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Former SMTD professor alleges provost’s misconduct throughout his tenure review, Daily investigation finds
Abigail Schad/DAILY
On July 29, 2020, Susan Collins, former University of Michigan provost, sent a letter to David Gier, dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, in which she stated her decision to not recommend Somangshu Mukherji, former Music, Theatre & Dance School professor, for promotion and tenure.
“I have reviewed this case with great care, consulted with reviewers whose judgment I trust, discussed it with the President, and in the end, I have decided not to support this recommendation,” her tenure decision reads. “The President has accepted my recommendation, and the promotion of Professor Mukherji will not be forwarded to the Regents.”
In an April 2025 written statement to The Michigan Daily, Mukherji commented on this decision and the provost’s reasoning.
“What sticks in my brain to this day, was the Provost’s justification for her decision. She did not cite a deficiency in my materials, or an issue raised by any of the individuals or bodies empowered to decide tenure at the University,” he wrote. “Instead—using a phrase that summons images of backroom politics and rigged elections— she indicated that she had rejected my tenure case based on the opinions of unidentified, unnamed ‘reviewers whose judgment I trust.’”
A three-month investigation by The Daily found the Office of the Provost — including Collins and Sara Blair, vice provost for academic and faculty affairs — has allegedly engaged in several levels of misconduct throughout the process of handling Mukherji’s tenure case. This included two nonstandard private evaluations with opinions from at least one
person who was found guilty of harassing Mukherji by the Equity, Civil Rights and Title IX office, overturning an official University decision that reprimanded the provost, and denying their own written policies in the Michigan court of claims, alleging that these policies are non-binding.
The Daily reviewed thousands of pages of legal documents, appeals, internal University documents and official University guidelines throughout this investigation.
The Daily also sent multiple requests for comment to Collins and Blair, but did not receive a response from Collins. Blair forwarded the request to the Public Affairs office.
“The university does not comment on personnel matters,” University spokesperson Kay Jarvis wrote in an email to The Daily.
In his written statement, Mukherji reflected on his emotions throughout his tenure dispute. He expressed his feelings of powerlessness within the University following the provost’s decision not to recommend him for tenure.
“Her statement left me feeling very troubled, and uncertain about the institution to which I had committed myself. By the time the Provost subsequently overturned the grievance finding in my favor, my feelings had changed to frustration and powerlessness,” he wrote. “It was not simply that the Provost had taken an action that she was not empowered to take, especially given her clear and material conflict of interest. … It was that her action reflected an individual (and a University) that had no interest in rules, laws or ethics, or even basic notions of right and wrong.”
Section six of the Faculty Handbook, which specifies
how University officials like the provost can interact with, promote or terminate faculty members, outlines the process for granting tenure at the University. First, the relevant faculty member goes under an internal departmental review. During this review, the executive committee (consisting of professors of the faculty member’s school), the dean of the school and the chair of their department compile a recommendation for tenure based on review letters from other scholars in the relevant academic area. That recommendation then goes to the Office of the Provost, where the provost decides whether they want to accept, reject or reevaluate it. If they accept or reject it, they forward a positive or negative recommendation to the University’s Board of Regents, who ultimately decide if tenure is granted. If they reevaluate it, they send it back to the faculty member’s school to gain more information or reconsider if the school wants to recommend promotion for tenure.
In June 2018, the Department of Music Theory decided to consider Mukherji for the 20192020 academic year.
In February 2020, Mukherji received a positive internal recommendation compiled by Gier based on nine positive and three negative accounts from faculty reviewers; a four positive, one negative and one abstain vote vote from the executive committee of the Music, Theatre & Dance School; and a positive recommendation from the chair of the Music Theory department. The Daily reached out to Gier for comment, but did not receive a response.
In an interview with The Daily, Rebekah Modrak, current Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs chair, remarked on the provost’s review process.
“We know that, in most cases, the review of tenure dossiers
that takes place in the provost’s office is fully administrative and is meant to ensure that all the reviews are accounted for and there’s been no bias,” Modrak said.
When they received the internal recommendation compiled by Gier, the Office of the Provost initiated its tenure review process. However, this review was not fully administrative, and examined more than just accounts of recommendation or bias. Instead, it was a private review of the substance of the casebook, and for it, the provost recruited new faculty reviewers who were allegedly not disclosed to Mukherji or Gier and were not part of the original set of review letters included in Gier’s recommendation.
According to section two of the Music, Theatre & Dance School Faculty Handbook, reviewers of a tenure casebook are required to come from a list of names submitted by the faculty member and their school’s dean. However, at least three of these reviewers were not suggested by Mukherji or Gier.
“For a review involving promotion and/or tenure, the Dean will seek, in accordance with established University policies, confidential written statements concerning the work of the faculty member from all of the persons in the appropriate rank whose names are submitted by the faculty member and by the departmental Chair,” the handbook reads. “This procedure is also be used for the review of a candidate being hired from outside the School into a tenured faculty position in the School.”
“In reviewing both negative and positive recommendations for tenure and promotion, the Provost/EVPAA may accept the recommendation or send the case back to the school or college for reconsideration,” the principles read.
The provost neither took Gier’s recommendation nor sent the casebook back to the Music, Theatre & Dance School. Instead, the office conducted a second review, this time including Gier but still excluding Mukherji. For this review, the provost directed Gier to select four more new reviewers, two internal to the Music, Theatre & Dance School and two external, outside the University entirely.
The Daily has obtained a copy of Gier’s September 2023 deposition, included in a lawsuit filed by Mukherji over misconduct throughout his tenure review. In this deposition, Gier admitted to a second review process from the provost’s office, one for which he did not involve the chair of the department or Mukherji.
The Faculty Handbook of tenure guidelines contain nothing about conducting a second review.
The nature of this review brought concerns to Mukherji regarding section three of the Guiding Principles, which specified the need for transparency in the tenure review process.
In an interview with The Daily, Kentaro Toyama, W.K. Kellogg professor of community information and a member of SACUA at the time it presided over Mukherji’s tenure case, remarked on the lack of transparency throughout Mukherji’s review process.
After evaluating all review letters submitted to Collins, the Office of the Provost’s Guiding Principles for Tenure Review for Instructional Review directs her to either accept or reject Gier’s recommendation or send Mukherji’s casebook back to the Music, Theatre & Dance School for revaluation.
“There are several problematic things about (the review)”
During Mukherji’s lawsuit, his attorney Hideaki Sano questioned Blair about whether there are written policies pertaining to the provost’s tenure review process, Blair confirmed in her deposition that there are none. Sano did not respond to The Daily’s requests for comment.
“There are no written policies,” Blair said, according to the transcript. “There are materials that are provided to reviewers that spell out the conduct of the process, the timeline for the process, the expectations of reviewers, remind them of things like the conflict of interest policy.”
One of the reviewers that was not disclosed to Mukherji was Aleksandra Vojčić , associate professor of music. She was recruited by Gier for the second review and submitted an internal review letter for Mukherji’s casebook. However, Mukherji later discovered that Vojčić did not write the letter that she submitted by herself. Instead, she collaborated with her colleague Karen Fournier, associate professor of music, to write the letter. Fournier had previously harassed Mukherji, according to an ECRT investigation, and Fournier was not disciplined or terminated as a result of the ECRT investigation. The Daily has obtained a copy of an email sent to Mukherji confirming these allegations.
It remains unclear why Fournier collaborated on Vojčić’s letter. Fournier and Vojčić did not respond to The Daily’s repeated requests for comment.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
“I think there are several problematic things about it that as faculty, I believe all tenure track faculty here should be concerned about,” Toyama said. “The first is the opaque process of review that happened under then-Provost Susan Collins.”
AMER GOEL Focal Point Reporter
Faculty Senate holds special meeting to discuss Big Ten anti-Trump defense compact
‘The resolution before us now calls on our University to rise to the moment to protect our students, our staff and our faculty with the resources that this institution commands.’
CARTER CARINO Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan Faculty Senate held a special meeting Thursday in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building to discuss joining the Big Ten mutual defense compact against President Donald Trump’s administration, urging the reinstatement of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and advocating for more protections for international students.
The Faculty Senate currently consists of more than 7,600 faculty members from all three campuses, including tenured and tenure-track faculty, research faculty, librarians, lecturers, clinical faculty, executive officers and deans. The event, which was open to the public, was attended by more than 150 faculty and community members in person and more than 1,100 virtually.
The Faculty Senate considered four motions, which members can vote on in the 72 hours following the conclusion of the meeting.
The first motion urges University President Santa Ono
to enter into a mutual academic defense compact with members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance to resist the Trump administration’s targeting of higher education institutions. Under the compact, all participating universities would contribute to a shared defense fund and make legal counsel, experts and public affairs available in the event of political or legal action against any one of them.
Samuel Bagenstos, law professor and sponsor of the motion, noted similar motions have been passed in faculty senates across the Big Ten, including Rutgers University, Indiana University, the University of Nebraska and Michigan State University. He said the defense compact will soon be considered by Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota, but the information is not yet publicly available.
“We know that the administration will not stop with one institution,” Bagenstos said. “So what this resolution does is it asks our institution to commit itself, and all the other
institutions within the Big Ten, to commit themselves to joining together when there are improper political or legal attacks on any one of us.”
Physics professor Keith Riles was the sole speaker against the motion, expressing his belief that the University’s changes to DEI and the changes made at colleges and universities are necessary ones.
“The Trump administration is attacking this University,”
Riles said. “Fortunately, the regents get it, although I have publicly criticized them for tolerating discrimination and for funding the DEI industrial complex, I give them credit for waking up to this University’s peril. Faculty can continue what they’re doing now, which is behaving as children would do, or do the same as the Regents, and recognize reality.”
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
GEO holds rally in support of international graduate workers
‘U of M is a very international community … Our campus will 100% not be the same without our international colleagues.’ ADMINISTRATION
SARAH SPENCER Daily Staff Reporter
More than 200 protesters with the Graduate Employees’ Organization gathered outside Rackham Auditorium Thursday afternoon for an Immigration Rights Solidarity Rally. The protest was a response to 12 recent University of Michigan student visa terminations by the Department of Homeland Security, amongst fears of further visa revocations for international graduate workers.
The protest included a platform of eight demands to the University, including legal aid to students facing visa revocations and the adoption of a non-cooperation policy with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Charles Davis, School of Education assistant professor, spoke at the rally and thanked the graduate students present at the rally for their vital service to the University.
“When I think about the work you do in our labs, when
I think about the work you do in our courses, the endless amounts of support you provide to students on this campus and to each other, and the extent to which you allow us to be full human beings, I become greatly disappointed,” Davis said. “As faculty, we need to do more, we have to get organized.”
The rally continued, with various speakers airing their grievances against the University’s handling of international student visas. In one speech, University alum Zainab Hakim said she was recently fired from her position at the University’s International Institute for her involvement in a pro-Palestine protest.
“I was terminated for my involvement at a proPalestine protest last May, six months before I started my job at the University,” Hakim said. “In firing me, the University flagrantly violated their own supposed policies and procedures, as well as my right to free speech. The fact is, no student or worker should have to fear losing
their immigration or worker status simply by participating in on-campus protests.”
Originally, an open impact bargaining session between GEO members and U-M Human Resources representatives was supposed to follow the protest. HR then cancelled this session one day before the protest and instead offered GEO a closed bargaining session solely between HR and the union’s leaders.
In an email to The Michigan Daily, University spokesperson Kay Jarvis wrote that while the University is willing to meet with the union’s leadership, the parties have yet to agree on a mutually suitable date and location.
“While GEO offered to meet on Thursday, April 17th the university was not available and informed GEO of that on Tuesday,” Jarvis wrote. “At no time was there an agreement by both parties to meet that day. The university has offered to review any proposals that
the union may have while both parties continue to engage in scheduling a meeting.”
In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student Hiab Teshome, who spoke earlier at the rally, said she felt the decision to only allow union leaders at the bargaining session showed the University does not value other members of the union.
“The union is made by the membership and by the grad workers,” Teshome said. “And so to do that, to not only waste our time by continuing to push off this meeting, but to also say that there’s only certain people allowed in the room, is completely disgusting, and it shows that this university does not care about its grad workers.”
Instead, GEO replaced the impact bargaining session with a post-rally discussion among members to consider possible plans of action for future protests and meetings with the University.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
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PHOTO OF THE WEEK
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Isai Hernandez-Flores/DAILY
Community members attend the emergency Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs meeting at the Alexander G. Ruthven Building Thursday afternoon.
U-M international students face uncertainty after visa terminations and data restrictions
The Department of Homeland Security terminated the visas of 22 confirmed individuals affiliated with the University of Michigan, including 12 enrolled students and 10 recent graduates
EMMA
SPRING & MARISSA CORSI Daily News Editors
In the past two weeks, the Department of Homeland Security terminated the visas of 22 confirmed individuals affiliated with the University of Michigan, including 12 enrolled students and 10 recent graduates. The individuals were informed after the International Center found F-1 visas terminated from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, the federal database that tracks international students’ immigration status.
Students’ status within the SEVIS system allows them to live and study in the U.S. Students must maintain their status by following rules and regulations associated with their visa, including guidelines on education, authorization to work and eligibility to take a vacation. Once that status is lost, students become deportable.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Ruby Robinson, senior managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said the recent events involving the removals of student visas have been accompanied by the additional termination of their status.
