Editor’s note: This article describes Open MiC Night, which is hosted each fall by the Michigan in Color section of The Michigan Daily and features performances and static art by artists of Color. Students Allied for Freedom and Equality was among the multiple multicultural student organizations that tabled at this event. The Daily’s permit for the Diag allowed for the use of electricity, amplified sound and tables. While guidelines for the event sent to The Daily in a confirmation email specified that the sale of prepackaged food items would not require additional permitting, the permit itself did not allow for the sale of these items.
Students Allied for Freedom and Equality announced in an Instagram post Thursday morning the organization had been suspended for up to two years and will no longer be recognized as an organization by the University
of Michigan, following a Jan. 16 decision by Dean of Students Laura Blake Jones. The suspension comes three months after the University first filed a formal complaint through the office of Student Organization Advancement and Recognition Oct. 31, alleging SAFE had violated the Center for Campus Involvement’s Standards of Conduct for Recognized Student Organizations. The complaint was filed by Stephanie Jackson, an outside consultant hired by the University. Jackson claimed SAFE violated three standards of conduct on numerous occasions: health and safety, appropriate use of space and adherence to other University policies. In reference to the violations, the complaint cited a protest outside Regent Sarah Hubbard’s (R) home May 15, a die-in demonstration at Festifall Aug. 28 and a tabling event Oct. 16 during Open MiC Night on the Diag.
According to the SOAR manual, the U-M Central Student Judiciary may act as a student governing body
to facilitate a hearing on allegations against a student organization after a complaint is referred to them by CCI associate director Rigo Gutierrez. CSJ held a public hearing Dec. 5 to examine the claims, with statements from both Jackson and the SAFE co-presidents, Engineering senior Maryam Shafie and Public Policy senior Mariam Odeh. In their recommendation released Dec. 13, CSJ concluded SAFE was responsible for two of four violations at Festifall, one of two violations during Open MiC Night and none of the seven violations during the protest in front of Hubbard’s home.
After CSJ releases a recommendation, Jones may decide to uphold, overturn or modify the ruling within ten days. Jones sent the official University decision to Gutierrez Jan. 16, supporting some CSJ rulings but overturning others, finding SAFE responsible for additional violations in relation to Festifall and the protest on Hubbard’s lawn.
While CSJ recommended a one-
month prohibition on using outdoor University spaces, a $75 fine and other formal reprimands, Jones also added a two-year disciplinary suspension to the sanctions against SAFE. The suspension may be removed if SAFE leadership holds three educational conversations with Jones, CCI Director Nick Smith, Associate Dean of Students Sarah Daniels and CCI staff members. However, the suspension may be reviewed no sooner than Winter 2026.
In the concluding statement of her decision, Jones wrote she recognized the significance of SAFE’s presence on campus and hoped the organization would take the necessary steps to return to full standing with the University.
“I took note of one of the witness’s expressed hope that the University would not institute the full two-to-four year suspension of recognition of SAFE that was requested by the complainant,” Jones wrote. “I recognize that SAFE’s history on campus and impact as a legacy organization
supporting Palestinian students on the University of Michigan’s campus has been instrumental, and hope that the organization’s leaders will work in good faith to complete the education and restorative measures outlined in this decision so the organization can return to recognition.”
Either party may request an appeal following Jones’ decision by Feb. 6, which would then be reviewed by Martino Harmon, the University’s vice president for student life.
SAFE wrote in the Instagram post the organization felt the decision was targeted at its proPalestine activism.
“Suspending SAFE, a 20+ year old legacy organization, and the only student organization dedicated to the struggle for Palestinian liberation, is a clear continuation of admin’s politically-motivated attempts to erase Palestine from our campus,” the post read.
In an email to The Daily, LSA senior Tarana Sharma, SAFE’s media co-director, wrote the
suspension would not stop campus activism calling on the University to divest from companies profiting off of human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank.
“The suspension cannot limit the movement because our power lies in the students, staff, faculty, and community members who carry the call for divestment and Palestinian liberation alongside us — not in approval from an institution that invests in and profits from genocide, occupation, and destruction,” Sharma wrote.
“Even if SAFE is banned, there are over 100+ student organizations that have endorsed the fight for divestment. The movement will continue undeterred.”
In an email to The Daily, University spokesperson Colleen Mastony wrote when SAFE became a campus organization, they agreed to adhere to the standards of conduct, which the University is committed to upholding to protect inclusivity on campus.
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The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan announced in a press release Monday they have filed a federal lawsuit alongside the Sugar Law Center for Economic & Social Justice against the University of Michigan for the University’s policies regarding trespass bans and its disruptive action policy. The plaintiffs include five U-M students and recent graduates who allegedly received trespass bans following their engagement in pro-Palestine protests on campus.
According to the press release, the trespass ban prohibits specific individuals from being most places on the University’s campus, threatening prosecution for those who violate the ban. The press release alleges that such bans violate protesters’ constitutional rights.
“The lawsuit alleges that the bans, which prohibit the plaintiffs and others from stepping foot virtually anywhere on campus under threat of criminal prosecution for trespassing, unconstitutionally punish protestors and quell their First Amendment right to free speech and their Fourteenth Amendment right to due process,
which includes the rights to travel through and remain on public spaces,” the press release read.
The press release then alleges these bans can be issued without any evidence of a policy or law being broken.
“Under current UM policies, a campus police officer can issue a person a trespass ban—which they euphemistically call a “warning”— without ever having to produce evidence that the recipient violated the law or university policies,” the press release read. “In general, the bans last a full year, but university officials have recently begun to extend some bans for even longer without explanation.”
The lawsuit alleges these bans have been issued disproportionately against proPalestine protesters, while other protesters engaging in similar behavior have not been issued bans.
“The University’s use of trespass bans seems to be disproportionately targeted at these particular protestors, whose speech the University dislikes,” the lawsuit read. “Despite a long history of protest activity regarding countless issues at the University of Michigan, which has sometimes included acts of civil disobedience, it appears that no other group of protestors have been subjected
to similarly broad trespass bans for the same or similar alleged activity.”
The press release additionally alleges those of the plaintiffs who attempted to challenge their ban through a trespass appeal were not given due process during their hearing.
“Those who attempt to challenge their bans (which can only be done after the ban goes into effect) face sham proceedings that lack essential due process protections,” the press release read. “No evidence was presented at the plaintiffs’ hearings, and no explanation was offered.”
The press release states the lawsuit will also be challenging the University’s disruptive action policy regarding the prohibition of on-campus disruptions, finding issue with the lack of a definition for the word “disruption.”
“The lawsuit also challenges a recently adopted university policy that prohibits, with sweeping breadth, on-campus “disruptions,”,” the press release read. “Because the university has not defined what activity constitutes a “disruption,” it has intensified the chilling effect of the trespass bans by threatening even more punishment of people wishing to exercise their constitutional rights.”
UMich unveils digital accessibility initiative to expand online access
The University of Michigan announced the creation of the Digital Accessibility Strategic Initiative Jan. 13
NADIA TAECKENS Daily News Reporter
On Jan. 13, the University of Michigan announced the creation of the Digital Accessibility Strategic Initiative, a program which aims to promote equitable access to digital services at the University and Michigan Medicine. The initiative comes after the U.S. Department of Justice updated regulations stipulated in Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act in April 2024. Public universities have until April 2026 to comply with new digital accessibility standards, which include making websites and apps compatible with screen readers and providing alternative text.
CAMPUS LIFE
In an email to The Michigan Daily, University spokesperson Kay Jarvis said the University codified its approach to digital accessibility in 2022 and has continued to work on it since.
“Units across the University have digital accessibility projects and initiatives that are ongoing,” Jarvis wrote. “The Digital Accessibility Strategic Initiative bolsters this work, bringing in new partners to provide better, more accessible experiences to community members collectively.”
The initiative will impact all digital platforms, including webpages, software and online course technology. In a statement to The University Record, Ravi Pendse, University vice president for information technology and
chief information officer, said the initiative fits into broader plans for the University’s future.
“Digital accessibility is central to the goals outlined in U-M’s Vision 2034 and Campus Plan 2050, reinforcing our commitment to an inclusive and innovative environment for all, particularly in the digital landscape,” Pendse said. “We are dedicated to making technology accessible to everyone in our community, and this initiative embodies our pledge of compliance, innovation and inclusivity.”
The changes in the initiative will involve input from units at all three University campuses in an effort to meet a broader variety of needs.
“Together, we will continue to build tools and provide training
that educates our campus community about compliance and best practices,” Jarvis wrote.
“A number of the new tools will support content creators working in applications such as Canvas, websites and social media.”
Jarvis said the University plans to integrate feedback throughout the initiative.
“We want to make sure the needs of students, faculty and broader U-M community members are being met, and we plan to consistently and proactively engage with these groups over the next year and a half,” Jarvis wrote. “Additional feedback mechanisms beyond the current reporting channel are still being determined.”
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Spectrum Center hosts Queer Art showcase
“Make the art that makes you feel seen, make the art that makes you feel powerful and there will be others that want to share in that.”
AVA PUSTULKA Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan’s Spectrum Center organized a showcase Thursday evening for Queer artists to express their creativity through mediums including painting, animation and sculpture. Hosted in the Michigan Union and including about 25 people, the showcase also featured catered food, a craft station and a panel discussion where artists shared insights into their creative processes and identities.
In an email to The Michigan Daily, LSA sophomore Noemie Durand, a member of the Spectrum Center Programming Board, wrote that the committee’s primary goal was to give Queer artists a safe space to proudly present their work.
“I believe this event is a key element to building a sense of community on campus,” Durand wrote. “Art is something that unites everyone, and this event provides the opportunity for plenty of emotions, like appreciation and understanding, which are so important to feeling connection within such a huge, often inaccessible or exclusionary environment.”
LSA fifth-year senior Genesis Gonzales presented their abstract watercolor and ink
paintings at the showcase. In an interview with The Daily, Gonzales said art has helped them understand the importance of self-love and their Queer identity in a way that is unique to them.
“I went to a Catholic high school, so being Queer and making art was pretty much a huge ‘no-go’,” Gonzales said. “Being able to show my art as a Queer person, but also to see other people’s art — which may have everything to do with them being Queer or just happens to be made by someone Queer — is really fun to see. Being in a space where everyone is here for the same rea-
sons and to feel the same feelings is really special.”
LSA sophomore Riley Sischo presented his paintings, digital art and memoir, capturing themes such as past relationships and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In an interview with The Daily, Sischo said the showcase was an opportunity to formally share their artwork for the first time.
“The main reason I wanted to participate was because I wrote this memoir recently, and I wanted to share it somehow,” Sischo said. “I’ve never shared my art before outside of my Instagram
posts. I’m not studying art at all in any capacity, so I guess it’s like a fun little side thing.”
Durand emphasized the event was not just about displaying art, but also about fostering conversation and community.
“The interaction between artist and audience is key, which is why we’ve made it easy for the attendees to talk to the artists throughout the event,” Durand said. “This year, we’ve added a student panel with an audience Q&A to make it even easier to get input from the artists.”
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U-M professors vary in approaches to generative AI in classrooms
“I had a year to watch how other people integrated it … how the University was taking a stance on it, so I made the decision to let AI be a tool.”
THOMAS
GALA-GARZA Daily Staff Reporter
As the use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT becomes more prevalent across everyday life, university professors grapple with how to handle the changing academic landscape that has followed. Some courses encourage the use of AI, while others restrict it or even ban it entirely. The Michigan Daily sat down with University of Michigan professors to learn their courses’ stances on AI use, the philosophies behind those policies and the impact they have had on teaching and learning goals.
Amie Gordon, assistant professor of psychology, developed PSYCH 382: Psychology of Close Relationships in Fall 2020 and has taught it every subsequent fall term except Fall 2023. In an interview with The Daily, Gordon said she
took time to study how other classrooms adapted to ChatGPT, which was released in November 2022, before integrating it into her course in Fall 2024.
“I had a teaching leave the semester that AI really came out, so I didn’t have to deal with it at that point,” Gordon said. “In preparing for this fall, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do about it. Luckily, I had a year to watch how other people integrated it, how they dealt with it and how the University was taking a stance on it, so I made the decision to let AI be a tool.”
As per the course syllabus, PSYCH 382 students are allowed to use AI for course assignments as long as it is not the sole author of their work. Responding to initial issues with this policy, the instructional team decided that if AI was used, students were required to
state the usage at the bottom of the assignment.
“We started seeing people occasionally turning in assignments that seemed clearly to be written by AI with no attestation,” Gordon said. “After meeting with the GSIs, we made it a rule that everybody had to turn in a statement saying whether or not they used it. Rather than just saying you used it if you did, you also had to say if you didn’t use it. That probably created the most problems, because people would forget.”
Gordon said despite the course policy, most students submitted assignments without using AI.
“I think the vast majority of the class is not heavily using AI, only a handful of students,” Gordon said.
