4A - Thursday, March 15, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4A - Thursday, March 15, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com ASHLEY GRIESSHAMMER JOSEPH LICHTERMAN and ANDREW WEINER JOSH HEALY EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com. A gift for the future Dow Chemical's grant promotes sustainability U niversity President Mary Sue Coleman and Andrew Liv- eris, CEO of Dow Chemical Company, announced a new sustainability fellowship on Monday that will be funded by Dow Chemical to support sustainable research at the University. Dow Chemical's gift of $10 million will be used over a period of six years to bring a wide variety of academic leaders to our campus with the hopes of creating solutions and promoting sustainability across the globe. Though Dow Chemical has contributed to pollution in the past, the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program will help to clean up our environ- ment. More companies should take part in these types of programs as our society continues to search for more green technology. Uphold affirmative action nFeb. 20,theSupreme Court announced that it would hear Fisherv. University of Texas, the most recent affirma- tive action case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court since the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case involving the SARAH University. With ROHAN conservative Supreme Court justices in the majority, it's likely that the court will overrule the Grutter decision, which affirmed the consti- tutionality of considering race as a factor in college admissions. Howev- er, to do so would be a grave mistake on the part of the court and would undoubtedlydeprive schools, likeour own, of the diverse environment that attracts many of us to the institution in the first place. The 2003 Supreme Court ruling involved two suits filed against the University concerning its affirma- tive action policies. In Grutter v. Bol- linger, the plaintiff alleged that she was excluded from the University's Law School because of a policy that considered race in admissions. The second case, Gratz v. Bollinger, was a class action lawsuit challenging the University's undergraduate point system, which assigned points in favor of an applicant's racial minor- ity status. Both cases contended that the University's policies denied equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. The court, in Gratz, ultimately found the Uni- versity's point admission system unconstitutional, but upheld the constitutionality of the consider- ation of race as an admissions factor in Grutter. As a Texas resident and former prospective student of the Univer- sity of Texas, I am personally famil- iar not only with the admissions policies of the school, but also with the highly charged opinions regard- ing those policies. Though I support affirmative action, I disagree with some of the admissions practices of UT's undergraduate school. As a race-neutral way of promot- ing a diverse studentbody, the Texas Legislature passed a "top 10 percent rule" in 1997. The legislation man- dated that every public university in Texas automatically accept high- school students who were in the top 10 percent of their graduating class, regardless of a school's overall academic performance or of a stu- dent's standardized test scores. (As of 2011, the legislation was modified to require the university to accept only the top 8 percent automatically, thereby freeing spots for students to be admitted under the school's dis- cretionary admissions.) UT reserves 90 percent of its spots for in-state students, 81 per- cent of which were comprised of students admitted as part of the top 10 percent rule in 2008. Though the law increased minority presence on campus, it did so only marginally. In 2005, after the Grutter decision, UT altered its admissions criteria for the non-top 10 percent portion of its class to include race as a fac- tor in admissions. In Fisher, the plaintiff did not challenge the top 10 percent rule - she contended that UT's consid- eration of race among the non-top 10 percent applicants is unconstitu- tional. Fisher attacked UT's discre- tionary admissions program but not the top 10 percent rule. In my view, however, it is the top 10 percent rule that needs to be revisited, while the discretionary admissions policy should be upheld. Not only does the top 10 per- cent rule discourage students from attending competitive high schools in favor of schools where they could more likely land in the top 10 per- cent, it also discourages students from taking a challenging course load which might lower their GPAs. The policy also fails to achieve its intended purpose of encouraging diversity on campus. The entering freshman class of EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: 2004, prior to the addition of the affirmative action component to admissions in 2005, had only 275 African-American students and 1,024 Hispanic students ina class of 6,796 students. In 2008, three years after UT renewed its Grutter-type admissions policy, the enrollment jumped to 335 African-American students and 1,228 Hispanic stu- dents in the entering freshman class. Race should be able to play a role in admissions. The practice of admitting stu- dents based solely on their high- school rankings largely ignores the student as an individual. UT's dis- cretionary admissions process is one that considers a student's entire aca- demic profile, personality, practices, background, and, yes, race. In Fisher, the Supreme Court will effectively be ruling on the constitu- tionality of Grutter-type consider- ation of race in college admissions. If it invalidates such considerations, racial diversity on this campus and campuses nationwide will be severe- ly impacted for the worse. In Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's majority opinion in Grutter, she wrote, "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial prefer- ences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." It's been only nine years since Grutter, and if the minority- population statistics at the UT at Austin are any indication, we have many years to go before achieving meaningful racial diversity in high- er education. 