper on her fabulous dress, she murmured that she wouldn’t be back until midnight. I stared at her and nodded. Her heels clicketey-clacked as she walked out of the room. She closed the door right in front of my eyes, and sitting there in my Mickey Mouse pajamas, in my salmon and broccolismelling room, I immediately reached to open the window. For some inexplicable reason, the scent was suffocating.

As I was preparing to shut the blinds entirely, I caught sight of Margaret through the window. In the darkness, the sequins on her dress reflected the moonlight. I returned to my desk.

Weirdly, I’d lost the desire to watch “Columbo” that night. What happened to my sweet, quiet roommate? It made

O

no sense.

Like me, Margaret never deviates from her nightly schedule of giggling softly at Saturday Night Live, then going to bed at 9:30 p.m. sharp. What could she possibly be doing? What was she possibly doing in such a dress? How was she even comfortable in that V-neck? At that very moment, the silence in my room was stifling. I was absolutely embarrassed.

The following day, I still couldn’t help but think about Margaret while catching my breath after squats. It was then, however, that an unfamiliar voice broke my train of thought: “Ummm, excuse me, hey, but … aren’t you Ivy?” Turning around, I saw the guy who I’d nicknamed “Under Armour T-shirt.” He must have had a routine too, because he was always there at the same time as me. “I have to admit, it’s not often we get girls in here who make me look weak, haha.” His laugh was awkward, but it was cute. “I’m Jeff! By any chance would you like to grab some food … When you’re done?” With 14 more squat repetitions to go, the correct answer have been: “Hey man, leave me alone.” Yet strangely, in that moment, Margaret popped into my mind, and suddenly the idea of eating salmon and broccoli, alone, sounded terrible.

“Umm, actually, OK. Yes. Sure.”

The task of eating and talking at the same time was so unfamiliar that I took twice as long as Jeff to finish my meal.

“I have to tell you,” Jeff said while curling his spaghetti. “I never thought you’d be easy to talk to.” I lifted my eyebrows. “My friends talked about this new, Chinese girl who never speaks to anybody else on campus. But hey, now I get to know you!” I was dumbstruck. This weird Under Armour T-shirt guy, Jeff, a complete stranger to me 30 minutes prior, had now apparently become my friend. Just like that, with the snap of a finger, he’d struck up a conversation with a stranger — something I couldn’t possibly imagine. Just like that, Jeff had made himself special, even despite his hipster glasses and dorky T-shirt.

When the dinner conversation came to an end, I stared at Jeff as he waved goodbye. Talking to people was so easy for Jeff. Even my dear, sweet, mellow Margaret looked courageous

ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN WALSH

and dazzling in her sparkling dress, and now, my new friend had that same super power while curling forkfuls of spaghetti. Why was this so difficult for me?

The question lingered. The following day, to celebrate my good grades, I still ran to Zweet and ordered the biggest acai bowl available. As I was chewing on fresh blueberries, a slim, tall girl walked in with a flowy satin dress. She looked like a supermodel. A voice started bubbling in my brain. I slowly moved out of my chair. “Excuse me,” I said to her, blushing a little, “But your dress is stunning.” The girl looked amazed, and her eyes twinkled. “Thank you!” she smiled, with a bit of shyness. “You’ve made my day.”

Her twinkling eyes seemed to have a magical power. As more and more people came in for acai bowls, I couldn’t help but try to smile at anyone who made eye contact with me — the guy I’d seen often in the math building, the long-haired clerk behind the counter, the happy couple with a stroller. The act of a little smile was miraculous — I felt my mood lighten instantly. Just as I thought my day couldn’t have gotten any better, I caught sight of a guy whom I’d nicknamed “White Baseball Cap.” Now

the voice within me was screaming. Mr. White Baseball Cap was murderously cute, and I’d wanted to talk to him since the start of the year. He wasn’t on his phone, and his friends weren’t around.

Oh, dear god!? He liked acai bowls too?

“Hey … you know … I’ve seen you around a lot lately. Would you mind … telling me your name?”

Eric held out his hand. He had the prettiest smile.

That evening, when I’d finished writing about this memory (or miracle, perhaps), I turned and saw my dear sweet Margaret quietly watching SNL in her kitty blanket again. Down the hall, the bathroom girls were gobbing on a thousand layers of makeup, and for a moment I imagined Margaret and I walking in there and actually telling them how fabulous they looked. I doubted if Margaret was up to the task, however, so I kept my admiration a secret. Yet either way, it was enough to know that a different girl was sitting at my desk just then. Certainly, she was still a little bit awkward, but if she wanted to know the best way to put on sparkly lip gloss, all she had to do was snap her fingers, and just like that, say, “Hello,” and ask. Not even Mickey Mouse pajamas could stop her if she wanted.

4C Wednesday, October 16, 2019 // The Statement

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 // The Statement 5C

Nevertheless,

she tweeted

BY ALEXANDRA NIFOROS, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR

I

was a sophomore in high school when I first decided to identify as a feminist.

My English teacher at the time was a charismatic and outspoken man. Everyone wanted him as their teacher because he used iPads in his class and assigned fun projects instead of papers on “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” What I slowly came to realize as a student in his class was how oddly invested he was in his female students, but only in the ones who were sweet, soft-spoken and typically had big breasts. I was unsettled by his behavior from the

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAGGIE WIEBE

beginning and actively called him out on it, which (unfairly) had an effect on my grades. I was the first to raise my hand and argue when his analysis of our class readings turned into unnecessarily, oversexualized discussions of characters that weren’t straight white males.

I was also quick to question him whenever I saw him taking pictures of unsuspecting girls on the fancy Google glasses he had recently gotten as a gift. During the course of that year, I saw him constantly stare at my friends’ butts and breasts and heard him say to a group of students that he “could always tell when a girl is wearing a dress with a thong.”

Someone told me that some of my peers filed a joint report over his harassment to the principal, but the only news that was published about him by the time I graduated was that the school board had given him $75,000 to create a new technology center in our library.

That same year, I started taking voice lessons from a man who prided himself on teaching only the most talented and promising students that my hometown had to offer. I only heard rave reviews about him, and I assumed that if his other students got solos and roles as a result of taking lessons from him, then he could help me as well. He taught out of a practice room in a local church on Sunday afternoons when no one was around — which should have been red flag number one, but I was 15, naive and I trusted the opinions of my peers.

In the few months I took lessons from him, I improved greatly and started racking up solos for my choir concerts. I never had any concerns about him, and I was blindsided one day when, instead of diving directly into warm-ups at the beginning of my lesson, he sat me down to tell me he no longer wanted to work with me. He said it was due to my “poor attitude and constant gossiping about other students.” Those words were (and are) entirely untrue. I had never said a bad word about any of my peers without his encouragement; the only times I did were because he was trashing them to begin with, and I thought the only way to stay on his good side was to join in.

For the entirety of my 45-minute, pre-paid lesson, this man, who claimed to be a serious professional in his field, told me how bad a person I was while I sat there silently crying. I had nowhere to go — my dad had dropped me off and would not be back until the end. It wasn’t until after I stopped taking lessons from him that I found out that he once told a friend to “shape her mouth like she was giving a blowjob” during vocal warm-ups. This man continued to teach teenagers and garner praise for the next five years. In September 2018, I received a call from my mom, and she told me there was a lawsuit against him. He had sexually assaulted one of my classmates.

Everyone finds their feminist identity on their own time and for their own reasons. Mine so happened to develop as a direct result of two specific experiences of injustice at the hands of men in power, which continues to shape my feminism to this day.

