It's Thursday, April 11th, and this is the 19 09, the state news weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters. This week, a new report gives us the most current detailed look at the demographics of MSU. Students of color are increasing, but the university is still less diverse than it was 20 years ago. Then we'll get a bit personal.
Alex:A state news reporter shares his experiences with OCD. He says people don't understand it, which is creating an unconscious bias. Here to talk about both those things is the wonderful campus reporter, Jack Williams. Thank you, Alex. Welcome back to the show.
Alex:Thank you. Yeah. It's been a minute since you've been on. You're on the fall once.
Jack:Last, last semester for of the Native American, events and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't been on since.
Alex:I'm looking at you now. Well, anyway, so you heard a couple of stories this week. 1, just a hard news story about this new report about MSU. And 1, you talk about talk about yourself. Talk about Jackie a
Jack:little bit. Yeah.
Alex:Which, you know, is interesting. But anyway, before we get there, we gotta talk about this DEI report, and you did a great job. This thing came out. It's this big expansive report from MSU. You read it.
Alex:You broke it down. You found some of the interesting data that people can be most into. Before we get into kind of your findings, the nuggets that you picked out, tell us what is this DEI report? Who makes it? What does it say?
Alex:How is it made? That kind of thing.
Jack:Yeah. So the DEI report, it's sort of like a, sort of like an index of sort of diversity at MSU and, you know, diversity that ranges from, you know, gender diversity, racial diversity, etcetera. You know? So it's all these sort of things, and they just every year, they'll come out with this little booklet essentially, and it's just kinda like, maybe how populations have been changing. And that's sort of near the end about, like, those demographics and how they've been changing over the past year or so or maybe 10 years.
Jack:And then a a big portion of it is a big portion of it is also just sort of like events and other kind of things that they've been, sort of doing throughout the year.
Alex:I see. And something that's prepared by the university about the university.
Jack:Pretty much. Yeah.
Alex:Yeah. So give us you know, before we get into some of the specific findings, overall, this has and this is once a year that we really get this data, an overall kind of breakdown of the racial demographics at MSU. Give us that. What is the breakdown this year?
Jack:So this year, it's interesting. So they, when you get to the end and they have sort of all these, like, percentages and numbers of, like, different racial groups to be, you know, specific, they have, sort of a 1 year count, like, how the populations have changed over the last year since their last, you know, DEI report. Mhmm. And for this year, you see that most most of the populations have increased. You know, African American slash black populations increased by 7%.
Jack:And I don't think in that 1 year margin there was any real populations that went down. And this is in terms of student enrollment, undergraduate student enrollment.
Alex:I see. It's just undergrads.
Jack:Yeah. That's what we're talking about now. But, they also so what they also include is sort of this 10 year, 10 year gap from, like, 2013 to 2023 because that's sort of what we're looking at here. And what we saw is sort of like a similar trend. You know?
Jack:A lot of the groups were sort of going up. Yeah. And that's sort of barring a few sort of outliers. But, so I sort of looked at that. And I was like, okay.
Jack:What if we look at sort of this 20 year gap? You know? I so 20
Alex:years ago. Going back to 2003.
Jack:Yeah. Because, you know, 10 years, that can tell you something. But, you know, I think these bigger, sort of data ranges are also important. And so what I found was over the last 20 years, there were actually a lot of, groups that had so they'd it gets a little confusing, but they had gone up in the last 10 years. But if you compare it to that population, 20 years ago, they had actually gone down, like, overall, and namely, like, you know, African American slash black students was one of those groups where in 2003, we had we had a certain number.
Jack:I can get that number, but, you know, that went down between 2003 and 2013. And now between 2013 and 2023, it's gone up again, but it still failed to sort of top that 2,003 number.
Alex:I see. So you're saying MSU in this DEI report, they say, you know, these racial groups, particularly black students, are increasing. Look at the last 10 years, how much it's increased, but you went back and looked at 20 years ago and even the increases amongst the last 10 years have not they're not as represented as they were 20 years ago with the 2003 data.
Jack:Mhmm.
Alex:Yeah. Interesting.
Jack:And another interesting I think this is very worth mentioning, And I I talked to Henry Mokita, who is the sort of comms director with the office for institutional equity and equity, I believe. And he sort of talked about how in 2006, the state of Michigan banned affirmative action. And that was actually a big reason why, you sort of saw that drop off, which, you know, I I think that's a very important piece of information to sort of mention because I I find there to be a lot of debate around whether or not, sort of banning that actually, you know, affects populations of, people of color. And I think this is sort of evidence that it does. You know?
