2022-11-02

DefeateD without Dignity

since 2019

TAUBMAN Daily

For all the talk of Michigan’s quest to reclaim the Paul Bunyan trophy and avenge last year’s defeat, the Spartans entered the Big House undaunted. Regardless of records or talent, the allure of hoisting the trophy and holding in-state bragging rights always brings out best efforts from each team.

On Saturday night, the Wolverines (8-0 overall, 5-0 Big Ten) took some punches from Michigan State (3-5, 1-4), but ultimately came out ahead, ensuring the trophy would reside in Ann Arbor for the next year with a 29-7 victory.

“Tremendous win,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said. “Great to have Paul back. Our players were locked in and focused the entire game.”

Celebrations, though, were dampened following the game when an ugly altercation broke out in the tunnel, with Harbaugh saying two of his players were “assaulted” — and footage corroborated his statement.

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel addressed the situation post game and said there would be a police investigation.

The fight, perhaps, was indicative of

game, they looked ready for a battle. After forcing a fumble on the Wolverines’ opening drive, Michigan State then claimed the game’s first touchdown, connecting on a deep ball to wide receiver Keon Coleman.

Michigan was knocked on its heels and trailed 7-3 at the end of the first quarter.

But it remained unfazed and conjured a counterpunch, putting together an 80 yard drive the following possession capped with a two-yard touchdown reception from junior running back Blake Corum.

The Wolverines found the red zone often in the first half. But winding up in the end zone proved much more elusive — as they settled for short field goals on two other possessions.

“We gotta score,” junior running back Blake Corum said. “I wanted to blow them out. And it should’ve been a blowout. But I’m not gonna make any excuses, we got to get better at the red zone. And we will.”

Michigan held a 13-7 lead into the locker room, firmly controlling the pace of play but leaving points on the board and the door open for Michigan State to hang around.

The Wolverines found themselves just 30 minutes from reclaiming Paul Bunyan.

inefficiencies made that achievement look a little less attainable.

Despite methodically moving the ball into the red zone on both third quarter possessions, and only punting once in the game, it settled for two more field goals with graduate kicker Jake Moody suddenly shouldering the offensive burden.

“We just got to finish,” sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “It’s back to back weeks where we can’t put the ball in the end zone so that’s gonna be a huge improvement for us. That’s gonna be a huge focus going forward, and we just got to get it done.”

Fortunately for the offense, Moody was up for the task, and his fifth field goal attempt in the early fourth quarter — this time from 54-yards — soared through the uprights once again to extend the lead to 22-7.

While Michigan wasn’t dominating, it still managed to slowly suffocate the Spartans. For every falter the offense had, the defense only grew stronger, stymying the Spartans over and over — and not even surrendering a first down in the second half until the fourth quarter.

“The key to the game was the way our

outstanding job by our defense.”

The Wolverines could nearly feel the high of a rivalry victory, but the floodgates weren’t truly open until, ironically, the game recreated one of the rivalry’s most dramatic moments. With 13:26 left, Michigan State’s punter had some “trouble with the snap” and Michigan pounced — tackling the punter and gaining possession at the Spartans’ eight-yard line.

This time, the red zone offense prevailed as Corum squeaked through the line for his second score of the day. From there, the rivalry morphed into a rout.

“We don’t talk, we just do,” Corum said. “(Michigan State) was talking. But you can only talk so much when you’re getting punished. It got quiet real quick.”

For 364 days, Michigan heard the chatter about what they failed to do in East Lansing, forced to live with the image of Paul Bunyan being hoisted by their rivals. But after sixty minutes of smothering football, and a refusal to wilt with the game seemingly in hand, the Wolverines finally found a way to maintain control.

And for the first time since 2019, Paul will spend the night in Ann Arbor.

resort to violence in tunnel following first rivalry

ugly altercation broke out in the tunnel, with harbaugh saying two of his players were “assaulteD”

anD footage corroborateD his statement.

Students value communication, trust as they meet Santa Ono after first week in office

University of British Columbia,

Stanford

From Ingalls Mall to beneath the shadow of Lurie Bell Tower on North Campus, University President Santa Ono traveled throughout campus Friday to meet community members and celebrate his first official week in office. After a formal interview with Ono Tuesday, The Michigan Daily shadowed the new president throughout his day, documenting some of his first interactions with students and their impressions.

This type of close interaction with campus community members is one Ono has promised since day one, having repeatedly expressed that his commitment to “being available” will inform his actions as president.

Prior to Friday, this action had mostly taken the form of meetings with groups such as the Faculty Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, campus unions and Central Student Government.

The day began bright and warm, with a walk from the Alexander G. Ruthven Building to Ingalls Mall for the first of two meet-and-greets hosted by the Office of Student Life. Before the event began, Ono made a quick stop at the University of Michigan Alumni Association Center, eagerly soaking up the sights of a new campus. Pausing to ask for directions, Ono remarked on his continued unfamiliarity with the city.

“I am like a freshman,” Ono quipped.

In the Alumni Center, Ono

Ann

stopped to admire the wall of notable U-M community members, pointing to figures such as Tom Brady, Sanjay Gupta and Gerald R. Ford. A lull passed as Ono stood framed by the unfinished display, with slots left open for future Wolverines who display excellence. Ono then turned his attention toward the event, the first interaction of many that will shape how Ono fits into the storied tapestry of the Leaders and Best.

At the event, Ono was met by the cheers of students and a rousing rendition of “The Victors” from the University of Michigan Pops Orchestra. Joined by Student Life staff, volunteers and Vice President of Student Life Martino Harmon, Ono immediately began chatting with students, asking about their semesters, their course loads, their hometowns and their adjustment to campus life after the lifting of COVID-19-related restrictions,

among other topics.

LSA junior Amanda Sachs, a volunteer at the Central Campus event, said she attended partially for a chance to meet Ono. This kind of opportunity at a highly populated University, she said, was rare.

“It’s awesome to have that connection,” Sachs said. “Previous presidents were involved … but I feel like (Ono is) actually trying to talk with us about our interests and get to know us on a deeper level, which I really appreciate.”

Emerging after the era of former University President Mark Schlissel — whose administration often faced criticism for a lack of consideration of student opinion on issues such as COVID-19 policies and tuition raises — a focus on student relationships has been a common hope among students for Ono’s leadership, from students on all three campuses.

At his previous institution, the

Ono received criticism for his administration’s handling of a number of issues similar to those in Ann Arbor, including tuition increases during the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual misconduct and a lack of financial transparency.

According to Ono in his first interview, the trajectory of his potential impact at the University of Michigan remains fluid, though. The administration has not announced formal plans, but Ono said in the interview that he intends to support existing initiatives aimed at addressing issues such as sexual assault and misconduct, DEI and climate change.

For U-M community members, the first three months of Ono’s relationship with the University have fostered an optimistic tone on campus, a sentiment reiterated by LSA sophomore Ella Mannino.

“It seems like Santa Ono really cares about what students think,” Mannino said. “It seems like he is going to actually try and communicate with students and that he will listen to them.”

Ono also mentioned his desire to communicate with students in his brief remarks at the event, after first apologizing to any students he was unable to speak to.

“If I haven’t been able to see you today, I will be around campus, and there will be other events as well,” Ono said. “But it really means a lot to me that you came out and I hope you are doing well.”

farmer Marc Boone retraces memories through orchard

stampede of pawpaw pickers had left no fruit unturned. All of the ripe fruit Boone had seen hanging on the lower branches of the tree was gone by the following Monday morning.

St. Thomas Lutheran Church sits at the corner of West Ellsworth and Haab Roads outside Ann Arbor, the bright white steeple standing in stark contrast to the freshly crimson and amber leaves. The church has been there since the 1870s when services were exclusively offered in German, according to a sign out front. Though that has since changed, the area around the church looks like a Midwestern wonderland that time forgot.

Just 12 miles outside the city center, wind blows over swaths of forgotten farmland, the husks of corn turned golden by the chill of late autumn. The same handful of residents walk up and down the dirt road all afternoon while the sporadic yelp of a lone dog breaks up the otherwise constant hum of insect wings.

It’s quaint, but for a couple of weekends in the fall, hundreds drive to Ellsworth from all over the Midwest to visit Ann Arbor native Marc Boone at his famous pawpaw orchard. The pawpaw — an enigmatic fruit commonly described

as tasting like a cross between a banana and a mango — is indigenous to the Midwest in addition to Southern Canada and the East Coast.

Unknown to most, the tropicaltasting fruit has quietly flourished in the U.S. since at least the 1500s. Still, it was not until 1987 that Boone started purposefully planting hundreds of pawpaw trees in Ann Arbor.

Boone now opens his orchard to the public when the pawpaws ripen in the fall, inviting the community to pick their own fruit. He said for some it’s become an annual tradition, and he often sees the same faces year after year.

“A lot of people who grew up where they had pawpaws come out just because they remember growing up in Eastern Kentucky or going out with their grandpa in the woods and picking pawpaws,” Boone said.

But it gets busier every fall, Boone told The Michigan Daily, with new people flocking to Ellsworth to sample America’s forgotten fruit.

This year, Boone saw more interest than ever before. Just during the first weekend in October, Boone said over 500 people stopped by the orchard, some coming from as far away as California. When the dust settled, however, Boone said the

“With 500 customers I was just overwhelmed,” Boone said. “I found one ripe pawpaw this morning, and I went through the whole orchard to find that.”

LSA senior Michael Wilson drove to Boone’s orchard to pick pawpaws later in October. Wilson said he had been wanting to try a pawpaw for years, so when he heard about Boone’s orchard from a friend, he knew he had to stop by. When he pulled up in front of the pawpaw patch, Wilson said the view didn’t disappoint.

“It’s crazy to me how large the orchard is,” Wilson said. “You’re just seeing these sort of tropical-looking fruit trees in the middle of Michigan.”

However, there were no ripe pawpaws on the trees for Wilson to taste, and as of Oct. 7, the patch has been closed to the public. Wilson said he had the chance to speak with Boone, who was able to scrounge up a singular pawpaw from earlier in the week.

PAIGE

NEWS

TO THE

tothedaily@michigandaily.com

EDITORIAL

opinion@michigandaily.com

Daily investigation finds allegations circulators misrepresented Republican-backed initiatives

SAMANTHA RICH

In spring 2022, Ann Arbor resident Susie Lorand was approached by a petition circulator at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. The circulator asked her to support a ballot initiative they allegedly claimed would reduce barriers to voting.

“The circulator said something to the effect of, (the petition) was going to make it easier to get an ID or driver’s license,” Lorand said in an interview with The Michigan Daily.

Lorand said while she normally reads petitions before signing them, she forgot to do so at first. She ran back to the petitioner after signing to read the ballot initiative’s description and realized she had signed a petition for Secure MI Vote, a GOP-backed ballot initiative aiming to increase restrictions on voting access. She crossed her name off the list.

“I signed it because I liked the (petitioner’s) description, … then I read it and then I thought, ‘oh, no, that was stupid,’” Lorand said. “Because the description did not accurately represent the petition that was being circulated … it was really deceptive overall.”

An investigation by The Daily revealed numerous allegations against petition circulators for two Republican-backed ballot initiatives of providing false or misleading information to voters in spring 2022. This investigation is based on interviews with seven residents of the Ann Arbor area, as well as a review of recent news coverage and numerous posts on local social media forums.

The Daily’s investigation found

instances of circulators for the Secure MI Vote and Let MI Kids Learn initiatives allegedly engaging in these misleading practices. Let MI Kids Learn, a Betsy Devos-backed ballot initiative, aims to establish a tax credit program to fund donations for student opportunity scholarship programs, which provide funding to students for educational expenses like books and extracurricular programs. Critics of this initiative have argued that it would divert taxpayer dollars from public school funds.

Supported by Michigan Republicans, these ballot initiatives have sparked controversy over their signature-gathering practices.

Fred Wszolek, spokesperson for Let MI Kids Learn, commented on these allegations in an email to The

Daily, saying that National Petition Management (NPM), the company the campaign hired to gather signatures, trained their circulators to provide specific information about the initiative.

“(National Petition Management) train their circulators and contractually require their circulators to learn and stick to a set of talking points that are provided by the campaign,” Wszolek wrote. “We’re confident that our team of petition circulators fairly represented the proposal … (ballot initiatives are) composed of thousands of words, so any interaction on a street corner with a petition circulator is going to involve ‘limited information.’”

Wszolek also included a list of approved talking points for the

initiative’s petitioners in his email to The Daily. The Daily’s investigation found allegations that petition circulators provided information not included in these talking points.

Secure MI Vote and NPM did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In the state of Michigan, there is currently no legal penalty against circulators who mislead or lie to voters while gathering petition signatures. Individuals who sign petitions under false pretenses also have no way of invalidating their signature if they later realize their mistake.

Political campaigns often work with signature gathering companies such as NPM and Advanced Micro Targeting (AMT) to outsource

petition circulation, and these companies often pay circulators on a per-signature basis.

According to campaign finance records, Let MI Kids Learn paid over $5.7 million to NPM for signature gathering services between April and July 2022. Secure MI Vote paid nearly $500,000 for consulting and signature gathering services to Advanced Micro Targeting between January and July 2022.

Both Secure MI Vote and Let MI Kids Learn missed the signature submission deadline to be included on the November ballot.

Bridge Michigan reported that the Secretary of State Office would treat Secure MI Vote as a measure intended for the 2024 ballot and review the signatures at a later date.

Past controversies engender suspicion

Since April 2022, numerous Ann Arbor area residents have shared accounts of petition circulators allegedly engaging in misleading signature gathering practices on online forums such as Reddit and Nextdoor. These posts are not the first time attention has been drawn to such issues surrounding Michigan ballot initiatives.

In September 2020, the Detroit Free Press reported that Unlock Michigan, a group petitioning to strip Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of her emergency powers, advised trainees to lie to voters to obtain signatures.

An unknown representative from an opposing organization, Keep Michigan Safe, recorded a video of an Unlock Michigan circulator training session and shared it with the Free Press. In the video, the Unlock Michigan trainer Erik Tisinger appears to instruct circulators to

provide incorrect or misleading information to voters.

“This can be a real shady job,” Tisinger said in the video. “And when I say shady, I mean, people do all sorts of illegal shit all the time and never get caught. It’s really hard to get caught doing shit except for, like, forgeries.”

Tisinger proceeded to tell circulators to leave their petitions with store clerks to collect signatures from customers, even though circulators must act as witnesses for all signatures. Tisinger also suggested that they provide misleading or incomplete testimony in the event they are deposed about whether they witnessed a signature.

Bridge Michigan reported that in January, Voters Not Politicians, a voting rights advocacy group, shared video footage in which a circulator for Secure MI Vote appears to attempt to deceive voters in order to obtain their signatures. According to Bridge, the circulator claimed the Secure MI Vote petition would require voters to present two forms of identification at the polls, while the proposed legislation’s actual ID requirements are more stringent. The Secure MI Vote initiative would require voters to provide a state ID and remove the option to sign an affidavit affirming their identity if they did not have the correct identification.

Jamie Roe, a spokesperson from Secure MI Vote, told Bridge he believed Voters Not Politicians was unfairly criticizing the circulators. Roe told Bridge he did not watch the video in question, but said it was possible the circulator was employed by Secure MI Vote.

Whitmer, Dixon meet for second gubernatorial debate at Oakland University

ANNA FIFELSKI & SAMANTHA RICH

News Editor &

Staff Reporter

An hour northeast of Ann Arbor, at Oakland University, incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Republican challenger Tudor Dixon met to defend their platforms in front of Michigan voters for the second and final time before the Nov. 8 election.

During the first debate, held at the WOOD-TV studio in Grand Rapids on Oct. 13, the two gubernatorial candidates discussed their approaches to hot topic issues like abortion, Proposal 3, gun control and public education.

Libertarian candidates for Congress, secretary of state and governor gathered outside to raise awareness for their campaigns

ANN ARBOR

and engage passersby about their platforms.

In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mary Buzuma highlighted her support for student opportunity scholarship programs and reducing government regulations on healthcare. She also said she feels the debate should have included third-party candidates like herself.

“You need more voices — and not just (in) politics, but in government, period,” Buzuma said. “Because if not, you’ve just got two groups that are just going to stay in their own echo chambers.”

The debate was moderated by Chuck Stokes, editorial and public affairs director of WXYZ, Elle Meyers, political reporter for Fox 47, and Doug Reardon, anchor and reporter for Fox 17. Candidates

answered questions submitted by Michigan residents ahead of time and addressed issues including inflation, abortion, taxes and education.

In her opening remarks, Whitmer stressed the importance of bipartisan collaboration and highlighted her legislative achievements in public education, supporting the auto industry and protecting reproductive rights.

“Tonight, I think you’ll hear a lot of divisive rhetoric and misinformation and focus on the past from my opponent,” Whitmer said. “I’ll try to stay focused on our shared future. I know that we have (a) real opportunity in front of us, but the big question is this: Are we going to go backwards or are we going to drive together in the future? I say ‘Let’s step on the accelerator.’”

After the debate, Dixon criticized

Whitmer’s emphasis on her record of bipartisan collaboration and claimed Whitmer has not met with every member of the state legislature. Dixon told The Daily that, if elected governor, she would increase communication with the state legislature.

“It’s interesting that she talks about that because there are actually legislators that she’s never met,” Dixon said. “I would sit down with our legislators and meet with them regularly.”

In her opening remarks, Dixon also criticized Whitmer’s approach to combating the COVID-19 pandemic and said she feels Whitmer has let Michiganders down on public safety, infrastructure and education.

“In 14 days, you can change course,” Dixon said. “You can put Michigan back on the right track. I’ve traveled the state and from

day one, I’ve been focused on my family-friendly plan for Michigan. Tonight, I’ll share that plan, and I hope to earn your vote on Nov. 8.”

Genesee County Jail hosts forum for six contenders in judicial races

future.

Ann Arbor Mayor: Incumbent Mayor Christopher Taylor will face off against Independent opponent Eric Lipson. Taylor has served as Ann Arbor’s mayor since 2014 and is seeking his second reelection bill following Ann Arbor City Council’s decision to extend the mayoral term to four years in 2018.

In addition to his duties as mayor, Taylor is a local corporate and commercial attorney practicing at Ann Arbor-based law firm Hooper Hathaway.

Taylor’s tenure as Mayor has centered around pedestrianfriendly infrastructure, highdensity housing and Ann Arbor’s A2Zero goal. If elected, Taylor’s third term will focus on enhancing quality of life and basic services such as public safety, road conditions and equitable living.

Lipson announced his campaign in September after the primary elections in which

Taylor won the Democratic against former Ward 1 Councilmember Anne Bannister.

While Lipson has never served as an elected public official, he has previously advocated for environmental causes at the state and local levels.

Lipson is an attorney and has worked at several nonprofit organizations. Lipson’s background in environmental justice and sustainability is echoed in his platform’s goals to promote A2Zero and address other Ann Arbor environmental concerns.

Lipson’s platform also focuses on advancing affordable housing and living for all income levels and advocates for continued support of current environmental initiatives. In addition to Lipson’s goal to improve city services, he has proposed nonpartisan city elections, a proposal Mayor Taylor has previously vetoed twice on City Council.

Ann Arbor City Council

All of the city council members will run unopposed with the exception of Ward 5

where Jenn Cornell will face Jonathan Hoard.