In my haze to try and process this gross misuse of authority by some men in my life, I started using the phrase “I hate men” — both jokingly and seriously.

Phrases like this, as well as “men are trash,” “men are scum” and “men ain’t shit,” are commonplace nowadays among millennials and Gen Zs. Tweets trashing men are likely to get favorites and maybe even go viral. The once-#1 song on the Billboard charts has an opening lyric of “Why men great ‘til they gotta be great?” The last Buzzfeed listicle I read was entitled “16 ‘Men Have Underdeveloped Frontal Lobe’ Tweets To Put a Smile On Straight Women’s Faces.” In 2019, it is trendy to rip on an entire gender.

Perhaps this trend is why critics of feminism have taken to saying there is a “war on men.” I first learned about this narrative when former Fox News contributor Suzanne Venker wrote an op-ed in 2012 entitled “The war on men,” criticizing women for being irrationally angry toward the opposite gender and for regarding men as the enemy.

Most recently, the New York Post published a piece accusing presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren of promoting a feminist agenda that borders on declaring a “war on men.” During a rally at Washington Square Park, she had said, “I wanted to give this speech right

here and not because of the arch behind me or the president this square is named for — nope ... We are not here today because of famous arches or famous men ... In fact, we’re not here because of men at all.”

It is also interesting to note that both of these articles were written by women.

Let me acknowledge some things: The women who wrote these articles might have never experienced sexism or violence or manipulation at the hands of men (although I highly doubt it). There are certainly women out there who identify as feminists and support a platform entirely based around the demonization of men — which I don’t believe to be feminism, but misandry. There are also women who have falsely reported being sexually assaulted by men — though this statistic is reportedly frequently inflated. None of these things give any merit to the supposed “war on men.”

I am not here to defend an all-out smear campaign on the male gender, but what the perpetrators of this narrative do not realize is that there cannot really be a war on a gender that has always had, and potentially will always have the upper-hand — at least for the forseeable future. The difference between being male and female is that men can strike fear into women by just existing. I am vulnerable because I am a woman living on Earth, and that is a truth I will grapple with every day for the rest of my life.

There is a reason hating on men is trendy, and even socially encouraged, in this day and age: Women are trying to have a semblance of control in this power discourse. If women feel like they will never be able to be equal in society to men, then perhaps joking around on Twitter is one way we can retain some autonomy.

This discussion is one-sided because I only speak for myself and my experiences as a straight, white woman. I cannot imagine how the vulnerability associated with being a woman increases for those of different races, sexualities, gender identities, etc.

Maybe I sound paranoid or dramatic, or even antifeminist, for “letting” men have this much effect on me. However, I know for a fact that all of the women in my life have experienced genuine fear, trauma, and/

Everyone finds their feminist identity on their own time and for their own reasons. Mine so happened to develop as a direct result of two specific experiences of injustice at the hands time I got catcalled was, or pain at the hands of men.

When I first started saying and I hate that I knew things like “I hate men” as of men in power, which it was certainly not the a young, teenage feminist, last time. I hate that I I was usually greeted with have been followed by responses of disgust. People continues to shape my men while driving before, — usually men — said to me, and that not even the “OK, no you don’t” and “Do pounds of metal feminism to this day. 3,500 you really hate all men?” And surrounding me could these people would be right — I don’t. My brother, dad and grandfathers are some of my favorite people in the whole world, and my male friends are absolutely lovely in every way. I have only respect for honorable men that I have worked alongside, worked for, and even those I have not met and may never meet. But what I have come to notice in my 21 years of experience on this planet is that good men who are secure in their masculinity are never actually the ones immediately enraged by a playful “men are trash” joke on Twitter.

Respectable men do not have to assure other people with their words that they are good; it should be evident in their actions. Men who utilized the trend of #NotAllMen to prove that they were not like other men were probably just like the type of men they were claiming they weren’t. Sure, a large number of the male population are upstanding people, but every single member of the female population will be subjected to some type of sexism, misogyny, harassment or violence at some point in their lives.

Is it really worth the time to distinguish between who is moral and immoral among men if the immoral are what cause women to mistrust an entire gender? Women on the internet fought back against this insensitive hashtag with creating their own. #NotAllMen but #YesAllWomen, as women on Twitter said in 2014.

So yes, I do not, in fact, hate all men. However, here are some things I do hate: I hate that 85 percent of true crime fans (including myself ) are women because they feel the need to learn how to prevent it. I hate that I remember where and when the first

make me feel safe in those moments. I hate that a client at my internship two summers ago made jokes about me being a sex worker, and all my boss did was laugh. I hate that I have had to cut off two separate friendships with guys in the past year for either being emotionally manipulative or making repeated sexual comments even after I expressed my discomfort.

See TWEETED, Page 6C

6C

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 // The Statement

From Page 5C I hate that I can demarcate the milestones in my life when my mistrust in men as a whole has grown stronger and stronger. I hate that I have built up impenetrable walls as a result of my experiences, and I hate that this has an effect on my ability to date and let down my guard enough to feel any type of intimacy. But the thing I hate the most is that as long as I am living and breathing, I will remain susceptible to further fearful and anxiety-inducing experiences with men.

I am sure it is hard to believe from a man’s perspective — unless they have seen it firsthand — that living as a woman means inherently having to expect the worst as a way to maintain safety and sanity. In fact, the concept of belief is a hot topic as of recent years in the storm of the #MeToo era. And listen, I get it.

We are human beings, not puppets who should mindlessly agree with everything we are told.

It is perfectly normal to approach things unfamiliar to us with doubt.

I can understand why the men who have never personally harassed anyone or been exposed to assault, and even women who have never been sexually assaulted, would proceed with caution when standing alongside women who are outspoken about their traumatic experiences. But being apathetic means involuntarily siding with the nonbelievers and the supporters of men who are sexual assailants.

There’s a difference between healthy doubt and plain ignorance. In 2017, former New Republic editor Moira Donegan created an anonymous Google spreadsheet as a place for women in the media to anonymously report sexual misconduct, but she took the document off line only 12 hours after hearing that Buzzfeed planned on publishing the document and its contributors.

Prof. Christine Blasey Ford waited 36 years to confess that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. Chanel Miller did not step forward as “Emily Doe” in the Brock Turner rape case until just last month, four years after the trial. All of these women revealed their identities in order to expose themselves before news

Presenting truths through the form of a funny tweet or a 10-second TikTok or a viral meme makes them non-threatening. After all, that is what jokes are — exaggerations of the truth. outlets did it for them, an attempt to take back a semblance of their autonomy. It is no wonder that three out of every four sexual assaults go unreported.

This fear is why humor persists as a socially acceptable way to talk about these real issues that face women. Presenting truths through the form of a funny tweet or a 10-second TikTok or a viral meme makes them non-threatening. After all, that is what jokes are — exaggerations of the truth.

They are funny because there is some semblance of relatability in them. We need to stop, as a society, placing restrictions on the way people speak about their trauma. A woman coping with everyday micro-harassments by constantly tweeting jokes about how men are the worst is no less valid than a woman who publishes a serious memoir about her experience with being sexually assaulted. Let’s stop penalizing women for talking about women’s issues, OK? After all, there is no one more qualified.