Alex:Yeah. At least at MSU.
Jack:Oh, yeah. At MSU. That's an
Alex:interesting find, Jack.
Jack:And then furthermore, on the topic of, sort of African American black undergraduate population Yeah. They also make this claim that they are the number one university in terms of that population, like, in the state of Michigan. You know, like, we have they have the most black students in the state of Michigan, and they provide data for that. And while that is true, they do have the most out of, like, all the Michigan, public universities. It's not quite the highest in terms of percentage because, you know, when when you look at that kind of thing, I think it is right to sort of scale it to population.
Jack:You know, MSU is not as big as Wayne State, for example. MSU is not as big as Eastern Michigan. Bigger. Yeah. You know, so we have a bigger, you know
Alex:I see. So MSU's data where they're saying we serve the most black students of any university in Michigan is just a number. It's not a percentage of the student body. Yeah. So they're comparing how many black students go to MSU with, you know, tens of thousands of students to, you know, a tiny school, you know, Eastern Michigan or whatever with, you know, far, far less.
Jack:Yeah. So, if you if you do scale it and you just look at percentages, you know, MSU actually ranks number 8th in that particular category, with Wayne State actually ranking number 2 and Eastern Michigan ranking number 1. And I find the Wayne State example very interesting because we have a I'm making sure I get the numbers right. I think we have so it said we have our total population in the undergraduate student population of black and African American students is 2,590. That's that's our number.
Jack:Mhmm. And the Wayne State number is 2,528. So really not that big of a difference. However, if you look at the percentage, the Wayne State percentage is, much higher. I don't have the exact number here, but if
Alex:Yeah.
Jack:Michigan State's is 6.6% of the total undergraduate population. Wayne State's, I think, is around, like, 13 or 15, you know.
Alex:I see. But the conclusions they draw on this report are based on just the overall number.
Jack:Yeah.
Alex:Oh, and then what about another little tidbit? And your story goes through a bunch more data than we'll talk about today. But another little tidbit that I thought was really interesting was this little breakdown that you do of the the gender breakdown amongst faculty and staff. Talk about that.
Jack:Yeah. So if we look at MSU faculty and staff, we see that 55% it's 55% female and 44% male.
Alex:That's overall all faculty and staff.
Jack:Yes. However, you know, if you look at, the faculty members in the tenure system, you know The kind
Alex:of more prestigious tenure track faculty appointments.
Jack:Yeah. You find that, it's actually 39% female and 60% male. So that was that was another finding that I found.
Alex:Yeah. Well, that's interesting. Well, Jack, you've done great reporting on this in a couple of places, kind of seeing where MSU might be twisting the data in a way that's a little funny, you know. And you you're getting to the truth of it. We love to see it.
Alex:Also truthful, but in a different way. You wrote about yourself this week and we're gonna talk about that. You wrote a wonderful column about OCD. Before we get into that, it opens up with this kind of great example where you're like guiding the reader. Can you do what you do for the reader of your column, for the wonderful listeners of the 19 09, and guide us through this little thought experiment that you open with?
Alex:Of course,
Jack:I can. Thanks, Jeff. Here's the thought experiment I do. And there's you can do this a number of different ways, but, and I'll do it sort of differently from how I did it in the column because I think this way works a little better. But I'm gonna here's what I'm gonna have you
Alex:for Okay.
Jack:Listeners, watchers, Alex, etcetera. Think about think of a panda. You know? Just a regular black and white sort of we all know what a panda looks like. Just envision 1 in your mind.
Jack:Okay. Now I'm gonna tell you, Alex, I'm gonna tell you to in a second, I'm gonna tell you to stop thinking about a panda. Okay? And when you think about a panda, I want you to raise your hand. Okay?
Jack:You ready? Don't think about a panda. Okay. He he raised his hand. Because he said panda.
Jack:Yeah. Exactly. So that's sort of the example we look at. And, honestly, that that really, the example shouldn't tell you anything surprising. That's just telling you, hey.
Jack:If I tell you something, you're gonna think of it no matter what. You know, just mention Even if you tell me not to think about it. Exactly. Mentioning something, you're gonna think about it. And that's not too crazy.
Jack:You know? I I don't or at least I don't think it is. But I I think, you know, what I do in the column really is I I I I take a leap. You know? I say, well, what if we what if we switch that to something like murder?
Jack:You know? The thought of murder. You know, it's a big leap. You know? And So instead of don't think about
Alex:a panda, don't think about murdering someone.