JI HOON CHOI Daily Staff Reporter SHANNON STOCKING

Ward 1: Cynthia Harrison, a lifelong resident of Ann Arbor and program manager at the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living, is running uncontested for a spot alongside current Councilmember Lisa Disch, D-Ward 1, following the election.

Harrison’s platform focuses heavily on mental healthdriven criminal legal reform, accessible transportation and the development of affordable housing. If elected, Harrison will be the first Black woman to serve on city council in over 15 years.

During the August primaries, Harrison defeated Angeline Smith with 71% of the vote.

Ward 2: Chris Watson, born and raised in Ann Arbor, is running uncontested following outgoing Councilmember Kathy Griswold’s, D-Ward 2, decision to step down after Watson’s campaign announcement. Following the election, he will serve beside Councilmember Linh Song, D-Ward 2.

more at MichiganDaily.com

On Monday afternoon, the Genesee County Jail hosted a hybrid forum in Flint, Mich. for six candidates campaigning for the Michigan Supreme Court, Appeals Court and the 7th Circuit Court of Genesee County. The event was hosted by Genesee County Sheriff Christopher Swanson, Genesee County Ambassadors, Nation Outside and Voting Access for All Coalition (VAAC).

The VAAC is an organization aiming to help Michigan residents learn about their right to vote. This forum was also part of the Genesee County Jail’s Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally through Education (IGNITE) program that is designed to provide high school level education and post-incarceration work opportunities for incarcerated individuals. Before officially starting the forum, Swanson talked about the importance of the forum to the upcoming elections and to IGNITE’s voter education section.

“We want people to understand who they’re voting for, who they want to represent them,” Swanson said. “We’re here to educate people, and those of you watching online I encourage you to

educate yourself to watch the candidates and how they respond to the questions because these are the people that are going to represent you.”

The forum began with introductions for the candidates for the Michigan Supreme Court present at the forum.

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the state and consists of seven judges.

The first speakers were Justice Richard Bernstein and attorney Kyra Harris Bolden. Bernstein is seeking reelection inw the Nov. 8 election. He emphasized how an individual’s background and experiences with challenges are important to take into account when reviewing a case.

“It’s ultimately through our life experiences that we come to understand struggling, to understand hardship,” Bernstein said. “Ultimately, it is only those judges who truly understand what it means to face, understand and appreciate what it means to struggle (and) that have an empathy … to those who come before them.”

Bolden echoed Bernstein, reminding voters that the decisions of the Michigan Supreme Court will set judicial precedents in the state for years to come.

She encouraged voters to choose people they trust to make judgements that will impact voters both today and in the

“The Michigan Supreme Court doesn’t just affect people in this room today, it will affect generations to come,” Bolden said.

The forum then moved on to speak with several candidates for the Michigan Court of Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court which hears cases between trial courts before they arrive at the Michigan Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals is divided into four regional districts and voters will have the opportunity to elect new members this November. Sima Patel, who was appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in February, an incumbent candidate for the Second District Court of Appeals, was present at the event and is the first woman of Indian descent to be a judge for the Michigan Court of Appeals. Patel said having diverse perspectives on the bench is integral for the court be representative of its constituents.

“I am the first Indian woman to ever sit on the Michigan Court of Appeals, I am one of a couple of judges who have ever had a civil rights experience,” Patel said. “I believe that no matter who you are, what your walk of life is, you deserve to have access to justice.”

members describe misleading pitches, growing mistrust in signature gathering

Candidates make final pitches to voters, highlighting stances on abortion and public education

Design by Evelyne Lee

at

JULIANNE YOON/Daily JULIANNE YOON/Daily

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks with the media after the second Gubernatorial Debate at Oakland University Tuesday evening.

Republican nominee Tudor Dixon responds to questions after the second Gubernatorial Debate at Oakland University Tuesday evening.

Survivors’, University attorneys spar over liability, fraud claims in summary disposition hearing

The summary disposition for the civil lawsuit against former University of Michigan lecturer Bruce Conforth was held in Detroit on Wednesday. The lawsuit, which was filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, names the University, the Board of Regents and Conforth as defendants. The plaintiffs, who are eight survivors of Conforth’s sexual assault, allege that the University is liable for the abuse.

The summary judgment hearing was held on a motion from the defendants to dismiss the case against the University and the Board of Regents.

In January, the survivors first took legal action by filing a complaint with the Washtenaw County Circuit Court, alleging that the University failed to protect its students from a predatory University employee. Sexual assault allegations against Conforth, a former American culture lecturer, first publicly surfaced in 2021, four years after his retirement in 2017.

Brian Schwartz, the attorney

representing the defendants, argued for the dismissal of complaints filed against the University. The center of Schwartz’s argument was against the fraudulent concealment claims brought by the plaintiffs who allege that the University intentionally failed to disclose previous assault allegations against Conforth to prevent future cases. Schwartz said no fraudulent concealment was committed by the University

because the victims would have known that they were assaulted as soon as the assault occurred.

“There is no (concealment) because plaintiffs knew they were abused by Bruce Conforth when they described those allegations,” Schwartz said. “They had everything they knew to file that claim the instant it happened.”

Schwartz said the University was not liable for a lack of action taken against Conforth because

only three of the victims reported to the University prior to the lawsuit and thus failed to provide proper notice.

“It’s an element of (the plaintiffs’) claim, they have to prove that they provided notice to the University and the University failed to take responsive action,” Schwartz said. “If they don’t provide notice to the University … the University is not going to be liable.”

Daniel Barnett, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, countered by saying victims are not always immediately aware that they have been assaulted. Barnett cited a previous ruling by Judge Timothy Connors in a suit filed with the Washtenaw County Circuit Court that denied the defendants’ motion for summary disposition. Barnett also cited prior knowledge that Conforth would send anonymous emails to female students encouraging them to engage with Conforth’s sexual advances.

“(The plaintiffs) knew that they had sexual relations with Bruce Conforth, they didn’t know they were sexually assaulted,” Barnett said. “What Judge Conners held

NEWS

is, it doesn’t seem like (plaintiffs) knew they were sexually assaulted, because they didn’t know that it was defendant Conforth forcing them to go have sex with himself as part of this religious organization under threat of harm.”

Schwartz said he believed the claims against the University in the Court of Claims should be dismissed.

“We believe all the claims should be dismissed,” Schwartz said. “(Plaintiffs) can proceed with their claims in front of Judge Connors … but we believe the claims against the University should be dismissed.”

Conforth survivor and plaintiff Isabelle Brourman spoke with The Michigan Daily following the hearing and said she was disheartened by the defendants’ claims that the University was not liable for Conforth abusing students, citing the “Last Chance” agreement in which the University had outlined requirements for Conforth in order to avoid being terminated.

“The thing that I’m not surprised about but most disappointed in is the University’s argument that

they are not tied to Conforth’s actions even though they did know of prior assault (allegations) against him and even though they did issue a Last Chance agreement, which concedes that they did know that he was a dangerous character,” Brourman said. “I’m hoping that that foreseeability is strong enough to carry us successfully with the judge.”

Jon Vaughn, survivor of former athletics doctor Robert Anderson and former U-M football player, was also in attendance at the hearing. In an interview with The Daily, Vaughn said the University has a pattern of protecting perpetrators.

“If you look at (the University’s) history of leadership, at the Board of Regents’, as well as the presidents’, they continually speak about and announce all of the programs that they say have been put in place to empower survivors to come forth to speak out,” Vaughn said. “But it’s a black hole. There’s usually no progress, and you have to then … fight an uphill battle.”

In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen said the University will wait for a ruling.

All students who wish to major in computer science at the University of Michigan must now submit a major-specific application, according to a new policy from the University of Michigan’s Computer Science and Engineering Department.

Prior to the policy, which will go into effect during the fall 2023 admissions cycle, any undergraduate student at the University could declare a CS major given they had completed the prerequisite courses. The policy does not impact students who wish to enroll in the CS minor.

The CSE Enrollment and Admission Team was created in 2021 and consisted of engineering faculty and staff members. The team proposed the new policy as a part of the College of Engineering’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Action Plan to design an admissions model that balances needs to control enrollment and increase diversity in the major.

The Enrollment and Admissions Team is co-chaired by engineering professor Brian Noble and Donna Bender, Director of Strategic Initiatives. CSE chair Michael Wellman, said the changes were prompted by high student demand for computer science courses relative to classroom capacity.

“For the past decade or more, maybe even 15 years, there’s been a steady and very steep growth in student demand for (the CSE) major,” Wellman said. “We have been working hard to grow our capacity to meet that demand. It’s been a struggle at times, and we finally realized that we are unable to stay ahead of this continuing explosive growth in demand.”

Nationally, student demand for enrolling in computer science majors has tripled between 2006 and 2015. The University of Michigan’s computer science major has seen its enrollment nearly quadruple since 2010 for undergraduate students in both LSA and COE. Other universities, such as the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have had similar issues meeting high demand for computer science courses among students, resulting in limited enrollment and restrictions for those students.

Wellman said his team sought out multiple solutions before they settled on the new restrictions.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that this is really a last resort kind of action,” Wellman said. “As I mentioned, our faculty would very much prefer to serve anyone who’s interested in computer science. We explore(d) because we are very late to this game. Many of our peer institutions already have had…

restrictions on CS enrollments (for some time), and we reluctantly concluded that this was necessary for us as well.”

In a Piazza post, Westley Weimer, CSE DEI Committee Chair, explained some of the considerations that lead to restricting enrollment. The Piazza post was public to the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 481 Piazza forum as a personal opinion of Weimer’s in response to the policy.

“There is very high demand for the service of ‘taking this CS class,’ and it is challenging for us to supply more of it (i.e., to offer more seats),” Weimer wrote. “I’m not going to claim CSE’s decisionmaking process is perfect, but compared to some well-publicized ‘hasty’ actions CSE has taken, this one really did involve a huge amount of thought, deliberation and discussion.”

Engineering junior Hassan Kadiri reflected on the struggles he faced due to high enrollment when he was taking EECS 280 and EECS 281.

“Based on what I remember, it was a lot of students because I remember when we were submitting different projects to the autograder, sometimes we would get flooded in with 200 (or) 300 students at a time trying to submit projects,” Kadiri said. “I took those classes my freshman year, so you can imagine that there’s a lot more CS students now.”

Kadiri said he thinks the policy will have an impact on diversity in the CS major.

“If you don’t have CS experience, you’re probably not going to major or have the chance to major in CS,” Kadiri said. “And even if you do, it’s going to be a lot more competitive in nature. So I feel like this (policy) would impact (diversity) on that end, at least.”

Diversity in Computer Science

On average, women are less likely to pursue computer science courses than men in high school and at the undergraduate level in the United States. While the enrollment for women is much lower than for men in the computer science program at the University, the enrollment for women has increased from 2020 to 2021. A CSE DEI report found that during the 2021 academic year, of students enrolled in the beginning of introductory computer science courses (EECS 183, EECS 101, ENGR 151), 59.76% were men and 39.45% were women. However, by the time the cohort reached the end of EECS 376 that year, it was reported that 67.89% of the enrolled students were men and 31.41% were women.

Wellman addressed concerns about the impact the new admissions policy could have on diversity, saying the new enrollment policies will ensure students from various backgrounds

have the opportunity to pursue computer science at the University.

RACHEL MINTZ Daily News Reporter NIRALI PATEL Daily Staff Reporter

“It’s no secret that the field of computer science currently faces significant challenges with diversity,” Wellman said. “Many are put off from considering computer science based on their earlier perceptions of the major and of the topic and their impression that succeeding in the major requires extensive prior experience. Our new enrollment policies are designed to ensure that there’s an access for students from a range of experience backgrounds, and who come to computer science based on a variety of interests and motivations.”

Wellman said the policy will have a positive effect on the diversity of those who pursue a computer science degree.

“I think it will have a positive effect on diversity mainly because of this way that we’re making room for those who merely discover CS,” Wellman said. “I also want to stress that we consider anybody who was accepted to engineering or LSA.”

LSA senior Mitchell Kuppersmith, an instructional aide for an upper level computer science course, described the similarities between the new policy and those at other universities and reflected on his opportunity to pursue computer science at the University. He said he initially thought there would be less accessibility for computer science education for students.

“Coming to Michigan was my only chance to really do computer science,” Kuppersmith said. “I … worry that other people who apply to these programs have to apply to a major. That immediately makes things more competitive and cuts off access to people who wouldn’t have experience in this field. And even as somebody who has experience in this field, I just don’t think that’s a fair thing to do since it drastically reduces people’s ability to explore different majors.”

Kuppersmith said while the general reasoning from the computer science department to restrict the major was to serve computer science majors, but the restrictions will not limit enrollment in the most full courses.

“But if you look at the enrollment for computer science classes, the most crowded classes are the intro classes, and the intro classes aren’t going to have any restrictions on who can take them,” Kuppersmith said. “These are the classes where the kind of people who are just getting into computer science are going to struggle the most, (so) I feel as though the restriction on the major’s really pointless because anybody who’s trying to get in without experience is just going to like suffer from a lack of help there.”

Around 170 students, faculty and staff gathered in the Robertson Auditorium at the Ross School of Business Wednesday evening for the event “Forging a Career at the Heart of the Climate Challenge: Perspectives from the Front Lines” with Gerry Anderson, former chairman and CEO of DTE Energy. Some members of the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor communities attended the event in protest of Anderson’s tenure as CEO.

The event, which was hosted by Net Impact Undergrad, consisted of a 50-minute presentation by Anderson about his journey from an undergraduate engineering and physics student to working with DTE to promote renewable energy usage.

Business junior Trevor Wallace, vice president of sustainability for Net Impact Undergrad, said this talk is the largest event the student organization has put on this semester. Wallace spoke about the reasoning behind this discussion with Gerry Anderson.

“I think that overall we really want to be able to foster an open dialogue,” Wallace said. “This sort of event really gives us a unique perspective and (gives us an opportunity to) talk to someone

who has a lot of knowledge in energy space. I think it’s a good way to foster communication between what sustainable efforts are and how we can do that

work with a corporation like DTE Energy when he was entering the workforce.

“(I wanted) to make my career focus on promoting the health

SHANBOM

Michigan Medicine announced Thursday that the health data of approximately 33,850 patients was exposed through compromised employee emails during a cyber attack in August. The attack lasted from Aug. 15 to Aug. 23 at which point Michigan Medicine discovered the breach.

The cyber attack took place through a phishing scam, during which a cyber attacker prompted users to fill out their Michigan Medicine login information in a fake webpage. According to the Michigan Medicine press release, four Michigan Medicine employees entered their information into this faulty webpage, allowing the attackers to access the Michigan Medicine database.

Jeanne Strickland, Michigan Medicine chief compliance officer, emphasized that Michigan Medicine understands the gravity of the incident and will work to prevent the situation in the future.

through this event.”

The event was co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Business+Impact at Michigan Ross, Vertex Coffee Roasters and the BBA Council.

Anderson began by speaking about his education background at the Business School and his experience working as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. As he discussed his passion for sustainability and nature, Anderson said he never would have thought he would

of the natural world,” Anderson said. “I … began to think that my best chance to change the energy system perhaps was from within it, right at the very heart of an operation like DTE’s.”

Following Anderson’s discussion of his experience, seven protesters took the stage, standing behind Anderson and holding signs that said “No to Fossil Fuel,” “58% Coal No Thx” and “People Not Profit.”

“Patient privacy is extremely important to us, and we take this matter very seriously,” Strickland said. “Michigan Medicine took steps immediately to investigate this matter and is implementing additional safeguards to reduce risk to our patients and help prevent recurrence.”

The breached emails contained identifiable patient information, including name, medical record number, address, date of birth, diagnostic and treatment information and health insurance information. No information included credit card, debit card or bank account numbers. One patient received notice since their Social Security Number was involved. According to the release, the specific information varied from patient to patient, but all emails were jobrelated communications necessary for patient care.

The release states that once Michigan Medicine learned about the breach, all subject accounts were disabled and passwords were changed. Any patients who were affected will be notified by

letter, and notices were mailed to affected patients starting Oct. 19 and completed on Oct. 26.

According to the release, Michigan Medicine trains employees on risks involving cyberattacks, including sending simulated phishing emails as a way to educate staff on how to recognize and report phishing.

The employees involved in the breach had all participated in similar training exercises and are currently subject to disciplinary action based on Michigan Medicine policies and procedures. The release did not indicate what disciplinary actions will be taking place.

Though the release indicates that Michigan Medicine does not believe the accounts were breached with the intention of obtaining patient information, Michigan Medicine is encouraging all clients to monitor their accounts and their medical insurance statements. Patients concerned about the breach can reach out to Michigan Medicine at the assistance line between 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. from Monday through Friday, with the exception of holidays.

Eight women filed suit against Regents, former ‘U’ american culture lecturer Bruce Conforth over sexual assault allegations

Looking to join Computer Science? Expect new application process aimed at reining in enrollment EECS program overwhelmed by rapidly rising demand, chair calls new process a “last resort”

patients affected by data breach

disabled,

should monitor their personal information

Jon Vaughn and Plaintiff Isabelle Brourman

summary

hearing for the

suit against Bruce Conforth and the University

Michigan

actions

sexual misconduct Wednesday morning.

Former CEO of DTE speaks on career, renewable energy as protestors express disapproval Gary Anderson faces jeers during discussion on job searching amid climate change

ALI CHAMI/Daily

DTE Energy Former Chairman and CEO Gary Anderson speaks at the Ross School of Business in front of protestors from Ann Arbor public power organizers and supporters Wednesday night.

THE B-SIDE The Monster

EMILIA FERRANTE Senior Arts Editor

Monsters are borne out of our deepest fears and anxieties; they’re reflections of ourselves, as individuals and as members of society. From killer clowns to vampires to poltergeists, we all have a monster that scares us more than most. At this time of year — when, in myth, the veil between our world and the spirits’ is said to be thinner than it usually is — monsters are on our mind more than ever. They haunt our Spirit Halloweens, our dark closets, our basement stairs and our

midnights. They remind us that the sanity of the world we live in is tenuous at best and that the things lurking in the shadows are never quite as far away as we think. If I ask you to picture a monster, what comes to mind? A Victorian ghost, a decrepit zombie, a purple thing that lives under your bed? Or maybe, like the writers for this B-Side, you think of Coraline’s other mother, Cookie Monster, Mike and Sully, Carmilla or even a house itself. Monsters are not a monolith; neither are our feelings about them. This B-Side explores our monsters, in all their scary, inspiring, erotic, out-of-this world glory.

Fighting off the monsters of adulthood with ‘New Girl’

KAYA GINSKY Daily Arts Writer

The scariest TV episode is not one of monsters or horror, it’s one of fallen heroes and hilarious sitcoms: Season 3, Episode 6 of “New Girl,” “Keaton.”

In “Keaton,” loveable egomaniac Schmidt (Max Greenfield, “Veronica Mars”) grapples with the loss of two girlfriends by finding solace in cold cuts and mayo straight from the jar, as his roommates tiptoe around him to prepare for a Halloween party.

crying, too — this time from sadness. Schmidt’s hilarious fall from grace (if grace here is adult male delusion) reminds us of the loss of our childhood.

ERIN EVANS Senior Arts Editor

There is probably no fear that has plagued me as intensely or for as long as my fear of the “other mother” in “Coraline.”