“I think it often happens when people are overwhelmed and run out of time and the option is between not turning anything in and turning
something in that ChatGPT wrote. I totally get that tension. Unfortunately, it usually comes back to bite you, but I can see where people make that choice.”
In an interview with The Daily, LSA senior Hannah Lubowitz, who took PSYCH 382 in Fall 2024, said the structure of the course helped her become more comfortable with using generative AI tools.
“Prior to this course, I did not use generative AI (tools) much because I didn’t like the way they interfered with my thought processes as it relates to my work,” Lubowitz said.
“This semester was the first time where I not only started to become a little bit more comfortable using it, but I also (started to) understand the different perspectives surrounding AI usage in school.”
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The Chaos B-Side
CORA ROLFES Senior Arts Writer
When we’re children, we think our parents know all the rules. As we become older, we see the truth: maybe they don’t really have it all together. Then, when we ourselves reach adulthood, we are introduced to an order of the world — laws and names and guidelines that can both stifle and instruct, that can both overwhelm and motivate. I see this chaos everywhere. I see it in my days as a pedestrian (and sometimes driver) on the Ann Arbor streets; I see it restrained by Apple’s purple “Do Not Disturb” warning floating over my text bar (and released again in pushing “Notify Anyway”); most of all, though, I see it in art. In every piece of media that matters, chaos is king. Upending
the status quo can be violent, destructive and stressful, but chaos can also be a cleansing force, a renewal — a mandate for us to rethink, rebuild and establish yet another new order. There’s an ebb and flow. Even in the absence of chaos, the order that remains is left rigid and stale, save for the looming threat of the walls crashing in.
In Lulu Miller’s memoir, “Why Fish Don’t Exist,” she writes: “I have come to believe that it is our life’s work to tear down this order, to keep tugging at it, trying to unravel it … That it is our life’s work to mistrust our measures … To remember that behind every rule there is a Ruler. To remember that a category is at best a proxy; at worst, a shackle.” I hope you find that these five writers have taken a step towards that goal.
‘Anora’ and the comfort
of chaos An
ode to my chaotic
mind
There is a strange addictiveness to chaos. Chaos feels alive — kinetic and untamed, a whirlwind promising you relief from the mundane stability in life. With chaos, you never stay long enough for truth to catch up. Chaos sweeps you away, whispering soft reassurances that you needn’t stop and stare at what lies beneath. And when it comes to love, sometimes chaos becomes more than a shield; it becomes a means of survival.
The film “Anora” captures that feet-shifting restlessness with eerie precision, especially in the final scene. The film centers around Ani (Mikey Madison, “Scream”), a Brooklyn stripper who weds the son of a Russian oligarch, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn, “The Land of Sasha”), on a whim, only to find herself caught in a web of control and consequence as his disapproving family intervenes.
At the climax of the film, Ani stands at the cusp of a fragile and transforming moment with Igor (Yura Borisov, “Compartment No. 6”), one of Vanya’s parents’ hired henchmen tasked with watching her. She initiates intimacy — a physical connection she can control — then recoils from his kiss. The concept of a kiss with no strings attached, only a sense of tenderness, becomes too much for her. It strips away the layers of performance she has so carefully cultivated and offers a glimpse into something she has spent the entire film avoiding: the truth. Pulling away, Ani chooses the comfort of chaos over the vulnerability of peace. And yet, moments later, she breaks down in tears in Igor’s arms as he gently holds her, signaling the weight her impulsive and chaotic choices throughout the film have truly carried.
This is a scene that lingers exactly because it’s so deeply human. How often do we choose the turbulence of dissociation over the stillness of reality?
There is movement in chaos, and it feels like progression, even if it’s misleading. It’s easier to be consumed by grandiosity, a
future where you’re everything you want to be, as opposed to sitting small and quiet with where you actually are. The chaos of running away from her life to marry Ivan creates an illusion of infinite possibility, but at the same time that chaos does not allow that possibility to crystallize into a reality. In the end, she ends up in the same spot she started, purportedly restarting the cycle of chaotic fantasizing.
Ani’s avoidance is not a dramatic exception but rather a reflection of human behavior in general — she hides from the truth when it requires a change in life or introspection. Chaos masks and becomes a way of deferring confrontation. If life is a whirlwind, then one does not have to confront what is waiting in its silent eye. Love, perhaps the most profound mirror of truth, is often the first thing to be sacrificed. To love and be loved in a way that is real requires the disintegration of those masks; it requires vulnerability, a surrender of control. Ani’s refusal of Igor’s kiss is not rejection; it’s fear. Returning his kiss would be to step out of the storm and into the quiet, where she would be obliged to confront not only her feelings but herself.
This brings us to the paradox: It’s the very chaos we cling to for safety that ultimately keeps us imprisoned. Ani’s meltdown — while painful to watch — is actually her most honest moment. As she collapses in front of Igor, the walls of her persona crumble. Chaos is not infinite; it’s a loop, and every cycle has its breaking point. In breaking, there is clarity. To Ani, that clarity is fugacious but transformative. The act of letting someone see her in her rawest state — even if only for a moment — is an act of profound courage.
This is the truth that chaos conceals, stillness is not the enemy; it’s the womb of truths. But stillness requires surrender. To sit in the quiet and confront what lingers there is terrifying. It is easier to dissociate into dreams of grandeur, to lose one’s self in the potential of a life that is always on the horizon but never
within reach. It is easier to believe in the idea of love than take up the vulnerable act of really loving and being loved.
What makes Ani’s story so poignant is how familiar it is. Her resistance to peace, to intimacy, to the kind of love that requires stillness and truth, is not unique to her. It is a universal struggle. We’ve all pulled away from moments that felt too real, too close, too honest. We’ve all chosen chaos because it’s easier to stay in motion than to risk being seen. And it’s in those rare moments when we allow ourselves to stop, to be vulnerable, to let the chaos settle, when something startlingly profound reveals itself: Connection, not as some kind of grand gesture but as a quiet truth, is possible.
Chaos is a refuge, and chaos is a cage. It keeps us spinning, distracted with the noise, while the most important things slip through the cracks. But more importantly, this kiss that Ani pulls away from isn’t only a kiss; it is the realization of all the things she most fears: stability, intimacy, that sort of romance which could stay. This breakdown, of course, begets another order of truth, and in chaos, the stillness seed remains; perhaps in such stillness will grow that elusive reality.
Love is not chaos. It’s what’s left when the chaos clears. It’s not the whirlwind romance, the dramatic gestures or the grand illusions. It’s the quiet act of staying: staying present, staying vulnerable, staying open. It is a choice to let someone see you, not as some curated version of yourself, but as the flawed and complicated and beautiful person that you really are. It is terrifying in its simplicity, and yet it is the only thing that endures when the storm passes.
There is no neat conclusion to this message. Life, much like love, resists tidy endings. But perhaps that is the point. The truths we find in the stillness are not answers, they are invitations. Invitations to step out of the chaos, to let the masks fall and risk being seen. And in that risk, we might just find the thing we’ve been running from all along: ourselves.
The first few months of 2024 were pretty hard for me.
Balancing a 17-credit workload with extracurriculars and internship applications, my brain and body could barely catch a break to breathe, let alone do anything fun. On top of the overflowing amount of work I had committed to, my mind decided that my busiest semester to date was the perfect time to start playing tricks on me. My anxiety had reached an all-time high in all aspects of my life — academic, social, professional, you name it. It was complete and utter chaos up there, and I had no clue how to break free from it.
Once summer break rolled around and my chaotic semester was over, I was finally able to sit down and just take a breath. A minute, hell, a second of peace was all I needed. But my overactive mind, working the way it does, refused to have it that way. Since I’m physically incapable of not being busy, the summer represented an opportunity for change in my eyes. I was determined to do everything in my power to not fall back into the anxious patterns of my past. I was set on quieting my chaotic mind.
That’s when I sought out the help of self-help books.
Like a train wreck trying to get back in motion, I sped to my favorite bookstore back home.
The second I walked in, I sprinted toward the self-help aisle. It was memoirs, “how-to” guides and “rules for” books galore. I picked up every single title that sounded appealing to me and I felt would help me figure my life out.
As I walked out of the bookstore, five brand-new self-help books in hand, I felt unstoppable. My anxious coping patterns were finally going to come to an end, I could just feel it. I even devised a reading schedule I would adhere to in order to finish all these books by the start of the new academic year. I was committed to succeeding. However, that feeling of hope, ambition, relief and strict adherence to schedule was extremely short-lived.
The first book I picked up at the start of my self-help craze was “The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter — And How to Make the Most of Them Now” by Meg Jay. I had just turned 20 a few days before, so I figured, what better way to ring in a new year of life and maximize it to its fullest extent than to read up about everything I should steer clear of doing in this coming decade.
What I found between the pages of “The Defining Decade,” however, only left me feeling more confused, anxious and conflicted. For one, the second I
finished the book, I definitely felt like I was still too young to fully understand it, let alone profit off what it was preaching. Even worse was the fact that I was now alert to all the mistakes I might end up making in my 20s before I even got the chance to experience them. As someone who’s often haunted by her past mistakes, it was surprising to me that my gut reaction to this book was to lament the mistakes I hadn’t yet had the chance to make.
In the end, it took me around 11 days to finish this book. As I flipped to the last page, I reflected on the 336 pages I had just read with a somewhat blurry mind.
I felt a sudden appreciation for the quarter-life crisis I’d gone through in the months prior. Sure, it was gruesome and unpleasant to deal with, but I’d grown so much as a person that I couldn’t help but look back at my past self with an empathetic smile. She had been thrown into an unprecedented rough patch, but she’d come out on the other side. I had hope that, despite all the rough patches that awaited me throughout my 20s, I too would come out victorious, even if many a mistake was committed along the way.
As my self-help summer came to an end, I finished the five self-
help books I’d resolved to read. I felt proud that I’d accomplished the goal I’d set for myself, but this feeling was also coupled with the same feeling I’d been left with after reading “The Defining Decade.” Maybe the chaos my mind had gone through during the initial months of 2024 was necessary. Perhaps the solution to my problems didn’t lie within the pages of a self-help book, but rather in merely putting myself out there and actually living my life.
My chaotic mind still turns on me every now and then, and I more often than not return to self-help books. I constantly find myself in the vicious cycle of trying to appease feelings that arise from upsetting life experiences by devouring self-help book after selfhelp book in hopes of finally figuring myself out. Evidently, I am sometimes upset by this tendency, but with time, I’ve grown somewhat fond of it too. Even if I constantly fall into the same cycle, what would life be without a little chaos amid peace? What’s life without a storm that leads to calm, only to start back up again? That would be a life without chaos — and how boring it would be to live.
Caroline Xi/DAILY
TIFFANY MCKALKO Daily Arts Writer
GRACIELA BATLLE CESTERO Daily Arts Writer
Caroline Xi/DAILY
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Cooking is the hobby without flaws — with one exception
SARAH PATTERSON Style Beat Editor
I have recently discovered the joys of cooking for pleasure rather than out of necessity. It has also become my only personality trait. Focusing on mincing garlic or dicing onions has been the perfect remedy for my stress. My aunt told me a few months ago that busy people need hobbies and bored people need to read; busy people have enough going on in their mind and bored people need something to take up the space. Turns out, I have just enough room in my brain for my class readings and bedtime stories, but the space is not so vast that I can take on reading a brand-new book. It was time to get my hands busy with something that wasn’t simply doom-scrolling. So, I started cooking more. It began with simple sun-dried tomato pasta and has turned into mastering chicken shawarma and perfecting chocolate chip cookies. With this new hobby, I found that I love cooking for my friends. They have become guinea pigs for my new recipes, which, to be fair, are still pretty simple (I am not quite Beef Wellington-ready.) But as college students, a lot of us are missing out on meals that require labor and love. The Chipotle on State Street, New York Pizza Depot and Panera dominate the diets of many, if not most, students. And trust me, Panera’s French onion soup is unbeatable, but it lacks a key ingredient.
My grandmother always told me it was important to have a “chef’s secret” when cooking. I
baked a caramel apple bundt cake for a baking competition at my elementary school, and she was my sous-chef. The process was laborious, finely cutting apples and carefully making homemade caramel sauce. While we were mixing the batter, she added a teaspoon of maple flavoring.
My grandmother is famous for that: always adding maple flavoring or pecans to absolutely everything. I remember her explicitly telling me to not add the maple to the recipe card because it’s important that even if the judges took the recipe and tried it themselves, it could never compare to mine.
A few weeks ago, I decided to make vegetable soup for my best friend and my partner. It’s my entire family’s comfort food, and yet if I called one of my family members up and asked them how they make it, they’d simply say “Uh, I don’t know — I just do it.”
So I set off on my own. I tried to recover foggy memories from the depths of my mind. Vegetables … soup … where to start?