Jack:Yeah. You're gonna think you might think about murdering someone. The images of that might come to your head. You know? Which, you know, they're unpleasant thoughts.
Jack:You know? But I think sort of with the panda, what we see is just because I got you to think of a panda doesn't mean you're like some panda enthusiast. You know?
Alex:I'm not even obsessed with that.
Jack:You're not obsessed with that. And I shouldn't I shouldn't make that assumption. You know? It's it's unreasonable to make that assumption.
Alex:And to be clear just now, you did say don't think about murdering someone. I did think about murdering someone. Exactly. It doesn't mean I wanna murder someone. Yeah.
Jack:And that's sort of that's that sort of leap we make. You know? It's just because you're thinking about something doesn't mean it doesn't indicate a desire to do that. But, you know, what we also wanna think about is, you know, I'm I'm telling you to think about it now. What if, say, you're just driving on the road and you thought about, like, hey.
Jack:What if I hit that person? You know? Or what if, what if I ran over someone on my way here?
Alex:Your own brain is Yeah. Your own
Jack:brain is coming without anyone telling you. Does that indicate something about your character now? Because your own brain came up with it. And most people would say no. You know?
Jack:And because we have we have a word for this. Know? It's it's intrusive thoughts. That's what we call them. Yeah.
Jack:We call them intrusive thoughts. And, you know, if I think if you've been on the Internet in the past or if you've been on social media in the past TikTok
Alex:and whatnot.
Jack:Yeah. For the past, like, year, year and a half, you should be familiar with that term. But I I what I've often often found is that what people sort of say intrusive thoughts are don't really line up with sort of what I just told you. You know, it's not it's generally not, like, thinking about murdering someone or whatever else. You know?
Jack:It it it might be just like like what I'll see on TikTok is, like, my intrusive thoughts won, and I got a tattoo. You know? Or I, like, I slap my friend on the head, you know, because I I felt like that. You know, I don't those aren't generally the intrusive thoughts that we think of. However, that's sort of become what I found is that's become like, sort of the dominant definition of intrusive thoughts.
Jack:Yeah. That makes sense.
Alex:So what is this is a very fun experiment. What does this have to do with OCD?
Jack:Yeah. So the connection to OCD is and this is another thing, that I often find to be misrepresented, is I guess, let me ask you this. What is your what do you think OCD is?
Alex:I think that, like I don't know. I mean, I listen.
Jack:I mean, I guess you did. A little bit.
Alex:I've read your column.
Jack:You've read my column. Yeah.
Alex:Before I read your column, I don't know. Like, what people talk about. Like, they like the clean stuff and, like Mhmm. Light switches all gotta be a certain way or, like, kind of that, like, stereotypical OCD stuff.
Jack:Exactly. And that that's, like, sort of the dominant thing we see in the media. You know, it's wanting things to be perfect or whatever else. You know, wanting to be clean all the time. And while those are, you know, symptoms of OCD, it doesn't represent all of them.
Jack:And a lot of it, sorta relates to these intrusive thoughts. And, you know, so if we break down the word OCD, you know, obsessive compulsive disorder, there's really there's 2 parts of it. The obsessions and the compulsions. It's in the name.
Alex:Mhmm.
Jack:The obsessions is really what these intrusive thoughts are. You know? It's what we think about, what what what what I just talked about. You know, you have these intrusive thoughts about something and you sort of obsess over it. You know?
Jack:Because for the I
Alex:see the thoughts about the pandas or the murder. It's like
Jack:the Yeah. And it can be thoughts
Alex:that you can't get out of your head.
Jack:There's a there's a myriad of things, you know. And, you know, like, what if I left the door unlocked? You know, what if I'm, you know, what if I'm a murderer? What if I you know, in what if
Alex:They can be about yourself.
Jack:Yeah. What
Alex:if I'm a murderer? What if I'm, like
Jack:What if I'm what if I'm not clean enough right now? And I might, I might infect someone with some kind of disease. You know? And those are, like, real, things. And those are the thoughts we and those are the obsessions.
Jack:And what these people with OCD have is they they can't really bear the the possibility that those things might be true. And if we really wanna get into sort of, like, how it works in the brain and all those, like, scientific processes, I I so I spoke to her name's Laura Lockers? Lokers? I don't know. She's the, she founded the anxiety and OCD clinic of Ann Arbor, which is a place I actually I I sought therapy through when I was dealing with my own not with her specifically, but, you know, through the institution.
Jack:Yeah. And she sort of talked me through, like, how how this works, like, in the brain. And I think she she broke it down in a really nice way because so, like, when we look at the brain. Right? Say, say you're leaving your house.