0 0 This fellowship will be focused on sustain- ability issues ranging from climate change to energy use, and will work toward proactive solutions to truly make an impact. At Mon- day's announcement, Liveris said fellows "will be inspired to work together as they would in the real world to develop concrete solutions, actionable solutions to how we can all live cleaner ... and greener." The Dow Sustainabil- ity Fellows Program will not just focus on one graduate program at the University but unite many programs to work together. Though this money is a small amount when compared to funded University research as a whole, Dow Chemical's gift of $10 million will still support important research. Sustain- able research in today's world is necessary and meaningful, as issues such as climate change, water resources, housing, transportation and energy use plague our society. The need for sustainable resources and a cleaner future can- not be ignored, and with the money from Dow Chemical, this greener future may become a reality due to research at the University. While Dow's gift provides great opportuni- ties and hopeful solutions, the company should continue to play an active role in the commu- nity and take part in this movement by doing more than just donating money. The company has a sordid past of abusing the environment, and it should pursue other ways of improving its practices. The Dow Sustainability Fellows Program will also unite a diverse, scholarly group of stu- dents from all disciplines. Graduate students in the areas of public policy, chemistry, econom- ics and law will all come together to solve the long term problems our society faces. By bring- ing together such a wide group of academic leaders, success and sustainable energy solu- tions are only imminent. Respected universities, such as Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard University, already have funded sustainability fellowships and are moving toward greener solutions. It's about time the University starts playing a big- ger role in this active movement toward a more sustainable future as well. We are a leading research institute with the talented students, staff and funding to truly make an impact in our society. The Dow Sustainability Fellows Program will not only unite a group of talented indi- viduals from various disciplines and fields of study, but will also make the University a forerunner in the research and promotion of sustainable energy. Through Dow Chemical's $10 million gift, our University will be able to make huge strides toward a greener, more efficient future. 0 0 - Sarah Rohan can be reached at shrohan@umich.edu. Aida Ali, Laura Argintar, Kaan Avdan, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Harsha Panduranga, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Sarah Skaluba, Seth Soderborg, Caroline Syms, Andrew Weiner Te other U4 election S VANESSA RYCHLINSKI I An invisible band-aid iat's an exciting time to be on campus. The sun is shining, the LSA Course Guide has been Noticing my own privilege is important to me. Unfortunately, due to those same privileg- es, it's not something I do often. My problems are first-world, and nightmares arise out of my own imagination. Pamela Reynolds, an ethnographer of chil- dren in war and professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, writes of the difficulties of conveying the truth of war, especially when children are involved. She questions the cred- ibility of today's documentation of war; how the history of war, "including children's role in it, is written;" and finally, how "[war's] effects on the young [is] measured and weighed." Invisible Children's Kony 2012 video has gone viral. In the beginning, it basically com- pares itself to other banal bits of broadband, such as videos of babies with kittens and medi- cal miracles. Jason "my middle name is Radi- cal" Russell, the narrator of the video and one of the founders of Invisible Children, eases into a meandering milieu of shallow topics in order to soften the segue into the atrocities of the developing world. In what seems like a home movie reel of his blonde son, Russell finally gets to the matter at hand, atrocities against children, by inserting some slick graphics and telling the viewer that "these kids are just like Gavin." And so the infantilizing, cheap paral- lels continue for 30 minutes, leaving me with questions. Do people really need to be babied into believing in the massive amounts of vio- lence currently taking place? Do they need comparisons with cute American kids in order to care, shots of happy crowds shouting for jus- tice in order to join the throng? Invisible Children has come under fire for everything from its use of funds to its choice of friends. With more than $13 million in donations, and about $9 million in expenses - including salaries and production equipment - the organization gave out only a fifth of this to direct services. The policy journal Foreign Affairs wrote that Invisible Children "manip- ulates facts for strategic purposes." A March 8 article in The Telegraph has quoted Ugan- dan journalists and bloggers calling the video "highly irresponsible" and counterproductive to effecting positive change in the region. An opposing movement called Visible Children publicized its counterpart's support of the Ugandan government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army, two entities with no small amount of blood on their own hands. The video had 75 million view in one week, and viewers are getting the message and hope- fully getting motivated. A March 13 article in the New York Times praises the video for sum- moning the heretofore "untapped power of the viewer." But if this is true, then the world's greatest tragedies must need to be handed to us stylishly, in streamlined snippets that cut apart anything resembling the true horror of the situation. Maybe it's the prerogative of a filmmaker to convey material in the way that will evoke the most emotion in the most people. But it must be mentioned that donors to Invisible Children receive a "Kony 2012 Action Kit" complete with t-shirt, bracelet, posters, stickers and the instructions to "decorate [themselves] and the town." The organization basically directs its audience to participate in a stylish marketing campaign. It seems to me that this initiative does