“What we’re seeing, and which is a lot more rare and definitely a cause for concern, is the termination within SEVIS of status in the (U.S.),” Robinson said. “Overnight, someone can be an F-1 nonimmigrant in status, and then the way they wake up the next morning, they’re out of status, which means they are deportable from the (U.S.), and they have to leave or face certain consequences.”
A U.S. State Department spokesperson wrote in an email to The Daily visa revocations are an ongoing tool for national security enforcement.
“The Department revokes
visas every day in order to secure America’s borders and keep our communities safe — and will continue to do so,” the spokesperson wrote. “The Department looks at information that arises after the visa was issued that may indicate a potential visa ineligibility under U.S. immigration laws, pose a threat to public safety, or other situations where revocation is warranted.
… The Department of State does comprehensive vetting, and that includes review of criminal records of visa holders. As the Secretary has said, ‘You commit a crime while you’re in this country; your visa’s gone.’”
American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan is currently suing the federal government on behalf of two U-M international students who allege they were never informed of any potential violations, have never been charged with a crime and have not been active in any protests.
Rackham student Qiuyi Yang received two SEVIS termination emails just over an hour apart on April 8. The first, sent at 1:09 p.m., cited “OTHERWISE FAILING TO MAINTAIN STATUS — Individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked.”
The second, at 2:17 p.m., simply said “TERMINATION REASON: OTHER.”
Rackham student Xiangyun Bu, a student from China who previously interned at Tesla in Shanghai received a similar message on April 7 at 4:22 p.m., with the same SEVIS termination language. Neither student was given further explanation. The U.S. State Department spokesperson wrote they are not usually required to inform individuals when their visas are revoked, though they may choose to do so when feasible.
“While the Department is not generally required to notify a visa holder that his or her visa has been revoked, we do so when
we determine it is practicable,” the spokesperson wrote. “The Department also notifies DHS of revocation actions.”
Students from a number of other universities in Michigan and across the nation have faced similar actions. One high-profile case involves Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist at Columbia University, who was detained and transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. Khalil has not been charged with a crime.
Robinson said it has been common practice for DHS to alert students to changes in their visas and said institutions have now been regularly monitoring for changes within the SEVIS system.
“Traditionally, the Department of State does notify individuals once their visa has been revoked,” Robinson said. “Having the visa be revoked, or having the status be terminated (and finding it) due to routine checks is unheard of in terms of what we’ve seen before.
I think now, most colleges and universities that have foreign, nonimmigrant students are essentially affirmatively checking their databases on a regular basis so that they can notify the student right away.”
In an email to the University community on April 9, the University administration acknowledged it had not received specific details from federal agencies regarding why these particular SEVIS records were terminated nor if efforts are being made to reinstate them.
“If your SEVIS record has been terminated, you no longer have F-1 status,” the email read. “It is very important to consult an International Center advisor without delay.”
While The Daily contacted numerous current and former international students, none were willing to speak even with anonymity due to fears of retribution
Tabe brings Asian fusion and omakase to downtown Ann Arbor
Each of its three floors is individually dedicated to casual Asian fusion dishes, multi-course omakase meals and private banquet spaces
New to the Main Street restaurant scene downtown, Tabe, an Asian-fusion dining experience, opened its doors in late March. With each of its three floors individually dedicated to casual Asian fusion dishes, multi-course omakase meals and private banquet spaces, the restaurant offers a menu blending flavors from across East Asia with modern twists.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, head chef Jeffrey Li said the restaurant aims to introduce Ann Arbor diners to both familiar and lesser-known elements of Asian cuisine. The goal isn’t just to serve good food; it’s also to grow people’s palates.
“We try to educate,” Li said. “If you don’t eat something, you’re never thinking about it. Asian cuisine is much more expanded in ingredients. If you don’t recognize something, you might always eat burgers, you might never think to try something new.”
or jeopardizing their own visas.
LSA junior Ian Moore and Public Policy sophomore Aidan Rozema, co-chairs of the U-M chapter of College Democrats, condemned what they call a political crackdown on free expression in an email to The Daily.
“Students who have come in pursuit of the academic freedom this country is famous for now feel scared in a place that we promised them was a bastion of free expression. ”
“Make no mistake, (President Donald Trump’s) administration’s aim is to scare students into submission—into apathy,” the co-chairs wrote. “Already, College Democrats has heard from international students who want to be removed from statements or Instagram posts. Students who have come in pursuit of the academic freedom this country is famous for now feel scared in a place that we promised them was a bastion of free expression.”
These developments are in line with Trump’s executive orders targeting international student visas and sensitive data-sharing protocols. The University has restricted access to certain datasets following a new federal directive targeting bulk personal data. The guidance, outlined in the Federal Register, prohibits individuals from countries of concern such as China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba from accessing sensitive U.S. personal and government-related data. According to the directive, this includes information like genetic data, biometric records, health and financial information and data that could be linked to government functions or national security on more than 10,000 U.S. persons. It remains unclear whether
certain types of data commonly used in academic settings, such as medical records used in hospital systems or research databases, fall under the scope of the directive or if accessing it may lead to visa revocations.
When asked to clarify which types of data are affected, how enforcement works and what the practical implications are for students, University spokespeople
Brian Taylor and Kay Jarvis pointed to an FAQ and suggested The Daily reach out to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services department for further information. The DHS was unable to provide clarification.
Students who have lost status may be eligible to apply for reinstatement by filing an application with the USCIS explaining the circumstances of their termination, but the process to receive reinstatement may last as long as twelve months and must demonstrate that the status violation was a result of outstanding circumstances.
F-1 students are typically offered grace periods once their time in the U.S. expires, with 60 days to leave after completing their studies or 15 days after withdrawing from classes. However, when SEVIS records are terminated for violations, Robinson said no grace period is provided.
“Sometimes there’s a grace period,” Robinson said. “It depends … for example, if somebody graduates, there is a certain amount of time, 30 days or 60 days, in which they have to depart the United States after they complete their studies here in the United States. We are being told, or what I’m learning is, that students are being told there is no grace period, that they don’t have status and then they have to depart.”
“It creates a culture of fear in international students and discourages the best and brightest around the world of coming to the United States to learn from the United States and learn from our culture and contribute to the university environment,” Abrutyn said. “It’s harmful not only to these students, but to fellow (U.S.) students who are in classes with them, who are being taught by them. It will hit universities that receive a lot of funding from these international students. I think the harm is going to spread beyond the international student community to all of us.”
In an interview with The Daily, John Bound, professor emeritus of economics whose research has examined how international students shape U.S. higher education, said recent visa restrictions not only pose a risk to academic research but also pose an immediate financial threat to universities.
“I expect the chilling effect of visa restrictions will have a short-run effect on school finances and a longrun effect on research, but this may pale in comparison to other things the current administration has done in terms of attacking science, science funding and higher education more generally,” Bound said. “The academic research on the effects (to) academic research supports the stories one sees in the mainstream news.”
As of fall 2024, the University reported 7,704 enrolled international students and an additional 2,497 international graduates. The terminations, while still affecting a small fraction of that population, have led some to question whether universities can continue to serve as a reliable destination for global academic talent. Russell Abrutyn, an immigration attorney and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told The Daily the current climate and increasing concerns around international students’ statuses may harm both their academic experiences and the quality of U.S. universities for years to come.
More than 300 female PAs sue Michigan Medicine for alleged wage discrimination
Public Health junior Ashley Ko, a server at Tabe, said offering omakase makes the restaurant stand out in the Ann Arbor food scene.
Translating to “I’ll leave it up to you,” omakase is a carefully curated Japanese dining experience composed of multiple courses which takes customers on a journey through both a chef’s creativity and culinary skill.
“We never really see omakase in Michigan,” Ko said. “I think it’s nice to incorporate this form of fine dining in a city where a plethora of food appreciation is often seen downtown.”
While omakase meals are often known for their high price tags, Tabe offers a more affordable experience without compromising on quality.
“When it comes to omakase, Ann Arbor’s never had that — people have never had that experience,” Li said. “So we decided to start pricing a little lower, still with high-quality food.”
While Tabe highlights a fine-dining experience, Ko
This philosophy is reflected throughout Tabe’s menu, which includes a mix of modern fusions and traditional options for customers.
said the restaurant caters to a variety of gatherings.
“It’s a really nice environment and somewhere that can fit into any occasion,” Ko said. “Whether you want a small bite or drink at the bar, a date night or even an outing with friends or family, the fancy yet affordable food makes it a really great and easy environment to eat with anyone, anytime.”
Chloe Robinson, a hostess at the restaurant, said the restaurant maintains authentic Asian cultural roots while still welcoming a broad audience and an even broader palette.
“I really do feel like we have a different vibe,” Robinson said. “A lot of Asian-fusion restaurants try to mainly focus on mainstream appeal, like trying to really cater to Americans. I feel like we do that, but we also maintain the Asian culture aspect.”
For Li, the goal of Tabe is simple: to give customers a new experience and great food, sparking a lasting curiosity about Asian cuisine.
“We make good food because we love people,” Li said. “If people can recognize the food, then they can be interested in the cuisine.”
The lawsuit alleges systemic, lasting, gender-based disparities in pay amongst workers, a violation of state and federal law
seeking back pay, associated retirement losses and exemplary and punitive damages to deter future violations by Michigan Medicine.
Christine Oldenburg-McGee, a Michigan Medicine physician assistant, along with more than 300 former and current fellow female PAs filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Michigan Medicine for alleged wage discrimination. The lawsuit alleges systemic, lasting, gender-based disparities in pay amongst workers, a violation of state and federal law. The plaintiffs are
The lawsuit claims female employees have been paid on average $9,000 less annually than their male counterparts in comparable roles. Defendants in the lawsuit include Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan Board of Regents, the University of Michigan and the U-M Medical School, as well as individual executives Dr. David Miller, Jovita Thomas-Williams and Hakim Berry. The complaint alleges the defendants, despite being aware of pay inequities that continued at Michigan Medicine and the University, failed to address the imbalance despite repeated advocacy from OldenburgMcGee, specifically in her role as former United Physician Assistants of Michigan Medicine president. Under Michigan Court Rule 3.501, the case is expected to proceed as a certified class action at Washtenaw County Circuit Court.
SALMA ABDELALE Daily Staff Reporter
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JOSEPHINE ANDERSON Daily Staff Reporter
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MIVICK SMITH Senior Arts Editor
Imagine you’re me (I’d apologize for the oncoming slew of chaotic brain imagery that follows, but we’ve got more selfindulgent literary tools to get to). You’ve recently moved from a conservative northern town into a house entirely populated with Queer arts students and you’re just about to start your first year at the University of Michigan. One night, your new roommate, who you’ve been desperately trying to convince that you’re interesting, casually mentions he’s a clown. You laugh, because of course you do — it’s polite after all — but he doesn’t. It takes you a second, but you finally realize — he’s not joking. This man is an actual clown, isn’t he? It took me an embarrassingly
long amount of time to be convinced to don the grease paint with him, but once I finally did, I realized I had at last started to shed some of that deep-seated insecurity that had plagued me from childhood. Of course, dressing up with your friends in the safety of your house is pretty different than walking the town dressed in a colorful rainbow with more face paint than the average kindergartner at a birthday party. People stared, because wouldn’t you? At first, I wanted to die, the memories of the judging eyes of my hometown began to echo, and then someone turned the corner, looked me in the eyes, slowly realized they were staring at a clown and laughed in my face. And I laughed back. What else was there to do? It was ridiculous. Objectively, it was funny — I was an angry
The Clown B-Side
teenager covered in pink and blue eyeshadow, I looked like a joke, but wasn’t that the point of clown make-up anyway?
Being a clown gave me a lot: It gave me a new art form, an instant conversation starter (the number of conversations that have started because someone thought I was in a band is honestly flattering), a way to experience reality without taking myself too seriously. Most importantly, though, being a clown gave me the ability to laugh at myself, and it gave me the confidence to be OK with the fact that not everyone will appreciate this exact breed of strangeness I embody. I’ve learned that being the joke is the best way to go about the world, and covering my face in grease paint has made those moments in life that seem impossible to get through easier to laugh at.
The intimate, terrifying joy of ‘Clown Torture’
MINA TOBYA Daily Arts Writer
I mostly suggested going to “Clown Torture” as a joke.
It sounded outrageous, maybe even a bit ridiculous. The museum exhibition’s title was enough to conjure images of ominous, medieval iron maidens harboring brightly colored, miserable-looking clowns. It was morbid, and I figured that was the appeal. I gave it as a throwaway suggestion meant to elicit a laugh amid tenuous planning for a Chicago trip.
My friends were against me from the start. “Hell no, I’m not going to see clowns get tortured.”
And, you know what, that’s a fair perspective. But I — ever the contrarian for the fun of it — had to push back.
“It’s psychological torture. It pushes boundaries. I’ve never heard of anything like it. We have to go.” I pushed and pushed, hooked on the drive to win this battle, to seemingly no avail.
“Literally not a chance.” My friends had no interest; they thought I was crazy for wanting to see it, and they guaranteed I’d never be able to find someone to go with me. Challenge accepted.
I was committed, but with each declined invitation, I was beginning to lose hope. I mean, you think your friends love you unconditionally, but the second you want to go to “Clown
Torture,” the well runs dry. Further dejection only hardened my resolve. I finally sunk my claws into the weakest psyches (willingness to participate in strange activities for the sake of curiosity) I could get my hands on.
Despite having spent a month hyping up the experience, I could never have prepared for what we were in for.