This stop-motion animated character from the 2009 children’s film has hands resembling metal spiders with knitting-needle fingers and a face that is, at first, loving (except for its button eyes), but transforms into something altogether inhuman. She was the monster I feared was sitting behind me or just around the corner from ages 10 to 12. If I wanted to test my emotional stability, I would type the movie’s title into my iPod Touch. Just seeing Coraline herself, who is not remotely scary, sent a jolt of fear through my body by association.

The “other mother” — also called the beldam — begins as a fulfillment of Coraline’s fantasy: a doting parent in an alternate reality who gives her all the attention and gifts and, it seems, love that she desires while her real parents are distracted by work and moving into their new house. But the fantasy sours as the mother reveals herself as a monster bent on permanently trapping Coraline and stealing her soul. Not only was her love a facade, but her humanness was as well.

This evil mother figure did something monsters from stories rarely do: She crawled out of the movie and became a monster in my own life. I had once felt safe walking home from my neighbor’s house at night when my parents and sister were with me. “Coraline” erased this sense of security. I stood next to my mom and couldn’t shake the image of spindly arms erupting from her body as her skin slipped off and she became a beldam. I pictured this happening with everyone around me. I thought I was with other people, but what if I was actually alone?

There are some things that are (at least supposed to be) universally “safe.” Mothers are

one. Blankets are another. They are not just safe by default but are often the safety we turn to when scared. When a story questions the safety of these things, it strips away a viewer or reader’s sense of security in a way monsters with only dark associations cannot. A few years after watching “Coraline,” when my fear had finally faded, my dad read me a story by M. R. James in which the protagonist’s sheets and blankets become a monster that attacks him in the night. I couldn’t even look at my bed for the next hour, my rumpled comforter (ironic name for it in this context) sending bolts of fear down my spine. I paced up and down my hall, unsure where to go to feel safe from the story.

My fear of my blanket didn’t last, though. I fell asleep that night without issue. Something else had kept my fear of the beldam alive and well years after the details of her face and the plot of the movie had begun to atrophy in my memory. The fear persisted. The thought of someone I relied on — of everyone around me — turning into a non-human and leaving me alone was insurmountable. I had no plan of action in this scenario — not like I did in other imagined face-offs with monsters and dire circumstances. If the people around me were not human, there was nothing I could do to face them.

We question other people’s humanness often. I’ve had many “I have no way of knowing that everyone around me isn’t a simulation and I’m the only real person” conversations with friends and family members growing up, as I’m sure most of us have. It was always a frustrating conversation as we tried to assure each other that we were real, but it wasn’t scary. We were safe from the consequences of being the only real human because we had no way of knowing. As long as it seemed like we were surrounded by other people, we might as well have been.

Schmidt faced his first loss of love after his father left him at a fragile 10 years old. To combat his subsequent tear-ridden, chocolate-covered hopelessness, his mother (Nora Dunn, “The Nanny”) wrote him a letter and masked as his childhood idol: Michael Keaton (“Batman”). Schmidt wrote Keaton to get through every embarrassing, traumatic pitfall of his childhood and his mother, as Keaton, wrote back. The pen pal empowered Schmidt, providing fatherly advice to face his worst traumas and humiliations. When Schmidt left for college, his roommate Nick (Jake Johnson, “Let’s Be Cops”) took over as Keaton, this time with a fake email. Schmidt adhered to every word of guidance.

As 29-year-old Schmidt falls back into a deep deli-meat-feast depression, quirky roommate Jess (Zooey Deschanel, “500 Days of Summer”) attempts to take over the Keaton persona/email to expel a faltering Schmidt from the apartment Halloween party. The ploy quickly unravels, and Keaton is unmasked.

When Schmidt (in a tie and lizard suit, dressed as a “public serpent”) realizes that he told his mother about his public erections (thinking he was telling Keaton), we might laugh until we cry. Looking inward, we might start

Heroes are monsters’ foils. Batman fights all evil in the city and, with it, all the fears that stand in our way. Our favorite heroes fight monsters alongside us, inspiring us every step of the way. Without knowing our idols’ real past, we can imagine them facing growing pains, persevering and reaching success. We can choose to be brave and ignore the scary things that hide in the dark because that is what heroes do. We can make up improbable storylines and frame our mortifying issues in fictional contexts (an ill-fated high school homecoming, for example, can be Cinderella’s ball). Heroes keep us hopeful, excited and wide-eyed to the wonders of our potential hero-like future. They provide a necessary constant.

As kids, our list of role models is expansive: favorite artists of every modality, superheroes, silly cartoon characters and even local fire and rescue squads. As scared little kids, heroes are the antidote to the monsters of reality. It is no wonder that we are bravest on Halloween. We don a hero’s mask and run into haunted houses. We become perfect symbols of our dreams.

As we grow up, our Keatons, real or fictional, lose their magic. We discover Taylor Swift has a Yeti-like carbon footprint, the Marvel Multiverse is not real (at least in this universe) and Barbie is just a doll. Spider-Man is Peter Parker is Tom Holland. Batman is Bruce Wayne is Michael Keaton is Schmidt’s mom.

Keaton was the perfect childhood idol because he was only a symbol, a distant penpal and television hero with a perfectly-crafted brave and relatable false identity. When we realize our idol is fictional (or

merely human), having one feels childish. We no longer dress up as heroes for Halloween, instead choosing whatever looks cutest. We pick a parent, sibling or teacher as a role model. As Nick puts it, real heroes “are never who we want them to be.”

But we do not expel our fears or monsters with age; instead, we internalize them. Our skewed self-image, cynicism, malaise and general disappointment make the world seem scary and like it’s out to get us. We fear that after one failed relationship, our love life will be a horror story. We fear that one failed test is the end of our academic careers.

Monsters appear not just in the dark of our childhood bedroom, but in the hidden corners of our anxious minds. Like Schmidt, we often curl up in our chosen (occasionally toxic) comforts, rather than confront our fears with a headstrong confidence.

Maintaining a fictional or fictionalized idol may stop us from dwelling on our daily monsters: deadlines, injuries, failures, setbacks, humiliating hits to our self-image and pressures from those closest to us.

Imperfect and familiar role models — parents, siblings and professors — can disappoint us or crush our self-image. If their standards are unattainable, we fall into hopelessness. If we watch our role models with their monsters up close, we can no longer view them as a pillar of strength, and we fear that similar (or worse) monsters may befall us. It is impossible to idolize those we truly know, even if we love them.

Typically, kids do not get direct contact with their idols; that is what makes them perfect. Schmidt kept Keaton at a safe distance from an email or letter, allowing Keaton to remain a superhuman pillar of strength. If our distant idols are flawed, like Taylor Swift, it is often part of an

inspiring or relatable story, not a disappointment.

Celebrities can provide a perfect hero when we are young and unaware, but when they are exposed as real people (or as our mom and roommates), all of the magic fades away. Humans cannot be vehicles for our anxieties, hopes and dreams. Real people are flawed and cannot be put on a hero-like pedestal. But a song, show or piece of art that inspires us, or an origin story that makes us feel understood, can still empower us through adulthood.

My childhood dreams led me to a long and strange list of living, deceased and fictional media idols.

I saw a future of love, friendships and hundreds of dream jobs. I romanticized a childhood of small heartbreaks and setbacks and followed my idols’ footsteps as I found my footing in the scary world.

Even as Jess dons a child-size Batman costume to meet Schmidt and convince him to leave the apartment, Schmidt holds that his pen pal was Keaton all along.

“How dare you hack into the email account of one of our nation’s finest actors!” Schmidt cries. Nick and Jess, dressed as “paper mountain trash king” and “Joey Ramone-a Quimby” (respectively), sit Schmidt down to reveal the painful truth like parents revealing the Santa secret. As Schmidt faces reality with a falsely brave face, he moves out of the loft and leaves his idols (and friends) behind.

Childhood idols do not provide “false hope.” They provide the purest hope one can offer: one that never disappoints, admonishes us for failure or expects us to be anything but ourselves. Call it childish or delusional, but choosing to hold onto childhood heroes may be an antidote to a sometimes monstrous reality.

My monstrous Muppets-inspired prediction for the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie

SAARTHAK JOHRI Daily Arts Writer

I reimagined the Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNaF) franchise as a Muppets movie — skipping dinner to do so — and half of my friends are worried about me. Starving and spiraling after staring at Microsoft (MS) Paint for hours, all I had to show for my effort was a madman’s monstrous PNG. How did I get here?

It started as a typo and evolved into a tirade. On a Monday night in January meant for productivity, I sent a nonsensical series of images to one of my closest friends from high school. It was a series of parodying representations of Freddy Fazbear, the mascot of the Chuck E. Cheese-esque horror series, and he responded with a Spoonerism. “Fozzy fredbear,” the message said, and I felt a chill run down my spine. I pulled up Google Images, not for the last time that night, and grabbed an image of Fozzie Bear from The Muppets for my reply.

“FOZZY,” I announce. “fnaf muppets remake where fnaf is freddy,” I continue, not realizing my typo before I received his reply, which had a mistake of its

own: “what if fnaf was freddt” (sic). “hold on,” I shoot back while pulling up MS Paint, “i need to set this up.” The crucial part of that message was “need.” Looking back, that chill was something I’d felt countless times over, some cold hand of Creation that would grip my psyche and not let go until I’d brought it into reality. Every creation I’ve ever conceived came from this same feeling.

That night I began cobbling together my connections board. The Living Tombstone blared in the background as I pulled up game models and character collages — cropping and cutting and pasting as needed, casting the beloved Muppets as the characters of children, animatronics and serial killers. When the work was finally done, it needed to be shared — distributed among some of my friends who I knew would appreciate the magnitude of what I’d made.

That’s not exactly how the night went, as much like the horror franchise I had created a fan retelling of, there’s quite a bit more beneath the surface. The Five Nights at Freddy’s series is infamous for a host of reasons: its noisy jump scares, its

quietly horrifying premise and its deeply convoluted backstory, among others. This article is not meant to inform you about that backstory either, but the bare minimum of context might be needed. You could learn as I did, watching Markiplier play through the games and Game Theory’s MatPat theorize about them, but a saner option would be to find a summary. I was never actually able to play the games, as I was too broke to buy them in middle school, then too anxious in high school. However, there’s a certain entertainment factor to watching these content creators’ descents into insanity as the games and their lore twist themselves further and further.

The franchise is split into its original series and its succeeding storyline (and eventually an actual movie adaptation by Blumhouse?). The original series — containing “Five Nights at Freddy’s” one through five — was developed primarily by the creator Scott Cawthon, while the sequel series was developed by Cawthon and Steel Wool Studios.

The original games follow the story of a pizzeria entertainment franchise being haunted by both its murderous possessed

animatronics and the dark history of child serial killings that took place there. While being enraptured by such a dark premise might make my therapist worry, my real obsession is with how the story is uncovered.

Design by Phoebe Unwin

Coraline’s other mother holds isolation in those spidery fingers

Design by Arunika Shee

Design by Evelyn Lee

at MichiganDaily.com

CAMILLE NAGY Daily Arts Contributor

When most of us think of a monster, we tend to visualize the same stereotypical markers: fourlegged beasts and shadow-people with claws like blades, creatures of inhuman sizes or with no shape at all, supernatural beings that can kill without moving or those who simply move through the world as if its laws do not apply to them.

What most of us do not picture, though, is a place.

Mark Z. Danielewski’s mixedmedia horror novel “House of Leaves” is unique in this sense, crafting a monster not just out of place but out of the characters’ expectations and, perhaps even more interestingly, the reader’s. “House of Leaves” is a hard book to describe. On the surface, it follows a family that moves into a house only to discover that it is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. While at first only a tiny difference of three-quarters of an inch is noticed, the problem quickly expands to include an intricate set of seemingly endless tunnels under the house. As the characters attempt to explore the labyrinthine maze, typical horror hijinks ensue (such as the unexplained disappearance of the family pets or mysterious sounds coming from the walls).

There are numerous stories layered within “House of Leaves,” and to only acknowledge the surface narrative would not do justice to the elaborate storytelling at play here.

The distinct, interactive formatting of this novel plays an essential part in its story, crafting not only a memorable reading experience but a profoundly haunting one, too.

The main story is presented through the academic writings of

a strange, cryptic author (referred to only as Zampanò) about a movie following the family and their experiences while living in the house. The story implies that this movie, while largely unknown by general audiences, has attracted an almost cult-like following in the academic sphere, resulting in numerous academic papers about the house, which are referenced throughout the text. Among these articles, an ongoing scholarly debate over the authenticity of the film persists. Thus, the main story is made into an urban legend within the book itself; readers are just as unsure as the characters are about whether the events at the house actually take place or if the film is an elaborate project created by the main character of the movie, Will

it clear that readers are meant to spiral at the same time as the characters (and that not everything about the house will or should make sense to us, just as is true for those within the novel). During the main descent into the house, the annotations do not just become less logical, but literally begin twisting into and jumping across the page. Following these footnotes — and in turn, following the narrative — serves to repeatedly confuse and frustrate readers in the same way the characters are confused and frustrated by their surroundings while exploring the underbelly of the house. By forcing readers to interact with the text through its annotations and devolving form, “House of Leaves” ensures that the reader’s journey mirrors the

editors write notes to the reader throughout the text as if this were a published manuscript from the world of “House of Leaves” rather than a fictional work. Beginning with the introduction, Danielewski practically dares readers to consider the validity of his story by having Johnny beg them to consider otherwise. Even Zampanò admits: “They say truth stands the test of time. I can think of no greater comfortant than knowing this document failed such a test.” The possibility that this book could be an artifact from the “House of Leaves” universe these characters exist in, however outrageous or unrealistic that thought, is planted in readers’ heads from page one.

There are numerous Easter eggs and hidden pieces of symbolism scattered throughout the text; to decipher them all, some would argue, is impossible. Yet, just as there is a cult-like following for the film in the story, there is an online fanbase dedicated to uncovering and discussing the secrets within “House of Leaves.”

Cookie Monster: Our self-care champion

Navidson. Alongside this bookwithin-a-book are footnotes from Johnny Truant, the man who is presumably guiding us through the novel while experiencing an emotional breakdown, which we witness through his annotations as the story progresses.

If you’re confused by now, don’t worry: that’s the point. The formatting of the book makes

characters’ and creates a feeling of shared experience between the two. Choosing to ignore or skip these elements of the story denies readers the visceral experience Danielewski intends for them. The author goes to great pains to make “House of Leaves” feel as authentic as possible, from leaving his own name off the title page in lieu of Zampanò’s and Johnny’s to having fictional

Through this community, the horror of Danielewski’s novel has transcended print and found its place among similar Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), found footage films and urban legends. While these may all appear to be unrelated at first glance, these modes of storytelling are tied together by their inclusion of the reader as a character within the story’s world. Each form of media is conscientious of the role the reader plays in experiencing and interpreting the story, and many ask the viewer at the very least to consider that the story could be true, if not outright interact with it as if it truly were.

Everyone knows Cookie Monster.

“Sesame Street” was a staple of all our childhoods, with its easy-going theme song, the familiar Muppets and the lessons of kindness and compassion the characters all taught us.

And, let’s be honest; everyone had their favorite Muppet. Some liked Oscar the Grouch, thinking his grumpiness was funny and his trash can home was silly. Others found Big Bird appealing (but he always scared me a little). Grover had his everentertaining antics — Super Grover was a huge part of my childhood. And who could forget Bert and Ernie? Their dynamic was unparalleled. But Cookie Monster was always my favorite. I’m pretty sure it started out just because I appreciated and could relate to his obsession with cookies. What 3-year-old couldn’t? But now, I think Cookie Monster means something more than just a love for cookies; he represents a need for self-care and the absolute importance of putting yourself first.

Somewhat recently, “Sesame Street” and its creators have

tried to shift Cookie Monster’s love for cookies onto some other, healthier foods in an effort to encourage kids to eat healthier. In fact, when Grover appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel” he even mentioned Cookie Monster having “a little bit of a cookie problem” and, as a result, is now on a diet to eat “better” foods instead of just cookies. Cookie Monster being used to promote diet culture is concerning because it can be very damaging — it often encourages people to forgo desserts and food labeled as “bad” altogether. That being said, considering the discussion surrounding Cookie Monster as a symbol for addiction, it isn’t really that surprising to see “Sesame Street” try to change things up a little with Cookie Monster and his favorite food. And look, I get it; parents want their kids to be healthy. They want to see their kids pick a carrot over a cookie, and who better to teach them that lesson than Cookie Monster?

But as a college student who faces burnout and has trouble prioritizing self-care, I can’t help but think Cookie Monster has the right idea. Enjoy your life. Do what makes you happy. Eat a cookie.

more at MichiganDaily.

‘The X-Files,’ monsters and the fallacy of scientism

There’s an episode in the third season of “The X-Files” — “Quagmire” — where special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny, “Aquarius”) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson, “Sex Education”) are in Georgia investigating “Big Blue,” a continental version of the Loch Ness Monster. In the rest of the show’s “Monster of the Week” installments, there’s always something to hunt — a 200-year-old shapeshifting serial killer who lies dormant in 30-year increments, a humanflatworm hybrid that inhabits the New Jersey sewer system, a parasitic slug worshipped by a cult. But “Quagmire” is not so open-and-shut.

Scully criticizes Mulder’s futile cryptozoological obsession, and she’s right. Mulder takes out an alligator instead of a water dinosaur. There is no Big Blue, and the two return to the FBI headquarters.

This isn’t entirely out of place, though. “The X-Files” waxes philosophical frequently, something that I missed as a preteen (admittedly, I was focused on the impossibly frustrating will-they-won’t-they dynamic between the leads).

The show uses its Monster of the Week episodes to experiment — they are constantly stretching and contracting the ontology of monsters. Though inconsequential to the show as a whole, these episodes are fascinating explorations of the metaphysical.

Throughout “Quagmire,”

though, Mulder is deadlocked on the existence of Big Blue. It’s a microcosm of his lifelong pursuit of the unknown — an obsession that is the very essence of his character, defining him as the foil to Scully’s voice of reason. A conversation near the end of the episode sums this up quite nicely. Scully compares Mulder to “Moby Dick’”s Captain Ahab, asserting that no matter what he believes, “everything takes on a warped significance to fit (Mulder’s) megalomaniacal cosmology.” She goes on, “It’s just … the truth or a white whale … what difference does it make?”

“The X-Files” exists in the realm of the uncertain, a story told through convoluted and inconsistent fragments from which we try to derive meaning. Its mythology is impossible to decipher under blankets of bureaucracy and government conspiracies. But Scully is a scientist through-and-through, here to pull back the curtains.

“The X-Files”’ depiction of an even-keeled, astute and selfsufficient female scientist was state-of-the-art. When 13-yearold me met Dana Scully for the first time, I met myself. I learned that these aspects of her character — logic, calculation, perpetual skepticism — were the pieces making up my own view of the world.

I wasn’t alone in this. Scully is responsible for a generation of STEM-interested women and girls, a theory that is not only supported by testimony, but a rigorous course of research, too — in true Scully fashion.

Read more at MichiganDaily.

LAINE BROTHERTON Digital Culture Beat Editor

The monster is closer than we think: When a house is more than a home and a reader is more than an observer

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SABRIYA IMAMI Managing Arts Editor

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STATEMENT

Deconstructing the hometown visit

within these communities.

