4A - Thursday, February 27, 2014

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

4A - Thursday, February 27, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

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MEGAN MCDONALD
PETER SHAHIN and DANIEL WANG KATIE BURKE
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.
Pushing past Prop 2
The 'U' must do more to raise minority enrollment despite legal barriers
ast Thursday, University President Mary Sue Coleman addressed
the Board of Regents and discussed the campus climate, diversity
and inclusion. Coleman implied that the University's struggle began
in earnest with the passage of Proposal 2 in 2006, which effectivelybanned
the consideration of race in college admissions. Though it seems apparent
that Proposal 2 has carried much of the blame for decreasing minority
enrollment, the University shouldn't use it as a crutch to deflect criticism,
but should refocus on what options do remain to increase diversity.

DIANA BECERRA AND KEVIN YOUNG I
Negroponte's war crimes

There are few people who embody
the terror of U.S. foreign policy
like John Negroponte. He advised
the puppet government in South
Vietnam during the Vietnam War,
oversaw vicious counter-insurgency
campaigns in Central America in
the 1980s, advanced the 1994 North
American Free Trade Agreement
and was a central player in the illegal
invasion and occupation of Iraq. And
yet the Ford School of Public Policy
has invited Negroponte to discuss
how "leaders handle dissent" and to
assess the "successes and failures"
of foreign policy. Will his talk today
mention his own role in the murder
and torture of millions of dissenters
in countries like Vietnam, Honduras,
El Salvador, Nicaragua and Iraq?
Negroponte's crimes are well
documented in the online National
Security Archive. During the early
1980s Negroponte worked as U.S.
ambassador to Honduras, where he
helped ensure the flow of aidto brutal
regimes in Honduras, ElSalvador and
Guatemala and assisted the Contra
terror forces that targeted civilians
in Nicaragua (where a progressive
government had overthrown the
U.S.-backed dictator in 1979). By
the end of the 1980s, over 200,000
people were killed as a result of U.S.
intervention in Central America.
They systematically massacred,
"disappeared," tortured and raped
students, labor organizers, peasant
and indigenous leaders, priests
and nuns, journalists and others
suspected of "dissent." Negroponte's
strategy for dealing with criticisms
of his own record has been simple:
just deny the facts completely.
Confronted with revelations about
Honduran death squads in 1982,
for instance, he replied that the
reports were "simply untrue" and
that Hondurans enjoyed "liberal
democratic institutions including
full freedom of expression."
Negroponte's oversight of the
regime in neighboring El Salvador
provides an indication of how he
handled dissent.In1980, after decades
of state repression of peaceful protest,
five Salvadoran peasant guerrilla

groups formed the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front (in Spanish:
Frente Farabundo Marti para la
Liberaci6n Nacional) to fight the
U.S.-backed dictatorship. The United
States provided the Salvadoran
military with $1 million a day over
the course of the 1980s to eliminate
the potential civilian support base
of the FMLN. In one 1981 example,
General Domingo Monterrosa,
trained at the School of the Americas
in Fort Benning, Georgia, ordered
the massacre of over 1,000 civilians
in and around the village of El
Mozote. In the early 1990s, forensic
exhumations of El Mozote revealed
that a single mass grave included the
remains of 143 children under age
12. Concepci6n Sinchez, three days
old, was the youngest victim, though
death squads also cut out the fetuses
of pregnant women. The El Mozote
massacre was unique only for its size;
countless other civilian massacres
stained the Salvadoran landscape
with blood in the 1980s. Virtually
all were committed by U.S.-backed
state and paramilitary forces, as aUN
Truth Commission report confirmed.
This savagery helped pave the way
for the later imposition of neoliberal
economic policies, which Negroponte
himselfadvancedinplaceslikeMexico
and Iraq. Neoliberalism involves the
privatization of public resources,
the reduction in state spending on
things like education, and, generally
speaking, the removal of all barriers
to corporate profits. It includes "free-
trade"agreementslike NAFTA andthe
looming Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which seek to enhance the power and
profits of U.S. corporations and banks
overseas. Since this agenda is usually
unpopular, military force is often
necessary for eliminating dissent and
"ensuring uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies and strategic
resources,"in the words of Clinton-era
Secretary of Defense William Cohen.
Negroponte learned valuable lessons
about exterminating dissenters from
his time in Central America. As U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, he helped develop
what some officials and journalists at
the time called the "Salvador Option":