Bruce Nauman’s multimedia art installation, “Clown Torture,” immortalizes a handful of moments from 1987 through video footage of a single actor: Walter Stevens. Dressed in costumes ranging from a typical red-haired, comically largeshoed clown to a French Baroque one, his misery is captured in six humiliating scenes, endlessly looping.
In one clip, a generic clown writhes on the floor flailing his arms, screaming “NO, NO, NO, NO” at the top of his lungs, over and over and over again. This clip is aptly named “No, No, No, No (Walter).” No apparent danger surrounds him, but his panic continues in an endless, hellish cycle. It sets the atmosphere of the room the clip plays in — tense, overwhelming, horrifying — alongside three other looped videos of Stevens in costume.
Another clip, titled “Pete and Repeat,” features the clown frantically repeating the same nursery rhyme, forgetting the words to what should have been a punchline. Humiliated and losing
his grip on sanity by the second, he crashes out only to start again. He’s entranced, and his viewers fall into the same pit of terror. His misery doesn’t end with one failed attempt to do his job of making people laugh — he tries and tries and crashes and crashes, again and again and again.
Even the oldest tricks in the book go over his head (literally).
One clip features the clown opening a booby-trapped door with a bucket of water balanced on top. When it charges down over his head, he doesn’t fall comically. He all but collapses face down like a corpse and lies there unmoving until the clip restarts. We watch him walk through the same door, knowing he’ll be on the ground in a few short seconds. Our dread compounds as we see his unknowing smile; it explodes by the time his body hits the ground.
These clips all play simultaneously. He screams and falls and thrashes around on a loop all at once. The sounds of each torturous act blend and stack on top of each other to create a cacophony of failed comedic endeavors. He wants us to laugh so badly that he causes himself pain, and we don’t know how to feel.
What kind of dedication to the craft does that denote? Is it just simple masochism? While his laughs and screams mesh with one another, a new question arises: Can it be both?
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Mark Hamill is a masterclass on what makes a good Joker
ISABELLA CASAGRANDA Daily Arts Writer
The Joker is arguably one of the most difficult characters to write and portray in all of comic history. In his 85 years, he’s undergone several widely different interpretations. In the ’50s and ’60s, an age in which comics were banned from containing violence or gore, he was overwhelmingly campy and easily defeated. In the ’70s and ’80s, he returned to being an insane terrorist with no backstory and an excess of brutality, becoming Batman’s main antagonist. It was in this period he killed Jason Todd (“A Death in the Family”), paralyzed Barbara Gordon (“The Killing Joke”) and overtook Arkham Asylum (“A Serious House on Serious Earth”).
In the modern era, he has made his way into countless films, TV shows and video games, and many men have attempted to climb the acting mountain that is playing the Clown Prince of Crime. A lot of those men have failed, resulting in either a nonthreatening blank-slate criminal that could be replaced with anybody, or a disastrously unfunny bumbling mess. Of course, there are exceptions. Jack Nicholson was gleefully psychotic in Tim Burton’s “Batman,” and the late Heath Ledger delivered an irreplaceably grim incarnation of the character in “The Dark Knight,” in which he erratically
darted around in the bloodbaths he created while also delivering some of the most quotable lines in modern cinema. But my personal favorite Joker is one that never appeared in the flesh.
Mark Hamill’s Joker, appearing most notably in “Batman: The Animated Series” and the Batman: Arkham video game saga, is the Joker I grew up with and the one that I believe played the character in his best form. He combines all the parts of the Joker we love to hate in a gloriously theatrical package that has long ranked high among comic fans. It certainly helps that he has been featured in projects with fantastic writing that allow him to perform a deliciously sinister rendition of the character. Is placing him above Nicholson and Ledger the result of nostalgia, though?
Perhaps, but he’s also referred to as the “definitive voice of Joker” for good reason. Here, then, is the argument for why his Joker works, along with a lesson on how to write a good Joker overall.
“I set a trap, and you sprung it glooooriously!”
The most notable edge that Hamill’s Joker has over the bulk of other actors that have donned the moniker is that he manages to toe the line between genuine entertainment and being legitimately threatening. Hamill’s Joker is sadistic, but in a way that makes perfect sense to him. His goal is to have fun — his method of having fun just so happens to involve mass murder. He’s
not trying to impress anybody or enact any sort of significant revenge. It’s nothing personal. He just does these things for his own amusement, which somehow makes him more terrifying than other Jokers who feel the need to explain themselves or who take themselves too seriously.
A prime example is the episode “Joker’s Favor” from the animated series, in which Batman plays a minimal role and the Joker is allowed to truly shine. The story begins when a man named Charlie has a harmless road rage episode after the Joker cuts him off in traffic. The Joker proceeds to stalk him for two years and ultimately forces Charlie to help him take the entire police department hostage. All the while, he’s cracking jokes, and he also nearly wins in the end. His chaos is delightful to watch, entertaining even, but when the tables turn and he threatens to kill Charlie after everything, he becomes an incredibly horrifying, tangible threat very quickly. Here, he demonstrates that he’s just as willing to kill a nobody as he is to kill the higher-ups. And yet, even while coming across as a total danger, he has a grin plastered on his face. While I enjoy Ledger’s serious and more realistic interpretation, my fondness for Hamill’s Joker comes down to a personal preference of enjoying a Joker that treats his terror like a comedy act.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
The sad little clown that launched an indie animation into the mainstream
The world of indie animation is small. When pitted against multimillion-dollar studios like Disney or Dreamworks that churn out blockbuster after blockbuster, independent companies frequently get lost in the shadows, along with the art they produce. Animation is expensive, time consuming and labor intensive, and creating a high-quality animated production becomes nearly impossible when you’re a small company with no institutional funding.
Because of this, YouTube has become something of a haven for small animators and startup animation companies to post their work for the public. Although it doesn’t usually compensate artists for their hard work, YouTube provides a free platform for creators to share their talents.
Sometimes, animators get really lucky. The controversial “Hazbin Hotel” started as a YouTube venture until it was picked up by A24 and Amazon Prime. Its spin-off, “Helluva Boss,” still exists solely on YouTube. At its peak, the pilot of “Hazbin Hotel” got more than 115 million views and “Helluva Boss” consistently gets about 50-60 million views. Unfortunately, the success of the creator of “Hazbin Hotel,” Vivienne Medrano (also known as Vivziepop), is not a typical story for online animators by any means — most only see moderate success, if any.
Glitch Productons, known as GLITCH on YouTube, is one animation channel that found occasional success with a small fan community. Founded in 2017, the company had only one goal in mind: “change the way the west creates teen and young adult animation.” The small company began posting videos nearly four years ago with a trailer of its first-ever independently funded show, “Meta Runner.” The video only reached about 500,000 views, which is modest
by today’s standards of virality. Nevertheless, they continued to post episodes of their show, some even reaching one million views.
Many indie animators have been living off of decent views and strong support from a dedicated but niche fanbase since the dawn of YouTube, and GLITCH was no exception. When they posted the pilot episode of their second venture, “Murder Drones,” they found the success they’d been looking for. At an impressive 63 million views, it was the most-watched video on their platform for a long time. Even after continuously releasing episodes for “Meta Runner” and “Murder Drones,” the YouTube account had less than four million subscribers.
For years, it seemed as though GLITCH, just like the hundreds of other animators looking to make their mark on the industry, would never break out into the mainstream.
This is why it is so astonishing, and almost jaw dropping, that GLITCH’s newest addition to their repertoire was able to amass more 100 million views
within its first month of release, eventually amassing more 370 million views. Posted in October 2023, “THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS: PILOT” immediately found a fan base that was massive, passionate and ready for more.
Created by small content creator Gooseworx, “THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS” is about — for lack of a better explanation — a digital circus. The main character, Pomni (Lizzie Freeman, “Rilakkuma’s Theme Park Adventure”), finds herself in a strange digital space with no memories of her previous life, a new body and no means of escaping. In this digital circus, she must go on “adventures’’ with her fellow prisoners by the orders of a strange artificial intelligence ringmaster, Caine (Alex Rochon, “Fazbear & Friends”). Now in the body of a sad clown, Pomni must find a way to accept her new life and find solace in her new company of wacky characters who have also been imprisoned in the digital circus.
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Mivick Smith/DAILY
Pomni:
ANA
Clowning around: On becoming the joke
In my 21 years of Halloween costumes and three years of college theme-parties, I have never dressed as a clown.
Throughout my youth, I was too dedicated to my favorite cartoon character to ever consider the classic, scary Halloween costumes (I made a killer Ben 10). These days, I accept the stark reality that I could not pull off a sexy clown. To be clear, I’m not personally opposed to being a clown — I proudly participate in Red Nose Day — but never have I gone as far as whipping out the white stage makeup. Yet the essence of a clown, presenting yourself as a joke, is something I’m all too familiar with.
As a staunch perpetrator of mild social awkwardness, I repeatedly find myself tip-toeing the line between endearing and embarrassing. Being told I was “book smart” one too many times as a kid created a self-fulfilling prophecy that has left me feeling reminiscent of the naive YA protagonist you can’t help but get second-hand embarrassment from watching. Certainly, there are times when I manage to hold my own, finding the perfect witty comment to elicit a bounty of laughter. All too often, though, I fall flat in conversation, no suave comment to carry me along. I fruitlessly try to escape the death of an uncomfortable silence, eternally searching for a sense of Wildean charm that exists only in my mind.
At moments like these, I do what any stand-up comedian who needs to call it quits and sit down does instead: turn to selfdeprecating humor. I embrace being the joke, using it to buoy me along to safer shores. I slowly pick apart my inconsistencies and make it everyone else’s problem. My personality becomes
a sounding board for an awkward silence or misplaced quip, letting others laugh at such social failures. In essence, I become the punchline.
A product of my generation, I would argue that the best representation of this process is depicted in everyone’s favorite online shareable format: the meme. Specifically, the one depicting stages of a man’s clown transformation journey, or as Know Your Meme calls it, “Putting on Clown Makeup.” The series stems from a clown makeup demonstration video, with ominous hands turning your average Joe into a crazy (bordering on creepy) clown, set to an ethereal score. In the meme, clips of this video are paired with a series of written steps that paint the subject as perpetually more foolish, culminating with the full clown attire paired with an absurd statement. Ranging from political outcries to complaining about the lack of Pokémon in Pokémon Sword and Shield, like most memes, the format is endlessly adaptable. The massive success of the clown meme owes itself both to this versatility but also to its ability to capture that feeling we all know yet can’t name. The feeling that we’re pushing against normalcy, that we’re slowly descending into
madness, watching as we lose all rationality, yet unable to stop ourselves. We know it’s illogical, yet the excitement of spurning the norm pushes us forward. The man knows he is turning into a clown. He does nothing to stop it. He passively watches as the face he knows becomes unrecognizable, his identity stripped down to a comedic caricature. At the end, he smiles, nothing left to do but embrace the look.
There are times where I feel like a boy in a man’s body, and that it must be a joke — that, like a clown, I act in ways to fool others into not seeing the reality of my childish existence. A victim of the “mature for your age” discourse, I feel trapped at just that age — never growing or changing, merely playing in a world as an eternal youth. My boyhood becomes inescapable, leaving me lost in a world too big for me. And so I become a clown to hide this truth. Each self-deprecating comment I make is another dab of white on my face, a small chuckle masking the uncapping of red lipstick. The makeup hides my confusion, my awkwardness and, most importantly, my fear. Fear of being seen as that scared boy in over his head, of being laughed out of the room.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
The Arts Initiative is pleased to present the 2024-2025 Accolades Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements by student organizations in the arts. Awards were decided by public vote in a range of different categories.
Congratulations to our Accolades Awards winners!
THEATRE Basement Arts
VOCAL & A CAPPELLA MUSIC
The University of Michigan Women’s Glee Club
ENSEMBLE DANCE
Ballroom Dance Team at the University of Michigan
COMEDY OR IMPROV
MUSICAL THEATRE MUSKET
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
Michigan Pops Orchestra
ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE
Revolution
Midnight Book Club FILM & VIDEO
Filmic Productions
EVENT PRODUCTION MUSIC Matters
VISUAL ARTS SHEI Magazine
PUBLICATION DESIGN MDesign
COMMUNITY ARTS ENGAGEMENT
Prison Creative Arts Project
LIFTING VOICES AWARD
Prison Creative Arts Project
FASHION SHEI Magazine
LITERARY ARTS
Prison Creative Arts Project
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION
Michigan Pops Orchestra
CULTURAL ARTS PRACTICE
Basement Arts
EMERGING ARTS ORGANIZATION
MDesign
SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARDS
awarded by Arts Initative staff to organizations demonstrating the power of the arts
Native American Student Association
Rude Mechanicals
Runway of Dreams
Spectrum Center Programming Board WOLV-TV
IAN GALLMORE Daily Arts Writer
Mivick Smith/DAILY
ZHANE
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Opinion
Waiting for the tassel is a hassle
Planned Parenthood shouldn’t be our Plan B
If you’ve ever frantically
Googled “Plan B near me” at 2 a.m., made a pit stop at the State Street Walgreens after a night out or felt your stomach drop at the price of birth control without insurance, then you already know that reproductive healthcare as a college student is a logistical nightmare.
With Planned Parenthood of Michigan now closing four clinics across Michigan, consolidating the two Ann Arbor clinics and cutting 10% of its staff, that nightmare is about to get much worse.
