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‘It’s a happy damn day’: Dr. Santa Ono officially appointed as 15th president by Board of Regents Ono will take office on Oct. 13 with a base salary of $975,000
ANNA FIFELSKI & GEORGE WEYKAMP Summer News Editor & Daily News Editor
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The Board of Regents held a special meeting on Wednesday to officially appoint Dr. Santa J. Ono as the 15th president of the University of Michigan. Ono, 59, will begin his initial five-year tenure on Oct. 13 and will succeed Interim President Mary Sue Coleman, who was appointed by the board in January following the abrupt firing of former President Mark Schlissel. Coleman will continue to serve as president until Ono’s term begins. Ono is the current president of the University of British Columbia and has previously served as the president of the University of Cincinnati and senior vice provost and vice provost at Emory University. Article VIII § 5 of the Michigan Constitution of 1963 states the board of the University shall hold responsibility for selecting a president to be the principal executive member
of the institution and ex officio member of the board. “I’m thrilled to join in this enthusiastic welcome for Dr. Santa Ono as president of the University of Michigan,” Coleman said. “From academics and research to health care, athletics and service to society, the University is dedicated to excellence. ‘Leaders and best’ is our way of life on all three campuses.” According to a statement by the University on Wednesday, Ono’s appointment followed a nationwide search of potential candidates beginning in February, where the Presidential Search Committee hosted seven virtual listening sessions to hear community input on candidates. Regent Denise Ilitch (D) said in her statement at the meeting that the committee noticed integrity, communication and listening skills were among the main qualities community members were looking for in a leader. “It is readily apparent to me after getting to know Dr. Ono and learning about his experiences as a university administrator that he is the right
person to lead the University of Michigan at this moment in time,” Ilitch said. “His vision for our future is exciting and we have a lot to look forward to. I’m telling you that it’s a happy damn day.” Ono marks the first U-M president of Japanese descent and will receive a base salary of $975,000, which is subject to annual increases at the board’s discretion. Schlissel received a salary of $927,000 at the time of his termination. Ono is also entitled to deferred compensation of $350,000 and residence in the President’s House on South University Avenue. “I am honored to serve what I think is the greatest public university in the world,” Ono said. “The University of Michigan is known worldwide as an exceptional place for learning, teaching, healing and service across this great state, across this great nation and around the world, and I am humbled and honored to be named its 15th president.” Daily News Editors George Weykamp and Anna Fifelski can be reached at gweykamp@umich.edu and afifelsk@umich.edu.
President-elect Santa Ono, Presidential Search Committee chairs discuss priorities for new administration The Michigan Daily sits down with Dr. Santa Ono, Sarah Hubbard and Denise Ilitch to talk about the future
ANNA FIFELSKI & GEORGE WEYKAMP Summer News Editor & Daily News Editor
Following the Board of Regents’ approval of President-elect Santa Ono on Wednesday, The Michigan Daily sat down with Ono as well as the co-chairs of the Presidential Search Committee,
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Regents Sarah Hubbard (R) and Denise Ilitch (D), to discuss Ono’s experience, the presidential search process and more. This article has been edited and condensed for clarity. Interview with Presidential Search Committee The Michigan Daily: When did you first identify Ono as a candidate and how long have you been considering him? Sarah Hubbard: We worked with Follow The Daily on Instagram, @michigandaily
a search firm — Isaacson, Miller — and part of what they did is helped us identify this big pool of candidates. So they were going to look at every possible candidate across the world. After the listening sessions, we developed the job description and Ono was in one of those very early pools of 100 candidates when we started the search in March. TMD: What did you do with the information gathered from the
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Presidential Search Committee? Have members of the committee met with Ono? Denise Ilitch: What we did is we looked at all of the candidates that Sarah talked about and then we started an interview process that we did with the Presidential Search Committee and we narrowed down the candidates with the committee. TMD: What were the main
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takeaways from the listening sessions? How did that impact your decision to select Ono? SH: The takeaways from the listening sessions were the main attributes we wanted in a president, primarily someone who could really build trust between the broad University community and all its different stakeholders.