Now, it must be said that my best friend is probably the only one who truly understands me in the kitchen. He sits in a chair in the corner and only speaks to me if and when I initiate a conversation. It’s beautiful. When I’m cooking pasta and simultaneously catching an onion on fire, it’s perfectly silent. We can laugh after I’ve screamed “SOMEBODY GET ME A FUCKING SHARPIE THAT FUCKING WORKS,” and we can move on from the fact that I set off the fire alarm and almost killed us both. It’s perfect.
With said friend in tow, I assembled my lima beans, peas, tomatoes, green beans, onions and potatoes. I added the vegetables and topped it off with water as I had seen my grandmother do so many times before, and it was looking … snotlike. I started freaking out. I had to banish my dearest friend from his perch in the corner. I suddenly needed to be alone. How could I only buy green vegetables? How could I forget more tomatoes? Tomatoes were
the glue that made every other vegetable make sense. This was the one thing I had to have. I rummaged through my pantry like a hungry rat, hopelessly searching for anything I could find to fix my rookie mistake.
After a blood pressure spike and seemingly a stroke of good luck, I stumbled upon a can of tomatoes I had for a different recipe along with some fresh rosemary and thyme. It’s almost blasphemous to have fresh herbs in vegetable soup in my family,
but I was left with no other choice. I couldn’t stand the possibility of my soup not being the hug in a bowl that I was desperately trying to replicate.
Good food brings my community to my dinner table and leaves their stressors at the door. It warms my soul up on a mentally subzero day. Cooking is a hobby without flaws.
Well, except for maybe one. If anything good is to be made, I will be stressed out. In the words of Amy March, “I want to be
great or nothing.” I want to make good, comforting food … or Uber Eats order Red Lobster cheddar biscuits for dinner. There’s no in-between, and the stakes are always high. And all ended well. They loved the soup. My grandmother would be happy to know that my chef’s secret is the love of the labor, smoke detectors and all. I’ll always cook for you, and my kitchen never closes — but, please, do not be alarmed by my chaos.
Losing the chaos of your youth, and embracing being a boring punk
MIVICK SMITH Music Beat Editor
I learned to crochet recently.
I’ve always wanted to, and as chance had it, a friend of mine returned from a three-month stint in a residential program with the same shiny new skill I’d been procrastinating picking up for years. So, there I was, tucked-in among the cluttered shelves of my decrepit house, crocheting and relaying some story to my roommate about the punk-fueled horrors my friends and I used to inflict years ago when my friend said to me: “I can’t picture you doing that.”
I stop my story, losing my place in the adolescent stupidity-fueled narrative.
“You’re just — there’s just this q-tip in my living room, writing an essay and crocheting a scarf, I just —” they interrupt their own train of thought by laughing. “I can’t see you doing any of that.”
You don’t notice when you start to lose your chaos. It starts small: an old crust punk you used to talk with tells you you got boring, your piercings become more trouble than they’re worth, there’s less black in your closet, you start to listen to fucking podcasts. Then one day you wake up and you
realize your fingers haven’t been stained from shitty box hair dye in years, and you haven’t listened to Suicide Silence since you were taking your flimsy excuse of a gap year smoking in a hammock.
An offhand comment, one that by all extents should have been a compliment, was enough to spark my latest identity crisis. Who was I, if I wasn’t the angry emo guy who’s going to insist vehemently that they’re not emo? It’s not that my taste has changed — I still found myself enraptured with the subgenres of suburban mothers’ nightmares — but even if I was still listening to it, I had stopped
being punk.
Where did that angry kid scrambling into the pit after a concussion go? Where was the person willing to pick every fight? Was this just what happened? Did aging mean I was boring?
The question haunted me. I had wrapped myself in a candy-coated shell of an alternative persona, and the second I realized it had cracked, the entire facade crumbled. I was scared; I worried I was becoming the shallow, disingenuous fan I had always resented in the past.
What if I had grown out of something I adored, something
that not only defined me for years but critically shaped my personhood? Were my parents right? Was it really just a phase?
It took days of furious reflection (and crocheting) to decide that no, my parents weren’t right (I told you, Mom). I just had gotten a little tired of living in chaos. Somewhere between decimating my circadian rhythm and learning that people played stuff besides power chords, I had, without my knowledge, decided I didn’t like never having a plan. I learned that I prefer early mornings to late nights, that I don’t hate indie rock, that I didn’t
need to be causing shit to know I was still a part of the alternative community.
The world of subcultures — and especially the punk realm — is concerned far less about music or fashion, and much more about ideology. Punk was always meant to be a refuge for those othered by mainstream society, or not pristine enough to fit into the dominant narrative. It was that mentality that drew me to punk — it was the ideology that made me who I am, not the brutality of The Dead Kennedys or the melodramatic lyricism of the Misfits. I haven’t lost the values that the subculture built itself around, I’ve just stopped letting the chaos run my life. I’ve grown out of the need to process my emotions through graffiti and pyromania. In all honesty, the change has probably made me more capable of acting on the ethos of the alternative.
Being alternative, punk, goth, literally whatever you want to call it, is not about embracing the chaos. It’s not about how you dress, or the disarray you carry with you — membership in the alternative world is entirely dependent on your alignment with the dogma of the subculture. Punk came into existence as a means of inclusion within mainstream society that has consistently made so many feel like they didn’t belong. It was never meant to be an avenue of chaos and destruction.
There’s nothing wrong with loving the entropy or living for the disarray, but true alliance for the alternative is about the mentality. I know the chaos will always be there, and it will always be an option to return to, but what I have never grown out of has been the mentality the alternative world has taught me. That has never, and will never be a phase. Even if I do continue to embrace a more relaxed way of being, crotchet and all, I know that the douchey punk that ran my teenage years is just under the surface, even if that was never what truly drew me to the alternative in the first place.
Rumaisa Wajahath/DAILY
Despite what people might tell you, Blackness is the rich soil that fertilizes the seeds of America’s international, economic and cultural monopoly. From prisons to activism, music to language, America’s major traditions and institutions have their teeth in Blackness. Sports teams are built on Black backs, entertainment siphoned from Black tears, and America’s ignorance is bought with Black suffering.
Even though slavery may have ended, Black people are still America’s favorite product. The truth is, Blackness is America’s biggest import and export.
But how did we get here?
America was born while Blackness was a literal commodity.
During slavery, the ownership and dehumanization of Black people was an extensive and layered endeavor. For starters, our physical bodies were enslaved. We were chained to one another, around our necks and ankles and forced to go wherever demanded. We were bought and sold on auction blocks and had our personhood reduced to a literal price tag. Imagine the sheer horror of your entire personhood, your emotions and feelings, thoughts and preferences, your scars and shape and habits reduced to a few digits and a dollar sign. To support our physical enslavement, there was an international marketing campaign, potentially one of the most successful ever, to frame Blackness as lazy, sinister, evil, less than. How else could the world justify our suffering? How else could we ourselves live with it, but by being told that it was for our benefit?
White Americans — even those near the bottom of America’s societal totem pole — were assigned superiority by blood. Sure, some got the short end of the stick, but at least they were white, and therefore they were better. Black people were convinced of our own inferiority and told that the white man’s ice was colder. The international branding of Black people as subhuman was furthered
by the laws governing our rights. It was illegal for us to read or write, for us to speak our language, for us to vote, for us to own ourselves. It was easy to convince the world of our inferiority when we were cut off from what we use to distinguish people from animals.
In 1865, America ended explicitly racialized slavery, but white attitudes of entitlement to and superiority over Blackness were never unlearned. Even Abraham Lincoln, alleged white savior, spewed anti-Black rhetoric.
When people are made into nonhuman commodities, it is easy to disregard their needs and protection. It is easy to be comfortable with or in favor of violence against them when they don’t fulfill the role of an object. You might shame a teacher that kicks a kid for misbehaving, but you’d certainly be okay with someone kicking a machine that refuses to turn on (and may have done so yourself).
This creates an end result where Black people are seen as objects, things to be owned and used rather than living things capable of thought, love and feeling. This idea is not only relevant in the context of slavery: It is fundamentally baked into the foundations of the United States of America. Racism and white superiority were and are still rampant attitudes. White America felt entitled to control Black labor, and, by extension, Blackness, and instead of being forced to reconcile with and deconstruct this mentality, it was encouraged and left to fester into America’s present rotten attitude.
The mold of this entitlement to ownership puts a white fuzz over Blackness. Black labor is one of the most important cogs in the machine of U.S. imperialism, capitalism and consumption, both in production and products. The scale of this exploitation is vast, but I particularly want to look at three sections: prison labor, language and music.
Prison Labor
Although many cite the 13th Amendment as the Constitutional update that abolished slavery, there is a crucial caveat in the wording:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
This loophole allows for a type of modern-slavery where incarcerated Americans are forced to engage in tedious, dangerous labor under cruel, abusive conditions, for little to no pay, mirroring the circumstances present during American chattel slavery.
As previously discussed, white people still felt ownership over Black people after the 13th Amendment. Although they could no longer legally own Black people as slaves, the loophole in the amendment allowed states to put forth excessively restrictive laws governing public life that were, like other laws, disproportionately applied to Black people.
After the Civil War, many states introduced laws now called “black codes:” policies that effectively made it illegal to exist as a Black person in public by outlawing things like existing aimlessly in public, not having a job, or having a “disorderly house.” Even though they could no longer legally enslave Black people for being Black, they could criminalize Blackness through things like vagrancy laws, then arresting and renting out Black people to continue treating them as cattle.
Today, incarcerated workers often work in cleaning or cooking jobs in the prisons they inhabit, but many are also forced into brutal agricultural or firefighting work, always at lower wages and often with increased risks compared to those that are not incarcerated.
Prison workers usually earn between 12 cents and 40 cents an hour when working inside prisons, numbers comparable to or less than the wages received by the minority of enslaved Africans that were paid when adjusted for inflation. Inmates are not allowed to refuse to work unless they are disabled, meaning thousands of Americans in prisons are forced into labor.
READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Dearborn,
AHMED ELKHATIB MiC Assistant Editor
From New York City to Egypt, and then to the 11-yearpurgatory spent in Dearborn, I had always lived in a predominantly Arab-Muslim community. Accommodation for the five daily prayers mandated in Islam and emphasis on Quran recitation was a given. My time in Egypt was marked by weekly meetings with my Quran teacher who always smelled of cigar smoke. My mom would make us cups of warm lemonade, in hindsight, no doubt to ease my worries before reciting the day’s passage. Each week was supplemented with school, walks to the mosque and sleeping over with family. It was unity. Egypt, even if briefly, was home. Being uprooted back to the United States, to Dearborn, Michigan was scary. But there, I found a new sense of community. The skies, though lacking the iridescent late-night yellows, were still regularly filled with laughter. I remember when I was 8 years old, playing tag with a newly-made friend. The Adhan for Maghrib prayer had just sounded. The sun had set, it was dark. But we believed we were more than “man” enough to pray in the nearby mosque on our own. When we returned, we found a whole neighborhood looking for something — or someone. Out of the crowd, I spotted my mom and dad. Hands pointed toward us. Not a second later, I was in my mom’s embrace. We hadn’t yet acquired the wisdom to appreciate that we were just kids.
As we grew older, our parents’ worries shed. By high school, our age rewarded us with some autonomy. If we had a
free school hour on Fridays, we would attempt to catch Jumu’ah prayer at the mosque.
During the Khutbah before prayer, my eyes would dart around, looking for a familiar face. The most spiritually rewarding of days was when there was an out-of-theblue reunion of friends. Cue the slippery dap-ups and the subsequent hugs. Then, the sincere curiosity of what they have been up to, and the promise of having to see each other more often. I have always found the Khutbahs to be more enjoyable when sitting by someone I know. They resonated more that way, knowing my friend is mulling over the lessons right alongside me.
The late night drives in Dearborn were particularly special. For a while, the streetlights installed on Ford Road had a purple hue due to a manufacturing defect. The cyberpunk-like aesthetic was a perfect match for the song “Resonance,” a favorite of ours, and the occasional slightly-belowsurface-level conversations.
“Balaash philsifa,” (“Stop philosophizing”) my friend would tell me.
We often passed by Wing Fellas, a local chicken restaurant. For all the Middle Eastern food found in Dearborn, I cannot get over the humble simplicity of a Halal boneless chicken wing.
Between each bite, there was a sarcastic or witty comment. An embarrassing detail admitted or an unfounded proclamation of confidence was met with sarcastic “Mashallahs,” or “Subhannallahs.” A confession of a dream and its realization were drowned in “Inshallahs.”
Unbelievable circumstances
were met with “Say Wallah bro,” said in unison. Underneath all the layers of irony, we shared a sincere want of religious redemption. Once we exhausted all possible topics for the day, we would fall back on the classic “Sunni vs. Shia” debates, or expressing an inexplicable desire to settle back in our countries of origin.
Within the Dearborn community, there’s a mutual understanding of the “Dearborn Bubble.” The large proportion of Arab-Muslims in Dearborn is, of course, not representative of the United States. It’s impossible to stay in this bubble forever, especially if your dreams dare to float outside of it.
