Daily Digest

After a meeting on Tuesday morning, Big Ten presidents and chancellors voted to postpone fall sports. Men's and women's soccer and cross country, field hockey, volleyball and football will all be affected by the decision.

The unprecedented move comes in times dominated by confusion. The decision was made a day after the Big Ten refuted multiple reports that the college presidents of the conference voted to cancel fall athletics over the weekend. The delay gives both America and colleges time to contain the spread of the virus and adjust to the return of students, one of the biggest hurdles that still faces colleges trying to return safely and educate its students.

Michigan residents most vulnerable to COVID-19 will receive 4 million free masks, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced at a press conference Friday morning.

The masks will be distributed to low-income residents, senior citizens, schools and shelters, provided in association with Ford Motor Company and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The University of Michigan prides itself on being one of the nation’s top public research universities. Across all three campuses, 20,540 graduate students and 8,598 faculty members study and work at the University, many of whom are active in research. Despite the thousands of researchers, the University’s anonymous reporting system received only seven reports in 2019 related to “issues arising in the research setting.”

A Michigan Daily investigation found that flaws in the system deterred student researchers from reporting alleged abuse. The Daily spoke to three students who claimed the small size of their lab prevented them from using the University’s reporting system to report alleged misconduct. The Daily also found that little oversight of research supervisors strengthens the hierarchical system in research labs.

The University of Michigan recently announced students must adhere to a mandatory two-week quarantine before they arrive on campus in the fall. This policy received criticism from students who are currently working and those who are living in on-campus housing.

The Daily staff reporter Varsha Vedapudi talked to several students who expressed concerns with these policies, in particular relating to the impact on low-income students.