At the University of Michigan, students already navigate a broken and overburdened patchwork of health care. University Health Services offers valuable services as our primary on-campus health care provider. But it often lacks appointment availability for anything urgent or specialized — especially if you don’t have insurance. Off-campus urgent care centers are either too expensive or inaccessible without a car, and on average, uninsured OB/GYN visits cost nearly $386 out-of-pocket.
This is why Ann Arbor’s Planned Parenthood clinics are vital for students. Planned Parenthood has two locations, the closer one being only 13 minutes away while the Power Center is 30 minutes away from campus transit center. However, with its consolidation from two centers to only one center at the more distant location, students have to travel further for lesser availability.
Ann Arbor’s Planned Parenthood has long served as one of the only places students can turn to for contraception, STI testing, abortion referrals, gender-affirming care and more, all without the hoops of private insurance or fear of judgment. For students without parental insurance, for students who can’t risk their families finding out and for students with only $20 in their bank account but who still need reliable care, Planned Parenthood has been there.
Planned Parenthood isn’t just an abortion provider; it’s a reproductive health provider.
That includes everything from routine gynecological exams to family planning counseling, pregnancy and childbirth care and support for menopause and perimenopause. The sheer scope of care they offer makes these closures feel less like administrative restructuring and more like the erosion of a public health foundation. There’s a reason students gravitate toward Planned Parenthood even when other providers technically exist. It’s not just about location or services — it’s about approachability. Their model is built on accessibility, affordability and a radically nonjudgmental atmosphere that traditional clinics or corporate telehealth platforms can’t easily replicate. Planned Parenthood’s proposed compromise is to adapt a telehealth model. But telehealth — even if it’s seven days a week — can’t insert an IUD. It can’t collect a sample for an STI test or offer a patient someone to sit with them during a pelvic exam. And it definitely can’t replicate the sense of trust and safety that many students feel when they walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic, especially those navigating complex identities, unsupportive families or traumatic healthcare experiences.
Local providers are already overextended, and even when they’re available, their services aren’t always transparent or priced for a student’s budget. That’s part of what made Planned Parenthood special, with its sliding scale, flexibility and clarity. They told you what things would cost upfront. They made healthcare feel like something you could afford, even when everything else in college feels impossibly expensive.
Let’s not pretend students won’t feel this loss. Even those who’ve never stepped foot inside a Planned Parenthood clinic will feel its absence in longer wait times elsewhere, more expensive visits and fewer resources when friends or peers ask where to go. This isn’t a niche issue, either. It’s not just about people who are pregnant or on birth control. It’s about everyone who values access to compassionate, competent and affordable reproductive care.
The closure of Planned Parenthood clinics across Michigan isn’t just about longer bus rides or annoying appointment wait times. Entire regions are now losing access to care. With these shutdowns, the Upper Peninsula doesn’t have a single Planned Parenthood location left, which means a huge area no longer has in-person reproductive health services.
And for people seeking abortion care, it’s even harder. There aren’t any clinics nearby that perform abortions past 22 weeks of pregnancy. The closest one is in Westland, which is over 30 minutes from Ann Arbor by car and even farther for residents in rural areas. If you don’t have a car or can’t miss work or class, that distance makes getting care almost impossible.
For those of us planning to enter the health care field, this moment should be a wake-up call. These closures are representative of the real-time changes that will affect our patients throughout the rest of our lifetimes. As future providers, we need to pay attention. We must understand what happens when care becomes inconvenient, unaffordable or out of reach. We must also stay informed about what resources are available in our communities, not just for ourselves but for the people we will one day serve.
This is a chance to practice empathy now. Whether or not you’ve personally relied on Planned Parenthood, someone you know probably has. Understanding the financial, logistical and emotional barriers to accessing reproductive care is essential to providing good, ethical care in the future. That includes learning how insurance works, how funding flows, how clinics operate and, maybe most importantly, how people fall through the cracks.
You don’t have to be an OB-GYN to care about this.
You just have to be someone who believes in showing up for patients, in all their complexity, with all your compassion and knowledge. That starts with paying attention to what we’re losing, who’s most affected and how we can do better moving forward.
A tale as old as time
Since freshman year, I’ve had my graduation plan ready, ensuring I would finish my distribution, major and minor requirements quickly. Whenever I share this goal with my peers, they caution me to slow down and enjoy my years on campus. While I value my college experience greatly, I am eager for the future. Graduating early is a near-perfect option for students hoping to get a head start on future job opportunities or life beyond undergraduate programs.
Regardless of my plan to graduate early, the University of Michigan does little to advertise the benefits of doing so, lacking sufficient resources for students who want to pursue an alternative graduation plan. Instead, their graduation page seems geared toward students who fulfill the traditional four-year plan.
Graduating early has several benefits, saving money being the most obvious. Whether you hope to graduate a semester or a year early, maximizing the number of credits you can take as a freshman and sophomore is crucial, especially before tuition rises in your junior and senior years. The increased cost of classes is not
the only issue: The cost of living in Ann Arbor is another factor to consider. As students load up on courses, they also face increases in rent prices throughout the city.
Saving money during your undergraduate years also presents benefits for the future, giving you an opportunity to allocate funds for graduate schools or other options, like obtaining work experience or self-discovery beyond campus.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, U-M alum Chloe Zeldin agreed that graduating early has its benefits, and chose to graduate early herself.
“I definitely recommend it. Graduating early gave me the time to explore different career paths and save money by working full-time at a café,” Zeldin said. “Plus, it significantly cut down on tuition costs.”
For career-driven students, graduating early not only saves money but also allows them to get a head start on their professional careers. The University is a highly selective institution, admitting students with large aspirations for their professional futures, as indicated by the admissions office’s values.
About one-fourth of U-M students attend post-undergraduate programs immediately after graduating, accumulating more
tuition expenses at a graduate level. Accelerating this timeline through early graduation presents economic benefits of entering the workforce at a younger age.
However, entering the professional realm earlier does come at a cost of its own. Those who generally recommend completing the typical four years assume that graduating on track, or even prolonging the process, maximizes a student’s ability to find themselves. Because college is a transformative time, students view the four years traditionally completed as the ideal time to foster self-growth. However, as the cost of living increases and other economic pressures worsen, considering an early graduation becomes more and more of a crucial step.
Deciding when to graduate also depends on the relationships you build on campus. Some worry that they will miss out on friendships or lose ties to people. However, it is always up to the individual to maintain their relationships post-graduation, regardless of when they finish. Finding yourself isn’t limited to the college campus — it happens both at higher levels of education and in the workforce. Life does not stop once you graduate.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
The USDA needs to modernize its farm subsidies
In the mid-20th century, agronomist Norman Borlaug spearheaded a transformative era in agriculture, introducing selective breeding and automation that reshaped our food system. His “Green Revolution” increased the United States’ cereal yields by an estimated 230.4% and saved billions from famine.
However, decades after its introduction, this system of conventional agriculture — relying heavily on pesticides, deep tillage and chemical fertilizers — has increased pollution, energy input per crop and soil infertility.
As food production growth plateaus, fertile soil vanishes and agrochemical usage soars, American agriculture needs to transition to a more sustainable, non-destructive system to survive. Since the U.S. government subsidizes more than one-third of American farms, meaningful reform depends on supportive policy from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To advance environmental conservation, national security and human health, the U.S. government must reform farm subsidy programs.
The USDA’s $11.98 billion Federal Crop Insurance Program provides economic stability for the American agriculture industry and individual farmers
by insuring their crops. However, because of strict FCIP regulations, farmers risk losing this vital insurance funding if they attempt to transition their conventional farming practices to the more sustainable alternative of regenerative agriculture.
Regenerative agriculture prioritizes soil health by reducing tilling and chemical use while fostering diverse soil ecosystems. As a result, it can generate higher and more stable crop yields while reducing carbon emissions. Additionally, while the nutritional quality of crops has decreased over time, foods grown with regenerative agriculture are healthier and have a higher nutrient density than conventionally grown foods. Because of regenerative farms’ greater soil health, regenerative agriculture helps directly counteract greenhouse gas emissions. This carbon sequestration, paired with less mechanization, mitigates agricultural emissions by holding carbon in the soil while removing large fossil fuel inputs from the growing process.
However, transitioning to this process is both financially and practically challenging for farmers and ranchers, who are unlikely to adopt regenerative agriculture on a large scale without strong financial backing.
Implementing USDA policies that support the transition is crucial for our food system and the American farmer.
From a national security perspective, conventional
agriculture’s dependence on agrochemical imports from China poses significant risks. Relying on a foreign adversary for a crucial cornerstone of our food supply leaves both farmers and consumers vulnerable, especially as tensions between the U.S. and China escalate and tariffs continue to rise. These agrochemicals also cause negative human health outcomes: Studies have shown some of our most widely used pesticides and herbicides are endocrine disruptors and carcinogens.
By subsidizing regenerative agriculture — which prioritizes plant resilience and ecosystem diversity to naturally combat pests and weeds — the United States can reduce its reliance on Chinese agricultural imports and improve the health of consumers by limiting toxic chemical exposure.
One barrier to regenerative agriculture subsidies is its lack of clarity: There isn’t a universal consensus about regenerative agriculture’s exact requirements.
Although states such as California have honed in on precise qualifications for its policies, the regenerative community still disagrees on whether their definition is sufficient. Without a clear definition of regenerative agriculture, it will be difficult to implement new subsidy programs that specifically incentivize regenerative practices.
GISELLE SESI Opinion Analyst
Avery Nelson/DAILY
LEAH HUANG Opinion Columnist
HUNTER RYERSON Opinion Columnist
The higher education lesson
In a little over a week, I will be an alum of the University of Michigan. It’s both nauseating and exciting to write out that new title. It means new possibilities, new people and new places, but it also means leaving behind my tried-and-true routines and comfortable life in Ann Arbor. Having the privilege of a college education is not lost on me, especially as a student at the colloquially — and, might I add, correctly — titled “greatest university in the world.”
However, the fate of the American university — and education in general — is in untrustworthy, insecure hands.
We’re watching in shock as President Donald Trump’s administration targets the colleges’ federal funding, threatens to undertake judicial oversight over an Ivy League university and allows the deportation of college students. Our university has been no exception to this rule, just recently cutting all University diversity, equity and inclusion programs and standing idly by as international students’ visas are revoked. Higher education is falling behind on the lesson plan it drafted at its birth: Protect, educate and better its students. Over the last decade or so, the worth of a college education and degree has diminished. Not only has attending university become incredibly expensive, but the gift of a diploma at the end of your four years on campus is also no longer necessary for success. Fewer jobs require a college degree and Americans are no longer under the impression that you necessarily need to be a college graduate in order to be successful. Despite this collective change of heart, it’s crucial to recognize that college is not all about that piece of paper, and remains key to personal development.
We enter the halls of higher education with the belief that we
will be learning who to be and what we want for our future. But there’s more to it than that. Both inside and out of the classroom, we more critically reflect on the kind of people we don’t want to be. The power dynamics, political instability and interpersonal disputes taking place on modern college campuses expose us to bad actors with even worse intentions. It’s like they say: “Never meet your heroes.” Our university presidents, deans and campus administrators — the people meant to serve us — are leading us astray, and aren’t teaching us how to be our best possible selves. You don’t make those kinds of moral judgements on a graded Bluebook exam; you make them with a critical eye toward power.
In looking back on my four years at the University, I see multiple instances of extracurricular education. A former University president resigned, the Graduate Employees’ Organization went on strike, U-M students set up a Gaza solidarity encampment — which would be taken down a month later — and numerous assaults on students’ rights were approved by the University’s Board of Regents. I’ve learned dozens of lessons from my professors, lecturers and graduate student instructors, but these non-traditional educational experiences have been even more formative. Watching as campus organizers, faculty and community members have fought to expose the dark underbelly of the University and turn traditional hierarchies on their head has taught me lessons you can’t obtain in the classroom. My college degree will certainly prove to be useful in the long run, but it is entirely separate from my college education.
A college degree is strictly institutional, a few sentences on a piece of paper that attest to one’s completion of a bachelor’s degree. Your education, however, is something more nuanced. It is defined by the teachings received from peers and complete strangers, the groups that teach
you how to be intellectually critical and vocalize your discontent. There are great benefits to possessing knowledge, but it goes further than the classroom. Knowledge means having a firm grasp on politics, power and people; it means having a disposition toward truth and the proverbial “right thing.”
A classroom can’t teach you this, but an institutional crisis can. In this regard, a university campus acts as a microcosm of American society. Diversity in belief and background broadens our horizons and we are challenged by obstacles sometimes greater than ourselves. Administrators and bureaucrats can make our lives harder, but we can come together as a unit to fight back. When leadership fails, the onus falls on its constituents to bring forth stability and care. Our community keeps us sane and our principles keep us grounded in these moments of disrepair. We are not only preparing for the workplace in our undergraduate years, but also for how to overcome the unequal dispersal of power among humankind. Leaving your college years behind is a bittersweet experience. There is an intense sadness about leaving behind the people and places you have called home for the last four years, but also a real pride in what you have accomplished. I challenge you to not think about your time at college as something clinical, but as something more transcendental. The University is a flawed institution, just like many other universities and colleges across the country. But don’t let this destroy your college experience. The administration may be handing you your degree, but your peers have awarded you dozens more educational privileges. It certainly isn’t University President Santa Ono or his Board of Regents that make this the “greatest university in the world.” It’s their fierce critics and undeterred protesters.