7C Wednesday,January October16, 16,2019 2019////The The Statement 7B Wednesday, Statement

Love letters to Ann Arbor: Espresso Royale E

BY MEGHANN NORDEN-BRIGHT, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

spresso Royale (specifically the one on State Street) probably isn’t anyone’s favorite Ann Arbor coffee shop. It’s the standard, the status quo, the closest to Central Campus and a reliable place to grab some quick caffeine in the morning or work on assignments in awkward half-hour class breaks. It doesn’t have Literati Coffee’s expansive selection of designer stationary, or the tasteful mismatched furniture and sparse plants of Lab Cafe, or the coffee quality and quirky branding of Roo’s Roast.

Espresso belongs in a different category than its other trendier Ann Arbor coffee shop siblings. It’s a little rough around the edges — most of the tables are a bit wobbly, the walls could use a fresh coat of paint and the carpet has some suspicious stains. Espresso Royale is, at its core, essentially your standard college coffee shop — a little grimy, heavily trafficked, a place to meet for interviews or quick “catch-ups” with friends you lived down the hall from freshman year.

It’s also probably the Ann Arbor locale I’ve spent the most time in during these past three years at the University of Michigan (living quarters excluded, obviously). Espresso Royale is reliable, it’s comforting. The coffee shop is not pretending to be anything it isn’t — that’s what I like about it. As I write this column at a table in the back, a woman sitting in one of the armchairs clustered in the center of the main room is filing her toenails. Gross, yes, but also somehow exactly what I would expect from this coffee shop. It’s not a performative place — I don’t feel pressured to present a façade of the productive student who also looks incredibly put together at every instant. This is a space where anything goes, unfortunately toenail filing included.

One of the many quirks of Espresso Royale is that you never know if the internet will be working. More often than not, it will trickle along at a snail’s pace. Espresso Royale is not the place to watch lecture recordings—I learned this the semester I had Stats 250 at 8:30 a.m. and rarely made the trek from South Quad to class in the MLB. It’s also really not the place to go if you need to buckle down on work. I’ve met many friends here over the years to work on various projects, and though the Wi-Fi speed is always initially a frustration, it also has been the initiator of many incredible

FILE PHOTO

conversations when the laptops inevitably close after struggling to load Canvas for the better part of an hour.

The internet speed might be a dealbreaker for some, but I’d argue that to the contrary, it’s nice to have some (minor) inconveniences imposed on you occasionally. I thoroughly enjoy going through the cycle of complaining about the internet connection, but also refusing to relocate to a study spot with better Wi-Fi. Perhaps it’s my subconscious seeking some disconnect from the digital sphere and associated stresses, but whatever it is, Espresso Royale somehow knows exactly how to address that need without requiring me to take some drastic and deliberate action like disconnecting from my home Wi-Fi network—for which I am very thankful.

And while your internet page might never load, there’s also no need to worry about getting distracted from whatever off-line task you’ve found to keep yourself occupied by the background music—

another wonderful quirk of Espresso Royale is that the store playlist is thoroughly unexciting. It’s all songs that are super familiar and non-confrontational.

Right now, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz is playing. I’ve heard a lot of the Eagles here, and a lot of Fleetwood Mac. Nothing that I would really choose to actively listen to, but there’s something so comforting about a blanket of music that is passively recognizable. It’s the music that might be playing in my grandparents’ house, music that I’ve heard from a young age and is buried deep within me. Nothing new or edgy, nothing that’s going to demand my attention or pique my interest. It’s the musical equivalent of a cup of hot tea—nothing to write home about, but a nice warm presence regardless.

I’ve been interviewed for internships in this space and opened rejection emails from internships here. I’ve had first dates here, and I’ve fought with friends here. I’ve laughed and also cried

here, after bad exams and as a result of heart-wrenching conversations about identity and social justice and things that really matter. Espresso Royale has marked just about every milestone of my college career—from freshman year to senior year, this coffee shop has seen it all.

This coffee shop feels like college. It feels a little messy, a hodge-podge of different personalities and energies continuously entering and exiting. It feels like a place of personal exploration, of the occasional existential crisis, of budding friendships. It feels like hangovers and it feels like cramming for an exam the hour before.

So, Espresso Royale, thank you for your overwhelming mediocrity and normalness — it’s what I love the most about you. And though I’ve certainly been disloyal to you for other, trendier Ann Arbor coffee shops, I have a feeling I’ll keep coming back here — bad Wi-Fi and all.

8B

Wednesday, October 16, 2019 // The Statement

VISUAL STATEMENT WASHINGTON, D.C.

BY DANYEL THARAKAN

MY HOMETOWN: A BEATIFUL CITY OF OVER 700,000 PEOPLE WHO PAY FEDERAL TAXES YET HAVE ZERO VOTING REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS.

Michigan staves off Illinois 42-25, set for Penn State clash ETHAN SEARS Managing Sports Editor

CHAMPAIGN — For all the pent-up concern about this Michigan football team, there was never much of a question as to whether it would beat Illinois on Saturday. The question lay in the “how” of it.

For a time, it seemed like Michigan (5-1 overall, 2-1 Big Ten) might answer that question emphatically, beating down Illinois and taking momentum into a trip to Penn State next week. But it’s hard to be optimistic after a second half in which the offense stalled, the defense let Illinois back into the game and the Wolverines needed late heroics in a 42-25 win over the Illini.

Those late heroics came on both sides of the ball. Once NATALIE STEPHENS & MADELINE HINKLEY / DAILY

Alexis Rankin / Daily

Illinois had cut into a 28-0 lead to make it a three-point game early in the fourth quarter, senior quarterback Shea Patterson strung together a 10-play drive, converting a key fourth-and-2 in the red zone with his legs and lofting a pass that found junior wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones in the corner of the end zone.

That brought the lead back to 10 and from there, it was the defense’s turn. Sophomore linebacker Cam McGrone and fifth-year senior defensive end Mike Danna forced fumbles on two consecutive Illinois drives, killing any chance of a comeback and securing the win.

“The things I’m proud of as a team is — there wasn’t this, ‘Here we go again,’ ” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “They rose up and got a few fumbles of our own.”

DESIGN BY JACK SILBERMAN

Design by Jack Silberman

Still, especially against Illinois, a perennial Big Ten doormat with a 2-4 overall record, it’s hard to square the victory itself with everything that made it so hard to get.

On paper, this should have been easy for Michigan, and for the first half, it was. The offense ran the ball straight down Illinois’ throat, passing last week’s rushing yards total by the end of their fourth drive. Patterson worked off that success, hitting sophomore Luke Schoonmaker and senior Nick Eubanks for touchdowns to make the lead to 28-7 at halftime.

Then it nearly fell apart. The offense fell back into its struggles after Illinois started slanting a defensive end hard in the run game. Patterson’s rhythm seemed off in the passing game, and the Wolverines didn’t score

in the third quarter as its defense gave up 10 more points.

Suddenly, minutes into the fourth, senior running back Tru Wilson fumbled — the same issues that have haunted Michigan all year cropping up again. Illinois running back Dre Brown scored and then converted a two-point attempt to make it 28-25 with 12:50 to go.

“Anytime you got a lead like that, coming out of the second half you gotta keep the foot on the pedal and in full throttle,” Patterson said, admitting there was frustration. “But sometimes in a game, it happens like that and just gotta stay within ourselves.”

Michigan did, but still, the tune felt familiar. Here the Wolverines were, again, fumbling the ball, playing down to an opponent and taking a win that felt just a little bit hollow.

“I think it was after they scored a two-point conversion, everybody kinda started wilding up and not really trusting each other at that moment,” McGrone said. “But I think we got back to the sideline, got to talk. It’s all good.”