With my admittance to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor I believed that it was a formal goodbye to all that I had loved in the city of Dearborn. *** On campus, the Arab Student Association holds weekly events for the community. Our umbrella organizations (Egyptian Student Association, Yemeni Student’ Association, Iraqi American Union and 16 others) also tend to hold at least one event per month. The Muslim Student Association holds weekly Mini Qiyams and Halaqas meant to give an opportunity for Muslim students on campus to learn about our religion and to increase their spiritual connection to God. Socials are held routinely as well. Though, the most treasured of memories are made in the moments most seemingly-mundane. Connections are strengthened outside these events; the space on campus most conducive to this was the “Idea Hub.” READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Kaiani Garfidelya/MiC
AMARA M. SMALL MiC Columnist
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend who shared my first name, Kevin. “Why do you go by Bowen, anyways?” he asked. At the time, I gave him a simple answer — “Honestly, I like my middle name better,” — but I knew there was so much more to it.
American names may carry meaning, but they rarely live up to the beauty and intention that goes into choosing a Chinese name. When handwriting Chinese characters, each stroke must be in a specific order. Not only must phonetics and tone complement each other, but every character is also attached to a deeper meaning or value associated with the person. My sister’s name, 美昕 symbolizes the light and beauty she would bring to the world, like the sun of a new day rising from beneath the horizon. Two names can sound the same but mean entirely different things: In her case, swap out 昕 for the similar-sounding 心, and you have someone with a beautiful heart.
My parents gave me my English first name, Kevin, but left my Chinese name to my maternal grandfather. Envisioning someone with a passion for learning, he chose the characters 博闻 from the phrase 博学多闻 — knowledgeable and well read. This is also on my birth certificate, just in an anglicized form that combines the pinyin to make up my middle name: Bowen.
For as long as I can remember, I have gone by Bowen. I am not sure how it started, but once it did, Bowen stuck. The meaning behind my name definitely helped, but to be completely honest, younger me probably thought it sounded cooler than “Kevin” (even today, I still
Defining myself in pinyin: Accepting who I am
believe that). I never found it odd that almost all my other friends preferred their English name. Perhaps a childhood spent in Hong Kong softened that difference; between faces like mine and voices that switched seamlessly between Mandarin, English and Cantonese, my choice seemed unremarkable in that context.
When I moved back to the United States, however, Bowen suddenly felt out of place in an East Coast community oozing with old money. I was acutely aware of how different my name sounded compared to the “American” names of the people around me. It did not help that people would initially mistake my name for “Boeing” and would have to be corrected, to my great annoyance. I still called myself Bowen, but also began distancing myself from it
whenever I could, as using “Kevin” gave me various advantages in social situations. When I placed an online order from Chipotle, I did so under “Kevin.” At the golf course I frequented, people at the pro shop knew me as “Kevin.”
During college interviews, my interviewers all greeted me with “Hi, Kevin!” When I got my first job as a caddie at a country club, I tried coming to a middle ground, calling myself “Bo.” By retaining a piece of my middle name, I thought I could have the best of both worlds.
I was wrong. Despite the money I made, I hated being “Bo.”
Whenever I introduced myself to a golfer, I inwardly cringed. The disingenuous feeling that came along with using “Kevin” remained, but now with the knowledge that I was making a
Chinese name sound more white. The name felt empty. Truthfully, “Bowen” used to believe he would not be accepted. “Bowen” held many insecurities, and the need for validation and fear of exclusion was the summation of all of them. By experimenting with other names, I tried to hide them and be perfect. I am not inherently opposed to either of these names, but I felt like I was killing a part of me to gain others’ acceptance. I told myself these name changes were about trying something new, but looking back on it now, that was a lie. My main motive was presenting a version of myself that was free from insecurity. Insecurities suck, but pretending to be someone I was not felt even worse. As much as I tried, Bowen shone through. I am always looking to expand my
horizons, just like my Chinese name suggests. My Chinese name, which represents a passion for learning, is not just only a name, but also embodies everything that I am. When I am passionate about something, I make sure to know everything possible about the subject. In conversations, I bug my friends with persistent questions, letting my curiosity seek out a detailed picture, but sometimes I wonder if they find me annoying or too much. Out in nature, I opt for unpaved dirt over concrete trails, exploring every slope and stream, but I also worry that the adventurous side of me is simply running from the things that make me uncomfortable. As I have grown, I have come to believe that insecurity reveals the beauty of being human. I still remember the knot in my gut
after the first time I truly shared my fears with someone. Thoughts swirled in my head: “Did I share too much? Will they think less of me?” Yet, I was met with a warm smile and one of their own vulnerable moments following a short (but comfortable) silence. Chasing perfection leaves no room for the vulnerability and authenticity that makes us unique. My insecurities made me real, offering a moment of connection with a human being just like me. While the Midwest may not necessarily be more tolerant of cultural differences than the East Coast, college presented a fresh start, and with that, I was determined to present the most genuine version of myself to others. After all, if I did not recognize myself for who I was, how could I expect others to do the same? As I became more comfortable in my own skin, I finally came to appreciate — and love — my middle name. Being Bowen means taking the good with the bad; it means accepting the thoughts that keep me up at night, rather than trying to push them aside. It means sitting with my fears but not letting them define me. Bowen embodies who I really am — my ethnicity, my values, my small quirks, insecurities and most importantly, my humanity. I go by Bowen because I love the name and everything it represents: my true self.
So, to answer my friend in more detail: I call myself Bowen because I love the mantra my grandfather gave me. I call myself Bowen because — as hard as it may be — I want to unconditionally accept who I was, who I am now and who I will be. I call myself Bowen because I want to embrace my fractures, look my fears in their eyes and honor the vulnerability within me.
musings down the silk road
The land beneath their feet was the same earth they’d known for decades — unchanging, steady, eternal. The air brushed past their face, cool and familiar, carrying the faint scent of dew and ripening fruit. It clung to the skin like a memory unvisited for years, but there was something different about it now. The geography hadn’t changed: the hills rolled where they always had, the mountains peeked out from behind the centuries-old buildings and the trees whispered from where they had stood for generations. And yet, this was home in a way it had never been before.
It was not just a home defined by walls or possessions, but a home that lived and breathed with the land itself, a home where the soil carried stories of those who came before. Beneath the surface, centuries of footsteps pressed into its memory: the laughter of children chasing one another down the streets, the quiet murmurs of ancestors whose hands had once tilled this ground. The air felt heavier, not in weight but in meaning, as if it was aware that a familiar face stood in her presence and offered her a warm embrace.
of the Registan, the ancient square that glimmered with intricate mosaics of gold and lapis lazuli, or the imposing gates that had once welcomed caravans from distant lands. It was also the simple details: the walnut trees planted by hands long gone, the worn cobblestones polished smooth by generations of footsteps and the sprawling cemetery just kilometers away, where the bones of their ancestors rested beneath the earth. Family members lay together in a small plot of soil, separated by hundreds of years but held together by blood. Rows of graves stood like lines of poetry, each one tracing the lives of those who had worked this land, loved it, defended it. The rooster’s cry rang out, sharp against the morning haze as the sun stretched over the streets.
This city, in the heart of the historic Silk Road, was a land where history thrived in the streets, free from the cages of foreign museums and archives. The blues of domes and minarets in the distance whispered of a golden age when scholars and poets turned it into the jewel of the Silk Road. Those same monuments bore the weight of conquest, the burden of wars and the strains of governance that ranged from visionary to ruinous. Yet despite the turmoil, Samarqand stood steadfast.
To walk these streets was to step into a conversation with time itself. It wasn’t only the grandeur
Walnut trees stood on every block, their sprawling branches reaching wide as if to hold the sky in place. Their leaves shimmered green, catching the early light just enough to feel alive with history, alive with the essence of the lives that had passed beneath them. These trees did not belong to one family or another. They were older than anyone could remember, witnesses to countless seasons and stories. Their roots tangled deep into the soil, nurtured by the gentle spring rains, tempered by the resilience of summer droughts and transformed by the quiet whispers of autumn’s change. The trees gave freely. They would never hoard their bounty, instead sharing fruit with the children who climbed their trunks and the elderly who sought solace in their shade. Further down the street, a handful of sour cherries plucked from the neighbor’s tree — no words exchanged, no permission sought or required. These cherries would not be missed, nor would the walnuts in the fall. It was an unspoken rhythm, the quiet way a community sustained itself. The trees bore fruit, the people gathered and in return, a
jar of preserves was placed on a neighbor’s doorstep or a bag of fruit was handed off at twilight. Reciprocity was not enforced or written; it simply was the way of things here. The people took what they needed, returning what they could in small gestures that stretched out like threads, weaving the fabric of a place that felt whole. And yet, this comfort was not universal. Somewhere else, far from this quiet morning, there were places where this connection had been severed. Homes torn apart, lands stolen, borders drawn. There were others who could no longer walk the streets of their youth. Soil once cradled by familiar hands now marked by foreign flags. Displacement — more than leaving a place; it was the loss of the air that had once belonged to one’s lungs. What would it feel like, to stand on earth that had forgotten the weight of one’s footsteps? To know that the soil beneath no longer remembered the stories of their ancestors?
The land remembered, though. Even if thieves claimed it, the earth would hold its history in the deep, tangled roots of its trees, in the eroded grooves of its stones, in the unspoken language of the wind moving through its valleys. Even if borders carved it into something unrecognizable, the earth would ramin patient, seeds buried deep waiting for the sunlight and touch of hands that recognized them. The rooster’s crow rang out again, sharper now that the sun rose higher, scattering light across the streets and trees. Beneath the walnut canopy, the earth hummed softly, alive with the weight of footsteps and whispers of those who had come before. This was the same rhythm, the same thread, that bound everything together: the roots of trees tangling beneath the earth, the hands of neighbors exchanging gifts, the soil waiting patiently to give and receive.
DENG MiC Columnist
Alisha Razi/MiC
MADINABONU NOSIROVA
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Let’s axe Meta’s fact-checkers
MATEO ALVAREZ Opinion Columnist
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump made his grand return to the Oval Office with his second presidential inauguration. While the 47th president rattled on about renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali, many viewers of the event scanned the background and focused on the long list of billionaires poking their heads out throughout the Capitol rotunda. However, out of all the billionaires and personalities, none stood out quite as much as Meta CEO and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
Since Trump’s victory last November, the Meta CEO has undergone a complete transformation. Once a scrawny, self-proclaimed “nerd,” Zuckerberg has rebranded himself, seemingly in an attempt to appease Trump after years of threats and accusations. This “Zuck 2.0” has reversed many of the initiatives that had once made him one of the president’s biggest enemies. Among them is the end of Meta’s fact-checking system, a program which contracted third parties to annotate or remove content they deem to be false or lacking in context. Instead, Zuckerberg announced that Meta will employ a system similar to the one used by his rival turned fellow technocrat: Elon Musk. After his purchase of Twitter in 2022, Musk rolled out Community Notes on the app and now — two years and an election later — Zuckerberg is following suit. Many Meta users criticized the decision, claiming that this critical function mitigates the spread of misinformation and encourages accountability online. While there is some merit to these critiques — as misinformation has long been an issue on social media — after years of implementation,
fact-checking has done little to reduce the overwhelming amount of fake news that plagues Meta’s platforms. Implementing usergenerated Community Notes will democratize fact-checking and rid the app of a tool that has long become synonymous with big tech’s arrogance and self-righteousness with regards to politics.
Ever since fact-checking became widespread online, people have raised concerns about the efficacy and impartiality of the practice. In fact, many — including Zuckerberg himself — have claimed that the tool has shown to be “too politically biased,” oftentimes showing partiality to left-leaning concepts or ideals.
In 2019, one of Facebook’s sanctioned fact-checkers, Checkyourfact, came under fire for failing to fact-check content questioning the effects of climate change. It was later revealed that the site was founded as an offshoot of Tucker Carlson’s “The Daily Caller,” a right-wing news site famous for pushing conspiracies and inflammatory headlines. While many expected Facebook to remove the company’s credentials after the incident, Meta never addressed the allegations and the site still remains as one of Facebook’s sanctioned factcheckers to this day.
The partisan slant found in factchecking has manifested itself in more ways than just biased reporting. Many have accused factcheckers of selectively assessing claims, being more likely to factcheck conservative authors and politicians rather than liberal ones. These claims are not unfounded, and many have taken to social media to criticize fact-checkers for missing some glaringly misleading comments.
Fact-checking alone is not robust enough to mitigate the many fake articles and stories that plague
each of Meta’s platforms. Meta only employs 10 U.S.-based factchecking organizations, who are tasked with vetting one billion stories posted every day across all platforms. There is no realistic way for a system relying on forprofit companies to assess such vast amounts of content. Instead, Community Notes offer a more realistic alternative by individually certifying users, this ensures that more stories are checked and certified.