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AI might reshape the law, but
it won’t replace
human voices
ATÉA SANTORO Opinion Analyst
s artificial intelligence is becoming more and more advanced, industries are left wondering what it means for the future of the job market. The legal sector is no exception. With speculation of whether AI will replace certain employees or at least reduce hiring quotas, both experienced professionals and aspiring law students are left with more questions than they can answer: How will AI impact my career? Will AI replace my future job? Is using AI in the legal field ethical? However, while AI will undoubtedly shift how legal work is done, it won’t — and can’t — replace practices that are inherently human, like ethical decision-making and client advocacy. Instead of making legal jobs obsolete altogether, AI might start augmenting their current workflows, streamlining routine tasks and making firms more efficient. Because legal work relies so heavily on consistent formatting and very precise language, it lends itself
up to AI integration very easily. Legal complaints, for example, usually include predictable sections like jurisdiction, parties involved, factual background, legal claims and then a request for damages, depending on the type of case. When given the right prompts, language models could create the first draft of court documents in minutes, if not seconds.
These developments don’t mean lawyers will soon be extinct; it means the way they do their work is changing. AI isn’t artificial intelligence in the sense that there will be “lawyer robots.” It will instead be more akin to something like augmented intelligence, which relieves some of the pressure on human workers by completing the most time-consuming tasks, like summarizing a case, redrafting a motion for the tenth time or scanning hundreds of research documents. With AI taking on some of that load, there’s room to shift human effort toward areas that require more critical thinking and emotional intelligence — things that cannot be replicated by a machine.
Some companies are already
Mad, right?
embracing this potential, with Thomson Reuters leading the charge. The technology conglomerate created the Practical Law Dynamic Tool Set, a generative AI tool that was made specifically to assist lawyers. It’s a combination of the company’s existing platforms, CoCounsel and Westlaw, that helps attorneys do anything from pulling relevant case law to answering legal questions.
If anything, AI could make legal careers more interesting. For students planning to become lawyers, their early years in the industry are often spent doing a lot of legal grunt work. While this kind of work does help people learn the ropes, it can also be extremely repetitive. Some people may worry that skipping over the basics could leave new employees underprepared, but if it’s integrated thoughtfully, AI could be part of the learning process. It could give feedback to new lawyers who might have otherwise gone without, especially at bigger firms where managers might have less time to give highly detailed guidance.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
Erin Coleman/DAILY
Men have sex too: Why their sexual health matters
Reproductive health is often framed as a “women’s issue.” Society places the burden of contraception, family planning and sexual health primarily on women. This outdated framing has not only slowed progress in reproductive rights but has also left a critical group out of the conversation: men.
Michigan is in the midst of a sexual health crisis. In 2023, more than 52,000 people in the state of Michigan were diagnosed with one or more reportable sexually transmitted infections, including gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. The city of Detroit now ranks #1 in the U.S. for the highest STI rates, according to Innerbody, thus accounting for the majority of STI cases in Wayne County. Even more troubling are the racial disparities embedded in
the crisis. Black Michiganders comprise about 14% of Michigan’s population, but account for 55% of reported STIs. Black men are 18 times more likely to be diagnosed with gonorrhea than white men. These disparities are driven not by biology, but by systemic inequities in access to care, health education and economic opportunity. Many STIs go undetected for three to four weeks after the initial infection due to the absence of early-stage symptoms. The silent spread allows infections to circulate widely before they get caught, making early testing and prevention efforts even more urgent.
Despite the availability of testing, many men aren’t taking the steps to protect themselves or their partners. Why?
In 2023, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 218,300 men in the state of Michigan were uninsured.
While this only equates to a small percentage of the state’s male population, underserved populations are most likely to be uninsured. Having health insurance is a great first step, but not all insurance is created equal. Private sector insurance covers more testing and treatment than public plans. Changes in the Medicare system have had a direct impact on how fees and payments are structured, impacting those who are insured and those who are not.
Patients who lose insurance can accrue unexpected out-of-pocket fees previously covered by insurance which increases the potential financial burden of seeking testing. Those who are uninsured are less likely to seek treatment and testing, as this could result in financial obligations one could not afford. The cost of testing, especially for those uninsured or underinsured, can be prohibitive, leading
many to forgo these essential health services. The introduction of fees for STI services previously offered free of charge can be associated with the substantial declines in clinic visits throughout the country.
Too many men simply don’t know they need to get tested, nor do they know where to go. They may not realize that symptoms often appear three to four weeks after infection or that STIs can be transmitted even when no symptoms are present. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has a tool for residents to find free or low-cost testing in their county. Increasing awareness of easily-accessible resources will promote positive sexual health habits.
The culture surrounding sexually transmitted infections has increasingly become negative throughout the years.
There is a fear that getting tested means “being dirty” or over -
ly promiscuous. Men are less likely to get tested, and when they do discuss sexual health, they tend to share more with female partners than with male friends. This stigma is reinforced by silence, making it harder to normalize regular testing.
Intimate topics like STI testing are more casually discussed when it is about other people, rather than among friends. Breaking the stigma requires a cultural reset. This starts by shifting how we talk about men’s roles in sexual health. Physicians can help by normalizing conversations during routine visits, but they can only do so much if men aren’t willing to engage. Schools and community groups can do a better job of including boys and young men in sexual health education to make men more likely to confide in health professionals. Public health campaigns must feature men as well. At the same time, access to testing must be expanded. Emphasizing the importance of sexual health to men may encourage participation in testing. Community-based clinics, mobile testing units and digital scheduling platforms can make it easier for men to get tested without shame or lack of convenience. Reframing sexual health as a shared responsibility is essential for advancing health equity in Michigan. These efforts promote inclusive access to care, education and resources for all individuals, regardless of relationship status. By actively involving men, especially within communities facing significant health disparities, the state can move toward more equitable and effective sexual health outcomes. The solution starts with education, open dialogue and making testing accessible and stigma-free. It’s time for men to step up, get tested and take charge of their sexual health.
MADISON BALTIMORE Opinion Contributor
Haylee Bohm/DAILY
LINDSEY SPENCER Opinion Columnist
Michigan in Color is The Michigan Daily’s section by and for People of Color.
In this space, we invite our contributors to be vulnerable and authentic about our experiences and the important issues in our world today.
Our work represents our identities in a way that is both unapologetic and creative. We are a community that reclaims our stories on our own terms.
my dad writes poetry in the language of my home I want to be able to understand each beautiful poem
the letters themselves are artwork they dance across the page every ةكرح tries to free its letter from the translator’s cage and when my dad recites there is a music to his voice each ةملك is intentional every rhyme is a choice
I can feel the power of his words but my mind struggles to comprehend
I am still piecing together the first phrase by the time the poem has come to an end he tells me English doesn’t have enough words for poetry that the language is too stale but he still reads the poems I write compliments each one without fail
I strive to reach the expertise he has honed to wield my pen like a soldier his sword I envy the strangers who read his poems with a type of carelessness I can’t afford
I hate that it’s called a language barrier something that could be torn down
I am stuck in an ocean of misunderstanding in which I find myself beginning to drown
, the language of
the words I use in dua and prayer a treasure I have been trying to discover each day I scrape back layer after layer the poetry I write tends to center around نانبل still, people wonder about my heritage they ask me,
to me, it is obvious my culture shadows my writing my country is evident in my shoulders in the way I am constantly fighting my family are the main characters in my poems though some of them live miles away for someone who claims to have few words I somehow have a lot to say
but I am selfish with the lines that I write my grandparents do not understand my longing they bless me a million times over the phone and still I search for some sense of belonging does it count as writing if I use someone else’s tongue? Arabic is the blood in my veins the breath in my lungs
I discuss politics in the language of the aggressor
I hope I can erase the accent of my oppressors
perhaps one day
I will read what my dad writes and immediately understand without a translator in sight
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GAEL
GONZALEZ-DELALUZ MiC
Columnist
One morning this past fall, I woke up with the all-too-familiar sensation of a strain in my throat. I already knew that sooner or later it was bound to happen. Most of my friend group was starting to develop a cough, including my roommates, whom I spent a lot of time around. The yearly symphony of sneezing and sniffling had descended upon the University of Michigan’s campus and my lifelong foe, the common cold, had made its untimely appearance in my life yet again. As I went about my daily routine, I knew this illness was here to stay, so when it came time in the evening to have my daily call with my parents, I braced myself for the long list of remedies that were about to be thrown at me:
“Mami, creo que estoy enfermo. Amanecí en la mañana con un dolor de garganta y me ha dado tos todo el día.” (Mom, I think I’m sick. I woke up in the morning with a sore throat and I’ve had a cough all day.)
“¡Híjole, mi niño! Que barbaridad, ¿te has tapado la cabeza cuando sales? Hace demasiado frio allá donde vives.” (Oh no, my baby! That’s awful, have you covered your head when you go out? It’s way too cold out where you live.)
“Sí, Mami, ya sé.” (Yes, Mom, I know.)
“Hazte un té de manzanilla después de que terminemos de hablar. Voy a decirle a tu padre que te encargue más VapoRub para que te lo pongas en los pies antes de dormir. También es bueno un té de diente de leon. Pero el mejor remedio que absolutamente tienes que hacerte es un té de gordolobo para la tos.” (Make yourself a chamomile tea after we finish talking. I’m going to tell your father to order you more VapoRub so you can put it on your feet before going to bed. Dandelion tea is also good. However, the absolute best remedy you absolutely have to make is a gordolobo tea for your cough.)
This has been the norm for me since I was a kid. I would get sick, and my mom would make a natural concoction — ranging in its peculiarity — to help me feel better. These were usually supplemented with typical over-the-counter medications, but in some instances, my parents and other extended family placed a higher emphasis on these home remedies over something like Tylenol. These herbs are an indelible hallmark of the Hispanic corner store experience. There’s typically a shelf taking up an entire wall full of plants that families have used and passed down for generations. Even as a kid, it was hard to keep track of every single one of these ingredients that my relatives would recommend from this vast display. Mexican culture, like many others around the globe, centers around natural alternatives that are not as prevalent in modern Western medicine. I’ve consistently wondered if these methods that my family has preached for my entire life are better than anything on the market in the United States, and if they are as effective as
they claim to be. From personal experience, I can attest to certain teas being an aid in relieving some of my cold and flu symptoms in the past, but I have often questioned if everything my mom has given me can be wholeheartedly supported by scientific evidence. I wanted to hear her out and keep my mind open to a new perspective, but there was still a nagging voice in my head that these teas resulted from her WhatsApp and Facebook “doctors” with no legitimate medical training. I wanted an explanation for why she would shove the most random combinations of spices and herbs that would cause a distinct burning sensation in the back of my throat as they went down.
My recent bout of curiosity was first ignited by my mom’s determination to have me try gordolobo tea, a Mexican variety of the mullein flower with leaves that are alleged to be a natural remedy for phlegm and congestion. It is not very easily obtained in Ann Arbor, where there is little demand for the product, since Hispanic individuals only make up around 5% of the population. On top of this, alternative medicines are often unconsciously discouraged by healthcare professionals in favor of common practices in Western medicine, highlighting an even broader issue of not considering patients’ cultural backgrounds in clinical settings. However, I still believed that there was a case to be made for the teas and poultices that my mom and aunts would feed me out of their best intentions to help me feel better.
I decided to look into gordolobo for myself, focusing on any existing scientific research. I was also hoping to see if research had addressed any of the benefits I’ve heard from my relatives: pain relief, cough relief and improved circulation. I was skeptical of the idea that Mexicans across centuries have this “super plant” they discovered that could help fix all of these things. I also wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t be causing any adverse effects on my health over time.
From this review, I found a couple of different sources that both supported and refuted some of the claims my family made about the plant. On one hand, there is little evidence to support that gordolobo is good for pain relief, but there also isn’t any harm to consuming it. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is contrasting evidence to support that the plant possesses genuine anti-inflammatory properties, namely in fighting respiratory disease. Though gordolobo may not be the magic solution my relatives preach it is, they had a point in valuing its legitimate aid in relieving cold symptoms. The scalding tea that I would chug growing up to avoid tasting the bitterness had a purpose after all.
Just because remedies may not be prescribed by a doctor does not mean that there isn’t more to look into or should be considered invalid in healthcare. There is genuine potential here worth exploring that my community uses all the time as treatment. Through trial and error, these individuals
have essentially conducted their own experiments to see what methods can be effective in treating sickness.
Spanish folk medicine — the umbrella term for alternative medicine practices used across the Spanish-speaking world — traces its origins to traditional Indigenous practices, low-income alternatives to contemporary medicine, syncretic superstitious beliefs and more. The result of this is an all-encompassing and widely accepted component of at-home treatments across Latin America. However, there are downsides to this dependence on alternative medicine in the Hispanic community across the country. Studies have shown that Hispanic individuals who hold more traditional values may be hesitant to see a clinician for more serious conditions that they believe can be treated on their own. This only adds to the access barriers to healthcare that Hispanic individuals face within the American health care system. Even my own older aunts and uncles struggle to go to our local hospitals out of fear of their information being passed on to immigration enforcement and a lack of Spanish-speaking physicians.