It was an oddly candid moment from McGrone, who admitted things started to break down with the defense yelling at the offense as others continued to speak in the language of optimism and positivity.

To be sure, there are positives to take. A season-high average of 6.1 yards per carry behind Zach Charbonnet and Hassan Haskins — and a first-half stretch in which Josh Gattis’ offense seemed to work as intended. Another standout performance from sophomore wideout Ronnie Bell, who went for 98 yards as Nico

Collins sat out with an injury.

Another game in which the defense stepped up when asked.

Harbaugh, standing at the podium afterwards with his hands in his pockets, seemed genuine in his praise. “Pleased with the way the offense played,” he said. “Thought they performed extremely well.”

Michigan will take the win. But to meet any of their preseason goals, the Wolverines must navigate a gauntlet that still includes Penn State, Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State.

“Our guys rose to the challenge,” Harbaugh said. “They were tested mightily and they did a great job. Didn’t flinch, kept playing, kept fighting.”

But when the challenge gets greater — starting next week in State College — it could take a whole lot more to meet it.

SportsWednesday

2B — October 16, 2019

T

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A repeat of 2017 rout would end Michigan’s season

wo seasons ago in midOctober, Michigan held a 5-1 record that seemed to paper over greater concerns. The Wolverines went into halftime with Cincinnati and Air ETHAN Force in games SEARS at home. John O’Korn struggled to replace Wilton Speight at quarterback after he went down with an injury and the offense lagged its way to a loss at home against Michigan State. It took two overtimes to put away Indiana in Bloomington the week after that.

Two days later, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh got asked about the next game on the schedule — a prime-time matchup with Penn State, a white out and a College Gameday visit to Happy Valley.

“I’m excited about it,” Harbaugh told reporters then, “and if you talk to the players about how they feel, I feel like they would feel the same way. Excited for the opportunity.

They’ve been on the big stage already this year multiple times in big games and having another crack at this, knowing our guys the way I do, they’re competitors.”

You probably already know what happened next. If you don’t, here’s a refresher: Penn State’s Saquon Barkley took the game’s second snap for a 69-yard touchdown, and it got worse from there.

All the problems the first six games of the season foreshadowed came to pass. The Wolverines lost, 42-13, all but eliminating themselves from Playoff and Big Ten contention and before the season was over, they would lose three more times for the worst mark of Harbaugh’s tenure.

It’s hard not to see the parallels.

Again, Michigan is 5-1 in midOctober heading into a matchup with Penn State. Again, there have been a series of less-than-con-

vincing wins — double-overtime at home against Army, scoring 10 points at home against Iowa, and most recently, Illinois pulling within a threepoint deficit at the start of the fourth quarter. Again, the game is in prime time, with College Gameday in Happy Valley, and there will be a white out.

“Every loss sticks with me,” said senior safety Josh Metellus on Tuesday. “That one (in 2017) really stuck. That could’ve been the real defining part of our season. We lost that game and we went downhill from

there.”

Of course, that loss was the defining point in Michigan’s season — just not in the way Metellus wanted it to be. It put the Wolverines’ flaws on display for everyone to see. It ended the chances of meeting their goals.

If they lose on Saturday, be it in the same spectacular fashion or not, it could set the season on the same course as two years ago.

Michigan isn’t expected to win this game — Vegas currently has Penn State as a nine-point favorite and, going by the eye test, it’s

We lost that game (in 2017) and we went downhill...

hard to argue the Wolverines are the better team. Inside of Schembechler Hall, predictably, belief has permeated on both sides of the ball.

“We execute, there’s nobody in the country better than us,” said senior linebacker Josh Uche this Monday, speaking about the defense.

“And that’s a fact.”

Uche, minutes earlier, had taken the media to task for calling out the defense after the Wolverines’ loss at Wisconsin.

He took the criticism to heart, adamantly contending that it was misplaced, that those outside the

team couldn’t possibly understand schematics well enough to accurately comment on things of that nature.

When a reporter pointed out the bottom line — Michigan gave up 35 points to the Badgers and let them run for 359 yards — must mean something, Uche bristled.

“That’s what y’all was claiming,” he said.

To Uche’s credit, the defense, even to the untrained eye, has been significantly improved since that day in Madison. The stats back that up, as the Wolverines are third

We execute, there’s nobody in the country better than us.

NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily

in defensive SP+. They have won three straight games, and have the defense to thank, as it’s given up just 28 total points in that span.

“We feel a lot better. We’ve been feeling like we’re getting back to our roots,” Metellus said. “We know we got a lotta guys that can play football. We all know what we’re capable of doing.”

For the last few weeks, that’s been a common theme. After the Wolverines scored just 10 points against Iowa, Harbaugh claimed the offense was hitting its stride and later in the week, senior quarterback Shea Patterson backed him up. Both fell back on what fans and media couldn’t see — in practice and on tape — to argue that the score wasn’t representative.

And, to the credit of Harbaugh and Patterson, the offense clicked for stretches against Illinois in ways that it hadn’t all year. Michigan averaged 6.1 yards per run, and came out looking to hand the ball off with eight straight runs.

Patterson stepped up in the fourth quarter with a clutch 79-yard drive, perhaps his best moment of the year.

Doing all of that against a team of the Nittany Lions’ caliber — one that could easily beat even a good defense — is another matter entirely. So is doing it against Notre Dame, Michigan State and Ohio State. Throughout Harbaugh’s tenure, and never more so than 2017, an inability to get it done against those kinds of teams has come to be the nagging factor underlying any success.

“We already got a loss,” Metellus said. “We can’t afford another one.”

Win or lose, Saturday will set the Wolverines’ season on its defining course. So if Michigan wants to back up its words and make the public eat theirs, it should start before the second snap.

Sears can be reached at searseth@ umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears.

Senior quarterback Shea Patterson led his team on a key 10-play drive at the start of the fourth quarter against Illinois, perhaps his best moment of the season.

Hassan Haskins making most of his opportunity ‘M’ beats Wildcats in OT WOMEN’S SOCCER

ARIA GERSON

Daily Sports Editor

Position switches in football are relatively common, but what happened to Hassan Haskins is much more rare.

The redshirt freshman doesn’t remember exactly when, but he knows that sometime last year, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh called him in for a meeting and told him that instead of playing running back, where he was recruited, his best fit was at linebacker. But after a season of learning how to play viper, Haskins switched back to his original position.

For many players, such a switch would delay their development and keep them from seeing the field much. Not for Haskins.

Saturday in Champaign, Haskins took the field on the fifth play of the Wolverines’ first drive.

On their four previous plays, freshman running back Zach Charbonnet had run all the way to the 29-yard line, but Haskins did

him one better.

After the handoff, Haskins spun past his would-be tackler and broke through, with nothing but turf between him and the end zone. He topped off his first career touchdown with an emphatic fist pump.

“I was trying to get a touchdown,” Haskins said.

“Every play I run, I’m trying to get a touchdown. I just move. I felt it after my spin — nobody around me, so I took off.”

Added senior tight end Nick Eubanks: “I was blocking, was thinking the play was over and this dude springs out from a tackle and keeps his feet going, so I was kinda surprised.”

Haskins finished the game with 125 yards on 12 rushes and was Michigan’s leading rusher on the day in net yards, yards per rush (10.4) and longest run (29 yards).