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NEWS...................1 ARTS...................2 STATEMENT... . . . . . . . . . . . 3
MIC........................4 OPINION................6 SPORTS..............7
Arts
2 — Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Worrying about the films that bring me temporary joy
ERIN EVANS
Daily Arts Writer
I love walking out of movie theaters, mainly when the movie feels like it has changed my life. I stand up, coming back into a body I’ve forgotten for the past two hours, and step down the stairs while the end music plays. The film’s atmosphere — a world of excitement and drama and loss, all arcing and sucked free of mundanity — is still thick in the air. I will never
be closer to that world. I walk outside, look out at the world in the afterglow of the film, with everything it told me held inside my chest, and things look different. The feeling usually fades by the time I’m home, lasting until the next day at best. Never as long as I expected from a film that at first felt life-changing. I rewatched Pixar’s “Soul” recently, wherein Joe (Jamie Foxx, “Django Unchained”), an aspiring jazz musician, must help an unborn soul find her “spark” in life or die
Design by Abby Schreck
before his music career begins. Joe, who believes his passion for music is his spark, doesn’t understand that a spark is not a particular purpose, but a love of life itself. That is what the soul, named 22 (Tina Fey, “30 Rock”), must find. This is expressed in a scene where Joe’s idol tells him a fable about a fish in search of the ocean. When told that he is already in the ocean, the fish says, “This is water. What I want is the ocean.” It’s an easily decipherable metaphor for underappreciating the life you’re already living. I liked directing duo Daniels’s (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” even though it told me nothing new. It’s a different story from “Soul,” but the films share their most obvious message: Life is beautiful just because it is life, despite how difficult or bland it often seems. Both films have more to them than this message — “Soul” is more specifically about appreciating life as a whole rather than losing sight of all but one particular goal or passion. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” leans into the meaninglessness of life and addresses familial conflicts and generational trauma — but the elusive beauty of normal life is the main
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takeaway. I dislike movies whose messages I’ve heard before, but this type of life-affirming film is an exception. When my mom told me she liked Wim Wenders’s 1987 film “Wings of Desire” because it made her feel “happy to be alive,” that was the draw for me. In the film, an angel, Damien (Bruno Ganz, “The House that Jack Built”), gives up immortality to return to ordinary life, partly in order to be with the living woman he falls in love with, but also to experience “at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say, ‘now’ … and no longer ‘forever’ and ‘for eternity.’” In “Soul,” 22 watches a man and his daughter walk by on a sidewalk, the wind blow through a tree and a seed pod spiral to the ground — basic life things, but in this scene, they are enough to make her want to live. In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh, “Crazy Rich Asians”) realizes that life in her universe is worthwhile, despite being “meaningless” because of the love she has for her family.
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Baz Luhrmann tries to get you “all shook up” with ‘Elvis’ KARI ANDERSON Daily Arts Writer
When it comes to making a biopic, every production is going to take a different route. If you’re “Bohemian Rhapsody,” you’ll use the real-life voice of Freddie Mercury for songs played in the diegetic context of concerts or recordings. If you’re “Rocketman,” you treat the biopic more like a musical, with the life of Elton John framed around a series of his songs performed as elaborate musical numbers. And if you’re Baz Luhrmann (“The Great Gatsby”), a director known for his maximalist approach, directing a biopic about the life of Elvis Presley, well … you end up making it more like a fever dream. “Elvis” follows the titular Elvis Presley (Austin Butler, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) through his rise and fall (read: rise and death) as a musician through the eyes of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks, “Finch”). It’s a marathon of a
movie, taking you through multiple decades and through many different phases of Elvis’s life — from his early and provocative beginnings to his time in the army to his Las Vegas residency and everything in between — framed around his complex (and often contentious) relationship with the Colonel. It’s fitting that the beginning of Elvis and the Colonel’s management relationship starts at a carnival because the whole movie kind of feels like one, with flashing lights and the pace of a tilta-whirl. Like any film brought to the screen by any of the capital-D Directors we see today, “Elvis” is covered in Luhrmann’s fingerprints — from the ostentatious visuals to the extraordinary attention to the music. There’s certainly a lot to look at throughout the film: flashy periodspecific costumes and accessories, frenetic editing and scenes that focus primarily on creating a spectacle. “Elvis” also has an unusual soundtrack that combines period-specific music with more modern tunes, a feature that’s
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HUGH STEWART/Daily Austin Butler as Elvis in Warner Bros. Pictures’ drama “ELVIS,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
becoming one of Luhrmann’s signature touches. However, deliberate needle drops of Elvis songs and performances of blues tunes are overshadowed by odd music choices: dramatic strings playing over Elvis songs, bizarre inclusions of songs by modern-day artists (such as
a jarring Doja Cat addition), even an I-must’ve-heard-that-wrong hint of instrumentals from ’90s hits like “Toxic” and “Backstreet’s Back” hidden in a montage.