the training of Iraqi death squads to
eliminate resistance to the occupation
and the neoliberal model.
The system against which many
of Negroponte's victims struggled
is an extreme version of the system
currently being imposed across the
United States, including in places
like Michigan. Under this system
education budgets are slashed, tuition
rises steadily, student debt skyrockets
and working people are made to suffer
in numerous other ways while money
is funneled into military budgets
and the pockets of the wealthy. The
bulk of the population is effectively
disenfranchised from the political
system, which is . dominated by
corporate giants and the super rich.
How might University
students have been treated under
Negroponte? If they denounced
tuition hikes or demanded increased
black enrollment, as they did in the
1980s (and currently), they likely
would have faced torture or death.
Religious students and leaders who
advocated for social justice would
likewise have been targeted (one
slogan of the U.S.-allied death squads
in El Salvador was "Be a Patriot: Kill
a Priest"). Women who engaged in
protest would have faced rape by
military and paramilitary forces,
who employed sexual violence
as a key "counter-insurgency"
strategy. Denouncing the University
administration's cover-up of alleged
rape on campus would itself have
been a crime punishable by death.
By hosting a war criminal like John
Negroponte, the University and the
Public Policy School express utter
contempt for hisvictims. Officials like
Negroponte should be in prison, not
invited to academic forums.
Today at 6 p.m. at the Public Policy
School, students, faculty and staff will
be holding a vigil to mourn the victims
killed under Negroponte.
Diana C. Sierra Becerra is a PhD
student in History and Women's
Studies and Kevin Young is an affiliate
with the Center for Latin American
and Caribbean Studies and has a
PhD in Latin American History.

Many schools - such as the University
of California, the University of Texas, the
University of Florida and the University of
Michigan - attempt to bypass court decisions
prohibiting affirmative action by recruiting
students in underrepresented areas,
increasing enrollment and adopting a holistic
review approach that takes into consideration
the challenges students have faced, instead of
just their academic performance. However,
since the implementation of Proposal 2, Black
enrollment dropped from around 7 percent
of the undergraduate population in 2006
to 4.65 percent in Fall 2013. Additionally,
other minorities such as Hispanic and Native
American students have seen decreases in
their undergraduate percentages during the
same time period. With minority enrollment
hindered by Proposal 2, the University has
an even greater responsibility in finding new
ways to increase enrollment.
The University must counteract the effects
of Proposal 2 by increasing its outreach
program. The creation of the associate
vice president position in enrollment
management is a step in the right direction
as this can help garner more applications
from underrepresented minoritiestand
better connect the admissions department
with financial aid. However, the University
needs to take further action and increase

the number of recruiters it physically
sends out to economically disadvantaged
regions which usually boast high minority
populations. This process must start early
as many students enter high school with the
imbedded belief that a college education is out
of reach. Encouraging students to overcome
these preconceived ideas and apply to the
University will create increase the number
of applications from underrepresented
minorities and will ideally lead to an increase
in minority enrollment.
The fundamental problem of lower
socioeconomic statuses also needs to be
addressed in order for the University to be more
appealing towards minority groups. Many
students don't apply to the University due to
the cost of attendance. The numerous financial
opportunities offered by the University need
to be more transparent and easily accessible
for prospective students. However, the current
financial system needs to be fixed first. It
discriminates against lower income families due
to specific financial aid packs given to certain
economic brackets. The University must take
action to further increase minority enrollment
by considering inhibiting circumstances that
affect minority populations in particular. Biy
taking these steps, the racial climate at the
University will seemingly improve and the
pride for diversity may continue.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Barry Belmont, Nivedita Karki, Jacob Karafa, Jordyn Kay, Kellie Halushka,
Aarica Marsh, Megan McDonald, Victoria Noble, Michael Schramm,
Matthew Seligman, Paul Sherman, Allison Raeck, Daniel Warig, Derek Wolfe