But the performance didn’t come from nowhere. Anyone who’s been watching the last few games could see that Haskins was

OLIVIA MCKENZIE For The Daily

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

Running back Hassan Haskins went for 125 yards on 12 carries.

primed for a breakout. Against Rutgers two weeks ago, Haskins ran for 45 yards, including a game-high 15-yard run. He also garnered 22 yards on 10 carries against Iowa and even made a tackle while playing special teams.

If Haskins ever questioned the coaches’ plans for him, he never said so Monday, instead repeating that he was willing to do whatever it took to help the team and that he wanted to make the most of any opportunity he got, no matter what side of the ball. And instead

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of stunting his development, Haskins believes the switch to linebacker aided him when he returned to running back.

“I feel like I can tell what the defense, what they doing, so they help me for sure.” Haskins said. “I feel like I got a defensive mindset. I think I have a better vision of a running lane. I’m more comfortable.”

Senior viper Khaleke Hudson worked with Haskins during his brief foray into playing defense and in Haskins saw a fast-twitch player with good instincts and a knack for the ball. Linebackers have to see the same holes as the running backs — and their success is often predicated on seeing those holes before the running backs do.

From his vantage point, Hudson sees how much Haskins’ experience on the other side helped his vision. But he also made sure to add that Haskins was “great in man coverage” and “could definitely come back and play on the defensive side of the ball” if Michigan ever needed him.

Now, Haskins seems to have firmly cemented himself as the fourth member of the Wolverines’ running back rotation, a unit that seemed to finally find its footing against the Illini after several lackluster games. And if his teammates and coaches are to be believed, this is just the start for Haskins.

“The progression has been ascending each and every week,” Harbaugh said. “Some wild type of plays in practice and now we’ve seen it in games, somebody getting better and better. This last game was a great game, 100 yards. … His ability to see holes, sink his hips, get yards after contact really showed up.”

After a grueling fight, during the final minute of regulation play, sophomore midfielder Raleigh Loughman fired a powerful corner kick into a crowded box and was able to connect with junior midfielder Nicki Hernandez.

Hernandez executed a precise header that met the back of the net and earned the Michigan women’s soccer team a well-deserved first goal of the match.

What seemed like the winner was anything but as just a few seconds after the first goal, a handball inside the box off a corner kick resulted in a Northwestern penalty kick. Wildcats forward Mikayla Hampton scored from the spot tying up the game and sending it to overtime — the Wolverines’ fourth OT game of the season.

After beating Illinois 4-1 on Friday, Michigan (11-3-1 overall, 6-1-1 Big Ten) had the confidence to prevail against Northwestern (5-72, 3-3-1) in overtime after a grueling fight. Both teams came into Sunday’s matchup off of conference victories on Friday — Michigan defeated Illinois and Northwestern beat Michigan State—adding to the excitement of Sunday afternoon’s game.

The Wolverines endured two long shots in the first six minutes of the match and responded with force, keeping the ball out of the box and creating more opportunities during buildup play for shots against the Wildcats’ aggressive defensive line. Michigan’s top scorer, junior midfielder Sarah Stratigakis, was able beat her defender and take a shot late in the half that was eventually blocked, with another shot attempt in the final two minutes of the half.

Though Northwestern had greater ball possession during the first half, it appeared as if Michigan had the ball more due to its excellent ball control, communication in the midfield and ambitious shot attempts. Freshman Jayde Riviere was key to this midfield control by consistently outrunning her opponents and preventing the Wildcats from executing on opportunities inside the box.

The Wolverines were especially hungry to beat Northwestern, who won its last two matchups. Adding to the stakes, Michigan hadn’t been victorious in Evanston since 2013 — where the conditions always prove difficult.

“We were aware that with the location of their field that it was going to be windy,” said Michigan coach Jennifer Klein, “so we really wanted to keep the ball on the ground and connect passes to get up into the final third.”

At the start of the second half, the Wolverines’ offense continued to struggle to penetrate the Wildcats’ defense, while the defense was threatened by Northwestern’s shots on goal. Riverie’s two powerful, ambitious shots from 30 yards out showed that Michigan would be relentless until its shots connected with the back of the net.

“They (the team) felt like they created some good opportunities in the run of play and just were a bit unfortunate, so I think for them they wanted to win and so they went out and got it,” Klein said.

In overtime, Michigan’s effort was there and it outshot Northwestern 3-0. During the 8th minute of the first overtime half, sophomore midfielder Meredith Haakeson was unstoppable after a clean assist from freshman forward Hannah Blake, sending the ball into the right corner of the net and scoring a Michigan victory.

Haakeson is now the Wolverines’ top scorer.

Klein led Michigan back into the Big Ten Tournament for the first time since 2016 last season, and another conference victory shows the team is continuing to grow this season under her guidance. The win marks the first time that Michigan has reached double-digit wins since 2016 when it made its last NCAA Tournament appearance.

“The changing of the culture and of the style of play has led to that,” Klein said. “But I think a big thing that we did from last year to this year that is putting us in a better position to get those results is our commitment to be disciplined defensively, and I think the girls have done a great job responding to that and being relentless to help keep the ball out of our net.”

SportsWednesday

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

October 16, 2019 — 3B

Fourthdown conversion lifts ‘M’

Offense shows ceiling, and how it must go

ARIA GERSON

THEO MACKIE Daily Sports Editor

Daily Sports Editor

CHAMPAIGN — Nick Eubanks didn’t have to break stride as Shea Patterson’s pass floated towards the back of the end zone and into his arms.

The only celebration necessary was a pair of chest thumps and a quick point to the sky, honoring his late mother. The groan from the Illinois fans was virtually non-existent. In the equal portion of the crowd donning maize and blue, cheers were similarly subdued.

With the score at 28-0 and less than half a game gone, it made sense, because this is Michigan and they are Illinois and this is what Michigan does to a team like Illinois. Or, at least, that’s what you’d like to believe.

Then, there’s the scene 20 minutes of game time later.

The Wolverines’ defensive line returned from giving up yet another touchdown with nothing to do but lean back into the benches lining Michigan’s sideline, faces expressionless as the scoreboard read, Michigan 28, Illinois 25.

The thing is: it wasn’t really the defense’s fault.

Of the Illini’s four scoring drives, only one started inside its own 33. The Wolverines lost a pair of fumbles and even when they held onto the ball, they couldn’t do anything with it. Illinois — 2-4 Illinois, lost-to-Eastern-Michigan Illinois — dominated time of possession as a result, wearing down a thin Michigan defense.

“In the second half, they came out and they hit us in the mouth,” said sophomore receiver Ronnie Bell, understating the obvious.

The Wolverines eventually held on to win on the back of a defensive turnaround that forced consecutive fourth-quarter turnovers. The result was a 42-25 win, allowing Michigan to talk about fighting through adversity and all those good things.

“Third quarter, we had a bit of a momentum swing and we just gotta be ready to roll with the punches, just react to it,” Patterson said. “Call it adversity or whatever you want, at the end of the day, we gotta be ready for anything.”

The problem is, this is week seven.

Being ready for adversity was the mantra when the Wolverines beat Middle Tennessee State, 40-21. That was the opening week, when adjusting to a new offensive install was understandable, when discrepancies between practices and games made sense.

Michigan’s next two games are against Penn State and Notre Dame, teams who wouldn’t stand for “adversity” against an opponent like Illinois. Their offenses average 39.0 and 41.0 points per game respectively.

For a half on Saturday, that’s the type of offense the Wolverines looked like they had. Their running game — averaging just 3.5 yards per carry entering the day — went for 295 yards on 48 tries. Both freshman Zach Charbonnet and sophomore Hassan Haskins ran for over 100 yards, with the Illini defense on its heels against an offensive line that effortlessly created holes. “It starts up front,” said sophomore tight end Luke Schoonmaker. “Our line playing great ball, pushing guys back.”