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STATEMENT
For Highland Park, Illinois, or Anytown, USA LILLY DICKMAN
Billy Joel to Bo Burnham: The evolution of our apocalypse anthem Design by Jennie Vang
Statement Associate Editor
The morning after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I awoke to the sound of rain. Instead of getting up to begin my day, I stayed in bed — a move foreign to my routine. I was sad and dejected, I lacked the motivation to leave the cocoon of my covers. So I lay and listened to the rain. I knew the universe was sad, too; its tears were rolling off my window. That night, I attended a Grateful Dead concert for the first time. I went with my friend and her dad, a Deadhead who was going to Wrigley Field, rain or shine, to hear them play. Music is one of my favorite things. I don’t listen to the Grateful Dead, but I appreciate all talented musicians. I was excited. I threw on some overalls and, of course, a raincoat, as it was projected to pour. On the ride to Wrigleyville, my friend’s dad passionately prepared me for the experience that awaited. He reviewed set lists from their recent shows. He narrated the Drums and Space section that would take place three-quarters through the concert so I’d know to take my seat for this part, and this part only. He described the myriad of people who’d line the streets outside of the stadium, tripping on molly and any other hallucinogen ever discovered or created. While his prepping helped me step into the right headspace and look like an old pro three-quarters through as I took my seat with the rest of the stadium, nothing could have prepared me for the moment the music started playing. I was transported to an alternate universe, a dimension I did not know. Conversations halted, reunions of Deadheads ceased, picture-taking ended. As if a spell had been cast over the stadium, everyone stood, singing and swaying in the rawest and purest expression of joy and contentment I had ever witnessed. Reality was on pause, and we were existing in a vacuum where only the sound produced by a few old guys and John Mayer could penetrate
Wednesday, July 20, 2022 — 3
Design by Jennie Vang
our brains. I, too, swayed with myself, confused at how quickly I had succumbed to this bizarre and cultish experience, but also at how natural and soothing it felt. I reeled in the genius of Mayer’s fingers plucking his guitar, Jeff Chimenti’s fingers pounding his keys and Bob Weir’s voice echoing through the stadium. Pure art. I watched the swaying sea of 50- and 60-year-olds in tie-dye. No fashion statements here — just pride in cotton rainbows cloaked over adult bodies. No phones in the air, either, videoing or taking pictures. As I listened, I pretended I was in the ’80s. I wondered if everyone around me was pretending this, too. That’s where we had been catapulted: the height of the Grateful Dead’s popularity, many of these people’s youths. I pretended there were no social media feeds to check or contribute to, no crushing news alerts to be attuned to. I pretended that Donald Trump had not been president. I pretended we were free to be you and me; that fringe was in and violence was out. I pretended there was no pandemic. No resulting market tanks. I pretended mass shootings weren’t something to fear in a crowd like this one. I pretended that we all had the right to an abortion. Swaying in the music, surrounded by the old ivied walls of Wrigley Field, smiles, lyrics, tie-dye and weed, the pretending worked. My raincoat went unused that night. Maybe the universe was pretending, too. It was joyous for
the night, like I was, its sadness temporarily dissipating, creating a dome of safety and freedom and happy reminisce. I wondered if the band members who had passed away, such as original lead vocalist Jerry Garcia staring down at this little haven they had left behind, were grateful they were dead. That they had gotten to exist in the era that they did, not the one now. I wondered if the 50- and 60-year-olds swaying in their tie-dye were grateful that their youth had died in the ’70s and ’80s. That their glory days took place in an era before mine. If I was them, I would be. Nine days later, my heart palpitated and my legs went weak as I opened the “Find My Friends” app to check my parents’ location to see if they were at the Highland Park Fourth of July Parade. They walk my dog there every year. To my relief, their location read as home. When I texted my mom in a frenzy, asking what she was doing, she told me she was riding her Peloton. I told her to get off — there was an active shooter on Central. I was at Dartmouth, visiting my twin sister. We sat on her bed, watching from her computer as the abandoned main street of our little hometown appeared on NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox. As the anchors I watch every day narrated the live events of the shooting and manhunt unfolding on the roads that I could drive on with my eyes closed.