In Meta’s original system, factchecks are conducted by a small selection of companies approved by Meta. This is different from the Community Notes system, where users interested in participating are individually vetted and are allowed to give anonymous context to stories that might be misleading or false.
Community Notes decentralizes the fact-checking process, allowing users to directly participate, encouraging a culture of grassroots participation rather than 10 single organizations fact-checking. While critics argue that the function can lead to unchecked behavior, this issue isn’t unique to Community Notes: The same could be said for the various fact-checking organizations that work behind the scenes, away from the purview of the people and impervious to any public criticism.
As the transition into Community Notes begins, it could serve as a great opportunity to remind users to do their own research and verify information with reputable sources. Ever since the internet’s inception, people have been taught to be cautious, especially in regard to trusting what they read online. Rather than relying on other users or companies, it might be good to be your own fact-checker.
READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Democrats need a MAHA makeover
RYERSON Opinion Columnist
As a kid, I found out I reacted poorly to artificial food dyes. Amid an American culture of sugar and dye indulgence, it was torture to navigate my restrictive health problems. At the time, former first lady Michelle Obama was leading the charge to improve the health of American children and reform our food system. For a kid with unique health conditions, having a champion in Obama was a godsend that sparked my interest in health politics.
Following these issues closely, I first learned of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. long before he became a Republican Cabinet nominee. At the time, he was just a leading attorney in a local agrochemical trial, fighting to help a terminally ill local groundskeeper sue agrochemical titan Monsanto for causing his terminal cancer.
The lifelong Democrat, whom former President Obama had once shortlisted for Environmental Protection Agency administrator,
was doing exactly what Michelle Obama did: Fight the abuses of big business and advance public health. Few would have guessed that just six years later, RFK Jr. would be endorsing Donald Trump’s campaign for president. In light of this unexpected turn, many have asked, “What happened to RFK Jr.?”
But RFK Jr. is not a grifter. His politics around removing toxins from our food and water have remained largely consistent — it is the parties that changed. Democrats dropped the ball on health reform, and Republicans were clever enough to pick it up. On the campaign trail, President Trump was the only major party candidate crusading to “end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease-free.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris completely ignored the chronic disease epidemic in her campaign. In fact, the official 2024 Democratic Party platform didn’t mention chronic disease or declining American health
You are valued, you are enough, you are wanted: The lessons two friends left behind
SETH GABRIELSON Opinion Analyst
Two friends. Two losses. Two lives that won’t return.
In the past three months, I’ve faced a heartbreak I never imagined: losing two close friends to suicide. Their absences echo through my life, leaving questions I’ll never know how to answer. One question lingers above the rest: What stopped them from reaching out?
We avoid the hardest conversations with those who matter most. We hide behind forced smiles or dismiss our pain with phrases like “I’m fine.” Fear of rejection, judgment or appearing weak traps us in silence.
This silence feeds shame, isolates us and convinces us we’re alone. Without openness, we lose the chance to connect, to understand and to help. Brené Brown, a researcher whose work on shame and vulnerability has shaped how we think about emotional openness, explains in her TED Talk, “Listening to Shame,” that shame thrives in secrecy. It convinces us that if people knew the truth about our struggles, they would reject us. Empathy, however, is the antidote to shame. Brown describes empathy as the act of sitting with someone in their pain — not to fix it, but to say, “You’re not alone. I’m here with you.” When we respond with empathy, we stop shame in its tracks and create the kind of connection that lets people feel safe to open up.
Connection doesn’t require grand gestures. Simon Sinek highlights the power of small, consistent actions to build trust and stability in relationships. One of his simplest suggestions is to text “good morning” to a few close friends every day. It may seem trivial, but that daily act reminds people they matter to someone. It tells them they’re not alone, even in the quietest moments. These small routines don’t fix problems,
but they establish a foundation of care and consistency that makes harder conversations possible. We need to normalize emotional openness in our relationships — not just to prevent tragedy, but to build stronger, more meaningful connections. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10–34 in the United States. The U.S. Surgeon General recently declared that the country is facing an epidemic of loneliness, noting that social disconnection increases the risk of premature death by about 30%. This isn’t just a public health crisis — it’s a reflection of how silence has seeped into our relationships, convincing us we must bear our struggles alone.
I have lived this story. Throughout most of my life, I’ve carried an unconscious belief that it’s unsafe to want others to want me. In my mind, it wasn’t that I believed myself to be unworthy of care, but that it simply was not acceptable to ask for it from my peers and therefore to desire it. Even when friends did reach out, I pulled away, and either said I was too busy or simply didn’t want to go, all to keep myself away from these unsafe desires.
Years of frustration and resentment built up into one statement that I said to my father just over four years ago: “Why is it that I give so much to other people, give them connection, understanding and the space to be themselves, but when I need the same no one is there?” To which he responded, “Sometimes you have to reach for the salt before your dinner mate can hand it to you.”
After some time, I decided to trust a few of my longer-term friends and would ask them to different events. To my surprise, they reached back. Friend after friend asked me to spend time with them. Some say that your beliefs shape your reality, but in this instance, it simply allowed me to see the reality that was already in front of me. When I reached
out — when I chose vulnerability over fear — my entire outlook on life changed. In that realization, I understood a deeper truth about loneliness: It often grows from the belief that you aren’t significant, that you aren’t wanted — or worse still, that you aren’t worth wanting. But that belief is a lie. If I could go back and tell my friends one thing, and anyone else that needs to hear it, it would be this: “You are valued, you are enough and you are wanted.” The world is a better place with you in it, no matter what you have or haven’t done. We tell ourselves we’re fine, even when we’re not. Admitting the truth can feel too risky. Shame convinces us that opening up will lead to rejection or judgment. We stay quiet, hoping discomfort will pass on its own. But silence doesn’t help — it grows shame and deepens isolation. The longer we avoid hard conversations, the more distant we become, even from those who care about us. Society reinforces this silence. We idolize stoicism and independence, treating vulnerability as weakness. Social media amplifies these pressures, portraying curated perfection that makes admitting struggle feel like failure. Even in our closest relationships, fear lingers. We convince ourselves that our pain will burden others or that they won’t understand. But these fears, while real, are not insurmountable. We can dismantle the walls of shame and silence one conversation at a time. Avoiding emotional conversations has far-reaching consequences. Silence doesn’t just hide struggles, it feeds the idea that we’re alone in them. This isolation can be devastating. I’ve seen the cost firsthand. Two of my friends struggled in silence, and their stories ended tragically. Their deaths left behind an aching void and a hard truth: The conversations we avoid are often the ones we need to have the most.
READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Digital mutual aid isn’t the solution
LINDSEY SPENCER Opinion Columnist
Sometimes you need some extra help to pay the bills. With wages decreasing and the cost of living going up, this truth becomes even more evident.
whatsoever in their final platform, despite pleas from individuals like former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who cited spiking chronic illness as a “big issue for millions and could easily tip the election.”
As of 2020, nearly 60% of American adults and 43% of American children suffer from at least one chronic health condition. These rates — spanning conditions from eczema to fatty liver disease — are getting drastically worse. It is stunning that the modern Democratic Party refuses to embrace the improvement of human health, instead allowing these causes to be co-opted for Republican messaging.
These omissions are a distinct break from the Democratic Party of former President John F. Kennedy, who famously urged “programs for broad participation in exercise by all of our young men and women,” in an era when health conditions such as obesity were measurably better than today. READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
That’s exactly why, in 2010, entrepreneurs Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse founded GoFundMe. The pair wanted to create a donation-based website that wasn’t focused on the needs of startups or existing businesses, but on the needs of individuals. The site boasts a striking figure of $30 billion raised over the last decade and a half, with a digital donation being made every second. GoFundMe has become wildly popular, and for good reason: It has made tangible, lifechanging contributions to the lives of millions.
This culture — one of voluntary charity and community storytelling — operates as a kind of mutual aid network. This model has existed for centuries, wherein individuals pool together their own resources — money, food, clothing and the like — for the welfare and stability of their community. Mutual aid operates as a nongovernmental means of distribution: No public agencies and no politicians involved, just the charity of people. Donors on GoFundMe and the like aren’t motivated by selfishness or acclaim, just compassion.
This doesn’t mean, however, that crowdfunding is without
its faults. Though this method of individual fundraising has become the norm, relying on the contributions of strangers isn’t a lasting solution to financial distress. The philanthropic quality of GoFundMe, while initially beneficial, distracts from systemic wealth inequality and gives the government responsible for it an out. Not to mention, the site’s composition leaves much to be desired regarding transparency. On the surface, GoFundMe appears to be an acceptable solution, but it is intrinsically flawed.
Despite its feel-good interface, the site hides some of its objectives. While there is no fee to create a fundraiser, there are costs to making donations. There is a transaction fee of nearly 3% plus an additional 30 cents per donation. While this number seems small, it adds up. Just this month, one donor attempted to give $500 to a victim of the Los Angeles wildfires, but was charged $95 by the website. When you have lost everything, every penny counts, and GoFundMe subtracting from contributions can disrupt the financial healing of a loved one. While the site can’t do away with the fee entirely, it ought to decrease the percentage taken per donation to ensure that most of the donation goes to the solicitor, not GoFundMe itself. Additionally, the algorithm of GoFundMe is flawed. The site promotes the most successful cases to the top of its homepage, leaving the less popular requests
hidden among thousands of other hopefuls. Some of these people need life-saving medical care, emergency housing stipends or assistance in paying student loans, but no one can see their solicitations given the nature of the platform. Against its best intentions, GoFundMe isn’t sufficiently addressing wealth inequality in the United States. Not all people have access to computer technology or broadband internet, thus limiting their ability to create their own online fundraisers in the first place. This allows wealthier individuals to make more requests, some of which are meaningless and distracting. White people and men also prove to be more successful in crowdfunding, further contributing to a socioeconomic divide along racial and gendered lines. For a site that is meant to be helpful for marginalized communities, it doesn’t seem that they’ve been all that successful. Crafting a compelling narrative is also key to gaining donations, but sometimes that isn’t possible. Hundreds of people on GoFundMe need, for example, money to pay for medical treatments, but how can you creatively ask for help paying for chemotherapy? Asking people to tell stories to elicit sympathy for their cause is a symptom of the society that made GoFundMe so popular: universal, public programs just aren’t doing the job anymore.
HUNTER
Class size increases at U-M Dearborn are part of a worrying austerity agenda; Ann Arbor should take notice
RYAN MCCARTY & BEN WIELECHOWSKI Opinion Contributors
You’re heading to your writing class, a little
but at least comforted by the fact that your university has historically boasted a low instructor-to-student ratio and lots of individualized help. But when you walk through the door, the room is piled full. It’s not about 15 students. It’s 30. The room is too small, and you can barely see the teacher through the crowd. There’s no way that this is going to be a one-on-one individualized learning experience. It’s not a great way to start a new semester. If you’re the instructor, it’s not any better. You pride yourself on how well you get to know each of your students, on the individual attention you offer while they work through projects and the amount of time you put into the feedback you give. But this semester, your class caps have doubled. Instead of working with 15 students at a time, you’re working with 30. In the packed room, you can’t even get to the students in the back.
Unfortunately, this is what University of Michigan-Dearborn students and faculty came back to after the break. U-M Ann Arbor should take notice.
The chaos in Dearborn began a week before Thanksgiving break, when departments were informed by the administration of immediate changes to class sizes. Courses with fewer than 15 students enrolled would be cancelled and course caps would now be raised by at least 25% across the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, with the goal of consolidating students into fewer, higher-enrollment sections.
The administration insisted that everything was fine, that the issues were isolated to CASL and students would not be impacted by any of the changes.
But a broad solidarity coalition pushed back against the decision to uncap class sizes. The pressure from a coalition of faculty, students and Lecturers’ Employee Organization union representatives came in many forms. There was a petition, letters and phone calls from students and their parents. Faculty sent a letter to the dean, circulated another petition, organized a sitin protest and march and held a town hall in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks. In addition, faculty members analyzed their own data to counter the administration’s narrative that CASL was a failing college.
In the end, the administration reversed course. They dropped the 15-student threshold, course cancellations were reversed and faculty layoffs were fought off by the union. CASL promised to return the old course caps to their previous numbers in the fall.
But, for winter semester, higher course caps remain: Honors writing courses originally capped at 20 students now can seat 30. Composition courses are now capped at 30, up from 24. The size of these increases prompted a rebuke from the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the largest national professional association of college writing instructors. Upper-level writing courses in the Journalism and Media Production program went from a cap of 22 to 40. And the Film in Society course that typically has a 30-person cap, now has a 50-person cap. While the original objective was to raise course caps and merge multi-section courses, all four of the original Film in Society sections ran, but now at a 50-person
cap instead of 30. The lecturer in charge of three of these sections went from teaching 90 students to 150. This increase in workload is untenable. The time to grade has nearly doubled and it will severely reduce one-on-one interactions, which teachers use to forge bonds with students, build confidence and trust and increase retention.