Meanwhile, Patterson, much maligned for his senior-year regression, found receivers at will inside or outside the pocket. Even without junior receiver Nico Collins — arguably Michigan’s most talented playmaker — out injured, Patterson had two early touchdowns and found five receivers for completions.

“Shea Patterson had a great game,” said Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “Again, I don’t know what all the statistics and the numbers are, but that was tough throwing the ball today. And came up with the big throws.”

Those statistics and numbers tell the point. Patterson, with his 8.8 yards per attempt, four total touchdowns and no interceptions, did enough to beat a team like Illinois every time. With an 11-for22 passing performance, he also put his defense in short-field situations too often, allowing the Illini back into a game that should’ve been over at halftime.

So while Patterson said after the game that he was “never worried,” he couldn’t help but break a sheepish smile seconds later, when a reporter asked if there were any offensive frustrations.

“Yeah a little bit,” Patterson said. “Any time you got a lead like that, coming out in the second half, you gotta keep the foot on the pedal, full throttle. But sometimes, in games, that happens like that.”

Saturday afternoon, Michigan didn’t keep its foot on the pedal. The result, in the end, allowed Patterson to shrug it off.

It also showed how far the Wolverines still have to go.

CHAMPAIGN — There was a time in Jim Harbaugh’s past when, leading the game by a small margin and facing fourthand-short in the opponent’s territory, he opted to kick the field goal. It came back to bite him, and his team lost.

Harbaugh won’t go into specifics about which game it was or who it was against.

But the truth is, the semantics aren’t really important. That exact situation could describe nearly every football coach in the country. Games are lost every week on the risks coaches don’t take, as much as the ones they do.

What’s important is that on Saturday, facing a pivot point in a game and possibly a season, Harbaugh remembered that game. Knowing that this wasn’t just about analytics, but about confidence and trust, Harbaugh took the risk and averted a crisis. Partially because of it, Michigan walked out with a 42-25 win against Illinois.

“The offense was hungry to do it,” Harbaugh said. “So made the decision to go for it on that fourth down, and the guys came through.”

The Wolverines went up by 28 early, then teetered on the brink of disaster as they allowed 25 unanswered points.

Michigan drove down the field but stalled, facing fourth-and-2 at Illinois 13-yard line.

A lot of coaches would kick in that situation, in hopes of getting back some semblance of confidence or momentum, not wanting to risk an empty possession with the bottom daring to fall out.

But the Wolverines knew what they wanted to do. The offense trotted out and senior quarterback Shea Patterson took the ball himself, running for the first down. Two plays later, Michigan was in the end zone.

“We all knew that we wanted to get the first down and end the game on our terms,” said sophomore wide receiver Ronnie Bell.

Nobody doubted the call. The Wolverines wanted to finally answer back, and all another field goal would’ve done was put Michigan up six, where another Illini score could beat them. Going for it would put a touchdown within reach, and a touchdown was what the Wolverines really needed.

The truth is, to truly move the pendulum, Michigan needed more than just points. It needed to string together a full drive again, to get some mojo back.

And everyone on the field knew it.

Asked after the game why he went for it, Harbaugh could’ve mentioned analytics, like he did after two failed fourth-down conversions last month against Army. He could’ve said that the wind made kicking difficult. He could’ve maintained that kicker Quinn Nordin had already missed once, from 34, or that the other kicker, Jake Moody, missed from a similar distance last week. But he didn’t say any of those things.

Instead, he made it clear that this was about trust.

“We put the ball in Shea Patterson’s hands,” Harbaugh said. “He is tenacious in those kinds of situations in these kinds of big moments and I felt really good that he could pick it up for us.”

Harbaugh’s trust in the offense — and Patterson, who started out well but reverted to his early-season struggles after halftime — to make a play provided one shot of confidence. The fact that the play worked added another. The rest of the game, the Wolverines looked how they had at the beginning. Driving down the field on offense. Making stops on defense.

Playing like a team assured of itself.

“Definitely, our momentum spiked from there,” said redshirt freshman tight end Luke Schoonmaker.

We’ll never know what would’ve happened had Harbaugh chosen the “safe” option and kicked. It’s quite possible that the Wolverines still would’ve won.

After all, Michigan tacked on another touchdown two possessions later and Illinois didn’t score again.

But once again, that’s not the important part.

The important part is that the call sent a message to the offense: I trust you. You aren’t going to blow this.

The important part is that through all their ups and downs this season, when the Wolverines most needed to make a play, they were given the opportunity.

And the important part is that, facing that kind of situation, they trusted each other, too — and converted.

Standing on the field after the game, the Michigan players treated it like a win. Not a “we almost blew this” win, an honest-togoodness, hard-fought win.

No matter the eventual outcome, kicking a field goal — into the wind with two kickers who have struggled — would have sent a very different message.

MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said his team rose to the challenge when Illinois came back to pull within three points in an eventual 42-25 win.

false alarm Mid-game struggles resurface questions, but Michigan escapes with win MAX MARCOVITCH Managing Sports Editor

CHAMPAIGN — For a time, it all went down as easily as it should have.

Michigan marched down the field on the first drive of Saturday’s game against Illinois, running the ball five consecutive times for 65 yards, capped by an impressive 29-yard touchdown run from junior Hassan Haskins.

The Wolverines didn’t throw the ball until their ninth play from scrimmage, tallied 161 rushing yards in the first quarter alone and held a 28-0 lead by the middle of the second quarter.

It looked every bit the contendermeets-pretender matchup it had been billed. This game was dead, buried and sufficiently eulogized. It was on to Penn State.

And then, like The Undertaker rising swiftly from his coffin, Illinois found life.

In doing so — scoring 25 unanswered points and coming within three points of the lead, briefly putting Michigan’s season on life support — the Fighting Illini resurfaced a bevy of questions on both sides of the ball that have come to define the Michigan football season to date. Questions that will soon bury it if they don’t get answered.

Promptly.

“Honestly, most of the defense, we kinda lost our heads a little bit,” said sophomore linebacker Cam McGrone after the game. “Like yelling at the offense, which we can’t do. But yeah, it was kinda like breaking down, but we all talked and we all kinda got back into our heads.”

Those frustrations reached a boiling point, he said, after Illinois cashed in a two-point conversation to make the score 28-25. After allowing just 29 yards on the first seven drives, Michigan’s defense yielded

four consecutive scoring drives that amassed 214 yards in over 14 minutes of game time.

Offensively, Michigan did nothing to aid its scuffling defense. From the 4:33 mark in the second quarter — when a touchdown from senior tight end Nick Eubanks extended the lead to 28 — to the end of the third quarter, the Wolverines’ offense mustered just 2.5 yards per play in five empty drives. The capper was a lost fumble, Michigan’s ninth of the season, that gave Illinois the ball in the Wolverines’ territory.

“In the running game, they made a nice adjustment with their defensive end,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said.

“Then we made a counter adjustment later in the ball game that really paid off for us. They were spiking their end hard and got us for a few. Then I thought (offensive coordinator) Josh (Gattis) and (offensive line coach) Ed (Warinner) and the coaches did a nice job countering that and they were able to get outside again with some big runs.”

The halftime break, sandwiched in between, did nothing to quell the resurgent Illini — the same group that lost to Ypsilanti-based Eastern Michigan earlier this season.