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SAARTHAK JOHRI
Statement Correspondent
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times. – Bertolt Brecht, The Svendborg Poems My father and I watched a NOVA documentary when I was a child. It was a sobering experience, as it covered all of the possible ways that our civilization, the planet and the universe could end. After viewing it, I sat in silence with my dad before speaking up. “So, climate change and any other thing could end us. We can solve those and do like, things to prevent the random things like coronal mass ejections? The sun will eat the Earth in like, billions of years, so we’ll have to get off-planet first. Then the Big Rip or whatever, I guess we could try to escape to a different universe? Right, dad?” My dad just smiled at me. Let’s face it — it feels like the world will end tomorrow. The Doomsday Clock — a design used by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to visualize how close humanity is to its end — changed from two minutes to 100 seconds to midnight in 2020. I don’t think I need to repeat to you every possible reason that has been brought forward by every other article detailing how it feels like we’re in the
end times. Instead, let’s look at what solace is in one of humanity’s oldest pastimes — music. Probably the most famous song that tackles the feeling of impending doom is Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, a frantically-paced hit that chronicles world-shattering events from the late 1940s — when the Doomsday Clock was started — to around the song’s release in 1989. It insists that “we didn’t start the fire” of the flames consuming the world. Since its release, it’s been parodied and retrofitted to a variety of subcultures and every subsequent brush society has had with collapse. There’s another song that tackles the end times in a similar way and had its own time-specific lyrics replicated and personalized to other artists’ covers, ad infinitum. “That Funny Feeling” by comedian/musician Bo Burnham is part of a special (one that he created in a single room entirely by himself) documenting the degradation of the world and a person’s mental state over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic — a degradation that led to the Doomsday Clock’s shift. What’s extremely interesting is that “That Funny Feeling” is the polar opposite of Billy Joel’s hit in nearly every way. Aside from repetitive references towards current events, Burnham’s song is a much slower and simpler ballad.
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4 — Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Photos contributed by Jonathan Vaughn
Michigan in Color
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Michigan in Color
Wednesday, July 20, 2022 — 5
Jonathan Vaughn: a portrait of healing SARAH AKAABOUNE MiC Senior Editor
The following story contains potentially triggering accounts and mentions of sexual assault. The University of Michigan made Jonathan Vaughn a man. And being a man is a complicated matter because manhood is the sort of thing that takes just as much as it gives. It can be unrelenting and unreasonable, hard to understand and discern, hard to tame and forgive, while also being equally as fragile and painfully soft, fraught with grief and anger and love. And Vaughn knows love, more than anything else, because he is a Michigan Man. A Michigan Man is an everlasting title, it fights back, kicks back, yells back, it endures in life and death, in good health and sickness, it knows conscience and consequence, honesty and humility, and mostly, to be a Michigan Man is to know love. All kinds of love: tough love and mean love, in-your-face love, forever love and careful love and ugly love, but love all the same. And love matters to a man like Vaughn because he is a father, and there are people out in the world that know him only as Uncle Jon and nothing else. He’s the kind of person that tells you to keep the change and will save your place in line and will hold the door open for a million and one people all in one go. He’s the kind of person who keeps a bank he eternally fills with all acts of love, with big flashy love and small feisty love, so that the balance never falls below zero, stowed away somewhere deep within himself. And because Vaughn and thousands of other people are survivors of sexual assault at the hands of the late Dr. Robert Anderson, and when you are a victim of abuse, when you understand all the ways in which trauma can profoundly snap a body clean in half, all the ways it can make arms and legs and minds and selves come undone, love, keeping it and collecting it and living in it, becomes
of the utmost importance. Because oftentimes, love is the only thing we have left, and the only thing that can ever help us heal and recover. Vaughn was recruited to play for the University of Michigan football team as a running back in 1989, his senior year, from McCluer North High School in Florissant, Missouri, and even back then, it seemed clear he had always been destined to be an athlete. He thought like one, looked like one, fought like one. But it was at the University where he learned how to truly be an athlete, where he learned that it was a sense of being that lies in something far more than a derivation of the physical body, that it was not just quick reflexes, keen senses, a strong arm or too powerful a kick, but that it was a way of living, so much so, that in time, it became the only way of living. During our interviews, Vaughn speaks fondly about his time on the team, and at the University. It was a reprieve from Missouri, from his abusive father, from the small patch of dirt in the field behind his house where he played soccer every day, from where he learned violence and shame and what it meant to no longer feel safe in your own body for the first time. And evidently, the University of Michigan became home, was home, is still home, in the way that his mother was home or his brother was home or friends and fellow survivors Chuck Christian and Tad Deluca and