Spanish folk medicine is centered around the belief that heat and cold are primary factors in determining health. This leads to common sayings by Hispanic mothers worldwide that revolve around keeping the head and feet warm to stay healthy. In my experience, it has meant that both of my parents will constantly remind me to put on a hood if it’s cold or raining and scold me if I’m barefoot around the house. It is a common superstition that absorbing cold from the ground through the feet directly correlates to getting sick. It’s easy to discount the efficacy of herbal medicine when its practices are not entirely rooted in biological sciences, but rather centered on the sensation of relief and figuring out what the body needs. Without access to a lab or medical databases, underserved communities globally took the plants they could harvest outside and kept using the ones that made them feel the healthiest. This has become an integral part of culture as these remedies have been passed down for centuries from parents to children. It is a field mostly based on subjective experiences, but there is a niche to delve into, considering that these types of treatments are not exclusive to Hispanic culture, but have their own applications in communities of color around the world. Just as there is more to be learned about Spanish Folk Medicine, there is more within Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine and traditional African medicine.
Since that first cold that triggered my exploration, I have continued to look into this topic in my free time and continue to believe that my relatives weren’t entirely wrong about their (occasionally crazy) brews. I may still initially gravitate towards taking an Alka Seltzer when I have indigestion, but I will continue to never discount the efficacy of my mom’s dandelion ginger tea.
AMANY SAYED — MiC Columnist
Courtesy of Amany Sayed.
Alisha Razi/MiC
LOZA MiC Columnist
It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting in the backseat of our family car. The air is thick with silence, broken only by the hum of the engine and the occasional murmur of my dad’s voice as he takes a work call.
My mom’s eyes are glued to her phone as she scrolls, completely absorbed, through old pictures in her camera roll, completely absorbed. In the front seat, my sister is snapping selfies, sending them off to a never-ending stream of friends on Snapchat. And me? I’m hunched over, eyes fixated on my Nintendo 3DS, tapping away at the buttons in a dimension of pixels and mindless distractions. We were supposed to be enjoying a family moment, but my brain was too busy. I was too wrapped up in my own little world, cemented to the screen, waiting for the next Super Mario fails compilation video on YouTube. At dinner, voices blurred together, silverware clinking in the background, and I was too busy mastering the art of not laughing at some video game player’s ridiculous mishaps to actually be present. The chatter around me just felt like noise, like everyone was talking but I wasn’t really there. Someone said my name, but I didn’t even look up.
Much of my time felt like I was slowly chipping away at my life through technology. I remember playing Super Mario Bros for the millionth time — so much so that I could picture every single course in my head perfectly. I knew exactly when to jump, where the obstacles would pop up, and before I knew it, I was at the flagpole without even thinking about it. During that time, I could’ve been out actually training like Mario for parkour, or learning how to throw a boomerang. Instead, I let the little Italian guy do all the jumping for me.
Hopping off the anhedonic hamster wheel
When I got to high school, I abandoned a lot of the hobbies I once loved. The figure skating, the taekwondo and the excitement of learning new skills — all of it faded into the background. But my Nintendo? It was always there — the one thing I never let go of.
I’ve spent an embarrassingly long time playing, getting caught up past midnight far more times than I care to admit. Thanks a lot, Mario: you ruined my sleep schedule, my passions and definitely my posture, but hey, at least I’m great at jumping on goombas.
But maybe it wasn’t just Mario. There could have been something else I was missing, something bigger. Looking up from my phone when my video stopped playing, I realized that my family was just as trapped in their own virtual worlds. My mom was still scrolling through her camera roll. My dad, absorbed in work calls that never seemed to end. My sister, still on Snapchat. We were all physically together, but mentally, universes apart.
I’m not sure why we were like this. From my experience, most families I encountered seemed more engaged with each other. I noticed this especially when visiting my friends. They always seemed to have those fun board game nights, the get-to-knowyou games that encouraged laughter and conversation. It was almost like they had a built-in routine for bonding, while we, on the other hand, were busy living within our technology. We came back home from dinner, and the house was eerily quiet. No one was talking much. So I decided to do some investigating. A few clicks and scrolls later, I finally stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for. It was like walking into a room I had lived in for years, only to discover a trapdoor beneath the rug. I typed out a jumble of emotions into the search bar, and then the word anhedonia appeared.
Through my research, I learned that anhedonia is the inability to find pleasure in activities once enjoyed, like hobbies or socializing. While commonly associated with depression, anhedonia can also be caused by physical illnesses, medications or brain injuries. Regardless of its cause, it profoundly impacts well-being, often as much as other mental health symptoms.
As I read more, it hit me: This explained why I had abandoned so many of my favorite hobbies and retreated into technology once I hit high school. Now, I couldn’t do anything but stare at a screen. The words on the page laid it all out, and I felt both relieved and devastated. It was like everything in my life suddenly made sense — but in a way that felt almost too late. What’s even more concerning is how I could relate this to my own family. In many People of Color and immigrant families, mental health struggles are misunderstood, ignored or normalized due to cultural stigma, which trickles down to the lack of awareness of the
symptom that is anhedonia. This silent struggle, often seen as just part of daily hardship, goes unrecognized, leading to a lack of support and understanding for those affected.
Years later I discovered that people with greater life satisfaction — white people being the leading demographic — tend to derive more pleasure from everyday activities (even from something as simple as eating a sandwich) than those struggling with stress or emotional exhaustion.
I believe this is because, for many POC, survival and responsibility take precedence, often relegating joy and leisure to the background. In my family, a focus on the future and breaking generational cycles of financial instability shaped our priorities, often leaving little room for selfcare or personal fulfillment. One aspect I particularly noticed within my family was emotional depletion, which looked like my father constantly taking work phone calls from the moment he woke up until he went to bed, or my mother who tirelessly cleaned up after all of us every day. The
heavy burdens of responsibility they carried resulted in having a low emotional bandwidth for anything else.
Through these realizations, I decided to fundamentally change who I was. No, I didn’t suddenly start feeling an overwhelming amount of joy, but each day, I made the conscious decision to embody this mindset shift. I began by putting my phone down and replacing it with something more meaningful to me. I picked up books, and in 2024, I read 50 of them. I also started to take running seriously, and now I’m preparing to run my first 10K this summer — something I never thought I’d do. And I also barely think of the pixelated mustached man anymore. These small victories represent a shift in how I engage with the world, filling my cup in a way I never imagined would happen. But it didn’t stop there. It’s taken me years to get to this point, and with intentional effort, I started to break what felt like a curse. I began asking questions at the dinner table, inquiring my family about their lives — about their childhoods, triumphs and
The Black hair commitment
How much money do you think you spend on your hair in a year? Do you get your hair cut regularly? Dyed? Braided?
From mullets to buzzcuts to locs to afros, do you ever need to calculate what financial burden your hair puts on you?
A couple weeks ago I was having a conversation with my mom about our financial goals for 2025. I obviously have different, slightly less lofty goals with money, given my university job isn’t exactly paying six figures, but one of my mom’s goals was to cut $400 to $800 out of our hair budget by doing her hair at home instead of paying to get it done. When she said this, my eyes practically fell out of my head. Eight? $800 out of our hair budget? How much was our hair budget?
My family lives in the Northern Virginia area and, although it’s diverse, Black people are still undoubtedly a minority. This means that our products — curly hair creams, gels, shampoos and conditioners — are also exceedingly scarce. Since there were historically so few companies that created products specifically catered to our hair, the companies that did were able to create a hair market with egregious prices. Now, there are significantly more brands that cater to Black hair, but the outrageously high prices stayed. How outrageous?
My favorite curl cream, Uncle Funky’s Daughter Curly Magic Curl Stimulator, retails for
$17.99. Yes. $17.99. That’s a Chipotle bowl with steak, queso, and guac — and that’s just one product. I still need shampoo, conditioner, leave-in conditioner, brushes, combs, spray bottles, curly hair specific hair ties — and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head.
Other cheaper products don’t work as well as the more expensive ones, and honestly, we shouldn’t have to “just make do.” I should be able to walk into any store in any state and find a product that works for me that doesn’t cost a kidney. Emphasis on should.
Unfortunately, so many hair products catered to Black hair have been found to be toxic or dangerous for use. Ever heard of DevaCurl? A hair care line that became so popular that the company opened multiple salons nationwide featuring their signature hair care products, DevaCurl initially rose to fame due to their unique mission of highlighting and encouraging love for curly hair. Thousands of people felt seen and represented by the company, which created an incredibly loyal fan base many sporting the famous “DevaCut.” In 2020, there were 13 class action lawsuits filed against DevaCurl for causing hair loss, scalp irritation and psoriasis. It was alleged that DevaCurl knew these products were unsafe for customers, but chose to ignore requests for a recall. Even among products meant to cater to the Black population, issues of exploitation are pretty common. In the pursuit of the profitable Black dollar, companies will
often purposefully cut corners in production, which can result in hair damage and pose health risks to consumers. So, not only do some of these products not work well and are really expensive, there’s also a risk of the product actively damaging our hair.
A consequence of the antiBlackness runs rampant among all communities is the pressure placed on Black people to be hyper-vigilant of how we present ourselves. My hair grows up and out of my skull. It doesn’t grow down, or in a perfectly smooth bun that gives “clean girl.” Wearing my hair 100% naturally, which is the way it grows out of my head, is often considered socially unacceptable. The societal perception of Black people implies that anything outside of neat and orderly styles are “unkempt” or “unprofessional.” Now, don’t get me wrong. I love
my hair and black hairstyles in general. Hair is hair and tying stereotypes to it — like dreads or locs being dirty, or the people who wear them being dangerous — is an antiquated notion. I am, however, painfully aware that every time I interact with someone, I have to deal with whatever preconceived notions they have about me. And sometimes that scrutiny is easier to deal with if I have my hair done.
In my state, getting your hair braided can run you an exorbitant check. My mom and I found someone who does a great job and doesn’t charge a ridiculous price — that is, she typically charges $175-$200 for any braid style which, believe it or not, is a pretty good price for braids. If you consider the cost of the style (I’ll stay on the cheap end for the sake of my example), in addition to supplies like hair jewelry, gel,
dreams. Recently, over Winter Break, I helped my mom prepare tamales for the Christmas meal — a tradition that reminded me of the effort she used to put in every other year. My typical Christmas tradition had been to binge the latest video game that caught my attention, but now, I hope to continue this tradition with my mom.
You may feel empty, like something is missing, or like you’re running on fumes with no space for joy. I’ve been there — sitting in a random corner of Mason Hall, waiting for meteors to fall and crash into Earth. It’s easy to get stuck in survival mode, especially with the constant pull of technology and screens.
These struggles aren’t a personal failing; they reflect deeper systemic and cultural forces. We live in a culture that often forces us to keep moving, to stay connected and to constantly consume — whether it’s news, social media or the endless notifications that demand our attention. Societal pressures and technology often make genuine connection and satisfaction harder to find. But you don’t have to be stuck on your anhedonic hamster wheel, constantly chasing fleeting distractions that never fill the void. The key isn’t moving faster, but changing direction.
Happiness doesn’t come from playing a board game or eating a good sandwich, and those definitely aren’t the keys to breaking generational patterns. It begins with small, purposeful actions that bring meaning into your life. Whether it’s pausing to appreciate your surroundings, being present with others or discovering a new hobby, these moments help you reconnect with your most desired self. The journey won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Through intention, you can rise above societal conditioning and take your first steps off your wheel.
extension hair and the gas needed to travel to and from the appointment, each style is around $220 per style per head. Styles can last anywhere from one to two months if the braider is particularly talented, so let’s assume one person would go through six styles a year (one every two months). Altogether, just one person’s financial commitment to their hair would come to a whopping $1,320 annually. And that is with a relatively affordable braider and a less expensive style. After this conversation with my mom, I began to realize how many of the experiences that felt routine to me were unique to the Black experience.
Maintaining our appearances stems from something much deeper than a superficial desire to look good. From an academic and professional standpoint, sometimes looking the part can hold as much weight as your actual qualification to be in that position. In my experience, people rarely want to hear what a Black woman has to say about a topic, even less so when that Black woman is doing or being what they stereotypically expect of a Black person.
Entering a space that wasn’t made for you with people who are reluctant to let you enter, let alone give you a seat at the table, can feel a little bit like disabling an active bomb. Worrying about how everything you say can be misconstrued, worrying about how the example you set may be used to judge the next Black person after you, thinking about how every decision you make may validate a negative stereotype someone in the room
has about Black people: it’s exhausting.
The policing of Black bodies, labor, behavior and ideologies is so interwoven into our society and daily interactions that it ends up impacting the way I wear my hair. So much so that the CROWN Act, an act that offers legal protection against hair discrimination in workplace and school settings, had to be created in 2019 and passed— in 25 states now — as a security net for Black Americans. We have to work twice as hard to get half the opportunity, and sometimes entering a space that you had to fight tooth and nail to get to requires some armor. Making sure I feel confident in my physical appearance, although superficial to some, takes one more aspect of judgment off the table.
My natural hairstyle would be wearing my hair in curls, and my natural state of being is inherently a social or political statement. Hairstyles for us can be associated with personal acceptance or seen as a sign of protest, and sometimes I’m not trying to do all that. Sometimes I just want to wear my hair the way I want without having to consider what societal booby traps I’ll be forced to navigate as a result of that hairstyle. For us, choosing a hairstyle will never be as simple as picking what we prefer. Every hairstyle, without our permission, brings into question our external and internal expectations, issues of conformity and how maintaining an image carries a financial burden. How much of a commitment is your hair to you?
