In the News
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November 17, 2025
“The term ‘colored insane’ reflects the language of the time. Insanity was a term that referred to what we now think of as mental illness, and it wasn’t derogatory in that time. And so it reflects the way that language changes over time, and even what we might now see as progressive could be very well derogatory in the future,” said Diana Martha Louis, professor of women’s and gender studies and author of a new book about the experiences of Black women in postbellum 19th-century American asylums.
Michigan Public (at 32:43 mark) -
November 14, 2025
Elective MRI scans can do more harm than good, says Matthew Davenport, clinical professor of radiology. “The risk is that the false positives dominate, and you end up with negative health value. You end up generating a lot of unnecessary testing,” he said, describing a scenario where a small anomaly on one of these scans leads to a “cascade of care,” where people pursue issues with biopsies or other invasive procedures that can lead to complications and negative results.
ABC News -
November 14, 2025
“The number of these counterterrorism investigations that the FBI leads … we’re talking thousands on a daily basis, and that’s just here in the United States,” said Javed Ali, associate professor of practice of public policy, about the fight against terrorism. “One of the challenges in the intelligence community and law enforcement perspective is how do folks actually know that this threat-related activity is actually happening?”
WXYZ/Detroit -
November 14, 2025
“Some athletes, professional or collegiate, can justify they’re not, quote-unquote, ‘throwing’ a game. They’re only doing something small. They’re not impacting the game,” said Michal Lorenc, clinical assistant professor of sport management, about prop bets — wagers on specific events or individual player performances within a game that do not directly depend on the final outcome.
National Public Radio -
November 13, 2025
“Everyone in Michigan loses when we impede international students’ ability to study and work here,” wrote UM-Dearborn interim Chancellor Gabriella Scarlatta and interim Provost Ghassan Kridli. “International students pay full tuition, which helps us provide generous scholarships and otherwise keep costs low for our domestic students. … Our concern extends far beyond tuition dollars, however. International graduates are able to stay and work in the United States for a period of time … they are helping Michigan’s automotive, mobility and other tech-based industries hire the highly trained engineers, software developers and data scientists they desperately need.”
Crain's Detroit Business -
November 13, 2025
Car companies often grumble about the expense and effort of stricter environmental regulations, but regulatory uncertainty is a much bigger nuisance. “Changes in regulations are really disruptive to the industry and are hurting our global economic competitiveness. It’s not only hurting in terms of setting us back with regard to decarbonization of the transportation sector, but the cost to consumers in the United States,” said Greg Keoleian, professor and co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems.
Grist -
November 13, 2025
New research by Helen Levy, research professor at the Institute for Social Research and of public health and public policy, found strong evidence that “now unequivocally supports the conclusion that health insurance improves health,” especially among adults older than 45. “This is a big deal. We know health insurance saves lives. Full stop,” she said.
The Washington Post -
November 12, 2025
Michigan, which has the highest student absenteeism rate in the Midwest, could collect school attendance figures more frequently but the data is only as good as the response to the data, says Jeremy Singer, assistant professor of education at UM-Flint. “Instead of waiting until kids are missing school, take the list of kids who missed a lot of school the previous year and start proactively reaching out to those children and their families,” he said.
Bridge Michigan -
November 12, 2025
“There are three or four theories on why the Fitzgerald sank, and they’re all plausible theories. It’s really hard now, 50 years after the fact, to disentangle what really happened. That’s the reason people love the Fitzgerald — it’s a mystery,” said Matthew Collette, professor of naval architecture and marine engineering, on the 1975 sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior, the largest ship to sink in the Great Lakes.
Crain's Detroit Business -
November 12, 2025
“There is a lot of anger and frustration that Trump came in with a narrow electoral victory. We have a closely divided Congress and he went and moved quickly in a radical fashion to change the way our democracy works rather than focus on the core issues. Americans are getting more and more unhappy because the things that made them unhappy are still there and getting worse,” said Jonathan Hanson, lecturer in public policy.
ABC News