The worst part is that the administration must know that these changes will worsen educational quality, but they just don’t seem to care. When instructors pointed out that student learning would be severely impacted by these changes, lecturers report that, in closed meetings with the administration, CASL leadership replied that teachers should just assign less and grade fewer of the remaining assignments completed by students.
And — in a subtly-striking admission — the administration agreed to special conferences to discuss the uncharacteristically low evaluations of professors because of higher course caps. On one hand, it’s a good thing. Instructors shouldn’t be penalized for students being upset about the effects of course sizes doubling. But it’s a clear acknowledgement from administrators that they know that students are going to be unhappy and under-served this semester.
It’s tempting to just frame all these stories as examples of inept administrations failing to communicate and causing confusion for employees and students alike. Or maybe, as Domenico Grasso, University of Michigan-Dearborn Chancellor, and Dagmar Budikova, University of Michigan-Dearborn Dean of CASL, suggest, these changes might seem to just be an unfortunate temporary problem for U-M Dearborn alone.
READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Physical media matters even more in the streaming age
In our rapidly digitizing world, where large libraries of content are available at the click of a button, physical media may seem like a relic from a bygone era. As a managing editor for The Michigan Daily’s video section, I am keenly aware of the pivotal role digital media now plays in the production and dissemination of information and content. In our newsroom, physical media are few and far between and our videos are compiled, edited and distributed digitally for efficiency and speed. This reflects a broader trend in the media industry: Digital innovations, like streaming, have become essential to sustain the modern pace and scale of television and film production.
However, during my television history class, I was reminded that despite these technological advancements, there are inherent limitations to streaming. I was assigned to watch the pilot episode of “Thirtysomething,” a show that defied traditional family drama norms by focusing on the emotional and everyday struggles of navigating adult life. It drew me in immediately and left me eager for more, but I was struck
by an unexpected roadblock: The series was not available on any streaming platform. Faced with the dilemma of whether or not to pirate, I renewed my library card and rented the DVD set instead.
This small but frustrating experience reminded me of something larger: While streaming platforms have reshaped how people consume media, they cannot fully replace the value of physical media. Items like DVDs, CDs and vinyl records provide tangible, permanent copies of films, music and other forms of art, safeguarding them in a way that digital media does not.
Streaming services promise infinite access, but their libraries are notoriously incomplete and impermanent. Content can disappear due to licensing issues, lack of interest or companies shutting down. Worse, some works are altered or censored to fit modern sensibilities and market demands. While these changes often reflect positive social progression, they can inadvertently erase historical context or artistic intent. Preserving content in a physical format allows future generations to access media in its original state, providing a richer understanding of past cultural norms and creative expressions. Physical media is essential for
cultural preservation, especially since television shows lack a preservation program like the National Film Registry, which safeguards significant films against loss. Without physical copies, pivotal series like “Thirtysomething,” “Hill Street Blues” and “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” could be relegated to obscurity simply because they’re logistically “inconvenient” to stream. DVDs act as unalterable time capsules. While streaming services promise an endless library, their offerings are vulnerable to corporate decisions and also require a stable internet connection. Physical media ensures continued accessibility and reliable ownership, unaffected by market whims or technological changes. Though streaming is often praised for its accessibility, particularly during COVID-19, it falls short economically and is worse for actors. The revenue distribution models of streaming platforms do not favor filmmakers and actors, whereas purchasing DVDs or Blu-Rays often directly supports creators more than streaming royalties. Investing in physical media sustains the arts by directly funding creative teams, fostering industry growth. READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Emily Quinteros/DAILY
JOVANNA GALLEGOS Opinion Analyst
MADISON HAMMOND Statement Correspondent
Lions fans expect disappointment.
That’s been the mantra of my super-fan dad during football season for as long as I can remember, lounging back on the couch wearing his ancient Honolulu blue Barry Sanders jersey.
The Lions suck. Or at least they did. But that’s why, sadly, we weren’t truly surprised when our betting favorites for the Super Bowl lost in the first round of the playoffs a few weeks ago. This loss was only the latest addition to a long history of bad luck, injuries, failures and frustration.
Last year, the Lions got as close to the Super Bowl as they ever have in the final playoff game against the 49ers. My dad and grandfather flew out to California, two blue jerseys amid a sea of red and gold, in anticipation of the most solid possibility of a Super Bowl game in their lifetimes.
Back in Ann Arbor, I watched from the couch. They lost.
If you’re not a Lions fan, this might not mean anything to you.
After all, I never was a big football fan myself; watching grown men pummel each other’s brains for three hours is not my ideal source of entertainment. But let me provide some context as to what led me to shed a tear as the best team we’ve ever had choked when it really mattered.
Only four NFL teams have never played in the Super Bowl: the Cleveland Browns, the Houston Texans, the Jacksonville Jaguars and, you guessed it, the Detroit Lions. Founded in 1930, the Lions are one of the oldest NFL franchises, so they have disappointed their fans for almost a century. Even when favored to win, bad play calls by coaches, crucial fumbles and interceptions have led many to conclude that the team is simply cursed.
As Brian Manzullo, Detroit Free Press sports writer, said in 2015, “Just when we think the Detroit Lions can’t possibly find another way to lose, they do.” Fans like my grandfather have begged for their luck to change for their entire lives. He even has a T-shirt that says, “Just one before I die.”
The Lions have long been seen as a joke, but Detroit as a city has
TIFFANY SUDIJONO Statement Columnist
Celebratory and promising, triumphant and elated. These are the sentiments ingrained in the bliss brought by the fresh beginnings that the new year brings. When the countdown accelerates, jubilant cheers reverberate and the clock strikes midnight, a surreal surge of rejuvenation swarms the crowd. We embrace anticipation, forget sorrows and regain control all in one instance. We open a blank page for greater stories to unfold. We bask in the radiating feelings of gratitude and trek forward through a path of renewal, watching as harsh pasts close while bright futures await. However, history would call this picture-perfect moment unattainable. Renewal — an idealistic image of the new year — is merely a longing for escapism, a wishful thinking built on the past’s unfulfilled promises. This mindset seemed flawed to me until raging fires, billowing smoke and unending wails began to brew in my mind like a forgotten ’90s memory. These images forcefully resurface whenever words about my Medanese heritage roll off my tongue, producing a discordant syncopation that sounds disheartening. These memories are not mine, yet I feel them so deeply, to the extent that the affliction and rage they encapsulate is aching. It is the story my parents told me about the May 1998 riots — a historical narrative that generationally taints my identity, as if it is my own experience.
STATEMENT
It will rise from the ashes: On
Detroit and the Lions
been underestimated for even longer.
Once the richest city in the country and home to automotive giants Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, Detroit began to face significant challenges in the mid-20th century. By the 1960s, unemployment rates soared to more than 16%, fueled by a mass exodus of primarily white residents from the city to the surrounding suburbs. This white flight, was driven by fears of racial integration, changes in housing policies and shifting racial dynamics in the city.
Tensions between majorityBlack, low-income neighborhoods and Detroit’s predominantly white police department came to a head during the 1967 Detroit uprising. Sparked by incidents of police brutality and frustrations with systemic inequality, the uprising not only intensified the racial divide but accelerated white flight from the city, which was becoming increasingly more segregated. Between 1950 and 2010, the city’s population declined by 61.4%, depleting its tax base. Those remaining were unable to relocate and were left with a shrinking pool of government resources. By the 1970s, Detroit had
Mobs hurling petrol bombs. Barricades vandalized with political rhetoric. Local shops burned to ruins.
A mere glimpse into this 12-day commotion is enough to showcase how the brutality at the core of economic crises, political retaliation and antiChinese prejudice propagates dehumanization. As student demonstrations ignited in a fight for democratic rights, former President Suharto’s authoritarian regime resorted to scapegoating the ChineseIndonesian community. We were pinned as proponents for the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and instigators of the 1974 Malari riots, channeling economic resentment into a spiral of racial hate. Hate soon translated into a ‘spontaneous’ chaos orchestrated by the Indonesian military, which crafted this historic period of manipulation, violence and divide. Everyone, from student protestors at Trisakti to elderly commuters near Muara Karang, was fighting in a battle meant to pressure the corrupt government into reformation. A war that, in turn, morphed into a clash among the people — a civil unrest.
When I was six years old and my father first revealed this story, the flying rocks aimed at flesh and glass mirrored skipping stones, just as the crowded protests sounded excitingly nationalistic in my mind. At seven, however, when I began to identify pictures online and my parents’ early photos unfolded, I became disillusioned and these sugarcoated descriptions began to subside. At thirteen,
a majority Black population. However, systemic racism and economic inequality combined with the collapse of the automobile industry deepened the city’s struggles. By 2011, nearly half of Detroit residents were living below the poverty line. In 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy with $18 billion in debt — the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
The narrative that Detroit remains a dangerous place and the stereotype of “urban decay” is still pervasive today.
A 2023 poll by Gallup found that only 26% of Americans think that Detroit is safe to live in or visit.Even President Donald Trump belittled the city.
“The whole country will be like — you want to know the truth?”
Trump asked. “It’ll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if (Kamala Harris) is your president.”
But since the city filed bankruptcy, things started to turn around for Detroit. At the same time, a few key draft picks, like Aiden Hutchinson, and new coaching staff began to turn things around for the Lions.
Many fans had mixed opinions about Lions head coach
Dan Campbell when he was first hired in 2021 due to his unconventional approach and limited coaching experience. This might be surprising to many like myself, who have only been aware of Campbell during the era of look-alike contests and widespread reverie for his coaching decisions. A typical story for both Detroit and the Lions — counted out from the start.
During Campbell’s second year as head coach, the Lions started the season 1-6. Coming off the heels of a 3-13-1 season, it was definitely not a great record. Amidst public outcry for him to be fired, franchise owner Sheila Hamp spoke to the press in a rare move.
“I know this is difficult,” Hamp said. “A rebuild is hard. But we really believe in our process, we really believe we’re going to turn this thing around the right way, through the draft. It requires patience, it’s frustrating. Am I frustrated? Absolutely. Are the fans frustrated? Absolutely. Are you guys frustrated? But I think we really are making progress.” Hamp was right to be patient. The next year, the Lions’ record was 9-8; then it was 12-5 in 2023 and finally, 15-2 in the 2024 season.
To be made anew
when my Chinese-Indonesian identity was questioned at a study abroad program in Chofu, Japan, impressions of ambiguity and “what’s it like to be Chindo” questions consumed my sense of self. After all, what did it mean to be part Chinese, part Indonesian?
To be a minority solely for the shape of my eyes, the color of my skin and the roots of my faith?
To be the byproduct of a lineage punctured by discrimination’s sting?
I thought I lived in a world where the privilege of control aligned with our Gregorian timeline of the “New Year.”
I thought I had the power to forget, to forgive and to push forward after hearing this terrorizing yet distant narrative. I thought renewal was setting annual expectations, blowing out candles tied to wishes and simply treating history as history. Yet, the solution was not clean-cut. My identity is not clean-cut.
In a long-standing culmination of grievances, political repression and economic hardship, the ferocious aggression and turmoil that erupted in Indonesia became the foundation of something deeper: the core of today’s underlying ethnic tensions.
From addressing mass unemployment to tear gas sparks and alleged Molotov cocktail attacks, recurring Kamisan movements today call for political accountability over lost lives and stripped human rights. It is like I can feel the remnants of suppressed cries coming from the women who were sexually targeted, the desperation of families fending off looters from their neighborhood shops and
The fandom that always existed within my family was whipped into a frenzy. Every gameday, my dad would pace in front of the television — no longer relaxed enough to sit — voice texting my grandfather with updates. After the traditional Thanksgiving Lions game when my dad learned I was getting hyped about the team, I was added to this group chat:
“He has to kick it, right?”
“Gibbs is on fire!”
“Go for the win, Dan!”
“I’m pacing over here and taking my shirt off … ” (this one made me chuckle). According to my mom, even after the games ended, my dad watched recap and breakdown videos, rewatched the games themselves and listened to podcasts interviewing the players. He would stay up later than his typical 10 p.m. bedtime to watch the game through to its end. We sent each other memes about the players, someone gifted my dad Amon-Ra St. Brown socks and I listened as my grandfather explained the life stories of his favorite players. The Lions were integrated into my life to a degree that they never have before.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Dae Hee Kwak,
associate professor of sports management, said part of what draws someone to become a sports fanatic is the identity it brings.
“We are all social creatures, right?” Kwak said. “We have a desire to feel a sense of belonging, or part of another identity or culture or group, and sport just presents an excellent example of where people can feel a sense of belonging.”
The Lions not only have a well-known history, but are the only NFL team in Michigan, so interpersonal relationships for people who grew up in Michigan plays a role in this fan identity.
“That’s why we see those generational kinds of fan bases, generation and generation, because you are being exposed to the team once you are young,” Kwak said. “Maybe your first onesie was even Lions … that’s a part of how it becomes an identity.”