CHRISTIAN
Lauren Hahn/MiC
Aamina Hussain/MiC
Fred Richard ‘f lipped the script’ to win all-around and anchor Michigan at NCAA Championships
The NCAA Championship finals were the ultimate test of technique, complexity and consistency for the No. 2 Michigan men’s gymnastics team. Junior Fred Richard stood in the eye of the Wolverines’ success.
With far from perfect rotations and experimental decisions, the win was by no means guaranteed. But from Richard’s very first routine it was definitive that his consistency would drive Michigan to succeed. From his first routine on parallel bars, he scripted the Wolverines’ storybook ending.
“I was showing the team this is our house,” Richard said. “This is going to be our day today. Let’s plant this flag. And it’s fun to do.” Through the first three rotations the Wolverines were remarkably strong and so was Fred. But, unbeknownst to Richard, the meet’s toughest tests awaited, and the pressure to overcome a series of imperfections weighed heavily on his shoulders.
SOFTBALL
Taking to pommel horse for the fourth rotation, graduate Paul Juda had an erratic fall at the beginning of his routine, and the team’s energy took an immediate hit. Juda remounted to complete his routine, but his resilience was not enough, earning Michigan just a 12.466.
But the numbers meant nothing to Richard. Dusting off the chalk, Richard prepared for the comeback. He followed his clean mount with a series of circles and an effortless flair handstand. Finishing with a stuck landing, the routine was a Richard standard and his consistency was exactly what the Wolverines needed in that moment.
“We have Fred,” Michigan coach Yuan Xiao said. “That’s the tradition in our sport. We had a Sam Mikulak. Now we had a Paul Juda, then we have a Fred. That’s what we are looking for. That’s the anchor.”
With a score of 13.9, Richard clinched the highest score on pommel for the Wolverines. But his recovery efforts were just getting started as freshman Aaronson Mansberger had an unusual fault on
the dismount. After those mishaps on pommel horse, Michigan was once again put in a high-pressure position to pick itself up out of second place, and the tension laid on rings.
Moving onto the event for their fifth rotation, the Wolverines revisited an old lineup hoping to shake off the dust. In the face of uncertainty, Richard’s routine became that much more important.
“Fred’s the anchor,” Xiao said. “So when we need him, he will give you the score. When we need him to stick, he sticks.”
And once again, Richard stuck it, grabbing a 14.066 — another event high score for Michigan. His performance gave the Wolverines the confidence they needed to face the game-defining rotation on vault.
Standing firm on the runway, eyes pointing straight ahead, Richard rejected all distractions. After a deep breath, Richard took off. Sprinting down the runway, Richard placed both on the table in a Tsukahara vault, completed two full twists and landed with both
feet planted firmly, perfectly still and in bounds, as Crisler exploded in cheers.
“I want to be one of the greatest, and the greatest have to be very consistent,” Richard said. “The greatest have to perform under pressure. And I take these moments. These are tests. I’m happy to be passing them.”
Setting the stage to clinch the national title in the final moments
of the rotation, Richard most definitely passed his test. In the face of adversity, his consistency pulls him through. His ambition and reliability drove the Wolverines to snap Stanford’s five-year winning streak. By a mere byproduct of his work, Richard earned himself the individual all-around title on top of the team’s monumental achievement with an 84.264 allaround score.
In his words, Richard “flipped the script” in every single event of the finals to beat the Cardinal. Forcing the competitors out of his team’s way and turning worrisome moments into unexpected highs, Richard’s consistency is unrivaled. And on the biggest stage, that consistency and determination culminated in a national championship and an individual title of his own.
Michigan fails to hold onto leads after getting swept by Ohio State
COLUMBUS — In the finale of the Michigan softball team’s series with Ohio State, redshirt sophomore catcher Lilly Vallimont put Michigan in the driver’s seat with a grand slam in the first inning. The Wolverines held onto that lead until the third inning, when an offensive explosion from the Buckeyes allowed them to wrangle a lead and hold onto it for a 15-7 run-rule victory.
This wasn’t the first time the Wolverines had collapsed in such a fashion this weekend. In Friday’s series opener, Michigan held a 3-2 lead entering the sixth inning before senior right-hander Lauren Derkowski allowed a two-run
home run that sealed Ohio State’s victory. And in the second game, the Wolverines entered the sixth inning with a hefty 4-1 lead before a disastrous final two innings that culminated in a walkoff victory for the Buckeyes.
It was a motif that permeated throughout Michigan’s three games in Columbus — the Wolverines held the lead in every game, but a blend of silent bats and defensive miscues led it to surrender each of those leads.
“Just being tougher,” senior left fielder Ellie Sieler said when asked about what they could’ve done differently. “Those moments where we need to be tough and make a play or lay out and make a catch, just being a little bit better in those moments.”
The stat that perhaps most
exemplifies those moments for Michigan this weekend, is that the Wolverines outhit Ohio State in all three games — yet they lost all three.
What prevented Michigan from building on those hits was the familiar problem of leaving runners on base. The Wolverines stranded 28 runners on base through three games, many of whom were in situations where they could’ve extended a lead or gotten out of reach.
From the very beginning, it was clear it would be an emotional night.
It started on Michigan’s second routine of the NCAA Championships on Saturday, when graduate Paul Juda stepped up on parallel bars. Juda stuck his dismount amid deafening cheers from the Wolverine faithful, held both fists in the air, and immediately began tearing up.
Juda’s routine earned him a season-high score of 14.200 and the parallel bars individual national title. But on a day when nothing mattered to the No. 2 Michigan men’s gymnastics team except the team result, it
was merely a sign of things to come.
On Saturday, when the Wolverines lifted the national championship trophy in front of their home crowd at Crisler Center, it was more than just the culmination of a year’s worth of dedication and effort. It was a victory years in the making.
For the seniors and graduates on the team, the win was simultaneous exultation and catharsis. Michigan edged out No. 3 Stanford by the slimmest of margins, 332.224 to 332.061, ending the Cardinal’s fiveyear streak of NCAA titles and avenging the past two years, where they came up just short in the Super Six. This year, they finally reached the top — and did it by defeating Goliath. “We willed it,” Juda said. “We
worked our butts off because we knew what the competition was three years in a row.”
And fittingly, when the Wolverines needed them most, it was Michigan’s graduating class who stepped up.
It was graduate Evgeny Siminiuc, who set the tone when he led off the Wolverines’ first rotation with a score of 14.066 on parallel bars. It was Juda following up with an emotional performance in the second spot.
After Michigan fell twice on pommel horse, it was graduate Javier Alfonso, a three-time AllAmerican who had competed just once in the regular season, who returned to provide a steady hand on still rings to the tune of a 13.833. And it was senior Rithik Puri, who followed Alfonso with a score of 13.966, righting the ship.
On vault, in the final rotation, with the pressure cranked up to 11 and trailing eventual runnerup Stanford by 0.537 points, it was senior David Wolma and Juda, again. Wolma turned a Tsukahara with near-perfect form on the table and stuck his landing in bounds for a 14.400. He pumped both fists and shared an emotional hug with assistant coach Jordan Gaarenstroom as Crisler Center roared.
CONTINUED AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM
A similar situation occurred in the second game, where the Wolverines put two runners in scoring position entering the sixth inning with a chance to extend their lead. But they failed to capitalize. Michigan had managed to curb its bad habits of leaving runners on base for a chunk of the season, but it reared its head again over the weekend, culminating in the three blown leads.
“It needs to be just our toughness in the moment and our toughness at the plate,” Wolverines coach Bonnie Tholl said. “We need to make sure that we’re embracing the challenge and recognizing that it is a challenge.”
For instance, in the sixth inning of the first game, a single from sophomore right fielder Ella Stephenson moved freshman designated player Lauren Putz to second base. Thus, Vallimont was provided with an opportunity to score up to three runs and potentially seal a victory for Michigan. However, Vallimont grounded out to the pitcher, and the Buckeyes stole the game in the following inning.
BASEBALL
In addition to its offensive woes, Michigan found itself longing for that toughness on defense and in the circle, as well. The fact that Ohio State won all three games despite being outhit in each game is not just indicative of the Wolverines’ tendency to strand runners on base, but the Buckeyes’ ability to efficiently run the bases and produce on offense.
Ohio State was primarily able to score via the long ball, hitting nine home runs in three games — a prime example being the two grand slams hit in the sweep clinching game on Sunday.
The Buckeyes’ offense was also aided by Michigan’s defensive lapses, as the Wolverines committed four errors to Ohio State’s two. These errors, such as dropped catches or passed balls,
allowed the Buckeyes to stack the bases at will — which meant that when Michigan’s pitching staff did allow hits, those hits proved costly and turned into big plays that chipped away at the Wolverines’ advantage. One such moment, a throwing error by junior third baseman Maddie Erickson in the fourth inning, helped advance an Ohio State runner to third and ultimately kickstarted a threerun avalanche that catapulted the Buckeyes to victory.
“There were just moments that we needed to win,” Sieler said.
“And we didn’t win.” And because of those miscues in key moments, Michigan lost the leads it held in each game of the series. What could have been a statement series against a Big Ten rival, ended in disappointment.
Michigan outfield falters in series loss to Iowa
GRACE WRIGHT Daily Sports Writer
Between all seven outfielders that patrolled the grass for the Michigan baseball team on Sunday, only one hit was secured. On the other hand, Iowa’s four outfielders were its most potent offensive contributors, securing three RBIs. Beyond their contributions at the plate, these two units varied in their defensive work as well, with the Wolverines falling flat footed and the Hawkeyes stealing runs out of the air.
Across all three games Michigan was simply outplayed by Iowa, and nowhere was that comparison more stark than in the outfield.
“I thought we battled,” the Wolverines coach Tracy Smith said. “We continued to go up there with a good approach. … I think either team could have won them all this weekend, unfortunately, we were on the flip side of it so I’ve got to sleep with that tonight.”
After a five-inning offensive drought, Michigan battled back and entered the ninth tied at four. A sacrifice fly by Hawkeyes center fielder Miles Risley gave Iowa the leading run, but the at-bat to secure its victory happened three batters later. A routine hit into right field by Hawkeyes pinch hitter Mitch Wood soared into
the outfield where freshman right fielder Brayden Jeffries was caught too far in. Jeffries’ delayed recovery gave Iowa enough time to clear the bases and secure a three-run edge.
In the Wolverines’ half of the ninth inning, they had multiple opportunities to send the competition to extra-innings. Graduate first baseman Jeter Ybarra capitalized on one of them with a solo homer smashed over the right-field wall. But when senior third baseman Cole Caruso tried to do the same, Risley climbed the back wall and pulled the ball back into the park for Michigan’s first of three quick outs to end the matchup.
“That’s the stuff that doesn’t show up in the box score,” Smith said. “In other words, even in the first we dropped the pop up or fly ball, that’s an extra X amount of pitches for (freshman righthander) Tate Carey. A lot goes into that, but then Tate Carey runs out of gas in the fifth.”
Turner’s strain was fully evident in the top of the seventh inning, when a ball hit into the left-field corner took him much longer than usual to recover. After his first inning injury, Turner’s sprint was reduced to a quick jog — a deficiency in the outfield the Hawkeyes readily exploited. Turner exited the game shortly after, and Risley, who doubled on the initial play, was brought home just two batters later.
“In baseball there’s going to be errors that are happening,” Smith said. “But we’ve just got to clean that up a little bit. … We’ve got to eliminate those mistakes, if the ball’s hit in the air we’ve got to catch it.” With Sunday’s loss, Iowa became the first team to sweep Michigan this season. While inconsistent batting and defensive mishaps foiled the Wolverines throughout the weekend, by Game 3 it was clear that the Hawkeyes’ production, defensively and offensively, was leaps and bounds ahead of Michigan’s. As the Wolverines’ outfielders failed to compete at the plate and fell prey to defensive mishaps, Iowa’s backline did more than enough to secure the win.
While the final inning proved the most volatile for the Wolverines in the outfield, the mishaps had built up since the first inning. In the Hawkeyes’ second at-bat of the competition, Iowa shortstop Gable Mitchell lofted the ball into left-center field. Instead of the ball falling for a routine putout though, junior center fielder Greg Pace Jr. and sophomore left fielder Colby Turner got mixed up, with Turner executing a last minute dive in order to get the putout. The play wasn’t without its damages, though, as Turner came up shaken with a lower leg injury.
VILY SOURIS Daily Sports Writer
MIRIELLE WONG Daily Sports Writer
Josh Sinha/DAILY
VIHAAN EASWAR Daily Sports Writer
SportsMonday: Learning ball and finding community
One of my favorite fun facts to reveal about myself is that I come from a house divided: My mom went to Michigan and my dad went to Ohio State. It tends to make people’s minds spin as they think about the sports rivalry that must have engulfed my childhood home.
As I looked to reinvent myself when I started college, I let that fact speak for itself. I declined to elucidate that neither of my parents, and by extension my childhood self, watched sports at all — Wolverines, Buckeyes or anything else.
So you can imagine my parent’s surprise when I announced that one of the key factors in my college decision process was the sports atmosphere of the school. I had this grand idea in my mind of game days and copious school spirit. I wanted to feel that sense of community. I was mostly just imagining it at that point, but I got a brief taste before when I played on some sports teams or caught snippets of games on TV.
The one and only impressive sporting event I attended before college was a Washington Nationals game when I was about 10 years old. My dad brought me along with some of his colleagues, and I remember three things from that night.