for Michigan football,” Vaughn later explained to me. To become known only through his sacrifice, through his practice and performance on the team became the very foundation of his identity. Game days at The University of Michigan were merciless and frigid, denying all basic forms of relief, prolonging an eternal state of discomfort. And if you spent long enough out there on that field with Vaughn, you’d know the turf would start to grate in an infuriatingly special way, the crowd would become so impossibly loud that your ears would hurt for days on end, your helmet and your shoulder and knee pads would become agonizingly heavy even when and where they never had been, sweat would leak into every insufferably small crevice, and that was simply the way things were and would always be because this was college football. And football, most particularly college football, was special in that it was meant to be played in a way that fractured the body into all kinds of pieces, that broke down the individual for the sake of one cohesive unit, because only those that endured, only those that stayed would be champions. And Vaughn chose to stay. Staying meant an eventual NFL draft, staying meant pursuing the education his mother had always wanted him to have, and eventually, staying also meant becoming a survivor of sexual abuse over and over at the doing of Dr. Robert Anderson. Anderson was hired in 1966 as a physician at University Health System (UHS). He was UHS director from 1968 to 1980 and transferred to the athletic department after resigning in 1981. Anderson was a practicing physician until 1999 and remained a faculty member at the University of Michigan until 2003. He died in 2008. Last May, an independent report released by law firm WilmerHale, also hired by the University, concluded a year-long investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Anderson and found that the hundreds of accusations against
The world cannot see love or the roaming, raging, reeling, tangled undefinable mess we carry that is our pain in John Doe, but it can in Jon Vaughn. Trinea Gonczar were home. Vaughn was the first in his lineage to be a part of a team in this way, to be a Michigan Man. He was “excited, proud and challenged to represent, it was a rite of passage, a privilege to play
him over a span of 37 years proved to be widely corroborated and credible. In practice, Anderson typically engaged in misconduct by carrying out intrusive procedures often “perceived as unnecessary, performed inappropriately, or both” in the name of meaningful and legitimate medical care, according to the report. Many of Anderson’s victims belonged to at-risk and disadvantaged populations, and thus,
entity and are principally aimed at prosecuting the University on behalf of all survivors of Anderson, allowing for a certain degree of privacy, and therefore, in legal proceedings, plaintiffs are commonly referred to as John and Jane Doe, respectively. Except for Vaughn. The night before Vaughn chose to go public with his involvement in the case, he spent hours pacing back and forth in front of his bathroom mirror, wringing his
“You can’t be a survivor if you’ve never been a victim, and you can never give testimony if you’ve never been given the test,” Vaughn explains. they were far less likely to report Anderson’s abuse. During his tenure at the athletic department, Anderson frequently targeted student-athletes like Vaughn, who often referred to Anderson as “Handy Andy,” “Dr. Handerson,” and “Dr. Drop Your Drawers Anderson.” In 1975, Thomas “Tad” Deluca, a former member of the wrestling team and survivor of Anderson’s abuse, wrote in a letter to his wrestling coach, Bill Johannesen, “something is wrong with Dr. Anderson. Regardless of what you were there for, he asks that you ‘drop your drawers’ and cough.” Deluca says he was kicked off the wrestling team and subsequently lost his scholarship a short time after. Additionally, the report found “no evidence that Mr. Johannesen looked into Mr. Deluca’s complaint about Dr. Anderson” and ultimately concluded that although the information individuals like Johannesen received “varied in directness and specificity, Dr. Anderson’s misconduct may have been detected earlier and brought to an end if they had considered, understood, investigated, or elevated what they heard.” In the years since Anderson was publicly named in allegations of sexual abuse, dozens of lawsuits were filed against the University in federal court, including two class action lawsuits. Class action lawsuits treat individuals as a unified
hands, braving wave after wave of panic attacks, his mouth dry, vision blurry, chest too tight, in pieces over whether it really was the right thing to do. For more than 30 years, Vaughn hadn’t thought about the University of Michigan. Vaughn never knew that Anderson’s invasive exams were assault and abuse, that they occurred without his consent, that they were direly unnecessary. “I didn’t even know what a prostate exam was at 18” he says, because at 18 years old, the only thing he ever did know was that his mother had waged a ruthless and merciless war with breast cancer and that he might just be next. And John Doe is a nameless, faceless, voiceless victim, the world knows nothing else other than this fact, it cannot see John Doe’s anger or fear, his clogged shower drains and unpaid bills, his family vacations and fights over the front seat, chipped glass and leaky faucets, his dented bumpers and dead grass, the world cannot see the mundane pins and needles, strains and everyday grievances that make us human in John Doe. The world cannot see love or the roaming, raging, reeling, tangled undefinable mess we carry that is our pain in John Doe, but it can in Jon Vaughn. And this was why Vaughn ultimately relinquished his anonymity.