To be honest, I started getting into the Lions because of the young and exciting talent that brought life back into the franchise. The epic duo (running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, who call themselves “Sonic and Knuckles”), the endzone celebrations of Amon-Ra St. Brown, absurd trick plays that caught even the audience offguard, the humor of vegan David Montgomery biting a carrot as the rest of the team digs into turkey legs after their Thanksgiving day win — that is what I love about football. In the past year, the country started looking at Detroit once again. The 2024 NFL draft was held there, breaking the attendance record with over 775,00 fans spilling into the city. At the same time, Detroit was named one of the best places to live in the U.S. by Money. A University of Michigan study found that overall improvements from 2018 to 2022 are predicted to continue over the next five years with increased employment and real incomes. In 2022, the city was named the top emerging startup ecosystem. Organizations around the city like the Kresge Foundation and Bedrock have poured millions of dollars into redevelopment and preservation projects, while the city itself has made substantial investments in projects like the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Centennial Park and Minock Park Place. READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
the worries that once burdened my parents’ minds. My father, whose mother was overseas in Singapore at the time, found himself in a valley of isolation. I envision the light behind his eyes fading when the atmosphere darkened with a surging cloud of charcoal smoke, contrasting the vigorous, dynamic brightness of crimson-red flames. My mother says that she would walk back home from work with trepidation weighing her heart, her right fist clenched as her left first loosened to grip her complex’s gate handle. In a life-or-death situation, there is always an act of vigilance, a phone call to make and a cloud of worries to suppress with “I’ll be fine” utterances. There is always the resounding echo of “what ifs” roaming in our minds. What if I was slashed by blades that etched scars on my chest, as I lay frail
on a bed of wooden shards in a fetid alleyway? What if today’s seemingly resolved anger holds a lingering tinge of hate? What if the way some native Indonesians look at me, eyes penetrating like a rubber bullet, is because of something as arbitrary as my ethnicity?
These sensations feel simultaneously intangible and tangible, distant and near, hopeful and painful. While I strive to deem history as lessons in reconciling my ChineseIndonesian heritage, creating a dichotomy between myself and the riot’s victims, I am left remembering that time was the only factor that separated me from occupying their shoes. My narrow eyes, my fair skin, my gender and my Christian religion were also the qualities of young business owners —
of women in May 1998 that were brutally prosecuted and abruptly attacked. My mother’s clenched fist was also mine, just as my father’s frazzled calls to his mother abroad echoed my own fears. I am a mix of people I have known and do not know, a blend of the Chinese-Indonesians who survived and did not, an accumulation of history and the future. As we close one chapter and turn open a new page, history is the first stain in the new narratives we hope to craft. History perpetuates itself by planting seeds of memories in the young, who physically sense nothing but are generationally moved by its unnerving force. The trauma of the past can mimic two sides of the same coin. READ MORE
Caroline Xi/DAILY
Caroline Xi/DAILY
As an 8-year-old child, I always began my evening prayers with the polar bear in mind. Hands folded against my chest, I imagined his button eyes shining, like the ones on the teddy bear I gripped in my sleep. I would watch as he floated away helplessly, into the dark, expansive sea.
I cannot say when I first saw one of the many viral photographs of a polar bear floating on ice — photographs that have now become a symbol of global warming. I do recall, though, that they dominated my childhood fear that the world I’d been born into might one day disappear. As I grew older, my concern and guilt seemed to grow in tandem. The more I understood about climate science, the more alarmed I felt. I started taking shorter showers and begged my parents to start a compost pile. At 13, I stopped eating meat to reduce my carbon footprint. But none of this availed my guilt that an enormous problem was growing and I was complicit: I drove a car, loved using heating and I couldn’t imagine life without dairy. I wasn’t like Greta Thunberg or Severn CullisSuzuki. I was a timid teenager, already overwhelmed by the prospect of acing AP Calculus, never mind the prospect of solving global issues.
I’ve since learned that the emotions I’ve experienced, and continue to experience, around climate change are common and have a name: climate anxiety. The phenomenon is particularly prevalent among Generation Z, as members grapple with a profoundly different world than
that of our parents and even of our own early childhoods. In the University of Michigan’s Kinesiology Building, I met with two students I thought might be able to contextualize my thoughts — president and vice president of the University’s Sierra Club, School of Sustainability sophomores Dani Kasper and Lija Sverns. The Sierra Club is part of a national grassroots movement to contribute to an environmental movement. The atrium’s carpet was lush with waves of blue, reminding me of the ocean. Kasper and Sverns sat beside me in matching turquoise chairs. I began by asking them how they imagine the future, as students who spend most of their free time
thinking about climate change.
“There’s just so much uncertainty,” said Kasper. “I have no clue what it’s gonna be like. Nobody really knows. And so, I don’t try to think too much into the future, just what we can do (right now).”
“We’re already seeing (its effects) and we’re so young,” said Sverns. “I think a lot about if I ever have kids, the environment and our natural world is gonna look so different from 30 years ago.”
When I asked if they’d heard of climate anxiety, Kasper let out a nervous laugh.
“I have a lot of experience with it,” she said. “Lately, with recent things, it’s been harder to not fall into just doom and existential
thinking,” Kasper said. “I kind of think maybe things are getting better, maybe people are doing more (and) then I see some of the headlines. I definitely feel (calmness) and anxiety, definitely existential doom and fear.”
Michaela Zint, Arthur F. Thurnau professor and associate dean for academic affairs, who studies climate anxiety at the University, explains that Kasper’s experience is due to the window of tolerance that we all have with intense emotions like climate anxiety. The window, and movement out of it, acts as a metaphor for how the nervous system regulates. The version of oneself that has the skills to comfortably deal with the stress
or pressure of life exists in the window. When one’s system is overwhelmed, they might end up outside of that window and no longer able to handle stressors like climate change in a healthy way.
“If you’re not worried about climate change, you’re not going to do anything about it because you’re not worried about it. If you’re so worried that you can’t function, you’re also not going to do anything about it because you just kind of are like, ‘I don’t even know where to start,’” Zint stated.
As Zint explains this, I think, “sounds familiar.” While I’ve never experienced what could be considered clinical climate anxiety — chronic stress about environmental doom that
disrupts one’s ability to function in everyday life — I have often found myself so overwhelmed by the issue’s scope that I disregard it altogether. In high school, I’d go weeks at a time without thinking about climate change until a headline led me down a reading rabbit hole, and the cycle would begin again.
Zint said that climate anxiety is a common experience for young people in the United States and works to teach students how they can act on this anxiety. Last year, she led a workshop to help students and community members translate their climate anxiety into action — a shift she argues is crucial for coping with it. She explained that this action can look like many things: connecting with the outdoors, using public transportation or collective action.
“We know that when you take individual action, or even better, collective action … not only are you helping to address the problem, but you also feel better,” Zint said. I often wonder about my own role in the climate crisis. My occupation as a writer feels at once empowering and painfully passive. I struggle to understand whether reporting on environmental issues eases my anxiety or exacerbates it. In writing about the involvement of journalists in their stories, Fred Brown, former president of the Society of Professional Journalists, writes, “The easiest ethical decision is to avoid covering an organization or an activity in which you — or a spouse, significant other or close friend — have a personal stake or are a regular participant.” READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
To test for candida overgrowth, you must fill a drinking glass with water first thing in the morning, before you consume any food or brush your teeth. Then, you spit straight into the cup and watch as your saliva swims around in tap water before deciding where to settle. Obviously, spitting once is not enough; you must keep spitting until you can make out a sizable mass of saliva in the cup. To determine if you do in fact have candida overgrowth, your saliva must either be stringy and suspended in the water, take the form of cloudy specks or have sunk to the bottom.
When I did my spit test, I couldn’t really tell what happened to my saliva at all. It just seemed to disappear into the clear water, no matter how much I kept spitting. Yet the spit test seemed to prove otherwise. Then again, I had discovered candidiasis while reading articles online about the infection. Candidiasis is an overgrowth of yeast in your body, disrupting the healthy balance of necessary bacteria. I learned about the spit test after coming across a naturopathic physician in Saskatchewan’s blog post about the infection. I was in disbelief — I obviously had candida overgrowth, based on the symptoms I happened upon, like heightened eczema, while scrolling through Instagram reels.
Candida overgrowth is not the first disease or infection that I have convinced myself that I surely have and need immediate medical treatment for. Throughout the past few years, I have developed a peculiar interest in diagnosing myself with various diseases and ailments, which is more commonly referred to as hypochondria.
This problem of mine developed in high school when I couldn’t sleep on weeknights. Rather than doing something productive with my time, like reading a book, I instead went down a wormhole of health quizzes and wellness posts on social media. I’d learn about a disease like H. Pylori or chronic bloating and then convince myself I had it. I would read articles
about these ailments and message my parents about how I needed to see a specialist immediately. When my parents saw my messages in the morning, they’d usually just ignore them and tell me to stop staying up so late and giving myself unnecessary anxiety over conditions I certainly did not have.
The one time my parents decided to entertain my health delusions was when I convinced myself that I had polycystic ovary syndrome, more commonly referred to as PCOS. I was displaying some of the symptoms, which led me to convince myself that I was infertile. I catastrophized further, telling my mother that she would never have grandchildren.
Eventually, my mother finally relented and scheduled an appointment with a gynecologist. The doctor’s office was on the fifth floor of a hospital in Dallas, but I remember looking out the window and thinking it seemed much higher off the ground.
Before I could see the doctor, I had to have an ultrasound done. I sat in the waiting room drinking copious amounts of water as the other patients perplexedly looked at me, assuming that I was a teenager with a very unfortunate pregnancy scare. The nurse smeared the frigid gel on me and I tried very hard not to move as I stared at the X-ray of my bladder and uterus while the wand danced over my abdomen. Then, I had to get my blood drawn, which is a terrifying
experience for me because I am deathly afraid of needles. I held my breath closely and my mother had to remind me to breathe. The nurse told me to stop clenching my arm so tightly and my fingers began shaking as I felt the syringe pierce my flesh. I didn’t want to think about my veins pulsating. I trembled with each second as the blood coursed through the clear tube, and obviously that was the only thought in my mind.
Finally, after these two harrowing affairs, I would be informed if I had PCOS or not.
I sat in the gynecologist’s office, anxiously waiting for the results. I looked around at her family photographs and college soccer accolades when she came in with the news.
She explained to me that my bloodwork and ultrasound came back highly normal. Wasn’t I so lucky that I had nothing to worry about? I was in disbelief. I was sure that I had PCOS and explained to her I had many of the symptoms that are characteristic of the condition. Was there any other test she could do, just to make sure?
All she offered was to prescribe me birth control to help regulate my menstrual cycle, which was exactly what my mother predicted would happen when I went to the appointment. My anxiety-ridden mind was convinced there had to be something wrong with me, even if I couldn’t prove it with a blood test, but I left the gynecologist dissatisfied.
Abigail Schad/DAILY
Abigail Schad/DAILY
ICE HOCKEY
Michigan pulls away late against Penn State, wins 7-3 in scoring outburst
In the prior–three matchups between the No. 13 Michigan hockey team and Penn State this season, the two squads combined for 36 goals. And once again, a high-scoring affair materialized Saturday.
Through a full 60 minutes, the Wolverines (15-11-2 overall, 9-8-1 Big Ten) and the Nittany Lions (12-11-3, 3-10-3) fired shot upon shot at the net, leading to another scoring outburst. Those shots translated into production as Michigan hit its stride in the third period to pull away to a 7-3 victory.
“Just a really good job of finding a way to win,” Wolverines coach Brandon Naurato said. Despite the Nittany Lions putting more pucks on net early, Michigan struck first. Two shots in quick succession by freshman forward Michael Hage and junior forward Josh Eernisse took Penn State goaltender Arsenii Sergeev out of position and onto the ice. Junior forward T.J. Hughes was right there to corral the second rebound, firing the puck into an open net eight minutes into the game.
Though the lamp remained unlit for the remainder of the period, the Nittany Lions came out in the second looking to even the score — and they did quickly. After a pass to the slot found Penn State forward
Charlie Cerrato, he buried the puck through the five-hole of freshman goaltender Cameron Korpi to tie the game at one goal apiece.
From that point on — and similar to the previous matchups between the two — the scoring was rampant. Throughout the remainder of the second period, the tempo stayed high as the puck was seldom in the neutral zone — which was enough for both teams to find the back of the net.
Right off the draw on a power play, senior defenseman Ethan Edwards took advantage of a runway in front of him, beating Sergeev. Less than 20 seconds later, the Nittany Lions tied it up after another shot by Cerrato beat Korpi again through the five-hole. It took just four minutes for the goal horn to blare once again, as on a 2-on-1 rush, Hage tipped the puck up and in off a pass from freshman forward Will Horcoff.