SARAH STOLAR

Correspondent

“Hometown”: a word with a seemingly straightforward definition, bringing to mind elements of one’s childhood and the relationships that shaped it. In college — especially a college with a large student body, like the University of Michigan’s healthy diversity of in-state versus out-of-state students — the concept of a hometown adopts an entirely new meaning. This is precisely because every student’s perceptions of their hometown are distinct, molded by their unique experiences.

This fascination (and maybe an added desire to visit a new place) drives many to embark on journeys to their college friends’ hometowns. These hometown visits are an opportunity to discover the roots of your closest friends, to see why they are who they are, or why they’ve come into college looking for change or expansion. It’s an intriguing part of relationshipbuilding, immersing yourself in the lifestyle of someone close to you, a concept that has even been codified among prominent pop culture franchises like “The Bachelor.”

But whether you’re hosting or visiting, hometown visits can be jarring, like puzzle pieces belonging to different sets that are pushed together in the hopes of fitting. It can seem as if individuals from your friends’ lives have suddenly been copied and pasted into your own.

The idea of taking college friends to a childhood home can

present a cocktail of emotions: stress, excitement, fear or even embarrassment. There is an inherent privilege in being able to bring people home and enfold them within a piece of your past. For some, parents or relatives scattered across multiple homes or cities may complicate the idea of hosting school friends. For others, it can be anxiety-inducing to go back to a childhood home where they cannot express their true identity. If family or hometown community members don’t support expression of one’s gender or sexuality, returning to these places may drain individuals of energy or a sense of safety.

The word “hometown” may feel like a contradiction if the place where someone grew up wasn’t always welcoming enough to call “home.”

I am fortunate enough to feel comfortable returning home and to possess strong relationships with members of my immediate family, as are several of my college friends. Over the past year, I’ve been able to go on and host my own hometown visits with the people I’ve met in college. Whether I spent an evening or a week in these new environments, each has granted me a glimpse into the lives of those I’ve really only known for a couple years but feel as if I’ve known for much longer. The biggest thing I’ve learned from these mini-vacations is this: Hometown visits can leave very different impressions, depending on the character of people’s relationships with their communities of origin and especially with the people

College is a time characterized by change, where many develop into different versions of themselves. And past and present versions of self collide on hometown trips — so is this clash discordant or harmonious? Can it be both? What does this imply about your friends, your relationships with them? And is it really so bad if the mixing of worlds isn’t completely effortless?

Preparing for the visit

There really isn’t a surefire way to prepare for a hometown visit. Like any trip, logistics are always important (timeline, lodging, food, budget, activities), especially if you’re the one hosting. But there is no way to completely predict how you — or your college guests — will interact with the “other” group: your family and high school friends. The best thing to do is get an idea of the setting and the characters of the people you’ll run into during your stay.

I grew up in the suburbs of a Midwestern city, like many of my friends, so their descriptions of their hometowns were short and to the point. They shared their favorite restaurants, commercial areas, parks or attractions in nearby urban areas that we could explore as part of our visit. They coordinated with their parents about meals and activities. One of my friends even sent a daily itinerary and packing list, just to be clear on the plan.

These preparatory details are fairly characteristic of all trips. But the most distinguishing detail of the hometown trip is preparing specifically for the people: how your friends act

around them, what you might talk about and the attitudes of everyone you may meet.

Mental preparation on both the hosts’ and the guests’ behalf often coincides with logistical readiness. My friends have had varied reactions to bringing their University buddies back to their hometowns. While they all have strong relationships with their families, the prospect of actually making the trip back, to spending prolonged periods of time in a place they had largely grown out of, make some wary to return.

One way to clarify a friend’s relationship with their hometown is to take note of the verbiage they use to describe it. In one conversation with my roommate, I struggled to find the words to describe my childhood home. He had said “your parents’ house” while I settled on “my home home.” Even though I’ve only lived there about two months thus far in 2022, I still mentally classify it as my personal headquarters. The degrees of separation from hometowns are extremely varied in college as the concept of independence takes on different forms.

On one of my overnight stays, I got into my host’s car, ready for the multiple-hour drive, and sensed that his emotions were somewhat unreadable, his mind occupied. Though he was very close with his extended family, he told me on the drive back to school that being with his family stressed him out. He was someone used to living independently and self-sufficiently, not needing to be directly in the vicinity of his

childhood home.

One of my other friends outlined how I and another college guest would be spending ample time with their entire family, a normal and enjoyable prospect for them — while I mentally energized my introverted self for a night of extensive socializing. On a different occasion, I watched a friend remove the nail polish from his fingers in preparation for a hometown visit, not wanting to deal with the comments his family might make if they saw it on him. Another, whose hometown I still have never been to, said many months ago that she would take us there for an hour and then would want to come back to Ann Arbor.

The mental preparation for taking on a hometown visit, whether you are visiting or hosting, is extremely subjective. Absorb the information given to you, directly or indirectly, about the energy and relationships you might encounter. But the only way to truly experience a hometown visit is to dive right in.

During the visits: Some snippets

I shoved the chicken-infused filling into the dumpling wrapper, careful not to put too much — or even worse, too little — into the delicious pocket, lest it break when it was boiled. I carefully folded the dough into a half-moon shape, pinching the ends delicately so it would close without ripping. It was delicate work, and the people surrounding me, who had been cooking this delicacy for years, were watching closely. I wondered if they thought they

would have to swoop in to save me.

I was stressed. Though I kept up positive chatter, I felt like if I messed up, they might think me inept, incapable. This might seem like a ridiculous thought, especially knowing how nice my roommate’s parents were. Though I had met them more than a handful of times, I was genuinely uncertain about their judgment of my character based on this task, now that I was in their home. There is an inherent intimacy bred from entering someone’s house, that because I was an outsider, more scrutiny could be placed on me if I didn’t fit into their expectations.

I had an incredibly enjoyable night at my roommate’s childhood home and always love to return, but the idea that I had to prove myself kept asserting itself in my mind. As a fairly new entry into my roommate’s circle of friends, I felt as if I had to make up for lost time. I had to be the perfect guest.

***

After the four-hour drive, my tired mind was completely unprepared for the influx of people buzzing around my friend, Noah’s, home. Our other college friend, Anna, and I were immediately introduced to his parents, brothers, grandparents (who lived next door) and several family friends, the group growing larger as the night progressed. We all went to work preparing the build-your-own taco feast for dinner, an activity I was grateful for as it gave me something to do, some way to make myself useful.

Pursuit of solitude on this bustling campus

JOHN JACKSON Statement Columnist

At times, Ann Arbor grows restless: Students pass one another carelessly and in a hurry. Each bustles noisily, but none pause to listen. Sights and sounds of half a hundred comings and goings whittle me down to the bone.

Feeling buried in the anarchic sounds of a tireless campus, I endeavor to make some time for myself; time to unwind and decompress in solitude and silence.

As far as solo endeavors go, Forest Hill Cemetery is the place to visit. Its tone is somber, of course, but also imbued with the joy of lives that have crossed the finish line; it’s joyous in a content way that only a burial ground can be. In addition to basic information, some choose to inscribe their headstones with verses and simple artwork. Poetry and other such non-name inscriptions come few and far between, but they come with the assurance of importance: A lifetime’s meaning etched into rock. Standing on the old cement walkway, I can still make out the sounds of traffic on Geddes Avenue, but they fade to a distant hum as I press on deeper into the trees.

The acreage of Forest Hill Cemetery is much smaller than that of the Nichols Arboretum, and the sounds of the city lie closer,

but the crowds are fewer. I do pass other souls during my walk; one woman wears headphones. Quite a pity. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. She can’t hear the silence.

My ears acclimate to the forest after a time. The cemetery is its own sort of loud. Farther along the path, the most hidden sounds emerge: those of birds and squirrels or perhaps a frog. Undercurrents to it all are the sweep of the wind and a great clatter of dry, fallen leaves, near and far.

If Forest Hill Cemetery grants me the gift of the sound of silence, then a Mason Hall stairwell 10 minutes to the hour grants me the exact opposite stimuli. It’s 12:50 p.m. on a Tuesday. A myriad of students hold the doors eternally open, passing the responsibility hand to hand, furthering the camaraderie as each person hurries along their way. Scattered laughs and tired coughs reverberate up through the communal abyss, a cacophony of auditory updates on the human condition.

Soles of shoes scuffle and smack down on each step. The walls echo with indistinguishable chatter like an elementary school gymnasium during basketball practice. In the dry heat of half a dozen radiators, coats unzip, freshly arrived from the chill outside. The cold burns into warmth as heart rates climb with each stair.

As suddenly as it came, the flurry

of energy fades, punctuated by the hastened pace of the stragglers. By 1 p.m., students have shuffled into classrooms. Again, silence. Deafening silence, artificial silence. The herds of horses have trampled away, leaving only a cloud of dust in their wake.

The emptiness brings relief but only somewhat. The quiet between these narrow walls was sorely won and evoked a sense almost of desolation, standing in contrast to the restlessness found in an expanse of open air.

***

Many people are in search of more silence in some aspects of their lives. The New Yorker magazine writer Jane Brox laments the replacement of silent time, first through the family radio, then through headphones and the ceaseless playing of music.

She explains the crucial role of quiet in her day, saying, “The quiet feels spacious — a place in which my thoughts can roam as I work.”

To Brox’s point, silence can have a marked positive effect on a work environment, particularly the sorts of environments in which students often find themselves: prolonged desk work that is sedentary and stress-laden.

Atalanta Beaumont writes for Psychology Today on the health benefits of simple silence, listing “low blood pressure,” “brain growth” and “relieved tension”

among the proven advantages to working in silence rather than with noise like background music.

Though the mental and health benefits of simply working without a commotion are powerful, I argue that the spirit of silence, more so than just a literal absence of noise, would best be found in solitude, in places like the Forest Hill Cemetery.

At this stage in fall, the trees blend together, standing so perfectly in patterns of yellow and red that they seem to have been arranged that way deliberately. Solitude affords a view — an empty landscape that’s all yours — and a gratitude to the space left untarnished by the touch of humankind.

And yet, an absence of company indoors, such as in a room or empty home, though a privilege, risks loneliness. Personally, I need space to roam in my quiet moments, to feel active and evade depression.

I’ve often fallen into the trap of inviting physical or digital company every time I go for a walk or head out to lunch. Two birds, one stone — right? I often jump on the opportunity to check up on that old friend from Bursley Residence Hall, call my family, peruse discussion boards about that new Star Wars show as I enjoy down time in an overly-packed schedule.

But to me, it is so much more fulfilling to sit alone at night with

a movie or a book than it is to lie alone, scrolling endlessly on social media or rewatching even a cherished sitcom. Perhaps a book, or even a movie, constitutes a more deliberate, lengthy undertaking, much like a walk in the cemetery.

Holly Burns, writing for the New York Times, explains the difference between deliberate solitude and loneliness well. Burns spoke with a lighthouse keeper who had spent much of the last 19 years alone on an island. From her conversation, she concluded that “Solitude is much more enjoyable if you’re in control of it.”

by Priya Ganji

Upon walking into The Fillmore in downtown Detroit, one is greeted by many vestiges of the past. An illuminated marquee lined with individual light bulbs juts out from an ornately decorated facade. Inside, geometrically pieced archways soar over the grand atrium, and individually numbered exit signs are collages of stained glass. History lines the concert hall: Medieval-esque suits of armor guard columns teleported from Ancient Rome and vivid murals depict animals on the Earth uninhibited by the existence of humans as party lights

STATEMENT

iPartied with Matt Bennett

change colors overhead.

However, the hundreds of people occupying this space a few Fridays ago were in attendance to bear witness to artifacts arguably more notable than all of the above: Disney and Nickelodeon musical TV hits from the 2000s.

The conjurer that revived these songs of yesteryear for the ears of today was Matt Bennett, the actor best known for playing Robbie Shapiro on the Nickelodeon teen sitcom “Victorious.” Now almost a decade removed from his claim to fame, Bennett is 30 and stays in the public eye through a patchwork of one-episode acting gigs, downcredit film roles and posts for his millions of steadfast social media followers.

And so emerges iParty (a play on the Nickelodeon title iCarly, another Nickelodeon show that starred Bennett’s contemporaries), a coast-to-coast tour featuring millennial Bennett dancing around on stage to the sounds of his glory days and hoping his audiences will do the same. Recalling legacy touring acts such as Dead & Company, what new he brings to the table is largely the old.

My friend Kathleen first proposed the idea of attending the Detroit iParty while sitting in Martha Cook dormitory’s Red Room, sipping the

traditional weekly tea. Our friends from high school, Isabel and Sabino, would soon be visiting Ann Arbor for the weekend, and the DJ set would serve as our Friday night activity.

I initially hesitated to say yes, thinking about my lackluster lyrical knowledge of the music Matt Bennett would play. Growing up, my family had cable television only intermittently: for the week of the Super Bowl or as a free trial every few years. My current familiarity with the content at hand came from Sabino’s car speakers, weaving our friend group through strip-mall parking lots, or playing “All I Want is Everything” at near-deafening volume while speeding down the interstate. Sabino named his car Ariana after the Nick-turned-pop star, whereas I had thought it was just a fun name for a vehicle.

Though I had to make up for lost time, I hoped that this newfound immersion in what was once commercially front and center would prove socially useful, and it largely has. Though references to specific Victorious episodes may go over my head, I understand mentions of “The Slap” (“Victorious”’s social network) and Trina Vega’s comically bad singing from the soundtrack of these high school suburban escapades.

I remained on this plane of semifluency as all four of us rode in Ariana toward downtown Detroit. The sky was already dark when we left Ann Arbor, so we only saw the lights in the distance as we approached the city. Given that we were in a similar arrangement to that of a few years ago in high school, the conversations that emerged were inevitably about the past. We talked about how our eleventh-grade English teacher had recently become assistant principal and how Sabino’s brother is already a high schooler. We recounted recent run-ins with

former classmates and gossip about romances new and old.

Where are our fellow high school alumni now? If they were to ask the same about us, would they guess we’re waiting for a Matt Bennett DJ set?

By this time, we parked Ariana in a surface lot near the Fillmore, and evening-enhancing substances emerged from the front row’s center console. “Maybe we should prepare,” someone said, and the ongoing pop-adjacent Spotify playlist is abruptly interrupted by the iCarly and Victorious crossover episode theme song. We danced in the car seats by shifting shoulders and overly contorting our faces to the lyrics, full of nowtrivial teenage drama. A few more songs, and it’s deemed time to go.

The line of people we added ourselves to after exiting the fogwindowed car was filled with those that look like us: late-teens to early twenties, arriving in couples or as groups of friends. Some wore period garb (layered camis and patterned tops, colorful high top Converse sneakers), others dressed as Disney or Nick Characters specific characters (think “Victorious”’s Mr. Sikowitz or “High School Musical’”s Troy and Gabriella).

Isabel wishes aloud that the concert was 21-plus rather than 18, before realizing that I’m still underage when we receive neon-colored wristbands: one for admission and one for the bar.

I’m not offended because I understand the sentiment. Acknowledging the existence of those younger than you is an unsettling feeling; hearing that someone was born in 2005 rather than 2001 somehow feels impossible. We cope with it in many different ways, even while still being a part of Gen Z ourselves: We belittled those younger than us by calling them “cute” or acting dramatically disgusted by their

presence. The sentiment partially carries into adulthood, though social rules convert loathing to a more muted aversion. While in line, we might simply smirk at an 18-year-old with their parents, oblivious to our own realities a few years ago.

We are rescued from the cold autumn night by the warmth of The Fillmore’s atrium, and the vibrations within the plush red carpet indicate the music has already started. Our tickets are scanned by an older woman, and we enter.

“Have fun in there.”

Given the age of my concert companions, the first stop is the bar. We looked at the special drinks sign, which appeared to be drawn up in Microsoft Word. Sabino, Kathleen and Isabel each ordered a different $12 cocktail, and the cups were passed around in a circle to taste. Only Kathleen’s drink, the “Wahoo Punch,” was enjoyable. The alcoholic allusion titled “Rex Powers” and the generically named “iDrink” became unwanted weights in our palms.

We walked down the aisle toward the standing section, the golden wristband looped around my left arm serving as a visual reminder of the choice I made to be there. When I bought my ticket, I charged an amount to my debit card that made my eyes wince.

In front of us was a projection of the music video to whatever song is playing. Though frequently these are songs from Disney’s Hollywood Records or a nostalgic Kesha throwback, recent hits like Harry Styles’s “As it Was” violated the collective understanding that we were dancing in the year of 2012.

After examining the DJ on stage, Kathleen and I exchanged comments about how Bennet’s appearance has changed over the years. His hair was longer, less

curly, bleached blonde. He seemed shorter, skinnier, with sleeves of tattoos rising up his arm. He’s traded out his bold black glasses for clear frames, and his voice has burrowed further up his nose.

Perhaps it’s the quickening of age we feel in the room. Like an insect’s compound eye, what’s on stage is duplicated hundreds of times on the phone screens in front of us, with some faithful recorders posting the entire concert to Snapchat or Instagram Stories. Whereas a day was simply a unit of time when “Victorious” was at its peak, now, 24 hours is all it takes for these videos to be gone, and the distance between past and present will feel like an expanse.

We might examine Snapchat memories from four years ago with laughable security, now being on the other side of so-called glow ups, with new wardrobes and experiences to show for it. But finding these niches in identity marks maturity and therefore age. Are these enough of a trade off for exiting the vanguard of youth? And if Matt Bennett looks this old, this unrecognizable, then how should we interpret ourselves?

Twenty minutes into the set, the man who we thought to be Matt Bennett is actually just the opening act, a Los Angeles DJ named Jeffrey. “Who are you?” we shouted, confused on how our minds tricked us, and realizing we don’t quite know what we are here to see.

After a brief set change which involved the exchanging of two laptops between on-stage and off-stage, Matt Bennett finally arrived. He’s instantly recognizable; the trajectory of his appearance since Victorious is wholly believable and comforting. There’s not much change at all, and perhaps we can feel the same about ourselves.

Let’s reach beyond ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Women’s literature and the Dobbs decision

reading slot given all the newfound media buzz it attracted in the latter part of summer 2022.

Over the summer, hometown boredom encouraged me to preemptively browse through my fall 2022 courses and their corresponding reading lists. Since I’m an English major, each of my classes offered an abundance of novels to potentially fill my time. However, given the political climate, one title stood out amongst the course descriptions: Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Earlier this summer, on June 24, 2022, The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision — established in 1973 — famously granted women the constitutional right to abortion. However, the Dobbs decision reversed the laws created under Roe and returned the power of abortion regulation to each state and its elected representatives, declaring, “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.”

I focused my gaze on Atwood’s title. While the popular dystopian narrative turned Hulu adaptation already had reserved a spot on my personal reading list (even before the Dobbs decision), the novel quickly catapulted to my number-one

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is set in the dystopian Republic of Gilead — a future regime that has replaced the United States of America. In Gilead, the female body is not an element of individual autonomy but instead a piece of government property. All birth control methods are illegal with the consequence of death should the law be disobeyed.

Women of child-bearing capabilities become handmaids, meaning they are stripped of all rights and forced into a life of sexual servitude for high-ranking members of society.

The handmaids must become pregnant with a Commander’s child through a monthly ceremony of nonconsensual sex. If impregnated, they are required to carry the fetus to term and give the infant to the Commander’s family immediately after birth.