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Opinion
6 — Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
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From The Daily: Now, more than ever, we need to stand up for abortion rights THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUMMER EDITORIAL BOARD *Content warning: rape, violence
T
he recent overturning of Roe v. Wade has left United States citizens shocked and undoubtedly angry, considering most Americans do not support the outlawing of abortion. Overturning Roe v. Wade means disaster for women across the country. As a result of the 6-3 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, the legality of abortions is now determined by each individual state, not by the federal government, rescinding a nearly 50-year-old federal legal right. As of early July, only a few states have directly banned abortions, but countless others seem to be pushing to restrict access to abortions. This abolition of a constitutional right puts the health, safety and even lives of millions of people with uteruses at risk. Specifically, women of Color and low-income women are most harmed by this recent Supreme Court ruling. Twenty-six states are likely to ban abortion, most of them in the South — where over half of Black Americans live. Because Black women are almost four times more likely to have the procedure done than white women, the impact of this ruling on them is even more unjust. Indigenous and Alaska Native women seeking abortions, especially those in rural or remote communities, will suffer compounded effects from reduced abortion access. Compared to white women, they are two to three times more likely to die in childbirth. Rearranging breakfast to replace traditional dinner, as well as making lunch replace traditional breakfast and dinner replace traditional lunch, would both radically improve human health as well as improve
our day-to-day routines. While offering the opportunity for the United States to finally have an unproblematic cultural tradition, rearranging the meals would cognitively and digestively benefit the American people. Now, those stacks of buttermilk pancakes with warm syrup and crispy bacon can be enjoyed as a delightful evening treat. Sophia Lehrbaum is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at lehrbaum@umich.edu. In addition to these racial inequities, abortion is and always has been a class issue. In states where abortion is outlawed, poor women will be forced to have children — no matter the circumstances leading up to their pregnancies — due to the financial resources traveling to another state requires. Those unable to travel might engage in unsafe abortions. A nationwide abortion ban is projected to increase the number of pregnancy-related deaths by 21%. America has decided to infringe on women’s rights, imprinting sexism within our legal code. These women who are denied abortions in their home states are also four times more likely to live below the federal poverty line, assuming they survive their potentially deadly pregnancies. When two people might be in the same situation with an unwanted pregnancy, wealth could be the deciding factor between life and death. Though the idea may seem farfetched, this decision could be the harbinger of a government overtly influenced by Christian beliefs. This is the first time a constitutional right has been taken away by the Supreme Court, and Justice Clarence Thomas stated in a concurring opinion that the Supreme Court should also reconsider other legal rights not explicitly stated in the Constitution. This includes Griswold v. Connecticut (the right to buy and
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use contraceptives), Lawrence v. Texas (the right to same-sex sexual activity) and Obergefell v. Hodges (the right to same-sex marriage). While the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision and Thomas’s seeming indifference to fundamental civil rights might seem shockingly barbaric, they come as no surprise after the last six years of American politics. By electing Trump into office in 2016, America doomed itself. Trump explicitly stated in the 2016 presidential debates that he would appoint multiple conservative Supreme Court justices in order to overturn Roe v. Wade — and that was just the beginning. Throughout his presidency, he leaned on proChristian, conservative rhetoric to build and sustain his political base, creating room within the American political sphere for more radical, conservative, religious ideologies to affect public policy. This rhetoric led to a set of policies that includes (but is not limited to) the Muslim travel ban, revoking rules that allowed transgender kids to use their preferred bathroom and privileging federal COVID aid to religious organizations over secular ones. Clearly, and as stated in the U.S. Constitution, America is prohibited from establishing a state-sponsored religion. But, with the passage of these archaic antiabortion laws, the line between Christian churches and the state is becoming dangerously blurred. While the overturning of Roe v. Wade has often been referred to as a women’s rights issue, the impact of this decision will be felt — in varying degrees — by transgender men, nonbinary people and cisgender men as well. This is a decision that affects us all, and we must respond to it in a way that reflects its severity and breadth.
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W
hile on a U-M Blue Bus bound for North Campus on a particularly pleasant day, I decided to enjoy the ride free of distraction. I put my AirPods away, cracked open the window and took in the breeze of the Huron River running parallel to me. My moment of meditation was cut short, however, by a group of students on the bus who had just been dismissed from an organic chemistry lab. After a normal discussion about titrations, the post-lab discussion write up and weekend plans, one of the students began recounting an experience they had at University Health Services that morning. “I bet she was just pretending to know how to use the stethoscope,” he said. “There’s no way a PA should be able to run an entire appointment. I’m telling you guys — our tuition money is being wasted.” After the student finished his tirade against the UHS physician
assistant who treated him for an ear infection a few hours before their lab, his fellow classmates began to chime in. “I just can’t believe we have to settle,” “there are no real doctors left in primary care” and “let’s boycott UHS,” were among the statements made. The students were quite a few rows ahead of me, but their disdain traveled throughout the whole bus with the shock-factor of a code blue alarm. Their blatant disregard for and disparaging attitude toward advanced practice providers such as nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) that serve a critical role at UHS horrified me. Those students’ words shed light on the crux of a big problem: the disintegration of respect for teambased healthcare. I, like the students on the bus, am a pre-medical student. I would hope that all future physicians choose a career in healthcare to be, at the core, a patient advocate. However, advocacy is never a oneman show.