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Payingfor happiness
until October of 2011, I lived a simple. My goal since I was 17 was to become
privileged life. My father was an a civil rights lawyer, brushing away notions
attorney in private practice making had as a kid that I wanted to be extremely rich
six figures, while my mom one day. Now, it's hard not to notice my mouth
worked only because her water as I read about associates at the top
job provided us with good firms who pull in upwards of $200,000 their
health coverage. I grew up first year. Having that kind of money would
in a wealthy Detroit suburb, certainly be nice. While the younger me would
went to excellent public see a six figure paycheck as a path to bespoke
schools and was a member suits and driving a Mercedes, I nowhave much
of not one, but two private less exciting ideas about using my money.
clubs;one with agolfcourse, JAMES Former banker Sam Polk wrote an article
the other with a private BRENNAN last month about his time in finance, coming
bowling alley. I never had from a family that lived paycheck to paycheck.
to work and I drove a new Upon receiving his first bonus of $40,000, he
car that my parents paid for. remarked that he was thrilled, writing, "For
Life was good. the first time in my life, I didn't have to check
In October of 2011, things changed. my balance before I withdrew money." Forget
My father, battling Hodgkin's Lymphoma, the expensive shoes, the nice apartment and
suddenly passed away at the age of 58. As the lavish meals - that's what I crave.
wealthy aswe were,we hadn'tplannedforthis. With that kind of money, I could eat out
Very quickly, my family's finances collapsed and fill my gas tank without justifying it to
and we were smacked across the face with myself. I could afford to visit friends and
reality. Money had never been a real point of family or go on vacation without saving up
worry, but all of the sudden we had lost our for months on end. Maybe I would even buya
house to foreclosure and the cash available to nice watch for myself just to remember what
pay for school, housing and even food started I had before my dad died. But in all honesty,
to dry up. the thing I fantasize about most of all is the
Money has turned into a constant worry day when I'm "financially secure." When my
for me. I've been fortunate enough to receive loans are paid off, I have a place to live, and
large grants and scholarships to pay for my savings account is big enough to pay for
school, as well as work-study opportunities any trouble my family may run into. I want
to help subsidize further costs. This is great, to be able to eat Chipotle without feeling
and I'm incredibly thankful for it, but I still guilty, and I want to be able to afford health
live in constant fear. I'm insurance and a house for
afraid that my family's my mom.
status for need-based As challenging and
aid will be revoked, and The lessons I've stressful as life has been
I'm nervous that every the past few years, it has
time state support to the learned have been made me realize I will
University is cut, it's my worth more than never be unappreciative of
tuition money going out what I have. The lessons
the window. any paycheck. I've learned have been
When in the past I never worth more than any
had to worry about having paycheck, and I still live a
a job, I now feel a need to great life with much to be
maintain multiple sources thankful for. I may very
of income to save up, especially in case my well return the 1 percent one day, accepting a
mom or my sister needs an emergency loan. short stint asa corporate lawyer before trying
I'm disgustingly frugal when buying food and to save the world. It kills me a little inside
filling my gas tank, and every time I eat out, because I feel like I'm chasing money, but as
go to a bar, or buy something I don't absolutely my sister always reminds me, I'm not; I'm
need to survive, I'm overcome by guilt. chasing a sense of security.
As I begin planning a career of practicing
law, it's become increasingly apparent that the - James Brennan can be reached
mantra "it's not about money" isn't quite so at jmbthree@umich.edu.

HANNAH CRISLER I
I
Flashing back to the moment of my
mom sitting in her chair gathering her
thoughts:
I was afraid she wouldbe ashamed
of me. That it was my fault for what
happened. I shouldn't have thrown
water on him. I shouldn't wear
low cut shirts or dresses that bring
attention to the size of my breasts,
and if I do, I should be prepared for
the reaction of men, the eyes focused
everywhere but my face, laser beam
vision undressing me. I thought
my mom was going to affirm that I
reacted poorly, but she didn't. I stood
up for myself, against his vile sexual
slurs, and my mother was proud of
that. Until today, I felt humiliated
and self-conscious for doing so.
Today, I have regained my voice.
Today, I told my mom that I
was domestically attacked a year
ago. I poured water on him for
being verbally sexually abusive. He
responded by pinning me against
a wall with his forearm against
my throat. My mom looked at me,
glassy eyes, and asked the question
that I have replayed in my mind
like Beyonc6's Drunk in Love radio
craze, why didn't you call the police?
She then asked, why didn't you knee
him, orfight back?
I spent 10 years of my life earning
an array of rainbow-colored belts
through karate lessons. At age 15, I
earned my second-degree black belt.
I sparred and grappled with adult
men, and not totootmy ownhorn,but
I couldkick some ass. Iwas feisty, and
still am. Yet, when his hand clenched
my wrist and threw me against the
cold plaster, while his other forearm
landed at the base of my neck above
my collarbones, I froze. He was not
some stranger on the street, those
squishy lips that screamed at me I
had previouslykissed.
My mom sat in silent thought, as
if she was remembering something
from her youth that I wasn't aware
of, but that made her understand my
experience. The silence was broken.
I'm proud ofyou.
I'm not proud of me. Why didn't
you call the police? I asked myself as
you sat on the outside patio of the
Black Pearl last summer. The heat
lamp's flame flickering against your
face. You sat at a table of two girls,
and two guys. Ihid in the back of the