Due to the novel and the subsequent Hulu show’s popularity, “The Handmaid’s Tale” quickly became a political symbol in the fight for abortion access and bodily autonomy. In response to the Dobbs v. Jackson discord, pro-choice protesters surrounded Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s house while dressed in crimson robes and white bonnets — the standard handmaid’s uniform.

Stephen King, like many other

public figures, compared the United States to Gilead in a tweet that read, “Welcome to THE HANDMAID’S TALE.” Even Margaret Atwood released a piece in The Atlantic revealing how her novel is no longer as “far-fetched” as she once believed.

While “The Handmaid’s Tale” certainly offers powerful imagery amid the protests and political movements of the Supreme Court decision, it remains only one narrative amongst a robust field of literature pertaining to the oppression of women’s reproductive rights.

In conversation, Professor Valerie Traub, Adrienne Rich Distinguished Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, applauded the impact of “The Handmaid’s Tale” as a political statement but also acknowledged the need to center more voices in the movement.

“They (pro-choice protestors dressed in handmaids’ garbs) were taking popular culture, something that is relevant to today’s young women, and translating it into the political arena. Everybody knew who protesters were dressed as without saying anything — a pretty exceptional piece of political theater,” Traub said.

“Does ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ speak about all women? No. Could it use better race analysis? Absolutely,” Traub said. “However, my focus

would not be about critiquing ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ or the media for centering it in the discourse, but rather to say that we need to hear these other voices. We need to hear from women of Color.”

In the conversation of failing women of their basic reproductive rights, women of Color carry a particularly devastating history. “Forced sterilization of poor women of color is an American tradition,” writes journalist Natasha Lennard.

From the 1930s through the 1970s, Puerto Rican women were subjected to forced sterilization procedures under the jurisdiction of undisclosed birth control trials. In the Buck v. Bell case of 1927, the Supreme Court allowed the state of Virginia to perform sterilization procedures on women they considered mentally incompetent — disproportionally harming Native American women. Although Virginia removed its sterilization law in 1974, Buck v. Bell continues to stand with the Supreme Court’s original decision in 1927.

And with the theme of discrimination in the 20th century, Lennard writes, “Thirty-two states maintained federally funded eugenics boards, tasked with ordering sterilizations of women — and sometimes men — deemed ‘undesirable,’” a derogatory title typically reserved for women of Color and disabled individuals.

In her essay “Teaching

Reproductive Justice in the Premodern Classroom,” Professor Traub highlights the intersectionality of race and reproductive rights.

“Given the way in which racial and class oppression intersect in the contemporary U.S., the risks of enforced pregnancy will fall disproportionately on Black and Brown women,” Traub wrote.

One narrative that Traub mentions in her essay is Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” — a novel that highlights the conditions in which oppressed and marginalized women were historically forced into impossible decisions about motherhood.

“Beloved” is a fictional narrative rooted in the horrific truth of Margaret Garner’s story. Margaret Garner was a Black female slave who escaped a Kentucky plantation in 1856 with her husband and children. Though they fled to Ohio for safety, Garner and her family were eventually caught. Rather than let her child return to a life of slavery, Garner decided to kill her young daughter. In the novel, the protagonist, Sethe, who is modeled after Margaret, spends the rest of her life as a free woman, but riddled with guilt and trauma because of the decisions she made as an enslaved mother.

Although Toni Morrison does not directly reference abortion

or birth control, the “Beloved” narrative speaks to how women of color in the United States occupy a disproportionately horrific position throughout history in which decisions of sex, motherhood and child-bearing have been viciously stripped from them by systems of power, be they government control, an economy built around slavery, etc.

Also in her essay, Professor Traub cites the work of Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th century German-born naturalist, who observed enslaved Black women in Suriname (a small country located on the southeastern coast of South America) using herbal remedies to abort fetuses so that their children would not be subjected to a life of slavery.

In the presence of “Beloved,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Professor Traub’s research, it’s no secret that women’s literature is a tool that cannot be ignored in the conversations about abortion and bodily autonomy.

“Women have been advocating for their own liberty and freedom for a really long time, and that goes back centuries,” Traub said. “Women’s literature is just one way. They write about their experiences, either fictionalized or non-fictionalized, as a way of saying their rights will be respected.”

REESE MARTIN Statement Columnist

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NURAIYA MALIK MiC Columnist

My grandfather has always been my sounding board; he teaches me simple truths about myself that I can never seem to figure out on my own. My dose of therapy entails an endless supply of home-cooked food and conver sations over chai with my grand father as he inevitably launches into his captivating past.

My story is about my grand father — Dada, as I refer to him — and his magic. Not the kind of magic that I believed in as a kid — when I looked anxiously for a coin under my pillow in the morning — but the kind that I now try to apply within my own life. Maybe magic is too exciting of a word since life is not always smooth sailing like a child’s fantasy. Growing up, I was always fascinated by Dada and his understanding of the art of palm istry. At age 11, I remember a fam ily friend going to him to have her palm read. I felt excited, but over all, very puzzled. Surely magic like that does not exist. Surely you cannot look at someone’s hand and be able to determine the tra jectory of their next how-ever

Magic in the palm of my hand

stranger.

many years? Regardless, I just went on with my little life and realized much later how this piece of magic worked on even the most incredulous of people.

“I once read the palm of this beautiful Lebanese woman,” my grandfather said. I giggled and cheekily eyed my grandmother, who shook her head, grinning. “I told her she will become extreme ly wealthy and privileged, and she went on to marry Sheikh Yamani — the minister of oil for Saudi Arabia and one of the most influential figures globally during the 1980s.” My eyes widened and eyebrows rose at the thought of Dada’s words playing such a mon umental role in the life of such a powerful woman.

Dada was 16 years old at the time of the 1947 Partition, which led to the creation of two inde pendent nations: India and Paki stan. What is described in history books as the fall of British colo nialism, was also a calamity of human migration that separated Muslims from Hindus, taking thousands of innocent lives and displacing millions of families.

My great-grandfather was an edu cator turned politician in pre-Par tition Kashmir, and one of many men caught in a religious crossfire

when attempting to cross the bor der into newly formed Pakistan.

These stories would command family breakfasts and spill into the evening discussions over chai and biscuits.

As Dada recalled his early teen age years, I would listen bewil dered at the thought of having to carry the weight of my family’s burdens at the mere age of 16.

He would describe the dilapi dated horse and carriage he would use to go to school every day, remembered the responsi bilities he held as the man of the family and recalled the sadness he carried from the death of his father. This feeling of hopeless ness drove him to find a measure of control. Many books and hours of research later, he began to place meaning within the inner work ings of palmistry. After he mar ried my grandmother, they moved to Lebanon and had two sons and a daughter. As more people began to hear about his ability to read palms, he would be asked to set up stalls and work at charity fund raisers — one reading in exchange for 1,000 liras. Many decades and multiple grandchildren later, he would look back on all the fasci nating narratives he unraveled by simply looking into the hands of a

Our quotidian costumes

KARIS CLARK MiC Columnist

Hey… can you all help me out? It’s getting late and I’m still try ing to figure out what to wear this Halloweekend. I know, I know, I should have been on this a long time ago, but the truth is… I’m kinda indecisive when it comes to dressing up.

Of course, every Halloween cos tume comes with its own ample affordances and dire drawbacks, but in the back of my mind there’s always a voice muttering to me about how ridiculous I might look in one outfit or how unfit I might be for another. And to tell you the truth times two, this problem per sists way before and much beyond this spooky weekend in October. Personally, this issue exists as a permanent fixture throughout my entire life.

I could write an article for every article of clothing I own, how it makes me feel, the memories I maintain and experiences that remain attached to it. I won’t. But it’s interesting to think about how tied we truly become to our ward robe over time. After all, because our clothing so successfully com municates information about our gender expression, sexuality, eth nicity, race, religion, class status and more to others, one might con clude that we are, indeed, dressing up with every outfit, with every decision on what to wear serving as a defining piece, an unquestion ably delineating part of our quotid ian costumes.

(Do note that in this article, I will speak primarily about [what has been traditionally conceived as] men’s clothing, considering I am by no means an authority on women’s clothing nor have the proper lexicon to ponder on it.)

More than just flesh, our clothes hold history. And not just of our

own… each item reflects a complex series of relationships and experi ences even before appearing in our closet. Fashion theorist educator Renate Stauss encourages us to see our fashion not just as product, but as a commodity, denoting that in making such a distinction, we’re compelled to think more critically about the vast processes behind our purchases, the diverse array of fashion designers, manufacturers, department stores, all of which establish such close-knit relations with our clothes prior to their arrival in our clutches.

Once we perform the purchase, and the clothes become ours, they take on their own personal mean ing mediated by our experiences. I maintain memories of where and when I copped certain heart felt items that stay with that item as long as it is in my possession. Though with the advent of digital retail outlets, these fond memo ries of falling in love at first sight, at first fabric are less frequent.

Online shopping, aside from pro moting fast fashion culture, has divorced us from intimately know ing the details of the items we’re interested in putting on our person before purchase. Now, what we get in the mail is a crapshoot, with the sunk-cost fallacy feebly urging us to come to terms with whatever ends up delivered on our doorstep, regardless of how much it matches the digital depiction.

Beyond our personal feelings about our fashion, our quotidian costumes can be considered a form of inter-actional code-switching with others. We dramatically alter our appearance with every outfit and prime people’s perceptions of us based on what we put on. How we dress reveals our values, con veys our beliefs about the body, how it should be accessorized and stylized. We wrestle and wonder about what features of the flesh should be displayed and how

much. Sometimes, we may open ourselves to a healthy degree of external inspection, feeling liber ated amidst the soulful sensation of showing off.

Anyone can try practicing this easily on their own. Though it may take some reconciling with the det riments of desirability politics plus monocultural (commonly antiQueer, anti-fat and anti-Black) ide als of identity and self-expression.

German theatre practitioner Uta Hagen advanced an exercise in which one is to observe the chang es in sense of self as they “get dressed for a particular occasion … (noting) the sensorially sugges tive aspect of a garment.” We must feel ourselves into the fabrics, as we can only come to truly know ourselves through our sensory feelings. Knowing is feeling. We innately know when putting on our quotidian costumes of conven tion, we’re simultaneously putting forth our personal aesthetics and emotions.

In the morning, when we rise to figure out what to wear, we employ our own cognitive theo ries of color and our own aesthetic philosophy to decide how best to display our Self. Even those who claim to not care about how they dress must still partake in this process. The complementing of colors and matching of fabrics we select can be considered musings of our subconscious mind speak ing outwards. Personally, I find myself drawn to wearing navy blue, heather gray, black, white and burgundy the most. But that still doesn’t help me decide what to wear this Halloweekend…

On the surface it’s evident our fashion allows for artistic self-expression. But are we truly expressing the Self when the fab ricated forces of late-stage capi talism continue to command our closet? The relationship between fashion and capitalism, once

I should preface this by men tioning that I have never taken much notice of fortune cook ies, star signs or how I’m acting when mercury is in retrograde. If any of their predictions come true, I label it a lucky coincidence, which life is full of after all. Also, I knew Dada never read the palms of his immediate family — he felt what he said would come true and didn’t want his family to be too influenced by his words. Hence, this magic remained a distant fascination and I always watched from afar with the secret antici pation that one day he would pass it down to me.

The summer before I started as a sophomore at the University of Michigan, my family members were hit with the sudden reality that London to Ann Arbor was not a short flight away. In their own wonderful ways, everyone began showing me how much they would miss me. For my little sis ters, that meant a three-way peace offering in the form of a clothing exchange. My mother decided to ignore my many unpacked bags and resorted to sending me sad memes via Whatsapp. The list goes on.

Having lived two streets down

from each other my entire life, Dada and I also realized that we wouldn’t be able to meet for week ly breakfasts or go for day trips to Ikea as often. So, his proposal was as follows: I get to ask one ques tion and he answers. My inner 11-year-old self was jumping with joy.

I sat opposite him with appre hension. Eyebrows raised and eyes squinting, he was carefully fixated on my left hand. I have never felt the urge to know how my life will play out — I still don’t. I also believe that one’s fate is already written. I was feeling doubtful but strangely assured.

“You base your decisions on emotions. But, in many ways you are balanced,” Dada said to me, deciphering my traits. Depend ing on who you talk to, this is true. How he knew this, I simply do not know.

“You’re an emotional person when it comes to love. Hold back before you jump in.” I laughed nervously at the idea of my whitehaired, elderly grandfather giving me relationship advice. Maybe this was the best I’d get.

Then, he began unraveling my next few years. “The initial part of your twenties will be confusing; you won’t know which direction

to follow.” I took a deep breath and registered how much sense that comment made. It scared me that this could be the prelude to my adult life.

He got carried away, as they all do, but it was the perfect parting gift.

Fast forward to the present day, I remember this moment with complete clarity. It was the most one-on-one time we spent togeth er in the last ten months before he passed away. For the many years that I had relied on his snippets of wisdom, I now have a lifetime to put them to practice.

Last year, I made sure to record his palm reading as a voice memo, in case I needed to refer to these snippets of wisdom. I feel ground ed hearing the sound of Dada’s voice. Sometimes, when I am sit ting in Ann Arbor thousands of miles away, I switch on my phone and listen to him. I cannot speak for every college-goer, but my life feels particularly transitional. It is an intrusive feeling that rocks my sense of self from time to time. I often find my mind wan dering to where I will live in four years, or who I will consider my closest confidants. According to

stripped bare, becomes unbear ably evident. As Stauss states, “Fashion and capitalism are codependent, caught in an inextri cable cycle, a relentless cycle, a relentlessly accelerating cycle.”

Eighteenth-century innovations in marketing and manufacturing of clothing in particular, as Ameri can historian William H. Sewell Jr. claims, allowed for significant advancements in the development of industrial capitalism. Sewell asserts that the massive role of tex tile manufacturing in the Indus trial Revolution demonstrates the formative function fashion has historically taken on with respect to the (current) capitalist system. Much like the exploitation of labor in the textile production processes of the past, the fashion industry’s ongoing exploitation in the present solemnly suggests to me that there are scornful skeletons in every one of our closets.

After all, have we not all become walking advertisements for corporate brands, our drip drenched in the most mainstream of attire? Heedlessly dressed head-to-toe in promising pro prietary lines, labels and logos, from our inner and outer to over and underwear, it seems we’re

unaware of how strong of a hold corporations have on the clothes that hold us together.

A short stroll through campus simply proves how many people proudly brandish themselves with elite and luxury brands.

German philosopher Walter Ben jamin maintained that “Fashion prescribes the ritual according to which the commodity fetish wishes to be worshipped.” It is not uncommon for folks to buy clothing items for logos alone, as wearing recognizable brands may strengthen one’s perceived status.

Though somewhat antitheti cal to fashion culture’s commod ity fetishism and the modern-day monstrosities of the harrow ing hypebeast culture, another formidable phenomenon has emerged. Yes, thrifting is trendy now! Obscure, niche and virtu ally unrecognizable brands are becoming all the rave as young people veer into vintage aesthet ics. Interestingly in thrifting, one person’s garbage quickly becomes another person’s garment. To say you thrifted a fine piece of fabric might feel like a flex, especially if it is from a recognized elite brand.

Yet there’s a growing awareness occurring of how rich, well-off

people have exploited and appro priated thrifting and it is not uncommon (at this university even) to see considerably wealthy individuals wearing thrifted clothes, subsequently glorifying poverty aesthetics in the process. And while white, affluent individ uals may cosplay poverty aesthet ics out of attempts to conceal their privilege, conversely speaking, there’s a tendency for poor people of Color to dress impressively out of a desire to ascend socially.

Evidently, the rubber-soled shoes meet the road of retro spection when we consider how sneaker culture, a result of the historical popularity of basket ball in the ’70s, has enthralled many young Black males — from all socioeconomic classes — into being (hyper?)conscious of their shoe game. As Black sociologist Michael Eric Dyson asserts, “the sneaker reflects at once the pro jection and stylization of black urban realities linked in our con temporary historical moment to rap culture and the underground political economy of crack, and reigns as the universal icon for the culture of consumption.”

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Letter to the Editor: Suspend Donovan Edwards

I believe the athletic department should set an example of Michigan’s high bar of academic, athletic and ethical

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

As a University of Michigan graduate, former member of the Michigan Marching Band and a lifelong Wolverine fan, I am saddened by the retweet from Michigan running back Donovan Edwards’s account of a clip containing virulent antisemitism from Kanye West, with the caption “Jewish people will literally tell you that they want you to kill your own and humiliate your women simply because they have children to feed.” There is no place at the University for racism and antisemitism.

there is no place for this behavior at Michigan. Had a white player retweeted a racist David Duke tweet, for example, I believe

I believe the athletic department should set an example of Michigan’s high bar of academic, athletic and ethical excellence by suspending Mr. Edwards for this weekend’s game against Michigan State University.

excellence by suspending Mr. Edwards for this weekend’s game against Michigan State University. Edwards and the team should understand that

that player should and would be suspended. The team is more than one player, and this behavior cannot be tolerated.

From the Daily, Endorsements for the 2022 Michigan midterms

THE MICHIGAN DAILY EDITORIAL BOARD

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s not Christmas, but it is time for the biennial elections.

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, Michigan voters will have the opportunity to vote for a variety of statelevel politicians, including governor, Secretary of State and attorney general, as well as U.S. Representatives. Furthermore, three proposals will be on the ballot this upcoming Tuesday, covering several crucial policy areas.

Michigan voters can register until 8 p.m. on Nov. 8 and can do so in person at any township or city office or at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Gubernatorial Race

Occupying much of the recent discourse around Michigan politics, the race for governor is hotly contested. Democrat Gretchen Whitmer is up for reelection after spending the last four years in office. A near life-long public servant, Whitmer spent 13 years in the Michigan State Legislature. During her term as governor, Whitmer helped create thousands of jobs, increased funding for education and led the state through the pandemic.

She is opposed by Trumpendorsed Republican Tudor Dixon, who is new to politics and has spent her professional life working for her father’s steel foundry, as an actress and, most recently, as a conservative TV commentator.

Key elements of Dixon’s campaign include increasing parental involvement in public schooling, opposing COVID-19 lockdowns and cutting down on corporate regulation.

The candidates’ divergent views and experiences are nowhere more apparent than on the issue of reproductive rights, which are at the forefront of many voters’ minds in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Tudor Dixon opposes exceptions for rape and incest, but supports exceptions to protect the health of the mother. Despite her staunchly pro-life stance, Dixon stated in a recent debate she would accept the results of Proposal 3, which would codify reproductive rights in the state if passed. Even with this cession, Dixon has expressed her disapproval of the proposal, although she has stated that she does not believe abortion should be an issue for the gubernatorial race. While the proposal on the ballot should be the determining factor on the matter, this Editorial Board has concerns that even if it passes, Dixon may implement roadblocks to abortion access or fail to respect the outcome entirely, a concern enhanced by her refusal to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election.

On the contrary, Whitmer is in full support of Proposal 3 and intends to uphold the rights guaranteed under Roe v. Wade. She has evidenced this commitment not only through her urgency to protect

reproductive rights before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but also through her continued advocacy for these rights since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn. In the fallout of the June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, she sued to block the enforcement of a strictly anti-abortion 1931 law that is still on Michigan’s books and has worked to share accurate information on abortion. If re-elected, she would seek to ensure that individuals have, and subsequently maintain, access to abortion care and other reproductive rights.

In addition to her advocacy for reproductive rights, another important issue Whitmer has been vocal about is gun control.