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The dangers of the extreme concentration of political power in the Supreme Court ANNA TRUPIANO Opinion Columnist
I
n 1787, America’s Founding Fathers designed our government with three branches so that no single branch could overpower another. The Framers found great comfort in this structure, as it provided a safety blanket against governmental tyranny — something they very much feared due to their previous lack of representation in the British Parliament. In addition to this separation of powers, a meticulous system of checks and balances was put in place to allow the branches to “check” one another’s power. After nearly 250 years, this structure still stands today. Nonetheless, its well-thought nature fails to be flawless. For one, its design was intended to only benefit wealthy, white men. Furthermore, the judicial branch has proven itself to be excessively powerful throughout history and especially so recently,
with decisions like the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade. There are plenty of articles and newscasts out there to tell you all you need to know about the appalling loss of a woman’s or any person with an active uterus’s right to choose, a right to their body and a right to her or their privacy. To say this decision is devastating is an understatement — it is truly setting us back in time and progress. I could write an entire book-length rant for you, but my point today lies elsewhere: now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, it can and probably will mean additional reversals that further marginalize women, people of Color, members of the LGBTQ+ community and other groups of the like. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with a majority of justices arguing that a woman’s right to abortion is not guaranteed in the Constitution.
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Sports
Wednesday, July 20, 2022 — 7
BASEBALL
Michigan names Greenspan and Huntzinger as assistant coaches JAKE SINGER
Daily Sports Writer
Less than two weeks after Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel hired a new baseball coach in Tracy Smith, the Wolverines’ coaching staff is now complete with the hires of associate head coach Ben Greenspan and pitching coach Brock Huntzinger. Smith had a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time once he was named head coach on July 2, including convincing recruits to stay committed to Michigan, enticing current players to stay with the program and hiring assistant coaches to help accomplish those goals. And with the hiring of Greenspan and Huntzinger, he now has the staff in place to support him. Smith has deep ties with Greenspan, who served as head of recruiting for Arizona State while Smith was head coach. For the Sun Devils, Greenspan orchestrated top recruiting classes every year, including the No. 1 recruiting class in the country in 2016, No. 7 class in 2017, No. 4 class in 2018, No. 8 class in 2020 and No. 10 class in 2021.
BASEBALL
He then took his talents to Cal Poly for the 2021-22 season, when the Mustangs went 37-21 and ranked as high as No. 18 nationally. “We are thrilled to welcome Ben to the Michigan Baseball program,” Smith said in a statement. “In addition to being an outstanding coach, Ben has earned his reputation as one of the top recruiters in the country. He has been instrumental in attracting and developing top-10 recruiting classes to programs from the Midwest to the California coast.” Greenspan will be vital in the immediate future to convince recruits
to stay, to fill holes where recruits have already left and convince current players to stick with the program. Currently, players remain in the transfer portal and 11 recruits rescinded their commitments. In addition to Greenspan, the Wolverines have a new pitching coach in Huntzinger. As a former minor league pitcher, Huntzinger accumulated 10 years of professional experience as a player. He also has five years of experience as a coach. Drafted out of high school by the Red Sox in the third round of the 2007 Major League Baseball Draft,
Huntzinger spent seven seasons with the organization, reaching as high in the organization as Triple-A Pawtucket. After playing in two other professional leagues, he earned a spot with the Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics throughout his career. Just like Greenspan, Huntzinger has longstanding ties to Smith. After he hung up his cleats, he became the pitching coach for Smith at Arizona State for two seasons. Most recently, Huntzinger was the pitching coach for Boise State.
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“I am incredibly honored to come to Michigan in this role,” Huntzinger said in a statement. “It feels like I am coming back home. I am confident in my ability to leverage some of my experiences in order to positively impact a talented group of studentathletes at this great university.” Added Smith: “Brock has a phenomenal approach to the game of baseball, and we are fortunate to get him here to Michigan. Brock’s pitching acumen is surpassed only by his ability to connect with individuals of all backgrounds and personalities.” Huntzinger faces a tough task with the Wolverines’ pitching situation. Not only does he have to balance keeping current sophomore righthander Ahmad Harajli and senior left-hander Jack White with the program — both of whom are still in the transfer portal — but he also needs to strengthen a pitching staff that held a whopping 7.00 ERA last season. Those issues are significant, but the new hirings mean Michigan can turn to address them. As the Wolverines start to build their team for the 2023 season, Greenspan and Huntzinger will play prominent roles in those endeavors.