Alex:You know? Yeah.
Jack:And you lock your door, and you and you leave. You know? And then maybe you're driving later and you're like, did I lock my door? And you don't really remember. There's a part in your brain where, it sorta it sorta seeks, like, a certain threshold of certainty.
Alex:Just kind of mostly sure that you locked the door, you're good to go. You're not gonna think about it anymore.
Jack:Yeah. You're good. And that that's how most people's brain works. Yeah. The person with OCD, on the other hand, that threshold is more at, like, a 100, which, you know, a 100% certainty is is not real.
Jack:You know? Another example she used, which I didn't include in the story, but I think is interesting. If if you go to, like, a DNA tester, you know, and you say, like, I I wanna know if this child is mine. And even if you, like, know it is or whatever, they're not gonna give you a 100% ever. Yeah.
Jack:It's gonna be 99.9, like, whatever. They're never gonna give you a 100%. And that's exactly how we should think about our brains. You know, we're never gonna be able we you can never be a 100% certain that, you did anything, you know, or you didn't do anything.
Alex:Yeah. But OCD makes you desire that complete certainty. You to be able to put it on your mind.
Jack:Yeah. And I think a lot of people sorta, it's it's it's understood, but it's sorta also poorly understood. So we don't fully know, but a lot of the theory is that, there's chemical imbalances that kind of force you to, sorta want a 100% certainty. So that's the obsession Yeah. Part.
Jack:And it's sort of ruminating on this, like, I need to be sure. It's about certain. You know? I need to be sure that, I did whatever or I'm not the the kind of person my brain is sort of forcing me to. The compulsions on the other hand, that, that's sort of what you do to relieve yourself of that anxiety, of that stress.
Jack:You know? So, for example, like, we'll go with, like, locking the door. You know? A compulsion might be going back to your house and checking to make sure the door is unlocked or the door is locked. You know?
Jack:If you have this sort of fear that you're gonna contaminate people, a compulsion might be washing your hands to make sure you're clean. Or in the case of the murderer, these ones see, this is where it gets a bit more abstract. Yeah. If you think maybe you're like, what if I murdered someone? What if I'm gonna murder someone?
Jack:I'm not I'm not safe near people. I've seen people who, like, they they can't really be near knives, you know, because they think they might grab it and, you know, hurt somebody with it. They, they'll they'll text their friends being like, hey. Do you think I'm a bad person? Or they'll they'll go on the Internet and search, like, what are
Alex:the traits of, like, a psychopath? So the compulsion is sort of the way that you attempt to get to that 100% certainty of the like, ways you kind of soothe that desire?
Jack:Yeah. It's it's soothing the anxiety that comes with the, those intrusive thoughts, those obsessions. And what happens is it it relieves it. You know? Yeah.
Jack:You know, if if you do if you think your door is unlocked And it soothes it, but it soothes it very temporarily. You know? So maybe later, you're gonna have the exact same thought and that's how this sort of cycle repeats. It's a very, like, debilitating cycle. And for a lot of people, it it it's very hard to get out of, very hard to live with.
Jack:You know? So sort of how they how people tend to circumvent that is, in the or in therapy at least. They, they sort of help people. And I I talked about this with lockers too, but I don't think I included it in the story. But it's sort of teaching people how to accept, like, the maybe.
Jack:You know? Like, maybe I am this. Maybe this happened. Yada yada yada.
Alex:I see. And then so this is all seems so different than kind of the, like, in media and fiction, the kind of cultural definition that we've created of OCD. And people talk about, oh, I'm so OCD about this or that. You know, you're a guy living with OCD. That misperception, that misunderstanding that so many people hold and exercise in their daily life, is that harmful?
Alex:Is that of consequences?
Jack:What do you mean? Like, is it Well, I mean,
Alex:just the fact that we're all walking around, at least until I read your column, I think until most people kinda hear about this, walking around completely misunderstanding this thing that affects someone.
Jack:Oh, yeah. No. A 100%. I think in we we talked about this too about how sort of when you create these misconceptions, it creates how these people or it affects how these people are treated, you know, obviously. And one thing that lockers had seen was, sort of people who you know, they have these thoughts.
Jack:You know? Maybe not maybe not, you know, these, like because, like, these thoughts, like, maybe I'm a murderer or maybe, like, I'm, like, this bad person or whatever. And I I know I'm really focusing on the murderer thing. I I do wanna make it clear that this is not, like, the definitive symptom of OCD. But Yeah.
Alex:It's a good kind of, like, extreme example.