In late July, Whitmer signed an executive directive aimed at reducing the amount of illegal guns and increasing compliance checks to identify those who cannot legally own a gun due to past criminal history. She has also expressed her support for background checks, secure storage and red flag laws.

There is also room for improvement on Whitmer’s promise to “fix the damn roads.” Despite being a major aspect of Whitmer’s 2018 campaign, this goal has not been comprehensively met: There has been only a 4% increase in the amount of roads rated “in good condition” since Whitmer took office in 2019.

Should Whitmer be reelected next week, she should be held accountable for the promises she so ardently made to voters.

Even with these shortcomings, Gretchen Whitmer is the better candidate to lead the state of Michigan for the coming four years. Her track record has shown that she is a capable politician, in touch with Michiganders and aware of the issues most significant to Michigan. The other major-party candidate, Tudor Dixon, lacks experience and holds what many would consider extreme views. With consideration of all these factors, this Editorial Board endorses Gretchen Whitmer for Governor of Michigan.

Secretary of State Race

The race for Michigan’s Secretary of State is between Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican Kristina Karamo. Benson, the incumbent, has had an extensive impact on improving access to the Secretary of State’s functions with her emphasis on making more functions of the SOS available online. While in 2018, only 28% of all Secretary of State-involved transactions, like renewing a drivers license, could be done online, today 60% can be completed without having to step foot in a SOS office. This increased utilization of digital operations has resulted in an average office visit time of just 20 minutes — a shocking figure when considering the notoriously long wait times previous generations have endured.

As the Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing elections and ensuring a fair and democratic process, Karamo’s spreading of election misinformation should be

considered. Karamo openly discussed her opposition to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, a position insufficiently backed by disproved claims of voter fraud. In contrast to Benson’s established success in this position, Karamo’s continued reliance on scare tactics and conspiracy theories make her a less suitable choice for the position of Secretary of State and as such, the Editorial Board is endorsing Jocelyn Benson for Secretary of State.

Attorney General Race

Incumbent Democrat Dana Nessel is running against Republican Matthew DePerno for Michigan Attorney General. The position of attorney general holds significant influence, including the power to appoint state attorneys and the responsibility of investigating questions relating to elections and the removal of public officials — making the race extremely important in determining the future of Michigan’s justice system.

A topic of contention in the race is the investigation of DePerno for plotting to steal and tamper with election machines. As this investigation falls under the oversight of the attorney general’s office, Nessel appointed a special prosecutor to investigate DePerno in an attempt to avoid any conflict of interest. This showed her ability to be impartial and apolitical when necessary; an important characteristic for an attorney general. DePerno’s evident unpredictability makes Dana Nessel this Editorial Board’s preferred candidate.

District 6 House Race

The leading candidates in the U.S. House of Representatives race in Michigan’s 6th district, which includes Ann Arbor, are incumbent Democrat Debbie Dingell and Republican Whitney Williams. While Williams would be new to politics if elected, the Dingell family has a long-held political dynasty: Debbie was elected to her husband’s seat after almost 60 years of his service, and almost 22 years by his father before that.

Dingell vies for progressive policies related to health care and the environment. A proponent of expanding health care coverage, Dingell is working to restore previous protections under the Affordable Care Act. She has also worked on several pieces of legislation to increase fuel efficiency and protect the Great Lakes. In addition to these policies, Dingell advocates for progress within the automotive industry with a focus on uplifting new companies in Michigan.

Even though Williams’s website has an aesthetic flare that Dingell’s might not be able to compete with, it lacks substance relating to her stances on political issues. While there are not any glaring controversies related to Williams’s platform, its lack of specificity speaks for itself.

Considering the role Dingell plays on a national level, if she loses her incumbent seat, the House of Representatives will become one seat closer to having

Republican Kevin McCarthy as the Speaker of the House. This will be dangerous not only to progressive initiatives but also the trajectory of American politics as a whole, as he would likely be influenced by some of the more extreme members of the Republican Party. Dingell’s seat is an important one that she should retain because of her involved role in the community and how she has wielded her role to help the constituents of the district. As such, this Editorial Board endorses Debbie Dingell for Michigan’s 6th district.

State Senator Race Other contentious races on the ballot in and around Ann Arbor are those for state senators, in which Democrat Sue Shink is up against Republican Tim Golding in District 14, and Incumbent Democrat Jeff Irwin is up against Republican Scott Price in District 15. District 15 will be the less controversial of the two races, as Irwin is in a generally safe seat. The District 14 race, however, is a highly competitive one, as it extends beyond Ann Arbor into rural parts of the state.

Policy-wise, Shink’s goals for climate policy, pollution accountability and mental health support are more productive and rigorously outlined than Golding’s focus on family values and Second Amendment rights. Shink’s actionable policy goals lead this Editorial Board to endorse Sue Shink as District 14’s Senator. Given the fact that a Democratic majority within the Michigan Legislature would make policymaking more efficient under a Whitmer administration, we endorse Jeff Irwin as District 15’s Senator.

Proposals 1, 2 and 3

On the ballot alongside these elections are three ballot initiatives, labeled “proposals.” Equally, if not more important than the aforementioned races, these proposals concern the integrity of our state politics, the protection of democratic access and the safeguarding of reproductive rights for all Michiganders. It is key to take a similar degree of care in considering one’s choice on these initiatives, as their

outcomes have the ability to determine the future of Michigan’s politics and the everyday life of its citizens.

Proposal 1 concerns term limits for state legislators and the requirement that they publicly disclose their personal financial assets and income sources. The initiative proposes the term limit for state officials be lowered from 14 to 12 years. Currently, state officials in Michigan are able to serve six years in the House and eight years in the Senate, but if this proposal were to be approved, they would be only be able to serve their tenure in one chamber of the Legislature. This would allow representatives to gain more experience in one chamber while also limiting the amount of time they spend in office.

The second section of Proposal 1 concerns the financial transparency of state officials. Michigan is just one of two states — Idaho being the other — that does not require elected officials to disclose their financial information. This aspect of the proposition is a common sense addition to the Michigan Constitution: politicians should be transparent about their earnings, as their constituents deserve the right to see who is funding their causes.

The approval of Proposal 1 is essential in protecting the ethics of Michigan’s state politics. Placing additional term limits on officials and requiring that they be more open about their earnings creates a more democratic and honest system for Michigan citizens, leading this Editorial Board to endorse a “Yes” vote on Proposal 1. The next initiative on the ballot is Proposal 2, which, if approved, would expand voting rights in Michigan, lengthen the period to vote by absentee ballot and allow for multiple forms of voter identification. The “Promote the Vote” initiative, as it is being called, would promote both election security and accessibility, variables that have become increasingly important since the previous election cycle. In approving nine days of early voting, Proposal 2 would allow for a

transition to more equitable and flexible elections, wherein all eligible Michigan voters have the chance to participate in the election process. Voting “Yes” for this ballot initiative is a vote to enhance the integrity of state elections and grant more democratic voting access. As such, our Editorial Board endorses a “Yes” vote on this proposal.

Proposal 3 is arguably the most notable of the aforementioned ballot initiatives. Also known as the “Reproductive Freedom for All” initiative, this proposition would establish the individual right for reproductive care for all Michiganders, including the right to make decisions about childbirth, contraception and abortion. It would also invalidate an abortion ban from 1931 which assigns criminal penalties for those who obtain or administer abortions in Michigan.

This initiative is the subject of current debate, with an extremely widespread “No” campaign that claims the proposition is “confusing” and “extreme.” But what this Editorial Board finds even more “extreme” is the alternative to the approval of this initiative: a “No” vote on the proposition leaves those who depend on reproductive health care in Michigan in a dangerous situation, one where the draconian 1931 ban could be enforced. It is essential that we approve this ballot initiative in order to validate reproductive rights and protect the future of abortion in the state of Michigan. As such, the Editorial Board recommends a “Yes” vote on Proposal 3. Our vote has power, and it is essential that we recognize that fact. The future of the state of Michigan rests on the outcome of your vote, from your governor to your reproductive rights. You have the power to protect the lives, bodies and interests of Michiganders this year, and it is exceedingly important that you utilize your fundamental democratic right. Vote this year — in-person, early or on Election Day — and lead the change that you want to see in the state of Michigan.

Stanford Lipsey Student

Building 420 Maynard

Ann Arbor, MI

students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

PAIGE HODDER Editor in Chief JULIAN BARNARD AND SHUBHUM GIROTI Editorial Page Editors

Board.

authors.

Ammar Ahmad Julian Barnard Brandon Cowit Jess D’Agostino Ben Davis Shubhum Giroti Devon Hesano

Sophia Lehrbaum Olivia Mouradian Siddharth Parmar Rushabh Shah

Nikhil Sharma Lindsey Spencer Evan Stern Anna Trupiano Jack Tumpowsky Alex Yee Quin Zapoli

VANESSA KIEFER AND KATE WEILAND Managing Editors

LILA TURNER/Daily

Kellyanne Conway is right about your vote

ELINA MORRISON Opinion Columnist

If you see me walking around campus with my earbuds in, chances are I am listening to a podcast about politics. Post Reports, The Weeds, Political Gabfest, POLITICO Playbook Daily Briefing — you name it, I probably listen to it. Last month, I became a fan of the New York Times’s latest production, The Run-Up with Astead Herndon. Every Thursday morning, Herndon takes us through big moments in political history in an attempt to unpack the fate of our country and our growing frustrations with America’s political parties. In one of my favorite episodes of the season so far, Herndon explores “what Democrats and Republicans got wrong about voters” and their “flawed assumptions.”

After a losing political battle in 2012, when President Barack Obama successfully skirted into his second term, Republicans gathered for a wake-up call, otherwise known as the GOP Autopsy. This was an assessment that determined that the Republican Party’s platform and key values weren’t landing with the American people — mainly minority voters and young people. The report had a simple message: the GOP will have to make changes or else

the party will face an existential threat. It highlighted key ways to build coalitions with Latino voters, namely by being more inclusive and comprehensive about immigration reform and fighting hard to regain the trust of voters of Color who have felt isolated from the party.

The GOP had a solid reason to be so somber about its own future. When Obama landed in office, for the first and second time, his presidency was lauded as a transformative moment for the nation. That a bi-racial man born in Hawaii and raised as a global citizen could become president became a signal that America was also becoming more racially and culturally tolerant. Everyone from President Clinton to the New York Times Editorial Board said so. And, by the early 2000s the future of the country was already set in stone: in as early as 2005 it was projected that by the year 2050, people of Color would become the majority racial demographic in America.

In other words, with this set of factors, as Herndon discusses in the podcast, the GOP was operating under two main assumptions. The first was that under a majority-minority country, the Republican Party would be left with a smaller white base which could mean shrinking electoral power.

The second assumption was

that voters of Color would overwhelmingly support Democrats. After the election and reelection of President Obama, Democrats held their own assumptions about their confidence with minority voters through a popular “demography is destiny” doctrine: that as the country shifted in demographics, Democrats would be able to maintain their political dominance long-term.

In hindsight, it’s possible to see why Democrats were viewed as the more successful party with minority voters. In a 2012 Gallup poll, Republicans were overwhelmingly nonHispanic white, with only 2% of Black voters and 6% of Hispanic voters identifying as such. The point being, both political parties have spent decades making assumptions about dependable voters and winnable candidates. But then, Trump became president in 2016. Not only did he gain traction among minority voters, he openly campaigned on harmful racial rhetoric that sounded exclusive, instead of the inclusivity recommended by the GOP Autopsy. This political irony continued in 2020, where minority voter support for the GOP increased.

Simply put, the autopsy was wrong. In his podcast, Herndon speaks to Kellyanne Conway, former senior adviser

Is the Democratic Party out of touch with Americans?

NIKHIL SHARMA Opinion Columnist

In January of 2021, Democrats rode into Washington and took control of the White House and both houses of Congress. President Joe Biden’s approval rating stood at over 53%, and the nation looked hopefully to a leader who promised to restore order and sensibility to American politics. As Biden took the Oath of Office, stocks soared to record highs, investors bullish on a president they believed would bring stability to markets in a post-COVID-19 era. The Republican Party appeared a disgraced organization, and with the events of January 6 top of mind, many contended the Republicans were facing a lost election cycle, as they did in the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation.

Almost two years later, America faces a very different political landscape. As stocks remain below where they were at Biden’s inauguration and economists see a recession as an increasingly likely scenario, economic sentiment has tanked. Biden’s approval rating has dropped more than 10% since taking office and the Democrats face only a 19% chance of retaining both houses of Congress. All of this raises the question: what happened?

Perhaps the primary cause of the Democrats’ fall from grace has been the economy. While external factors, like the war in Ukraine, certainly impacted inflation, continued stimulus spending by Biden after the economy had already begun to recover further exacerbated it. While it’s impossible to pin the blame on any individual, Democrats soured their public image by denying federal spending’s role in boosting inflation, continuing to propose large spending packages even as CPI climbed rapidly.

When Democrats finally decided to act on the impending economic crisis, they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite its name has dubious impacts on short-term inflation. Though the core components of the bill, such as prescription drug cost reductions and tax credits, are useful tools in fighting inflation, the $369 billion in climate spending and $79 billion in funding for the IRS raised many eyebrows. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected that the Inflation Reduction Act will have a “negligible effect” on inflation in the coming months and years, calling into question its effectiveness as a policy measure.

Though the Federal Reserve is the entity primarily responsible for controlling inflation, the other parts of the federal government also have an obligation to take actions that aid the Fed’s objectives. Other than the flawed Inflation Reduction Act, however, the Democrats have continued to take reckless actions that compromise the fight against inflation. Most recently, the White House unveiled its plan for student loan relief, which the Congressional Budget Office assessed at a cost of $400 billion.

While high student debt is certainly an issue, canceling $400 billion of debt in the midst of high inflation seems imprudent, as it would likely increase consumer spending, further worsening inflation.

Moreover, doing so has been shown to be a regressive tax by income, education and wealth, meaning that the plan will further contribute to disparities in household wealth between college graduates, who typically earn higher salaries, and Americans without college degrees — enigmatic of Democrats’ priorities shifting from their blue collar roots to the more genteel interests of urban elites.

While there are many reasons for the Democratic Party’s fall in popularity, a large share of their troubles are rooted in their detachment from Main Street, pocketbook, kitchen table issues.

Though the Democrats of the mid-to-late 20th century were perceived as a blue-collar party in support of working class voters, modern Democrats have struggled to escape their image as an elitist institution.

While it may be easy to dismiss Trump voters as racist or uninformed, the populist movement he created was incredibly powerful. In flipping Blue Wall states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2016, he swayed traditionally Democratic voters who felt

neglected by a party that had left them behind. Though Biden’s uniting message as a traditional blue-collar Democrat helped the party win back many states in 2020, his rampant spending and perceived pandering to the left wing of his party has reverted the Democrats to the same elitist image he’d hoped to avoid.

In order to regain the image of competency and moderation that Biden embodied upon entering the White House, Democrats need to immediately pivot their strategies behind policy and messaging. The first step they must take is being honest about the state of our economic problems. By first presenting inflation as “transitory” then pinning it on Russian President Vladimir Putin and corporate greed, and now claiming inflation will worsen if Republicans take control of Congress, Biden has lost the trust of the American people and sabotaged opportunities for future bipartisan collaboration. As we likely head into a recession, Americans must be able to look to their president for support in bringing our nation back to a healthy economic state. By refusing to acknowledge his own party’s role in furthering inflation, however, Biden risks continued Democratic runaway spending stalling his ability to curtail inflation.

In addition, Biden needs to exert his authority within the party to rein in the left wing and unite leadership around core policies. As opposed to the GOP, which during the Trump administration voted famously monolithically, Democrats have struggled to keep their agenda reasonable due to the high levels of disagreement between the left and centrist sects of the party. While the Infrastructure Bill was a bipartisan victory, policies like student loan forgiveness have angered many middle-class voters and left the Democrats seeming out of touch.

to President Trump and the first woman to manage a successful presidential campaign. Whatever your opinion of her, she contends that Trump was successful because he actively pushed away from the assumptions that the Republican Party was on the decline, saying “we don’t tell voters what’s important to them, they tell us.” So, as we look ahead to the upcoming midterm elections, what can both parties learn when reaching out to voters, and how can they create more dynamic campaigns?

Gerald Hills has had a wideranging career in politics at the state and federal level, with leadership roles at the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office and the Michigan Republican Party. He notes that something politicians tend to forget is that “politics is dynamic — not static. California was the bedrock for Republican candidates at one point and now the state is reliably Democrat. Voters act the same way.”

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hit with an onslaught of stories detailing how Latino voters are increasingly switching to the Republican Party, not just to vote but to run as candidates. And while many on the Left see this as cause to sound the alarm, Hills isn’t too surprised. “We should never lose sight of the fact that people

look at politics in terms of how it impacts them and their families individually. For example, people are paying more attention to the fact that they are paying more at the pump or at the grocery store, and they will bring that frustration with them at the ballot box.”

Because there are so many issues people care about, it’s difficult to pigeonhole voters. It sounds incredibly simple, and yet politicians continue to miss this. It is common for candidates to run on different messages depending on which voting group they are talking to. The problem is that concepts such as the “Latino Vote” or the “Black Vote” never tell the full story and are full of misconceptions.

For example, despite the assumption that Latino voters are largely Democrats, Republicans have had a deep history among this fast-growing electorate. Although the Black electorate overwhelmingly votes Democratic in elections, 70% of Black voters identify as moderate or conservative.

Former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed told me that this is especially where Democrats tend to fail: “We have a large coalition, but Democrats tend to campaign a different segment of their playbook to different groups of people instead of building a strong cohesive

vision where everyone can see themselves.”

So how can a candidate be successful when reaching out to voters? Again, keep it simple: According to Hills, “Strength is a powerful motivator for a lot of people. This is why Trump stood out to so many people, especially those who didn’t vote before. It was Clinton who said ‘strong and wrong beats weak and right.’” He also pointed to how Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is an example of a candidate who is framing her campaign around strength. She leans into her accomplishments, being in motion and getting things done. Hills also emphasized how important the tool of persuasion is: “In politics, perception is reality.” Building a coalition is messy work, but if you can convince a voter that you care about their interests, that you’ll go to D.C. and fight for them and that you’ll keep the promises you make, you end up being much more successful. It’s important for politicians to realize that they have to work for every voter they want. Blindly assuming that a certain block of voters has an allegiance to you is not only dangerous, but insulting. The upcoming midterm elections will be the ultimate test for how both of America’s political parties decide to campaign and craft their messaging in the future.

Political debates are going out of style. That’s bad for voters.

DEVON HESANO Opinion Columnist

Campaign season in battleground Arizona is in full swing. The midterms are in less than a month. Statewide races are polling within the margin of error, attack ads are plastered across the airwaves and millions of dollars are being thrown at campaigns. The horse race is on and everything seems to be chugging along as usual — except for one traditional factor. In the Arizona governor race, one of the most watched and critical races in the country, there have been zero debates between the two major party candidates, and none are planned for the future. The reason for this anomaly? Democrat Katie Hobbs is simply refusing to debate. The Hobbs campaign claims that the refusal to debate is based on prior, and expected, hijinks and conspiratorial nonsense from her challenger, Republican Kari Lake. Lake, a fringe right-wing figure associated closely with disgraced former President Donald Trump, did refuse to answer questions in her primary debate earlier this year, and given her track record of acting off the walls, a respectful debate on her end seems hard to imagine. There are a few problems with Hobbs’ line of reasoning, however. First, who cares? That Lake is scared to answer tough questions should be a perfect attack line for Hobbs

during the debate. The stage would also give an opportunity for Hobbs to rightly call out Lake’s conspiracy theories in a way that can’t directly be done elsewhere.