not complete any action outside of easing the conscience of the privileged. Winston Kelly, a senior studying behavioral psychology at the University, called the Kony 2012 awareness campaign "fighting a fire with a super-soaker." "Empirical studies have shown awareness campaigns do not result in behavior change at any statistically meaningful level," Kelly says. "People consider the knowledge of the issue as the first step, but so few people take step two or step three." Don't let Kony 2012 fool you. Despite its not-for-profit status, Invisible Children is a business like any other. If you give a compa- ny a vote of confidence in the shape of a dollar sign, it will most certainly want to keep up the conversation. The world needs to get going on its own conversation. Violence against the defense- less is one of the deepest evils. That being said, taking advantage of kids on any level through any means is wrong. Watching Kony 2012 may force you to check your prem- ises, shock you with a nightmarish truth and cause you see the disturbingly expansive map of your own privilege. All of these things are unbelievably important. But donating money to Invisible Children for the sake of "aware- ness" doesn't seem to do much but provide consumer satisfaction. Vanessa Rychlinski is an LSA junior and a senior editorial page editor. uploaded and the Central Student Government elections are next week. Every year about this time, I am bombarded with quarter sheets in the Diag, flyers in stairwells and invites to Face- YONAH LIEBERMAN book events to vote for so-and-so party. In the past, it was a campaign between just two parties. But this year, there are six candi- dates vying for president and vice president. Six. This in and of itself is a reason to pay attention more than in past years. It's not just the increase in political parties. The historical moment we live in demands action, and we, the student body, must answer the call. As someone who knows nearly each of them personally, all of the candidates are qualified for the posi- tion, and I give them my respect. And yet, next week, students will be faced with a choice. We can choose to pick a slate that prioritizes fighting for social justice and progressive change or one that believes that student government should remain a static institution and pursue small goals that are promised to students nearly every election. There is only one truly progressive slate that has proven that they know how to and are committed to creat- ing change: Kevin Mersol-Barg and Amy Navvab with OurMichigan. As student leaders within CSG and LSA Student Government, as well as other organizations, they have a broad range of experiences and connec- tions with student activism. Trust me, student government is the last thing I thought I would care about when I got to college. My experience with student govern- ment before coming to Ann Arbor was lackluster. Every year, the popu- lar kids won, usually by promising French fries and ice cream in the caf- eteria and more time for lunch. And every year, come lunchtime, I was disappointed with their failure. The issue boils down to the fact that often times, what the adminis- tration wants and what the student body wants are in direct conflict. In reality, high-school students have limited power and can be easily con- trolledby the administration because they don't know better. But, news flash: we are not in high school anymore. The power of students has been repeatedly demonstrated on univer- sity campuses. Students have a long track record of fighting for social jus- tice here at home and elsewhere. In just the past two years, we've played major roles in the Occupy movement and the fight against massive govern- ment cuts. The fight is not over; in fact, it's just beginning. Over the past 10years, Lansing has cut 29 percent of higher education funding. As a result of these short- sighted cuts as well as the admin- istration's allocation of billions for construction projects, the average tuition for public state universities has increased by 87 percent in the past decade.As I wrote last month, the diversity of this institution has drastically dropped. For example, while 14 percent of Michigan's resi- dents are black, they make up only 4.4 percent of campus, down from 7.3 percent in 2006. But these are just two of many other issues that our administration needs to address.We need a student government that will make these social justice issues cen- tral to its agenda. We need a student government that's not afraid to stand up to the administration when we, the students, know it's in the wrong. Mersol-Barg helped found the Coalition for Tuition Equality, the most exciting social justice initia- tive on campus since I've been here. With more than a dozen of the most influential student organizations involved, it's undergone a campaign to achieve in-state tuition for quali- fied undocumented immigrants. Mersol-Barg has been at the fore- front, planning actions and organiz- ing long-term strategy. OurMichigan is the best choice for 'U' students. Navvab has her own coalition. As chair of the Open Housing Ini- tiative, she's working to allow students to choose roommates regardless of gender identity and gender expression. This initiative, the first broad-based campaign for social justice I experienced on cam- pus, has already been successful in expanding the housing options for all students and continues to work with administration. But look no further than the Uni- versity Board of Regents meeting today to see how they, in participat- ing in the action planned by Coalition for Tuiton Equality and eRACism, are demonstrating for fair tuition policies and a diverse campus. For social change to be most suc- cessful on this campus, we need executives willing to stand and act with us. Next Wednesday and Thursday, I urge you to vote for those who want meaningful social change on this campus. I urge you to vote for Kevin Mersol-Barg, Amy Navaab and Our- Michigan. - Yonah Lieberman can be reached at yonahl@umich.edu. Follow him on twitter at @YonahLieberman. 0 FOLLOW DAILY OPINION ON TWITTER Keep up with columnists, read Daily editorials, view cartoons and join in the debate. Check out @michdailyoped to get updates on Daily opinion content throughout the day. i 4 ,:j .