I'm proud of yoi
server area trying to catch my breath.
Do you even remember what you did?
Who are you going to attack next, the
tall blonde or the short brunette? As
the only busser that night I cleaned
your dirty residue off the table. In the
process of bending over to wipe away
the contamination you attempted to
grab my ass.
I'm proud ofyou.
February, 2014: Phone vibrates,
loses train of thought and
concentration, "New text message"
Text: Ah I woke up so horny this
morning wtf
Me: Sounds like you'll get a little
arm workout
Text: Send me apit
Me: Nope I'm good
Text: Oh come on, that's what
snapchat is for
Text: You're no fun
Me: Nah sorry
Text: What do you think snapchat,
was created for? The founder is 24,
and I guarantee that's its intended
purpose
Me: Idgaf about the founder of
snapchat. You haven't even taken
me on a date, and you're already
requesting pics
Deletes conversation, returns to
writing
In our world of instant
gratification, we are losing touch
with reality. We meet someone at a
bar; get their phone number, and the
next day become Facebook "friends."
We are forgetting how to interact
with one another, how to articulate
thought and to speak up for what we
believe, even if society tells you that
it's wrong.
During my time studying at the
University of Michigan, three of my
friends have confided in me, telling
their stories of rape. out of those
three, only one was reported. Out
of those three, only one told their
family. Out of those three, they all
knew the attacker.
I am one female in a body of
28,283 undergraduate students. The
University has a 49-percent female-
to-male ratio, so there are about
13,859 undergrad females. If one
in five women in the United States
report sexual assault, on our campus
alone, about 2,772 females would
experience sexual assault. Why was I
silent? Why are we so silent?,

I wasn't raped; a drunken jackass
manhandled me, but these acts
of aggression toward one another
need to stop. We need to respect
each other. We need to work on
ourselves, to self reflect, and face
our internal silence.
"Be the change you wish to see in
the world" - Mahatma Gandhi
My grandmother gave me a
bracelet with that quote engraved on
the front. On the inside, where the
silver hugs my wrist, an area of the
bracelet that only I am familiar with,
hides "find the strength within." I
have the quote branded on the inside
of my eyelids, and I wear the bracelet
everyday. I know I cannot change
anyone but myself. If I want to see
change, I have to be change. If I want
someone to hear me, I have to speak
up. I know I am not alone, and you
are not alone either.
We are not alone. As individuals
separated by sex, age, race, religion,
gender and many regions around the
world, if we strip away our exterior
and leave the blood, bones and
organs, we are not so different. We
are humans, trying to understand
this game of life. We make mistakes.
We achieve great accomplishments.
We undergo and overcome hardship.
But why is it that we are pushing so
hard against one another?
Welivein a fascinatingtime where
our society has created glamorous,
superficial guidelines on how to
live. Social media overwhelms us by
showing unattainable false realities.
Instead of tryingto become someone
we are not, we should be comfortable
with who we are, and try to be our
supreme self. Find the inner voice
and let it speak out. Let it scream.
Early January 2014, shortly after
expulsion ofBrendan Gibbons'media
breaks.
Four friends are sitting in a kitch-
en: three females and one male. They
are talking about relationship advice,
or in their case lack there of The sub-
ject turns to two recent social media
articles addressing rape. Out of curi-
osity the male asks the females if any-
one they were emotionally involved
with had ever physically harmed
them. All three answer, yes.
We can be the change.
Hannah Crisler is an LSA junior.