Secondly, and of concern, is that Hobbs’ explanation seems improbable.

What seems more likely is that the Hobbs campaign sees a debate as a chance for Lake to succeed, given her extensive media experience and the fact that she is known to grab media attention. Though both explanations are not comforting, it is this possibility that is especially worrisome. The purpose of debates, at their heart, is not to be a platform for a candidate to gain or lose ground in an election. They are an avenue for the voters to watch candidates converse on issues, be given tough questions they otherwise could more easily avoid and inform voters about the issues that matter to them.

Expanding on this, though we are not in the 1960s, when political debates might be one of the few times one could see a candidate on television, debates feature timeless benefits.

First is the importance of the moderator. Moderators can ask tough questions, without the possibility of the candidate simply walking away, as they could with a reporter. If they dodge, their opponent is right there to jump on them for it.

The second key benefit is that debates are one of the only, if not the only, time when candidates

have a chance to directly debate each other on the issues. Thirdly, debates are an easy way for voters to get a general grasp of how a candidate behaves, what issues they are seeking to highlight and where they stand on various matters. While the advent of sites like Politico may serve to give those inside the beltway seemingly infinite material on candidates, many voters don’t have the interest nor the time to consume it. Most voters don’t tune into campaigns until late in the campaign anyway, so the timing works out great.

And, while some may argue that the importance of debates has decreased, voter interest in them clearly has not. The Mike Pence-Kamala Harris debate was the second most watched vice presidential debate in the history of the country. Three of the four most-watched debates in American history have occurred in the last two elections. Debates are for the voters. If voters are finding them as compelling to watch as ever, it is an especially awful time for debates to decrease in frequency.

Political debates have historically been an American campaign season staple. They are a showcase of democracy, free speech and the exchanging of ideas, and candidates have traditionally had enough respect for voters and norms that they would participate.

Design by Tye Kalinovic

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Op-Ed: Stop Ben Shapiro from Speaking at the University of Michigan

On Sept. 22, the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at the University of Michigan announced they were inviting Ben Shapiro to speak at the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School on Nov. 15th. Shapiro, a divisive political commentator, has based his entire career on promoting extremely antiabortion, transphobic, Islamophobic, homophobic, racist and misogynistic views, which are commonly surfacelevel understandings of race and sociology. His opinions, which include blaming critical race theory and the Black Lives Matter movement for America’s demise, have furthered division and hate across the nation.

We, the Ethical Investment Front, are a coalition of student leaders, organizers and community members brought together as an offshoot of the Students of Color Liberation Front, and we are concerned about Shapiro’s presence on campus. We urge the University’s Board of Regents and President Santa Ono to recognize the threat to safety that Shapiro’s presence holds and stop him from speaking at the University. His presence will only cause harm to our campus and communities in Ann Arbor and poses particular risk to students of Color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as those of other marginalized backgrounds.

This situation is regrettably reminiscent of when white supremacist and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer planned to speak at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University in 2018. Thanks to community organizing and the pressure the U-M Stop Spencer Campaign put on administrators, the University prevented Spencer from speaking. Similarly, the MSU Stop Spencer Campaign was able to get Spencer to speak off campus and to a smaller audience, but violence and arrests still persisted. However, with a new administration comes inexperience, and any gaps in our commitment to justice and equity will allow bigoted speakers to come to campus.

While some argue that universities cannot deny free speech, the University of Michigan, along with other institutions, has historically exercised its right to turn away speakers due to high costs and an inability to ensure public safety. The costs associated with protecting speakers, students and community members at these types of events can approach six figures: When Milo Yiannopolous, another alt-right pundit, was invited to speak at the University of Washington in 2017, the cost of security totaled about $73,000.

It is incredibly fiscally and socially irresponsible to support a single speaker that has such a high capacity to cause harm to the campus community.

In the case of Richard Spencer’s planned visit to the University of Michigan in 2018, the University rejected his request to speak

because the Division of Public Safety and Security was unable to “assure a reasonably safe setting for such an event.” Other universities like the University of Minnesota have successfully defended their venue changes or cancellations for speakers like Shapiro in court because of legitimate safety concerns. The same can be said for Ben Shapiro in 2022. Hosting a speaker like Shapiro calls into question the values of this university: Why does the University prioritize giving a platform to costly, hateful speakers over opportunities to directly support the students, staff, faculty and everyone impacted by bigots like Shapiro by ensuring our campus is a safe space?

To University President Santa Ono, this is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your commitment to listening to students, especially those on the margins. As you said earlier this year, “(m)y most important first job is to listen to the community. They understand what’s special about Michigan, and that has to inform what I’m going to do, even in the first year.” If you care about and are listening to the campus community, you will prevent Ben Shapiro from coming to campus. To the regents, some of whom were vocal about preventing Spencer at the University of Michigan in 2018, we ask that you advocate for the safety of all students and speak up against bigotry at our university. And to students, do not be silent on this issue. Make sure your peers, especially those targeted by Shapiro’s rhetoric, are safe and heard throughout this situation.

Spooky spooky Halloween

LYDIA STORELLA Opinion Columnist

On Oct. 6, President Joe Biden pardoned thou sands of people in federal prison on charges of possession of marijuana and announced that his administration would review whether marijuana should still be considered a Schedule I sub stance. There is no doubt that this action by the president will benefit the lives of thousands of Americans. However, there are still thousands of people in state prison for possession of marijua na and in federal prison for the distribution and sale of marijua na. Until marijuana is legalized or decriminalized in the United States, people will continue to be sent to jail for use of a substance that is legal for recreational use in 19 states.

One important reason that marijuana should be decrimi nalized is that, by some metrics, marijuana is safer than alcohol, a drug commonly used by Ameri cans. It is considered impos sible to overdose on marijuana. It is also extremely difficult to develop an addiction, although it is possible to have a dependence

Midterms Matter

M any voters only focus on presiden tial elections when, in reality, it is state and local elections that have a larger impact on our daily lives. The importance of down-ballot elections is evident this year in Michigan, where voters will vote on everything from the governor to two of the Univer sity of Michigan Regents and a proposal to legalize abortion in Michigan. These elections are even more crucial given the dangerous anti-choice elec tion deniers on the ballot for some of Michigan’s key elected positions. They are too impor tant for young people to sit out, especially with important issues around abortion rights and preserving the integrity of our democratic institutions. That is why students need to use their voices and vote to play an active role in shaping the future that we want to see.

The top three elected offi cials in Michigan — the gov ernor, attorney general and secretary of state — are all up for re-election this Novem ber. Despite the importance of these roles in governing our state, the Republican Party nominated extreme candidates with no political experience and dangerous histories of try ing to usurp the will of Michi gan voters in the 2020 election. Matthew DePerno, the Repub lican candidate for attorney general, rose to fame within the Republican Party for his work to “audit” the 2020 elec tion, motivated by unfounded claims of voter fraud. DePerno is currently under investiga tion for allegedly accessing and tampering with a voting machine. Kristina Karamo, the Republican nominee for sec retary of state, the office that runs elections in Michigan, is also an avowed election denier who gained prominence by claiming widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

The fact that both of these candidates are running for offices that deal directly with the rule of law and the admin istration of state elections is unbelievable. Their election would be detrimental to the fundamental bedrock of our democracy. In office, they would threaten the integrity of Michigan elections going into the 2024 election and elections after that.

Many of the top Republican candidates in Michigan this year have shown themselves to be radical and out of touch on the issue of reproductive rights, a topic that is of great concern for many students on campus. DePerno has sup ported restricting Plan B and incorrectly claimed that Plan B is being used after conception. Tudor Dixon, the Republican

candidate for governor, has also embraced a severely antichoice stance, stating that she only supports abortion to save the life of the mother. For so many young people, reproduc tive rights are a defining politi cal issue.

The topic inspired LSA sophomore Olivia O’Connell to vote in this election. “I plan on voting because so many impor tant and crucial human rights are at stake in this election,” O’Connell said. “As someone who’s passionate about social justice issues, I want to ensure that every single person can fully embrace their identity and exercise their personal lib erties.”

The issue of reproductive justice is at the forefront of the midterms this November. Fol lowing the overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer, states now determine the legality of abortion within their borders.

On the Michigan ballot this November is Proposal 3, which would codify abortion in the Michigan Constitution. For so many young people, reproduc tive rights are a defining politi cal issue. As we face a future in which we have fewer rights than our parents did at our age, young voters in Michigan have the ability in this election to vote yes on Proposal 3 and ensure that reproductive rights are codified in the Michigan Constitution.

The passage of this propos al is not inevitable, as many religious organizations and outside groups have poured money into defeating Proposal 3. Many of their ads have been criticized for pushing alleged misinformation, such as claim ing that the bill will allow young children to get puber ty-blocking drugs without parental consent, a claim that has been disputed by Washt enaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit. This incorrect claim is an example of how anti-Prop 3 groups are trying to under mine this proposal through the propagation of false informa tion.

One of the most important elections for students in par ticular is the election of the University’s Board of Regents. Regents play a critical role in

the everyday life of U-M stu dents, deciding everything from tuition prices to choosing University presidents and how the endowment is invested. Voting for the regents is one of the only ways that we as stu dents can have a direct say in the actions of the larger school administration.

The regents’ election is an example of why it is so impor tant that young people vote. Historically, the people who vote in midterm elections are older and less representative of the views of young people. Youth civic engagement has historically lagged compared to older Americans. However, in 2020, inspired youth vot ers came to the polls in record numbers. It is estimated that 50% of young people between the ages of 18 and 29 voted in the 2020 presidential election, which was an 11-point increase from 2016. While these num bers are a vast improvement, there is still significant room for further increases in turn out among young people. We are so fortunate to be at a school that prioritizes civic engagement and makes it easy for students to vote. There are two satellite clerk’s offices on campus, one at the University of Michigan Museum of Art and one at the Duderstadt Cen ter on North Campus, where students can go to register, update their addresses, get a ballot and vote. Both of these spaces have been designed with the intention of creating a calming and welcoming vot ing environment. The spaces even feature celebration sta tions that allow students to take pictures with their ballots and make celebratory voting buttons embracing the fun and excitement of voting.

There are friendly staff and student volunteers on-site who are able to assist with any voting-related questions. The general election is on Nov. 8, but voters can already vote via an absentee ballot or in per son at their clerk’s office. All it takes is a few minutes, but it is so critically important that you vote. If young people go to the polls and make their voices heard, we can build a better and more just Michigan.

by Julian Kane

Pardon? Fine. Legalize it? Now!

on it. Additionally, over 60% of Americans support the legal ization of marijuana for recre ational use and 90% support its legalization for medical use.

Besides the attitudes of the vast majority of Americans as well as the safety of marijuana, there are economic reasons why the U.S. should legalize the drug federally. If marijuana were legalized at the federal level, people who currently purchase weed from unregulated sources would purchase it from licensed cannabis dispensaries. Shifting demand away from unlicensed sellers would allow the gov ernment to benefit from taxa tion of marijuana. Currently, recreational marijuana is legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia. In 2021, those states reported a combined $3.7 billion in revenue.

Regulation would allow for consumption of safer marijuana and knowledge about what is in the product. Purchasing mari juana illegally increases the possibility of potency inconsis tencies, mold and pesticides. Legalization would allow cus tomers to know what is in their marijuana, including tetrahy drocannabinol (THC) and can

nabidiol (CBD) percentages, allowing users to be aware of the potency of their marijuana.

Regulation will help keep people safe from the dangers of using too much marijuana in a short period of time. Though mari juana overdoses haven’t been observed to be lethal, they can still cause serious adverse men tal and physical effects.

Legalization of marijuana also leads to greater participation in the labor market and higher rates of employment, as more people are employed to work in this new industry. Legalization of mari juana federally would allow all states in the country to reap the benefits that many states have already seen. Additionally, legal izing marijuana would reduce law enforcement and incarcera tion costs, freeing up those dol lars for other priorities.

Finally, the U.S. should legal ize marijuana because of the complexity of laws that exist in this country about the sub stance. While marijuana is legal in 19 states for recreational and medicinal use, it is fully ille gal and criminalized in four states. In addition to the states where marijuana is legalized for medicinal use, there are a vari

ety of reasons why marijuana is legal in other capacities in the U.S. On top of that, federal law prohibits the use and sale of marijuana, further confusing the legality of marijuana in the U.S. While marijuana is legal in many states, possession or use of marijuana on federal property can lead to federal charges, even if marijuana is legal in that state. Marijuana’s continued place ment as a Schedule I drug along with heroin and LSD, and above fentanyl, leads to uncertainty about the consequences of using marijuana.

Efforts to legalize or decrimi nalize recreational and medical marijuana have been attempted on both sides of the aisle. While many of the states that have fully legalized marijuana are controlled by Democrats, states under Republican control such as Mississippi and Alabama have legalized marijuana in some capacity. This demonstrates that efforts to decriminalize mari juana have support from both parties, making it easier to pass at the federal level.

Additionally, Congress has attempted to decriminalize marijuana and remove it from the federal list of controlled sub

stances, with some Republican support. There are currently two bills in Congress regarding the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana, one introduced by a Democrat and one introduced by a Republican. The Democrats’ bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and impose a tax on mari juana. Three Republicans signed onto this bill. The bill introduced by Republicans would impose a lower tax on the sale of mari juana and treat marijuana like alcohol under the Controlled Substances Act. While the 50-50 Senate may make it difficult

to pass measures legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, par ticipation by Republicans in such efforts are possible.

Biden’s decision to pardon people in prison for marijuana possession and to review wheth er marijuana should remain a Schedule I drug is absolutely a step in the right direction. How ever, it does not go far enough. Marijuana is a commonly used drug that does not have signifi cant negative impacts on health. People do not deserve to be imprisoned for marijuana charg es. It’s crucial that the U.S. legal izes marijuana now.

Design by Sara Fang

Design by Allison Payne

SportsMonday: What we can learn from Donovan Edwards

JARED GREENSPAN Managing Sports Editor

It happened late in the first quarter, following an explosive 28-yard catch that set Michigan up at Michigan State’s four-yard line. The PA announcer bellowed “Donovan Edwards,” the recipi ent of J.J. McCarthy’s pass, while the majority of the 111,083 fans on hand unleashed a raucous applause. Thanks to Edwards, Michigan was suddenly poised to take an early lead.

As I sat inside the Michigan Stadium press box, my mind raced back to Wednesday. That’s when I discovered that Edwards had retweeted a post containing disparaging, disgusting antise mitic rhetoric from Ye — formerly Kanye West — the now infamous face of a furious antisemitic move ment sweeping the nation.

I didn’t think much of Edwards’s actions at the time.

Perhaps it was a result of a sub conscious desensitization to hate speech, an unfortunate reality in the world that we live in. At this point, we have a formula that we regurgitate to handle these situa tions.

Recently, that formula has been leaned on. In September, an extremist group known as GDL placed antisemitic fliers on porch es and driveways of off-campus residences throughout Ann Arbor. They distributed these fliers on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jew ish New Year.

In the aftermath, the Univer sity released a carefully-crafted statement, apologizing for GDL’s actions and reaffirming its com mitment to creating a secure,

diverse environment inclusive of all subsets of the population — Jewish people included.

In the wake of Edwards’s actions, I presumed the Univer sity and the athletic department would follow a similar course of action.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The closest it got to a satis factory response was a tweet from Michigan President Santa Ono, but Ono’s words felt hollow amid the backdrop.

And so, while Edwards’ initial retweet — and his amplification of dangerous rhetoric — caused a dull pain, his preceding actions proved sharper.

“The retweet was a glitch,” Edwards wrote Thursday morn ing, nearly 24 hours after the ini tial retweet.

Beyond the preposterous claim — one has to press multiple but tons to retweet something, making a “glitch” an unlikely occurrence — the rest of Edwards’ reply only hurt more. He failed to mention the harm he caused to the Jewish community, nor any notion of his apparent antisemitic thought.

Thursday evening, Edwards recognized his faults.

“This has been a learning expe rience for me,” Edwards wrote. “I wish and hope that we are able as a society to rise from oppression and not discriminate off race, reli gion or ethnicity but look beyond into each person’s heart and see who they truly are as a human being. One Love.”

When asked for comment, a team spokesperson said that Edwards’s tweets reflect what he wishes to share at this time. Below that second tweet, Edwards post ed an additional statement:

“I would like to make it clear: I apologize for mistakenly retweet ing a message that was so hurtful to so many especially those in the Jewish Community. As I stated earlier, I am unequivocally against racism, exploitation and oppres sion in all forms, including ste reotyping and trafficking in hate.

I have nothing but love for others and I never judge anyone based on race or religion.”

It’s not my place to inform you how to react to that response. Maybe you brushed Edwards’s comments aside at first glance. Maybe you’ve stopped rooting for him all together. Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

For transparency purposes, I am yet to forgive Edwards, believ ing that actions speak louder

than words — particularly words that are delayed and contradict themselves. I’ll wait for after the season to even consider forgive ness. That’s when Edwards and his teammates will venture to the Holocaust Museum alongside Michigan regent Jordan Acker, who is Jewish, to learn “first hand where hate speech leads.”

That’s when Edwards will learn, and he has a lot to learn. That much is clear.

But so do all of us.

We live in a world where hate reigns supreme. Edwards’s actions are the latest episode in a disturbing increase of antisemitic rhetoric, discourse that begins with influential figures boasting powerful platforms; while antise mitic rhetoric always exists, such people bring it to the surface. Ye

has unleashed an endless spew of antisemitic tropes. The Brook lyn Nets’ Kyrie Irving has estab lished his support for “New World Order,” a disgusting antisemitic film predicated on conspiracy theories peddled by right-wing podcast host Alex Jones.

“History is not supposed to be hidden from anybody,” Irving said Saturday night in a shambolic press conference.

It’s not, and that’s a lesson we can apply now — just not in the context Irving envisions.

Artists and athletes, whether it be Ye or Edwards, have platforms. Their voices have an influence that many of us will never have.

Take Ye, for instance. His actions spurred a series of banners draped over Los Angeles freeways declar ing “Kanye was right,” a direct

consequence of his words.

But other artists and athletes have influential platforms, too.

None of Edwards’s teammates commented publicly on the matter — not that they should admonish Edwards, but to expose history, to make everyone aware of the harm that antisemitic rhetoric causes. Because platforms work both ways, and that’s something we all need to understand.

Everyone can be extra con scious of their actions, too. Per formances — whether athletic or artistic — too often cloak the dis turbing actions committed by the performers, allowing them to con tinue relatively unscathed.

That’s what I thought about Saturday afternoon, walking down Packard Street. One tailgate after the next blasted Ye’s music, ranging from “Flashing Lights” to “Monster,” popular pregame bal lads.

I thought back to that point again in the press box, with Edwards drawing his first career start and notching 80 total yards, helping the Wolverines beat their in-state rivals. Each of his plays elicited cheers.

Perhaps a more conscious response would allow the story to remain top of mind. Each stream of a Ye song and each cheer for Edwards reinforces an unspoken notion: a notion that antisemi tism and hate is OK and that their actions are acceptable.

