Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH 

and DEREK WOLFE 

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LEV FACHER

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Friday, March 20, 2015

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton 

Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, 
Anna Polumbo-Levy, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, 
Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Linh Vu, Mary 

Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

D

uring this school year, 
unlike during others I’ve 
spent as a student at the 

University, 
I’ve 

found 
campus 

sentiment to be 
overwhelmingly 
shrouded 
in 

politically correct 
rhetoric. 
In 
an 

article regarding 
my 
connection 

to Judaism and 
Israel 
I 
wrote 

last 
October, 
I 

received 
two 

comments 
in 

which readers accused me of 
justifying the killing of 1,400 
Palestinians 
during 
Israel’s 

incursion in Gaza. This was in no 
way what I’d been arguing, and I 
believed the comments had been 
completely taken out of context, in 
order to confirm the readers’ biases 
that a Jewish student commenting 
on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
would always side with Israel.

In order to avoid any more mis-

conceptions, and frankly, in order to 
cover my ass, I rewrote the sentence 
that had prompted any accusations 
against my social consciousness. On 
a larger scale, this was a disturb-
ing reality to me. People reading a 
politically charged article often-
times take a somewhat ambiguous 
line from a piece and morph it into 
what they want it to mean in order 
to display their moral superiority.

In this day and age, social aware-

ness seems to have become a status 
symbol. All over the Internet, people 
post comments on media platforms 
that attempt to highlight an author’s 
lack of political correctness. But are 
these comments really attempting 
to educate the writer, or are they 
purely assuaging the commenter by 
publicly exposing what might seem 
to be evidence of moral superiority?

This is an omnipresent issue not 

only online, but also in conversations 
held on campus regarding racism, 
sexism, 
cultural 
appropriation, 

rape culture, etc. The social issues 

that hold such a deep significance 
in contemporary society are spoken 
about, but in such politically correct 
terminology that those who are 
unaware of certain realities are 
stifled from actually delving into 
conversation. Being called out is 
a powerful educational tool. But 
it should be done tactfully, rather 
than preached, because exposing 
someone’s 
ignorance 
oftentimes 

promotes an unnecessary power 
dynamic between those who are 
educated about an issue and those 
who are not.

Let us use Jesse Klein’s arti-

cle, 
“Relative 

Wealth,” as an 
example. 
Her 

piece was unin-
formed 
and 

offensive. How-
ever, did read-
ers think that 
her views were 
founded 
upon 

knowledge 
of 

economic 
dis-

parity in Amer-
ica? If so, they shouldn’t have. An 
article like hers was founded upon 
ignorance, and although I originally 
believed that the piece shouldn’t have 
been published, it garnered both 
harmful and beneficial responses. 
Personal attacks on Klein were made 
within the slew of 348 comments 
that she received. These, of course, 
were unnecessary and perfectly 
exemplify the use of a comment as a 
status symbol. A comment demean-
ing the writer, while highlighting 
one’s own sensibilities, is done self-
ishly. On the other hand, a response 
like Jenny Wang’s was completely 
appropriate in that it opened a forum 
for discussion, without admonish-
ing Klein. What Wang offered was 
perspective, which is truly the only 
teacher of social awareness.

After Klein read hurtful responses 

to her piece and experienced what I 
can only imagine was the inclination 
to regress into a hole for the rest of 
eternity, she bravely came out with 
another article, much more clearly 

articulating her original point. In her 
response piece, she wrote, “Online, 
my naïve perception of wealth was 
called the ‘Problem with America.’ 
In the real world, there are a lot of 
problems with America which, with 
any luck, can be fixed by learning 
from a few mistakes.”

So, Klein is an example of positive 

reformation after having been called 
out. Although her situation was 
extreme, the responses proved to be 
enlightening. But, what about the 
responses that were purely motivated 
by negativity and public recognition?

There is a clear argument for polit-

ical correctness 
and making the 
politically incor-
rect 
aware 
of 

their 
mistakes. 

But, 
as 
Klein 

pointed 
out, 

problems 
are 

fixed by learning 
from such mis-
takes. I’m proud 
of my University 
that in recent 

years, students have become much 
more aware of the social and politi-
cal issues that maintain inequality. 
But not everyone is aware of these 
realities, due to a lack of perspective. 
Ignorance, however, should not be 
confronted with judgment.

So, to those who are judgmental 

of the politically incorrect, be 
sensitive. To those who are unaware 
of the depths of social issues in 
America, educate yourself. A 600-
word Daily article written by a 
student in a social theory class isn’t 
going to educate you about white 
privilege. 
Expanding 
yourself 

beyond the familiar is what will.

Political correctness is a Band-

Aid — it assuages those who extend 
it, and it frightens those who don’t 
understand it. So hopefully the PC 
trend leaves us, and what replaces 
it is education, discussion and the 
search for perspective.

 
— Abby Taskier can be reached 

at ataskier@umich.edu.

The border

I

was a newborn. Outside the 
house, the first one my parents 
had ever owned, sat the white 

stork: “Welcome 
home, 
David!” 

The 
door 
was 

freshly 
painted 

bright 
red, 
the 

grass just starting 
to 
become 
its 

impeccable green 
that early May. 
Down the street, 
on the corner of 
Mack 
Avenue, 

was 
the 
local 

grocery store, the 
Village Market, alongside a doctor’s 
office and a bank. This block of 
neatly lined houses was my whole 
world as a young child. A world that 
included little more than the arms 
of my mother I rested in, the yard 
I crawled in and the street I played 
on. My world was flat, and across 
that corner at the end of the street 
was the edge of the map.