First, I ate a hot dog. Second, I developed a crush on Bryce Harper. Third, when my dad informed me we were leaving after the seventh-inning stretch to beat traffic, I was silently devastated. I knew nothing about baseball, I knew nothing about the Nationals, yet I was enthralled by the game and the companionship I felt with the fans around me. I never wanted to leave.
At the time, that wasn’t some dramatic moment that turned me into a sports fan on the spot. But I remember it fondly, and I always wanted to recreate that feeling.
I thought I’d experience it through Michigan sports, and I did, in far more ways than I expected. ***
The summer after my freshman year at Michigan, I surprised my parents once again when I announced my plan to join The Michigan Daily’s Sports section. My mom gently suggested: “What about applying for the copy section instead?”
To her credit, that was a much more obvious path for me, as during my time working on my high school newspaper I hadn’t outwardly expressed interest in sports. But again, I had an idea in
my head of what I wanted. It wasn’t easy going as I dipped my toes into sportswriting for the first time. When I shadowed Lys and Remi at a women’s soccer game for my first assignment, I spent the entire time slyly looking over Lys’ shoulder to copy her notes. I knew how to write a newspaper article from my high school days, but I didn’t know enough about soccer to trust my own analysis of the game.
A few months and a few stories later, my career at The Daily was in full swing as I made it on to the softball beat. I had played softball in middle school, so at least I knew the rules. But that limited background didn’t help me much when my beatmate, Jon, started rattling off advanced stats and calling out pitches — we hadn’t tracked anything beyond wins and losses on my middle school team. At that first game we covered for The Daily, I’ll admit now that I surreptitiously googled what OPS meant from the press box, and I blindly agreed with Jon whenever he announced that the previous pitch was a changeup or fastball or whatever it was.
Over the last four years, I’ve been repeatedly confronted with missing chunks of my Michigan and professional sports education that are core childhood memories for many of my peers. I’ve often pieced together knowledge from snippets of information I heard casually tossed in conversation and then googled, covertly of course, to fill in the gaps. It’s been exhilarating and frightening to learn and to realize how much I had to keep learning.
Almost two years after that first soccer game I attended for The Daily with Lys, I peeked at her notes once again, this time while covering the Michigan football Spring Game. I was three years into my sports fan era and two years, three beats and 100 stories into my sportswriting era. Yet I still grappled with insecurities about my lack of a sports background — the insecurities that caused me to hide it all these years. It was subconscious at first. But at some point, this little tidbit that I didn’t grow up watching or knowing anything about sports became a secret that I fought to keep. As a short, brown girl, I know I don’t look the part of a sports fanatic. People already tend to underestimate women who like sports and belittle their opinions on the subject, so I didn’t want to give credence to the doubt, even though in my case it was absolutely valid at the beginning.
***
There’s an inherent joyous camaraderie in cheering for a sports team. I felt it a little at that Nationals game with my dad. I pictured it when daydreaming about my ideal college experience. I experienced it full force as a freshman joining in the raucous chorus of “The Victors” at my first Michigan football game. But actually learning ball so that I could fully immerse myself in sports amplified the power more than I could have hoped.
When I took my dad to a Baltimore Orioles game last summer, we cheered with the crowd when Adley Rutschman walked in the eighth inning. Then I explained how that was a good sign for Rutschman amid his slump, which elicited a proud grin from my dad.
When I watched the Australian Grand Prix at 3 a.m. a few weeks ago, I texted my little brother, knowing hundreds of miles away he was awake watching, too. He passionately gave me his insights on each car’s tire strategy while I asked him about the impact of the safety car — I’m still learning the ropes of Formula 1. Immersing myself in sports allowed me to get the most out of The Daily, too. I wasn’t expecting to find a second home or lasting friendships when I first joined, yet here I am with memories to last a lifetime.
I’ll remember eating Dominos after the first game I covered with my beloved hockey beat.
I’ll remember confiding in Alina the contents of this column months ago and bonding over our shared background, or lack thereof, in sports. I’ll remember gushing over a life-changing theater performance of “Catch Me if You Can” with Kenzie. I’ll remember singing and dancing with Anna in the newsroom, trying to convince people to join Smile Bringer Singers. I’ll remember eating ice cream with Jon at 1 a.m. as we waited for Paul to edit our stories.
I’ll remember watching The Bachelor on the big newsroom TV and comparing notes with everyone at the desk about which women we liked. I’ll remember a late night conversation with Charlie before he got our car stuck on an unfortunately placed wooden pallet at a gas station on our drive back from Illinois. I’ll remember having “meeting playdates” with Noah every Sunday since we retired.
The very community I wanted to find through sports at Michigan I found, not just from attending games as a fan like I envisioned. I found it at The Daily.
When I look around the sports desk at 420 Maynard these days, I notice the mementos of my four years as a part of The Michigan Daily’s Sports section. The stuffed animals purchased on hockey beat road trips sit at the corner of the desk. A fake SportsMonday poster I made during the month I got really into Photoshop hangs from the bulletin board. The odd loose balls and discarded signs round out the space. If the heaping pile of miscellaneous stuff is any indication, each of those things will hang around at the sports desk long after I’m gone. Probably long after anyone remembers my name, even. But as I prepare to move on from a place I’ve called home for four years to whatever might be next, it’s hard to not be one of those little items in the corner — it’s hard to not stay at the sports desk forever.
At this point, though, I won’t be adding any more clutter to the desk. So instead, I think about the times that brought those items home.
***
I look at a sign on the conference room door, and I think back to my first road trip. We packed six people into my family’s car and shipped out to Northwestern, just because we were lucky enough to have a place to stay for the weekend. I remember the day we spent in Chicago and the nights hanging out in the basement together. I barely remember that we drove all that way and only got three quotes from the legendary Carol Hutchins.
I look at those stuffed animals, and I remember how luxurious a Best Western felt on the road. I remember going with my friends and getting to see my dad’s alma mater for the first time since I was a kid. A vivid picture of the semi-truck on the way back from Allentown, Pa. enters my mind, but I couldn’t tell you who scored the game-winning goal to send Michigan hockey to the Frozen Four earlier that evening.
A mannequin triggers memories of playing defensive line in a touch football game, for some reason. A gnome reminds me of trips to Tampa, Fla., where I’ve been lucky enough to go three times during college. So much of who I am sits on that desk. It’s just waiting for someone else to pick it up and start fidgeting with it like I used to.
*** When I think about what I want to leave behind at The Daily,
I think a bit too hard about legacy. I get in my head, wondering, ‘Was I good enough? Did I help people get enough out of this place, help them fall in love with it the same way that I once did?’
I still care about those things, and still care about a dumb legacy to an extent, though there’s not much I can do to change it now. For the first time in years, I’ve spent my recent weeknights outside the halls of 420 Maynard, after all.
But the cycle continues, and the section moves on. New faces come and sit at the desk, new clutter pops up, and new jokes form. Suddenly, I don’t feel so large in the grand scheme of it all, and I remember that I needed The Daily much more than it ever needed me.
And so, I look back once again. I look back at those first moments when I joined, and I remember what it felt like to truly be welcome somewhere. I remember the warmth of the people I met here, who kept me coming back long after they left. I remember the games of euchre, “basket ball” and chair monkey, and the late nights spent in the newsroom not because I had any work to do, but just because there was no place I’d rather be.
Our games of choice have changed now, and I’ll remember those, too. I’ll remember the younger people who I get to see at the desk now, who have the privilege of still getting to spend as much time as they want in the newsroom. I’ll remember that while there isn’t a single soul of overlap between my first Sunday
meeting and my last, the warmth, the camaraderie — it all feels exactly the same.
If nothing else, I know that’s what’s left behind.
***
The clearest memento from my time at The Daily sits taped to the ceiling above the sports desk: me and Rekha’s Managing Sports Editor campaign poster. It’s filled with quotes from our closest friends, shows us at the softball stadium where we both covered our first beat and even has me catching — the position I played in baseball growing up. It’s probably the only thing in the newsroom that could actually give any insight into what I did for four years here. Of all the things that I’ve left behind at the desk, it’ll also probably be the first to go. Soon enough it’ll fall, and the people who know us well enough to put it back up won’t be around. Maybe, if I’m lucky, it’ll find its way into a drawer rather than into the recycling.
Once that’s gone, all that’s left of me at the desk will be things like the stuffed animals. The memories attached to them will fade. To whoever occupies the sports desk at the time, it’ll just be a stuffed animal and nothing more. And when some future Daily Sports Writer picks that stuffed animal up, I don’t hope that some grand story is retold or some lasting legacy somehow permeates their mind. I just hope that they toss it back and forth with whoever’s next to them and stay there a little longer than they need to. Just like I always did.
Courtesy of Rekha Leonard.
REKHA LEONARD Daily Sports Writer
NOAH KINGSLEY Daily Sports Writer
Courtesy of Noah Kingsley.
RING
Michigan takes home first national championship in 11 years
With the No. 2 Michigan men’s gymnastics team ahead of secondplace No. 3 Stanford by .330 points, graduate Paul Juda raised his arms and lined up the final vault of the NCAA Championships and his career at the Crisler Center.
“I’m an emotional guy,” Juda said. “To be standing up there for vault before you go and hear the loudest ‘Let’s Go Blue’ just taking over the entire crowd is impossible. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
With an elusive national championship on the line, the Wolverines’ fate rested on Juda’s shoulders. And there was nobody more fitting to bear the responsibility. In his time at Michigan, Juda won the 2022 NCAA All-Around title, the 2023 Nissen-Emery Award, three NCAA individual event titles and took home 15 NCAA All-American honors.
After two minutes that felt like an eternity, the crowd at the Crisler Center erupted as the Wolverines (12-3) knocked off the five-time defending NCAA Champion
Cardinal (10-3) and No. 1 Oklahoma (24-4) with a score of 332.224, ahead of Stanford’s 332.061 and the Sooners’ 327.891 to claim their first national title since 2014, the last time the meet was in Ann Arbor.
Michigan had started strong and led for much of the day. As the highest-scoring team in qualifying on Friday, the Wolverines opted to begin on parallel bars, a divergence from every team’s typical regularseason start on floor exercise.
“I told (Michigan coach Yuan Xiao) yesterday, ‘(Parallel) bars are the best event to start on,’ ” Juda said. “You start with a bang, and you end with a big swing forward.”
And start with a bang they did.
On the first rotation, the Wolverines posted three of the night’s top-six parallel bars scores. Juda led with a 14.200 — the highest score on the apparatus — ahead of senior Evgeny Siminiuc and junior Fred Richard, who posted a 14.066 and 13.966, respectively.
Michigan continued its hot start on high bar, where it recorded the top team score on the event and took the lead of
the meet by three tenths of a point, with all four gymnasts — Richard, Juda, Siminiuc and freshman Carson Eshleman — placing among the top seven competitors.
The Wolverines kept building on floor exercise in the third rotation, pushing their lead to more than two points. The trio of Richard, Juda and sophomore Charlie Larson all posted scores of at least 14.100, while freshman Solen Chiodi avoided stepping over the out-of-bounds line to protect both his 13.766. Michigan’s 56.165 was the highest team floor score of the evening, and their better than two-point lead seemed comfortable.
On pommel horse, though, the
one-point deduction in the process. While they were still ahead after the rotation, the Wolverines’ lead was slipping as they led by just 0.632 points. On the next event, Michigan lost the lead for the first time since the first rotation. While the Wolverines’ still rings lineup was solid, the Cardinal were on vault, the highest scoring apparatus in men’s college gymnastics. Though each team posted four of the top 14 scores of the evening on their respective events, Stanford’s total on vault was nearly two points higher than Michigan’s on rings and put the Cardinal ahead by over half a point.
In the final
down the runway, hit the trampoline, then the table and flew. He twisted twice as he hurtled through the air before hitting the mat. As he fought to stick his landing, his momentum pulled him to the right, and he had to give himself up to a sideward hop, his right foot crossing the line.
At 8:53 p.m., the final parallel bars score was announced for the Cardinal. Colt Walker, a twotime NCAA All-American on the event, posted a 14.133, the secondhighest parallel bars score of the night. Walker’s teammates, Jeremy Bischoff and Asher Hong — the 2024 parallel bars national champion — had each just posted scores of at least 14.000, giving Stanford the lead by 13.803 with only Juda’s score yet to be announced.
At 8:54 p.m., Juda stood armin-arm with his teammates, staring up at the Crisler video board, waiting for his score to appear.
“I didn’t know if it was going to be enough,” Juda said. “I was really worried.
I didn’t even know how close it was, because we weren’t keeping track. I went out of bounds, and I was like, ‘If that’s going
to be it, that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.’ ” Seventy-three seconds after Juda hit the mat to complete his vault, it came: 13.966.
up as
out
With tears in his eyes he embraced Siminuc and graduate Javier Alfonso, both of whom he had shared four years of championship heartbreak with at Michigan. After the Wolverines had celebrated on the floor and with the crowd in the stands, the gravity of the moment started to set in when they received the National Championship trophy.
“It’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Juda said. “They handed us the trophy and I could see every single guy just breaking down and knowing that this whole year was worth it. Every single guy is going to get that ring and know that they earned it.”
While Juda’s score was the finishing touch, all of Michigan’s brushstrokes in its championship performance on Saturday were crucial. His 13.966 on vault and the Wolverines’ 332.224 as a team were just enough for them to finally edge out the Cardinal and clinch the win.
For the first time in 11 years, Michigan is the national champion.
JONAH BOTKIN Daily Sports Writer
Georgia McKay, Josh Sinha/DAILY
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