Clark Elliott drafted by the Oakland Athletics IAN PAYNE
Daily Sports Writer
Throughout the 2022 season, junior outfielder Clark Elliott proved what he was capable of at the top of the Wolverines’ lineup. That reputation is now paying off. Elliott’s name was called in the 2022 MLB Draft. As one of the Big Ten’s top baseball prospects, it was no surprise Elliott was the first Michigan player to hear his name called. Going No. 69 overall to the Oakland Athletics, Elliott offers a valuable contribution with his bat to the Athletics’ farm system. Elliott, who was already a top prospect heading into the 2022 season, exploded offensively in his junior season. He touted a .337 batting average, .460 on-base percentage and slugged .630 while leading the Wolverines in home runs, RBIs, walks and OPS. Elliott has proven what he can do in the batter’s box, and his dangerous combination of power, speed and
plate discipline positioned him as a valuable prospect. Whether at the plate or on the base paths, he places exorbitant pressure on the opposing pitcher. Defensively, in the outfield, his speed enables quick reflexes that facilitate some spectacular defensive plays. His impressive numbers are backed up by the eye test, with Elliott’s spectacular on-field performances drawing attention. Elliott helped lead the Wolverines to their Big Ten Tournament victory and was named Most Outstanding Player on the back of his six hits, seven RBIs and eight runs over five games. And his success stems from more than just individual performance. Elliott’s ability to be a team player has aided in his success both at a personal and team level. “My teammates here, they’ve been right by me for this whole entire journey,” Elliott said after being named Big Ten Tournament Most Outstanding Player. “That’s a team award. … The coaches and teammates have had my back since
the beginning.” Elliott’s combination of skills on the field and team first mentality that
comes from his experience and age make him a strong prospect. And clearly Oakland agreed, as it
will take a chance on the Michigan outfielder and see what he can do at the professional level.
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8 — Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ICE HOCKEY
GABBY CERITANO/Daily The Michigan hockey team has had a player picked in the NHL Draft for 27 years straight, including incoming freshman forward Rutger McGroarty.
Michigan’s 27-year draft streak fed by recruiting success CONNOR EAREGOOD
Summer Managing Sports Editor
For the Michigan hockey team, the success of last Thursday’s NHL Draft was something the Wolverines are accustomed to. With three players selected, a 27-year streak of at least one Michigan player being picked continued. It is tied with Boston College for the longest active streak in NCAA hockey. And that draft success stems from more than the Wolverines’ strength in developing top players once they arrive at Michigan. It’s also a product of its success in attracting highprofile contributors to begin with. “It’s not like you get drafted and all of a sudden there’s this magic dust on a player and he’s all of a sudden a different player because of where he got drafted,” Michigan associate head coach Bill Muckalt said. “That’s just the start of the journey. There’s still a long ways to go after that.” Michigan accounts for just one of many stops along a player’s hockey journey, and some of its recruiting targets have spent years polishing their games in the hopes of attracting NHL interest. Those skill sets attract plenty of attention, and the Wolverines aren’t the only ones vying for their services. In order to compete for that elite talent, programs need to show what sets them apart, and the Wolverines work tirelessly to do that. Michigan has to ensure its recruiting pitch convinces those players that coming to Ann Arbor is the right move for
their hockey careers. While the program’s success in advancing players to the professional ranks certainly aids in the Wolverines’ recruiting endeavors, it takes more than that to draw in future stars. For that, Michigan’s coaches rely on a variety of advantages the program can offer. From the University’s academic strength to an expansive alumni network across the hockey world, there are plenty of positives to draw in prospects when they view the program. But for many top recruits, getting to the NHL is the highest priority. That’s where the Wolverines commitment to developing pro talent brings an added bonus. “We really work hard at the development side of it,” Muckalt said. “… Promoting our players and helping them become the best version of themselves to get ready to play in the National Hockey League and have success in the National Hockey League.” Whether it’s the way practices are held or the way strength training prepares athletes for the ice, Michigan’s environment aims to ready players for the next level. While what that looks like has evolved over the past 27 years, the program has found ways to keep those goals at the front of its efforts. And as much as the Wolverines’ training system helps convince players to join their team, players also want to skate with the best teammates they can.
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