“(Sophomore forward Nick Moldenhauer) made a great pass,” Horcoff said. “And then I saw Hage going back door, so I faked the shot to get the goalie to freeze and I slid it over to (Hage) back-door, and he made a great play to finish it. So it’s an allaround team effort on that one.”
With Michigan holding a 3-2 lead heading into the third period, neither the pace nor the scoring slowed down. In fact, it was exactly what the Wolverines
needed to add to their tally. In under a minute, Michigan scored two goals off the sticks of sophomore forwards William Whitelaw and Garrett Schifsky.
“Guys just made some plays and they went in,” Naurato said. “But that’s what happens when you keep dumping (the puck) in, keep dumping it in, keep dumping it in — you loosen them up a little bit. Once Whitelaw made it four to two, they were pressing a little bit. And you can see what happens when teams look to go one way.”
The Wolverines weren’t done, though. Just two minutes later, they pocketed their sixth goal of the night, as sophomore forward Evan Werner sniped a one-timer by Sergeev. In just a three-minute span, the pace and volume of shots added up, propelling Michigan to a threegoal lead with 10 minutes to spare, pulling away from Penn State in the process.
Though the Nittany Lions got a goal back on a short-handed breakaway by forward Aiden Fink, it was too late for Penn State. Horcoff got that goal back after Sergeev was pulled in favor of an empty net.
Just like the three matchups that preceded Saturday’s affair, the goals kept on coming for both the Wolverines and the Nittany Lions. And a thirdperiod outburst was all it took for Michigan to pull away for a victory.
Josh Heindselman defeats season ending rival, getting revenge on the relentless Buckeye
In the final bout of the night against No. 4 Ohio State, graduate No. 9 Josh Heindselman created a commanding mat presence to take the win for the No. 19 Michigan wrestling team. The heavyweight wrestler took on No. 7 Nick Feldman Saturday in what seemed like a routine win for the Wolverines, but this was not their first career matchup.
In the 2024 NCAA Championships, Heindselman lost to Feldman, surrendering his opportunity to continue competing at the championship, and his spot as a potential All-American. The rematch with Feldman was highly anticipated for Heindselman, who now holds a 17-1 record this season.
“He lost the Feldman match, the match he needed to win to be an All-American last year at the NCAA Tournament,” Michigan coach Sean Bormet said. “And it was one of the things he talked about when he came to Michigan, was he couldn’t wait for the Ohio State door.”
Although this rematch meant a lot to Heindselman and the team, entering the bout down 25-11 as a team, he approached this competition the same way he
does any other. Since transferring to Michigan for his graduate season, Heindselman relentlessly maintained his status as a top-10 heavyweight competitor. Finishing his senior year fourth in the Big 12, he came to Michigan with passion to further improve upon his skills.
“You got to just stay wrestling how you want to wrestle,” Heindselman said. “When you let the score get too involved, and you start thinking too much, then you wrestle bad and kind of mindlessly.”
As one of the Wolverine’s most consistent winners, Heindselman recognizes the importance of persistence and accuracy in his movements, evaluating each moment as it approaches and taking charge of the mat from the time he enters to the very last seconds of the third period.
Closing out the match for Michigan, Heindselman had control of the space, dictating the pace and energy in the final bout of the night. His consistent technique and ruthless physicality left Feldman in a defensive scramble, who was unable to collect any offensive points.
Heindselman’s defensive consistency allows him to make mindful adjustments when applying offensive tactics. This kind
of control and consistency is what Michigan as a whole needs to bring home more team wins, especially in the lightweight classes.
“We had to make those scoring positions go our way, and we didn’t.” Bormet said. “That was really the difference in the duel. It’s really about routine and consistency, about how you’re preparing in the week, how you’re getting your body ready to compete. From a performance standpoint, where you’re at mentally when you step on the mat, it’s about wrestling with great intensity and effort.”
Entering the final period down 1-0, Heindselman elected the down position, swiftly gaining a point with the escape. With just a little over a minute left in the bout, he focused in, sharpening every detail of his actions, as Feldman made increasingly risky offensive moves, restlessly anticipating the bout winning points. Finally, Heindselman went in on his rival’s legs, scoring an agonizing threepoint takedown on Feldman.
After a relentless competition, Heindselman avenged his rival, ending the bout 4-2 and giving the Wolverines their fourth and final match win of the night. READ MORE AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Swenson a bright spot in Michigan loss to NC State
Despite coming off strong victories over Auburn and No. 19 Tennessee, the Wolverines were unable to maintain their momentum in a tightly contested matchup. And in a loss, sometimes strong performances can be lost in the disappointment. But for the No. 17 Michigan men’s tennis team, junior Bjorn Swenson’s performance provided a silver lining in a loss to No. 21 NC State.
While the Wolverines’ loss was disappointing, one of the standout performances of the match came from Swenson. Despite his doubles match with senior Gavin Young at No. 1 and his singles match being abandoned, Swenson’s efforts on the court were a highlight for the Wolverines.
In doubles play, Swenson and Young were in a competitive match at No. 1 before their contest was halted with a score in favor of the Wolfpack. Although the
LACROSSE
match wasn’t finished, Swenson’s performance alongside Young was strong, keeping Michigan in the hunt for the doubles point.
“We didn’t come out really strong in doubles,” Michigan coach Sean Maymi said. “They were more aggressive than we were, and their serving was a lot better on some courts. That limited our chances, but we should’ve still been able to handle our serve better. Maybe we just weren’t as sharp as last weekend.”
Swenson continued to show his resilience in the No. 2 singles. Despite some of his teammates facing crushing blows and defeats, Swenson was giving his opponent a hard time, making it far from an easy win for NC State’s Van Sambeek. Swenson’s play kept the Wolverines competitive in a match that ultimately slipped away, with his singles match ending with a score of 6-3, 4-6, 1-0 abandoned.
In doubles, Swenson and Young were also in a tight contest,
facing Shick and Sambeek, with their match abandoned at 5-4.
“I think I just took it one point at a time, and really was working with my coach to figure out what I needed to adjust,” Swenson said. “In the second set, I think (Sambeek) started coming out with more energy. It was pretty back and forth, but we were in a close third set, and it would have been a good one.”
Despite the loss, Swenson’s performances in both doubles and singles were bright spots for Michigan. And the Wolverines will look to build on these moments as they prepare for their next matchup.
“We fought hard, but we need to be more consistent,” Coach Maymi said. “We’ll take the lessons learned from this match and get ready for Harvard.” Swenson’s performance was a highlight in an otherwise dismal matchup for Michigan. As the Wolverines look to get back on track, they’ll need more than just Swenson to achieve victory.
Michigan lacrosse dominates after first quarter, seizes a 14-1 victory over Marquette
opportunities when presented.
Silence went over the No. 15 Michigan men’s lacrosse bench when Marquette attacker Conor McCabe netted the opening goal early in the first quarter. The Golden Eagles quickly demonstrated that they were in Ann Arbor to play — both tactically and physically.
Marquette held the lead for a mere six minutes — to the exact second — before senior attacker Ryan Cohen and the Wolverines set the game back to an even score. It was from then on that they would suffocate the Eagles’ defense, shutting down any and all attacking opportunities on Marquette’s behalf.
Michigan (1-0) defeated the Eagles (0-1) in its season opener, 14-1, dominating after an even first quarter. Junior goaltender Hunter Taylor notched the record for the least amount of goals conceded in program history, and several players recorded multiple-goal nights.
The first quarter was somewhat rocky; Marquette easily had control of the game. Despite out-shooting the Wolverines just 11-9, the Eagles seemed to be riding the momentous wave created early in the game. They played with a physical edge, capitalizing on
“In the first quarter we hit a bunch of pipes,” Michigan coach Kevin Conry said. “We didn’t seem aggressive, we were a little tentative. We have a lot of new players running around out there, a lot of young guys, a lot of guys who are transfers. So, just giving them an opportunity to settle into a game was really important.”
What Marquette eventually found out is that its 11-shot period would end up accounting for nearly half of its shots for the entire game.
The end of the first quarter summoned a new game, unrecognizable to the one played before it. The Wolverines did not settle for a tie, yearning to attain the lead for the first time. Yet, all it took was patience.
Within the first minute of the second quarter, Michigan entered the attacking zone, utilizing the width of the field to generate space and ball movement. Senior Brandon Plemmons received a ball behind the net from Cohen before charging down from the left-hand corner, positioning himself in front of the net for a clear shot. This goal became the catalyst for 14 unanswered goals, waking up the sleeping monster that was the Wolverines.
Aside from the commanding performance on offense, Taylor’s
strong presence in net placed him in the history books. Conceding only one goal, he has recorded the least amount of goals allowed in a single game by a goaltender in program history.
“Everyone in front of me did a great job, and all the credit should go to them,” Taylor said. “I just did my job, and they did a great job to help me out.” Taylor made 10 saves in tandem with the defense’s commanding performance, flipping the switch after the shaky first quarter to limit Marquette to five shots across the second, third and fourth quarters.
Last season, Michigan suffered a heartbreaking first-round exit to Denver in the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship after clinching their back-to-back Big Ten Tournament victory. This season, the Wolverines are seeking an opportunity to prove themselves as a program that can both compete and win.
“We haven’t played our best lacrosse yet,” Conry said. “We did some really nice things, but I’m really excited about the opportunity to just continue to get better. If we were killing it right now, I’d be worried.”
After an even first quarter, Michigan turned around the game to emerge victorious in dominant win, setting the tone for the upcoming season.
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ZACH GOLDSTEIN Daily Sports Writer
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VILY SOURIS For The Daily
SOPHIE MATTHEWS For The Daily
CHRISTIAN LOZA For The Daily
QUACK ONTRACK
MICHIGAN 80 | OREGON 48
Michigan bounces back from 2-game skid with blowout win over Oregon
JORDAN KLEIN Daily Sports Writer
he Ducks couldn’t fly today.
TThe Wolverines clipped their wings.
The Michigan women’s basketball team (15-7 overall, 6-5 Big Ten) got back on track after dropping their last two games, stifling Oregon’s (16-6, 7-4) offensive attack in an 80-48 win. The Wolverines’ smothering defense held the Ducks to a horrific 18-for-61 shooting day, and also forced them into multiple scoreless stretches that allowed Michigan to run away with the win.
“Our defense was what really pushed us through today,” senior guard Greta Kampschroeder said. “That’s something we’ve been harping on.”
The Wolverines came out aggressive on the defensive end, pressuring the ball and hard hedging ball screens to put Oregon out of sorts. They forced the Ducks into six turnovers in the first quarter, including three charges. Michigan turned its stellar defense into offense, scoring 10 of its 25 first-quarter points off those turnovers.
Early on in the first quarter, Kampschroeder nailed a three after the Wolverines’ stifling defense forced Oregon to make an errant pass out of bounds. And late in the period, freshman guard Mila Holloway jumped a passing lane at half-court. With no defenders between her and the basket, she got an easy layup to expand Michigan’s lead to 23-13. While the Wolverines didn’t turn the Ducks over at the same rate in
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
the second quarter as in the first, Michigan continued to shut down Oregon’s offense. After the Ducks started the period on a 5-0 run, the Wolverines forced them to miss their next eight shots, holding them scoreless for nearly five minutes.
Even after snapping the scoreless streak, Oregon scored just nine points on 4-for-18 shooting in the period, as the Wolverines’ defenders stayed tight on their matchups and were effective in help defense as well, giving Michigan a 38-24 halftime lead.
“Our 1-on-1 defense isn’t going to be perfect,” Kampschroeder said. “We’re going to have to scramble. We’re gonna have to double, which means other people are gonna have to cover for each other. And we haven’t really been doing a great job at that for most games for 40 minutes. … But today, it felt like we were really locked in, and we did that for 40 minutes.”
Despite being at a significant height disadvantage at just 6-foot1, Kampschroeder was able to hold her own against 6-foot-8 center Phillipina Kyei, highlighted by a block from behind early in the second quarter. Despite being undersized, Kampschroeder forced the Ducks into errant finishes at the rim on multiple occasions.
the third quarter, capped off by a 10-2 run late in the frame that put it up 20 points. Still, the Wolverines continued to shut down Oregon, holding them to just 16 points while shooting 31.9% from the field. To add insult to injury, freshman
“It is a new responsibility that I’ve had this year,” Kampschroeder said of guarding opposing bigs. “It’s something I’ve never really done before, and I feel like I’ve gotten better at it over time. … I have to work hard for 40 minutes.”
In addition to its stifling defense, Michigan’s offense came alive in
The Wolverines continued to pull away in the fourth, forcing Oregon into misses on their first eight shots to get out to a 7-0 run. Despite its large lead, Michigan remained aggressive on defense, smothering its matchups and stepping up to help on drives as they cruised to the blowout victory in the final 10 minutes. Because of the Wolverines’ stout defense, the Ducks couldn’t fly off the ground on Sunday. Instead, they waddled around Crisler Center, unable to generate much of anything on offense, as Michigan flew away to a 80-48 win.