Guided by backup quarterback Matt Robinson, who filled in for the injured Brandon Peters, Illinois appeared on the verge of quite an upset.

“Yeah, a little bit (of frustration),” said senior quarterback Shea Patterson. “Any time you’ve got a lead like that coming out of the second half, you’ve got to keep the foot on the pedal and full-throttle.

Sometimes in a game, that happens like that. (We’ve) just got to stay within ourselves.”

There were no major scheme adjustments, McGrone said, nor a natural lack of focus. That’s when defensive coordinator Don Brown gathered his defense to try and rejuvenate a suddenly-reeling group.

“He just told us to lock in play our game and we’ll come out with a win,” McGrone said.

To its credit, the unit responded.

Michigan allowed just six more plays in the ensuing three drives — with two turnovers sealing the game. One came when McGrone grabbed ahold of a scrambling Robinson with his left hand and punched the football out with his right. The next when pressure off both edges helped pry the ball free, where in feel into the waiting arms of senior Carlo Kemp.

Michigan’s defense allowed negative-21 yards after Brown’s recalibration, closing out a forgettable win over an inferior foe. Now the real challenges beckon, with Penn State and Notre Dame looming in backto-back games, ready to unearth any facade that might come with a 5-1 record. If Saturday’s game clarified anything about this team, it’s that the Wolverines have not moved past their sluggish past in any substantial way. Soon enough, with mounting competition, that will reflect in their win-loss record.

For now, until those tests arrive, Michigan will happily notch another in the former column.

“Third quarter, they made some plays and we did turn it over,” Harbaugh said. “And our guys rose to the challenge. They were tested mightily and they did a great job.

Didn’t flinch, kept playing, kept fighting.”

(They) didn’t flinch, kept playing, kept fighting.

Fumbles continue to dog Wolverines ETHAN SEARS

Managing Sports Editor

CHAMPAIGN — For two weeks, Michigan made it easy to forget the fumbling issues that haunted it all year.

After Ben Mason put the ball on the ground early in the Wolverines’ loss at Wisconsin — ending a scoring opportunity and setting Michigan on a spiral — they didn’t repeat the same mistake against Rutgers or Iowa. And, coincidence or not, they won both games, including a nail-biter against the Hawkeyes.

And, despite freshman running back Zach Charbonnet losing the ball in the second quarter against Illinois, it seemed like that would be relegated to a minor issue in the wake of a blowout.

The Fighting Illini failed to capitalize, going three-and-out, another drive amounting to nothing in a game that figured to be full of them.

Then things started to go wrong for Michigan. Illinois climbed back into the game. And then, with the Wolverines holding onto an 11-point lead early in the fourth quarter, senior running back Tru Wilson fumbled and handed the Illini a chance to make it a one-score game — of which they did.

What happened next, the Wolverines working their way out of trouble to win,

42-25, does little to hide one of the overarching issues of their season. After Saturday, they have fumbled 17 times, ranked 126th of 130 in the FBS, and lost nine. After six games in 2019, they have lost triple the number of fumbles they did in 2018 while passing their overall total in turnovers from the previous year.

“I think we didn’t even really think about (the fumbles),” said sophomore tight end Luke Schoonmaker. “We got right back up and knew that our defense was gonna hold for us. We were gonna answer and stay confident.”

That’s not too dissimilar to the answers we’ve heard from most players and Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, throughout the year when pressed on the issue. To hear them is to be painted a picture of a statistical anomaly. Among the disparities between practice and games — a talking point for any and every issue related to the offense — this seems to rank near the top.

Harbaugh has been asked, repeatedly, what he can do to coach the fumbles out of his team. He was again on Saturday.

“Coaching ball security all the way to the ground,” Harbaugh said, “through the whistle and the echo of the whistle and beyond.

“The things I’m proud of as a team is, there wasn’t this, ‘Here we go again.’

They rose up and got a few fumbles of our own. From where I was standing, we created some of our own.”

It’s more than valid after a win to turn the conversation to what Michigan did well. Where against the Wolverines let the fumble get into their heads against Wisconsin, they rose up against Illinois.

Particularly the defense, which stepped up and forced two late turnovers to seal the game. But that doesn’t change the reality facing Michigan right now.

After six games, and with two top10 opponents looming in the next two weeks, this can no longer be swept aside as an issue that will inevitably be fixed. Because Penn State and Notre Dame aren’t Illinois. And if the Wolverines give either team an opportunity, they’ll pay dearly.

“Yeah a little bit (of frustration),” said senior quarterback Shea Patterson. “Anytime you got a lead like that, coming out of the second half you gotta keep the foot on the pedal and in full throttle. But sometimes in a game, it happens like that.”

“Couple fumbles that (we) wouldn’t have liked to seen,” Harbaugh added.

“Outside of that, I think our offense was playing pretty darn good.”

With the oncoming schedule, though, it’s hard to be confident in caveats.

SportsWednesday

4B— October 16, 2019

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Power outage

Wolverines go 1-for-12 on power play and fail to beat Clarkson in season-opening series at Yost, scoring just twice in two games MOLLY SHEA

Daily Sports Writer

Before the puck even dropped, something was different about the Michigan lineup.

Freshman defenseman Cam York was out with a lower body injury. Junior forwards Michael Pastujov and Jack Becker didn’t dress, either.

Instead, the roster featured sophomore defenseman Jake Gingell, sophomore forward Jack Olmstead and redshirt sophomore forward Emil Öhrwall.

And as the last seconds ticked off the clock at Yost Ice Arena, Michigan (0-1-1) felt their absence, as it lost to No. 11 Clarkson (1-0-1), 3-1.

“We had all the momentum,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “But it’s a bounce or a break here. They won the game but I can’t tell you that they’re the better team. I thought we played well and they got some bounces and some goaltending. But I feel good about a lot of things going on in the program.”

When the puck dropped, the Wolverines were ready to go.

They fired shot after shot — none found the back of the net. But around the halfway point of the period, momentum started to slip away from Michigan. A shot came at sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann from the slot.

Mann made the first save, but coughed up a rebound. A split second later, Golden Knights forward Adam Tisdale found the back of the net. Just like that, Clarkson took the lead, 1-0.

In the second period, the Wolverines were still unable to capitalize on their offensive opportunities. As the offense tried to even the score, in net, Mann worked tirelessly to keep his team down only one goal. He made glove saves. Pad saves. Stick saves. And even a couple saves while sprawled out on the ice.

“He was unbelievable this weekend,” said sophomore defenseman Nick Blankenburg.

“The first three goals tonight, he didn’t have much of a chance on those. He’s keeping us in these games and he’s been great for us.”

Despite Mann’s impressive performance, the Wolverines found themselves down 2-0 in the opening minutes of the third period after the Golden Knights recovered a Griffin Luce turnover, sailing a pass to the right post. Clarkson forward Anthony Romano was faced with an open net, and a blink later, he beat Mann.

Desperate to cut the deficit with only a period remaining, Michigan pushed harder. Its first — and only — goal of the game came with 14 minutes remaining on the clock.

Blankenburg found Jake Slaker alone in the left faceoff circle. With pressure coming, he hit a one-timer at Clarkson’s goaltender. The puck came loose, and a split second later it was on the stick of senior forward Nick Pastujov, who sent the puck sailing into the back of the net.

And with that, the Wolverines were on the board, but still trailing, 2-1.

“It’s definitely nice to get that first one however you can,” Pastujov said. “We’ve been battling a lot, and we’ve been getting good chances. It’s nice to just pop that first one and hopefully just start rolling.”