Jack:Yeah. It's it's, a yeah. So, like, there there have been parents, you know, they'll they'll have this thought and it's Mhmm. It's like maybe, you know, maybe I'm gonna hurt my child, you know. And they they present these to to maybe the other mental health professionals
Alex:and
Jack:mental even mental health professionals who don't fully understand OCD are gonna be like, you can't live with your kid anymore. Like, these I don't understand. Like, they don't understand the thoughts, so they're like, I'm gonna contact the court. And she's seen people, like, who have their kids taken away from them because, like, the court and other mental health professionals deem that, like, you're not safe to sort of live in this house. You know?
Jack:And I what I also do in the column is I sort of I tried to apply it to other other mental disorders. Well, you know, I can't fully relate to you know, because I have OCD. I don't have, like, like, schizophrenia was the one I mentioned. But I I do think we also create all these sort of misconceptions around just mental health disorders in general, you know, or mental illness and mental disorders. Like, I I don't know if you're familiar, but I I often hear people use the term schizo to refer to people
Alex:Like, as an adjective?
Jack:Yeah. As an adjective for being, like paranoid. You know? Or, even calling someone a psychopath, I guess. Psychopathy is like a real you know?
Jack:Yeah. That's that's, in the DSM 5. You know? So I think using those as adjectives, it sort of creates these, like, misconception. Because I I I think I referred to schizo as, like, a negative adjective in the sense that, like, it's an insult.
Jack:You know? Like, stop being schizo. You know, you're being schizo right now. So it's like, what what is your brain gonna go to when you meet someone who's schizophrenic? You know?
Jack:Is are you gonna are you gonna view them as someone who's, like, are you gonna view them as, like, this other? Like, probably, you know, because that's sort of how you use that's sort of what you use that term in your language. You know?
Alex:Sort of what we're doing. We're always throwing around these disorders as if they're adjectives about being so OCD about this or psycho about that.
Jack:Yeah. It's like so, you know, when you meet someone who's, like, maybe opens up about their real intrusive thoughts, which, you know, are kinda ugly. You know? Those are ugly thoughts. It's like, I, like, woah.
Jack:You know? Like, if if if your idea of an intrusive thought is, like, buying a shirt that's expensive, you know, it's like giving into my intrusive thoughts and, like, buying like, doing whatever. Yeah. When you meet someone who's like, I have intrusive thoughts about murder, you know, it's like, what are you gonna think about that? You know?
Jack:Or because
Alex:So what can what can we do, you know, to the wonderful listeners who are still with us in the 19 09 who wanna be as affirming and supportive of friends who have OCD or other things? I mean, are there things people can do to be, you know, good? What I don't know if you'd call it allyship or just support.
Jack:Or I think just sort of being aware. Like, I don't think it's this thing that you can we we can, I don't I don't in this column, I don't call for people to, like, change society? You know? I'm not I'm not calling for this, like, completely because I I think to do that, we'd have to backpedal on, like, years of ableism that has existed in western culture. You know?
Jack:That would take that that would be and I I think that
Alex:Little much for a state news column.
Jack:You know? And and yeah. And ableism exists within, like, these bigger institutions. So that's just, like, I think out of the scope of this. What I think for just within your own social group, you know, I think you can just sort of be aware of, like, symptoms of, you know, mental illness and mental disorders so that when people exhibit them, you're not your your immediate thought isn't, like, negativity.
Jack:You know? I think as a society now, we we sort of have this, we have this thing where we, you know, we we tell people like, hey. Reach out to friends if you're feeling depressed or if, like, you have all this, like, any anything else going on in your mind. You know? Be aware.
Jack:You know? We were always saying, like, be aware. Be aware.
Alex:Yeah.
Jack:But I think when it actually comes down to, like, some of these, like, ugly symptoms, we we have no trouble just kind of, like, you know, pushing these people off to, like, you know, the fringes of society. You know? Because it's like we we can say be aware, but I I think actually being aware, like, of real actions that take place as a result of certain mental disorders and mental illness, that takes a whole another level of understanding. So I think really understanding is sort of my point in all this.
Alex:And if you want to understand it further than you have from this podcast, you got to reject his column. It's a great read. Just like his story with the DEI report, that's all we have for this week. We'll be back next week with fresh reporting, the great minds here at the state news. Until then, the stories we discussed and plenty more available at statenews.com.
Alex:Thank you to Jack, my guest, for coming on and sharing all this. Our podcast editor, Anthony Brinson, video producer, Brad LaPlante. Most of all, thank you for listening. For the 9/10/09, I'm Alex Walters.