Certainly, they are not any of those things. It is not okay to amplify antisemitic rhetoric at a time where hateful discourse is proliferating, or when it is not.

It’s time for us to learn that we have to act in a way that shows that.

Michigan volleyball takes down Michigan State for 10th straight match

MALLORY MOORE Daily Sports Writer

Rivalry week continued in Ann Arbor into Sunday when the Michigan volleyball team (14-8 overall, 5-7 Big Ten) took on Michigan State (10-13, 1-11) at the Crisler Center. The Wolver ines’ win streak against the Spar tans extended to 10 straight wins over the past five years. Michigan relied on defensive plays both at the net and in the back row to extend this streak.

The Wolverines’ strong pres ence at the net made a statement from the onset of the match. They started the first set with numer ous attacks converted into kills, catching Michigan State’s defense off guard.

Junior outside hitter Alli son Jacobs led Michigan in kills with a total of nine for the game, helping to generate point scor ing opportunities at the net. Her success also played a role in the Wolverines’ 0.371 attacking rate in the first set, a stat that reflects Michigan’s strong offensive per formance.

This translated into a quick 25-17 win for Michigan in the first set, clearly outmatching the Spar tans’ abysmal attack rate of 0.129. While the Wolverines’ offensive strength didn’t falter throughout the second set, which resulted in another 25-17 win, the third set saw defensive adjustments by Michigan State that sunk Michi gan’s attack rate down to a shock

ing 0.077.

“Our goal is to hit above 0.250 as a team,” Michigan coach Mark Rosen said. “It came down a little bit in that third set when we were trying some different stuff, so it got affected.”

Even with new tactics being tested out in the third set and more defensive pushback, the Wolverines were still able to hold on and complete the 3-0 sweep against the Spartans. While offensive success was crucial to this win, Michigan’s defense both at the net and in the back row also played an integral role in extend ing their winning streak.

The strong defense at the net was reinforced by consistent backcourt play. Redshirt junior libero Hannah Grant ended the game with 15 digs, the most on Michigan. While not a season best, her efforts against Michigan State proved to be enough. But, this success wouldn’t be possible without, once again, work at the net.

“Blocking really helps, in my sense,” Grant said. “(The) blockers have been doing a phenomenal job of setting up a really good block so I can read around them. Working on us working together at practice has been really beneficial.”

The combined efforts of the blockers and Grant’s digs in the back helped the team keep the Spartans under a 0.155 attacking rate in each set. The Wolverines looked strong on both sides of the net in their rivalry match, allow ing them to take their 10th win in

a row against Michigan State.

Jacobs, with her offensive success, also noted the impact of Michigan’s positions at the net. Without her teammates in prime position up front, she wouldn’t have as many oppor tunities to drive the Wolverines’ attack. The offense proved rock solid throughout each set in the sweep.

“I’m front row with amazing options and they hold blockers for me,” Jacobs said. “When I do get set, I’m in perfect position to succeed and I attribute that to my setters. We have been work ing on getting that first ball. So, if we get a good passing system, there are many options.”

The last time the Spartans beat Michigan was Nov. 15, 2017. That streak speaks to the strength of the Wolver ines and the program they’ve created and maintained. An aggressive attack strategy and successful conversion to kills allowed Michigan to extend its lead in this year’s matchup, while defensive prowess in the back helped it hinder Michigan State’s success.

“I think we’re playing good volleyball,” Rosen said. “And that’s our focus. The winning and losing, you can’t always con trol. That depends a bit on who you play and how things go.”

If the Wolverines continue to play good volleyball and lean on their play at the net, they might see similar outcomes in their upcoming Big Ten games.

Blake Corum is finally getting his flowers

SPENCER RAINES Daily Sports Editor

As Blake Corum sauntered up to the podium after Saturday’s game — a 29-7 win over in-state rival Michigan State — he was brimming with excitement. His face beamed, his smile seemed even wider than usual and he sure felt like talking.

And, why wouldn’t he?

Just eight games into the sea son, Corum has over 1,000 rush ing yards. He’s tied for the most rushing touchdowns in the coun try with 14, he’s top-10 in the country in rushing yards and he has legitimate Heisman Trophy aspirations.

For the first time in his career at Michigan, Corum is ‘the guy’ — and he’s letting everyone know it.

“Y’all like that, huh?” Corum said as he took his seat at the podium. “I thought Tuck’ was comin’? That’s what they said this offseason, right? … I just saw them running.”

He didn’t stop talking there, either, and he certainly didn’t stop smiling. When he was asked whether or not there was a lot of trash-talking during the game given the rivalry, he kept the same energy.

“We don’t talk we just do,” Corum said. But, what about from the other side?

“You can only talk so much when you’re getting punished. (They) got quiet real quick.”

The Wolverines won on the

line of scrimmage early and often. Behind Corum, they ran through the Spartans’ defense ad nauseam.

Corum had reason to talk, and on Saturday night, he finally got his vindication.

Through his first two seasons as a Wolverine, Corum never got to see the Paul Bunyan trophy, he never had his chance to be the No. 1 running back — he never got to have his moment.

Look at this very game last year. Corum had just 45 yards on 13 carries, but that wasn’t all. He was part of the muffled exchange with then-freshman J.J. McCar thy that led to the fumble that gave Michigan State its gamewinning touchdown.

This year though? A bit bet ter: 33 carries, 177 yards and his team’s only two touchdowns.

Suffice to say, Corum finally got to see Paul Bunyan.

“You know, I’ve never seen Paul before, this was my first time,” Corum said. “So I wanted to make sure I greeted him right.”

He was referencing the pose he struck after his second touch down of the night: He planted his legs, pressed his fists against his waist and put his head to the side — the Paul Bunyan pose.

Another moment for Corum.

This year, that list of moments is getting long, but it’s been more than just a singular game or event. Two hundred and fortythree yards against Maryland, five touchdowns against Con necticut and 166 yards against Penn State. His domination

through every game is what has earned him the amount of rec ognition he has garnered. But for Corum, that’s still not enough.

“I can handle more,” Corum said. “… Last year, when I went to the weight room… I was dis appointed, felt like I left some things out there. This offsea son, I was just working for a great year, not necessarily just one game. But obviously, it pays off, and I think it paid off today.”

Much has been made all season about the work Corum put in this offseason, about the muscle he added. But very rare ly does preseason talk come to fruition as vividly as it has for Corum. He is better this year than he was last year in every aspect of the game: speed, power, blocking, catching. That’s at the crux of his ascension, that’s why Corum is finally starting to get attention at the national level and that’s why he might just be the best running back in the nation.

It goes beyond his perfor mance against Michigan State. At this point in the year, after the amount of continued suc cess that Corum has had, it becomes less about single moments where he takes the spotlight.

In reality, this whole year has been Corum’s moment. And at this point, Corum is starting to realize that.

Maybe that’s why he can’t stop smiling.

KATE HUA/Daily

After Donovan Edwards retweeted antisemitic rhetoric on Wednesday, he – and all of us – has plenty to learn.

FOOTBALL

ALYSSA SHEA MULLIGAN/Daily

With strong defensive play, Michigan earned its tenth-straight victory against in-state foe, Michigan State.

ANNA FUDER/Daily

Blake Corum continued to thrive as the lead back against the Spartans.

From second grade to Michigan, how Dickinson and Williams II grew together

PAUL NASR Daily Sports Editor

Bruce Shingler looks back on it fondly.

Years ago, back when he coached the DC Assault AAU team that included the fourth-grade version of now-Michigan forward Terrance Williams II, he remembers a behe moth of an elementary schooler causing problems for his team.

So Shingler enlisted Williams to help him solve the problem.

“I (didn’t) want to play against (Dickinson) no more, he’s too good,” Shingler told The Daily. “We had to get him on our team. So (I told) Ter rance: ‘Go get him.’ ”

Yes, you read that right. Those aren’t the words of a college or high school coach. Those are the words of Williams’ fourth grade basket ball coach.

Because Dickinson and Williams go way, way back.

***

The duo met even earlier than the fourth-grade basketball recruit ment scene. They first connected back in second grade, competing against each other in the AAU cir cuit. That early competition laid the groundwork for an unbreakable connection that has grown even stronger in the decade plus since.

That foundation grew when Shingler and Williams’ recruiting

efforts succeeded. Sure enough, Dickinson joined Williams at DC Assault in fifth grade, creating a juggernaut that no elementaryaged basketball player expects to deal with.

“You see that advance, they were a little more advanced than the average ten-year-old,” Shingler recalled. “(Our team) would always get questioned that we were older than other people, because of how big we were and how much we would win by.”

It makes sense. When the aver age ten-year-old is terrorized by a kid who was already 6-foot-2 and strapped with sports goggles in Dickinson, they can’t help but call foul play and scream that it’s unfair.

Pair that with Williams, a big, goofy kid bursting with talent, and what caring parent of a poor fourth-grad er on the other team wouldn’t ques tion its legality?

Because if being that talented and building stellar on-court chem istry at the age of ten was illegal, Dickinson and Williams were breaking the law.

But it wasn’t always easy. There was strong competition not only locally, but nationally as well. DC Assault was a band of elementaryaged rock stars, with multiple other teammates — such as Georgetown’s Jay Heath and Rhode Island’s Ish mael Leggett — also going on to D1 basketball careers down the road.

So the team would travel, facing the best the country had to offer.

However, despite their massive potential and development for the future, they were still kids at the end of the day — they were always having fun.

“It was one infamous pillow fight that I always remember,” Shingler said. “One of them hit the coach with a pillow, laughing and joking, and then it just turned into a huge pillow fight with everybody laugh ing and joking.”

It’s unclear if Dickinson or Wil liams swung the first pillow, but it’s abundantly clear that the pair was creating lifelong memories — both on the court and off — from a very young age.

Those memories helped build a bond, one that only got stronger as the years continued on.

***

As Dickinson and Williams con tinued their growth leading into high school — with Dickinson surg ing to 6-foot-11 by the time he was 15 — they began taking the game even more seriously, which included additional training outside of team play. Just as Dickinson joined Wil liams at DC Assault in fifth grade, Williams joined Dickinson in train ing with Alex Harris of Evolution Basketball as high school neared.

Those training sessions helped hone their skills, and Harris always had a blast working with the both of

them together — he still does when ever he can get their busy schedules to line up.

Although competition between each other was limited at Evolu tion, it ramped up as the pair joined AAU’s Team Takeover, where they played leading up to and through out high school.

“Nobody wants to lose to one of their best friends, and give them bragging rights,” Team Takeover coach Keith Stevens told The Daily. “When those guys lock horns and they got between the lines, the friendship went out the door.”

While competing together at AAU was their summer gig, during the high school season that com petition took a whole new form. Dickinson and Williams, brothers in almost every sense of the word, took different routes for their high school careers.

Routes that made them arch rivals.

Now, there wasn’t actually a falling out between the two. They didn’t suddenly hate each other after picking different schools and still played on Team Takeover together. But Williams enrolled at Gonzaga High School his fresh man year, while Dickinson went to Gonzaga’s biggest rival: DeMatha Catholic High School. That rivalry ensured that the two would com pete against each other in highstakes affairs, regularly.

The two teams went head-tohead nine times over the course of those four years, and things always got spicy.

“They matched up against each other a lot, because we weren’t a big team,” Gonzaga coach Stephen Turner told The Daily. “… Those were wars when those two would go against each other.”

It was Mike Jones — DeMatha’s coach at the time — who remem bered perhaps the greatest war story of them all.

Jones recalled the two teams colliding when both were nation ally ranked their sophomore year. Dickinson matched up against Wil liams, but Williams was unfazed. Williams started the game hitting three consecutive three-pointers on Dickinson.

And on his way down the court after the third one, he hit Dickinson with the ‘Jordan shrug’.

“(He was) basically (telling) Hunter, ‘Are you gonna guard me?’ ” Jones told The Daily. “We wound up losing the game, and I remember that fire that it kind of lit in Hunter.”

Dickinson got the last laugh in the series, going 6-3 against Gon zaga in his high school career, but moments like that are what helped build their bond. It wasn’t just the times competing on the same team, like when they played together at AAU, but also the times where they were truly apart — beating each other — that played into their par allel routes to the Michigan men’s basketball team.

But while they were competing like enemies in high school, those battles were paving the way for their paths to fully realign once again.

That came to fruition in Ann Arbor.

*** When Dickinson and Williams — now both captains for Michi gan as juniors — play together this year, you’ll see how their lifelong bond translates to chemistry on the court.

But ask the people who grew up with them, and they’ll say they saw it all along.

“When they were both fresh men, I reached out to (former Michigan coach) John Beilein, and talked to him about both of them,” Harris said. “I just said, ‘Hey, I know they’re really young, but they’re both perfect for Michigan.’

”

Shingler — who was unsuccess ful in recruiting them to South Carolina, where he coached at the time — saw it too. He told Michigan coach Juwan Howard, who was all over Dickinson on the recruiting

trail at the time, to keep an eye out for Williams, telling Juwan: “He’s your type of guy.”

Turner, who only coached Wil liams, knew it was the case for both of them as well.

“Michigan’s gonna love those two playing together a lot more minutes,” Turner said. “Because they really feed off each other … you can’t put a price tag on their rela tionship, in terms of them knowing what the other one’s thinking or wanting to do. You’ll see it.”

At Michigan media days on Oct. 14, each player commanded a table to field questions from reporters. After over a decade of competition with and against each other, Dick inson and Williams sat mere feet from each other as they were asked to reflect on what it was like going from elementary-school basketball to college captains, together.

“It is something that I think is really special for us,” Dickinson said. “I’m really happy that (Wil liams) is here with me. … He was really good when we were younger, like he is now … somebody that I admire.”

At the table across from him, Williams echoed similar senti ments.

“I’ve been through a lot with him, it definitely felt different when we were both chosen cap tains,” Williams said. “… It’s surreal … Growing up with a childhood friend (and) now you’re playing basketball at one of the highest stages with him, so it’s definitely a great feeling.”

The two captains shoulder an extra load. The only seniors on the team are transfers, making them and fellow junior-captain Jace Howard the Wolverines’ lon gest tenured players. As the young team looks for leadership, it’ll look towards two kids who grew into men, together.

So if you looked out onto the youth basketball courts of the DMV over ten years ago, you’d see Dickinson and Williams, together. If you went to training sessions, you’d see Dickinson and Williams, together.

If you went to the elite highschool AAU circuits of the DMV, you’d see Dickinson and Williams, together. If you went to some of the DMV’s biggest high school basket ball games, you’d see Dickinson and Williams competing against each other, together.

So to know what their relationship is made of, how tight their bond is. Just look out onto the Crisler Center court this year, and you’ll see Dickin son and Williams, leading Michigan. Together.

Abbie Telgenhof: It’s too early to judge Michigan

As I sur veyed the room at Michigan Media Day, going through my list of interview ques tions, I knew I was prepared, but still some how felt lost. It was as if I didn’t recognize half the players on the Michigan men’s basketball team.

There was one more-than famil iar face, though. Directly in the middle sat junior center Hunter Dickinson, towering over everyone even while seated. With a swarm of reporters around him, along with junior forward Terrance Williams and junior guard Jace Howard, the three were easily identifiable.

Yet, reliant on the nametags placed in front of each player, I realized that I hadn’t seen many of the faces don the maize and blue until that day.

And likely, neither have you.

Entering their fourth season under the leadership of coach Juwan Howard, the Wolverines underwent a tumultuous offseason that featured major roster turn over. Nine new players — including two graduate transfers, five fresh men and a student-manager turned player — make up the bulk of the team. In fact, there isn’t a true senior on the roster at all. Instead, they’re relying on the transfers to provide veteran knowledge and three juniors for captain leader ship.

Graduate transfer guards Jaelin Llewellyn and Joey Baker are the current talk of the town. Llewellyn continues a long line of graduate transfer point guards for Michi gan, and Baker is highly touted as an outside shooter. The five fresh

men include highly recruited play ers like guards Jett Howard and Dug McDaniel. Picking up an inter national player in forward Youseff Khayat, the Wolverines’ roster is impressive on paper, but largely untested in collegiate play. Even Llewellyn and Baker will have to adjust to the Big Ten style of bas ketball.

But, amid the total team trans formation, pre-season speculation about Michigan hasn’t diminished. Predictions about all teams are a constant. Articles are published from the final buzzer of the NCAA Tournament to the tipoff of the next season’s first games. Takes are crafted, rankings are made (and then made again) and the cycle continues.

But this season, that cycle shouldn’t dominate Michigan’s narrative.

It’s too early to judge the Wol verines.

Throughout the offseason, this Michigan team has been placed in every position imaginable. Ranked in a wide range from the top to the bottom of the Big Ten, nobody seems to know what to make of this squad. But that’s just it — you don’t have to.

“I feel like people think we have a lot of question marks around our team,” Dickinson said at Big Ten Media Days on Oct. 12. “We got some transfers that are gonna come in and some freshmen that are gonna come in and play a lot of minutes. … I definitely think we’re being underrated, but I think that’s fine for us.”

Last season, the Wolverines started the season a top title con tender, when in reality, they’d endured a large amount of roster turnover, and were still acclimat ing to an underclassman-dominant team. Coming in as No. 6 in the AP

Poll preseason ranking, Michigan was in nearly everyone’s lists of favorites for the Big Ten title, and some even thought it could break the conference’s 22-year national title drought.

It didn’t take long for things to take a turn for the worse. In just one week, the Wolverines dropped from No. 4 to No. 20 in the AP Poll, after a crushing loss to unranked Seton Hall. Michigan eventually fell out of the rankings altogether in Week 5, where they remained for the rest of the season.

Despite that, the Wolverines still managed a historic fifth-straight

run to the Sweet 16 after an upset over No. 2 seeded Tennessee — marking a new Big Ten record.

If the Michigan faithful gained anything from last season, it should be perspective. Judging an unproven team is fruitless, and that practice leads to more frustra tion than enjoyment.

This year’s circumstances war rant different expectations from the Wolverines. Namely, no expec tations. There’s no need to judge this team as any better or worse than the teams before it.

“Everyone have their predic tions and everyone have their

opinions,” Juwan said. “We’re just gonna keep forging ahead and keep growing. Keep trying to get better game by game, practice by practice. … I’m really looking for ward to our chances.”

Don’t judge them now, on the cusp of their first exhibition game with Ferris State. Don’t judge them in a month when dominant blueblood teams like Kentucky and North Carolina pose major chal lenges for them. Don’t judge them in two months, or three, or four or when you’re sitting on your couch watching the March Madness Selection Show because they’ve

proven their seed isn’t their ceiling. And it extends beyond just team-wide expectations.

Don’t judge Dickinson’s abil ity to mesh with new point guard Llewellyn from the get-go. Don’t judge Baker’s initial shooting abil ity after an off-season hip surgery. Don’t judge Jett playing college ball for the first time differently because his dad’s the coach. Don’t judge the head-scratching lineups they’ll throw on the floor while they’re still figuring out their iden tity.

Instead, maybe get to know them first.

GRACE BEAL/Daily

From fourth-grade AAU to captaining Michigan together, Terrence Williams and Hunter Dickinson have grown up — on and off the court — together.

MEN’S

ABBIE TELGENHOF

SELENA SUN/Daily

With nine new faces on the Michigan men’s basketball team, it’s too early to judge the Wolverines.