The momentum from Pastujov’s goal resulted in an onslaught of Michigan offense.

Every time the puck found a stick in the offensive zone, the Wolverines fired it towards the net. They were playing with a sense of urgency for the first time all night. In just a span of eight minutes, Michigan tallied 10 shots on goal.

As quick as the game had swung in favor of the Wolverines, the Golden Knights took back

control. After redshirt junior Luke Morgan missed a shot on goal, Clarkson controlled the puck. Junior forward Grant Cooper skated the puck through center ice and into Michigan’s defensive zone. He fanned on the first attempt, but quickly rifled a backhanded shot into the net behind Mann.

Just like that, the Wolverines lost all momentum and were down two goals for the second time in the period.

Frustration set in. With under five remaining, Luce hit a Golden Knight from behind and earned a game misconduct.

Because of the timing of the penalty, Michigan spent the remainder of the game playing a man down.

“You have to understand the time of the game, what’s going on, where you are on the ice, the situation,” Pearson said.

“You have to understand that. I know Griff is — he plays hard, he plays physical. He plays all out. Sometimes, you just have to control your emotions and control your aggressiveness.

“You have to be more careful on that, especially (when) we’re doing everything we can to get back in the game.”

TIEN LE

Daily Sports Editor

The defense was there.

The offense was coming along.

The penalty kill was an underlying factor in Friday’s 1-1 tie for the Michigan hockey team, and a key in keeping Saturday’s game close.

The power play, however, was not.

The Wolverines struggled with the man advantage, unable to capitalize on any of the seven penalties they drew Friday, and converted only one of five Saturday. Michigan’s inability to convert haunted them with wasted opportunities in a tight 3-1 loss Saturday against Clarkson.

The struggle to score was reminiscent of last year, when the Wolverines capitalized on just 16 percent of their power plays.

With a different assistant coach helming the man advantage and a more modern system in play, hopes arose on Michigan’s ability to score on the given opportunities. This weekend series against Clarkson showed otherwise.

Michigan drew early penalties in the first and second periods on Saturday. Yet, somehow the Golden Knights, despite being short a player, outshot the

Wolverines.

“I think over time we are going to get more comfortable with ourselves,” said senior forward Nick Pastujov, “and you’ll see a lot more goals.”

Michigan looked uncomfortable on the man advantage early in the game, moving the puck from side to side without any semblance of a plan. Michigan coach Mel Pearson had stated the day before that Clarkson doesn’t beat itself and that the Wolverines would have to, but the idle passing looked like a half-hearted scavenger hunt for a slip-up from the opponents.

“I just think we’ve gotta simplify,” said sophomore defenseman Nick Blankenburg.

“We’ve just gotta get pucks on net and shoot for rebounds. I think the rest will come.”

The strategy Blankenburg noted — getting the puck to the crease and looking for high-danger opportunities — is exactly how Michigan netted its first power play goal of the season.

Winning the faceoff, Blankenburg collected the puck at the blue line and lasered a pass across ice to a waiting Jake Slaker, camped at the faceoff circle. The senior forward cocked back his stick and shot the puck as it sped into his vicinity. The one-timer

RUCHITA IYER/Daily

Senior forward Nick Pastujov scored Michigan’s only power play goal over the weekend against Clarkson.

itself wouldn’t have gone in, but it gave Pastujov an opportunity to deflect it in.

It took eight seconds for that play to find success.

The opportunity arose first from winning the faceoff, something the Wolverines struggled to do all game long. The Golden Knights had won 15 of the 20 faceoffs in the first period alone. That in turn led to Michigan chasing the puck around, many times during their man advantage, and cost them precious seconds that could have been used to attack rather than aimlessly chasing Clarkson.

“We were terrible there, tonight. Terrible,” Pearson said.

“Then you’re chasing the puck, you don’t win faceoffs, you’re chasing the puck all over the rink and we did not do a good job in that area. “ … We gotta play with the puck, we want to be a puck-possession team instead of chasing the puck the entire time.”

Eight seconds showed just how quickly Michigan could convert on the power play. It took 20 seconds alone for the Wolverines to recover a puck lost on the draw during a power play sophomore forward Garrett Van Wyhe drew in the second period on Saturday.

The Wolverines’ power play looked its best when the players initiated the attack by bringing the puck near the net, whether by shot or stick-work, and pursuing the opportunity in “hard ice” — a term Pearson coined to describe the gritty play around the net.

“A shot off a pad almost turned into a goal off a rebound,” Blankenburg. “So I think we’ll keep working on that this week.”

It’s a point of emphasis that Pastujov agrees the team should work on. The team averaged 4.2 power plays last season. It’s already drawn 12 in two games this season.

“I think we are going to be drawing a lot more penalties,” Pastujov said. “We can capitalize on a lot more of those chances.”

And if Michigan wants any chance of winning, it’ll have to.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Michigan soars to top of Big Ten PAARTH SHARMA For The Daily

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YEAR THREE

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Sarah Stratigakis passed the ball across the pitch to her right, where her teammate was open for the finish. Sophomore midfielder Raleigh Loughman shot and found the bottom of the net for the first of the Michigan women’s soccer team’s four goals against Illinois. For the second consecutive game, the Wolverines scored four times. This time, the offensive barrage came late in the game, with two goals in the final 10 minutes.

With their second straight 4-1 victory and seventh win in their last 10 games, the Wolverines (11-3-1 overall, 6-1-1 Big Ten) have caught fire with just three games left in the season.

Loughman, whose performance against the Fighting Illini helped her earn Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors, scored on both of her shots on goal and added an assist on a second-half goal by freshman forward Danielle Wolfe.

Wolfe, who was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week as a result of her scoring outburst against Illinois, scored her first goal since the Wolverines’ opener against Marshall on August 22. In 32 minutes off the bench, Wolfe

scored twice on five shots, including a goal in the 88th minute that all but sealed a victory for Michigan.

“It’s really great for us when we have Raleigh score two goals and also have a freshman in Danielle that can score off the bench,” said Michigan coach Jennifer Klein.

Thanks to the pair of multi-goal performances, the Wolverines have advanced into first place in the Big Ten, one point above Wisconsin, which is currently undefeated in conference play.

At this point in the season, Michigan and Wisconsin, with 19 and 18 points, respectively, are a step ahead of the rest of the conference, with the next two teams, Iowa and Penn State, having only 15 points each.

Consequently, both teams appear to be locks for a topfour seed in the Big Ten Tournament, which would give them home-field advantage through the quarterfinal and potentially semifinal and final rounds, if the Wolverines make it that far.

“We (might) need some

help,” Klein said. “But it’s certainly something we want in the end.”

Winning the Big Ten Tournament is Michigan’s most surefire route to the NCAA Women’s Soccer Tournament, as doing so would earn them an automatic bid, but it’s a tough task. The Wolverines haven’t won the tournament since the 19992000 season.

This year has been a breakout season for Michigan, which currently sits at No. 19 spot in the most recent United Soccer Coaches Poll.

The Wolverines will finish with at least 11 wins for the first time since 2015 and have just one loss in conference play — a 2-0 loss at the hands of Wisconsin, currently ranked No. 10 in the aforementioned poll.

As a result, the team will almost surely receive an at-large bid — even if they fail to win the Big Ten Tournament — and return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years.

Friday night’s offensive output from Loughman and Wolfe move the Michigan one step closer to that goal.

(A Big Ten title is) something we want in the end.