I was seven. I had the new 

freedom of a bike and more energy 
than my mom could put up with 
inside my house, so I discharged 
it by pedaling around. I rode to 
friends’ houses, to the park, to 
baseball games. If my wheels 
could carry me there, I went there. 
Everywhere, that is, except across 
Mack. When I hit Mack or Alter 
Drive, I reached the end of my ride 
in that current direction. I had 
reached the edge of the map.

This was no rule anyone told me. 

No signs were posted. You hit Mack 
or Alter and you turn left or you 
turn right. There was no straight.

These streets are the border of my 

bubble of a town and Detroit. This 
is where the suburb meets the city. 
Where the neat rows of houses and 
lawns give way to a neighborhood 
of blocks with abandoned homes, 
overgrown grass and charred wood 
left behind from a structure gone 
up in flames, neglected roads that 
haven’t been repaved in years. This 
is not the downtown Detroit of 

renaissance and revival; this is the 
rawness of the outskirts, the real-
ness of the desolation, the reality 
of the economic and racial divide 
that relegated the city into ceaseless 
recession. If you go straight through 
those border streets into the city, 
you risk popping the bubble.

I was 13. I wore a basketball uni-

form emblazoned with a falcon on it, 
the mascot of my parish. Our church 
was on Mack Avenue, my team 
a mix of kids 
from either side 
of that street. I 
had grown up 
in a completely 
homogenous 
school 
on 
my 

side of street, 
and here I was 
on my first team 
that 
didn’t 
fit 

this 
uniform 

lack of diversity 
I knew. The thought never crossed 
my mind; the new uniform was the 
one we wore. The team won every 
game that season.

I was 16. It was a cold December 

Saturday morning, trunk of the car 
loaded up with bags of gifts piled 
all the way to the roof. We stopped 
at the light on Mack and drove 
through. We stopped at houses with 
porch steps crumbled in disrepair, 
houses 
neighboring 
boarded-up 

properties and at doors with iron 
bars across them. We walked into 
homes with the gifts and bags of 
food; homes with families and 
children 
who 
decorated 
their 

houses for the holidays the best 
they could, ecstatic, cheerful and 
thankful. I had left the bubble 
to go over to where I once would 
never venture and found that the 
human spirit is identical in the most 
opposite of places and situations.

It’s easy to see the border as a 

statistic of inequality, as a line of 
socioeconomic divide, as a contrast 
of black and white and of different 
hues of lifestyles. Long and com-
plicated history has created these 

invisible walls. The same history 
has caused us to forget that the 
other side is filled with the same 
human emotions, the same lives 
and the same desires, only trans-
formed across a couple of streets. 
The suburb forgets that the people 
merely across the street deserve 
the same good education, the same 
safe streets and the same privileges 
because they are people. The dif-
ference of socioeconomic status 

and tax revenue 
is 
merely 
the 

result of the sys-
tematic societal 
inequality that 
is 
evident 
all 

around, 
some-

times 
blocks 

away.

I’m now 20. 

Some 
things 

move 
forward, 

like 
the 

gorgeous, brand new baseball field 
built where cracked and abandoned 
tennis courts once decayed a mere 
two blocks from the border. Others 
hinder any progress: a fatal shooting 
a block north of the new field, and 
another shooting merely a week 
earlier of four kids from across the 
border, right before Christmas; one 
lost her life. There are problems 
that cannot be fixed with simple 
solutions. 
The 
border 
remains 

dangerous, a stark juxtaposition 
and symbol of a world riddled with 
inequity, the bubble suburb trying 
to escape from this reality for years 
until it realizes that the bubble it 
subsists in is only figurative.

I was lucky to be encouraged 

to explore, to learn that there is 
no 
graffiti-filled 
concrete 
wall 

between the cities that must come 
down. Instead there exist walls of 
a different kind, walls that society 
has built up for years; we sometimes 
fail to notice they exist. These 
walls, too, must be torn down.

— David Harris can be reached 

at daharr@umich.edu.

DAVID 
HARRIS

ABBY
TASKIER

I

n September 2014, the Daily requested documents from the 
University surrounding the Department of Education’s Title IX 
investigation, falling under the purview of Michigan’s Freedom 

of Information Act. These documents include, “written complaints, 
e-mails from administrators and witness statements, among other 
documents.” After negotiations and communication spanning over 
four months, the Daily paid one of two $445 installments for a 
fraction of the originally requested documents. Two months later, 
the University has not only failed to provide the documents, but 
also has not released a timeline estimating when it might provide 
them. This is not acceptable. Although the University is not legally 
required to release any sort of timeline, Frank LoMonte, executive 
director of the Student Press Law Center, said in an interview with 
the Daily that this process “really should not take months.” While 
not illegal, it is unethical and dubious of the University to decline 
releasing a timeline in addition to the documents themselves.

Unfortunately, this failure of the University 

to make records available to the public is 
consistent with past behavior. In 2011, the 
Daily published a special report showing that 
the University charges hefty fees for open 
records requests, which sometimes can be 
well over $1,000 — far more expensive than 
fees charged by other Big Ten schools.

Not only does the University make 

the attainment of documents under the 
purview of FOIA difficult by hiking up 
the fees for document requests, but it also 
lacks an official policy for preserving public 
records. The legality and morality of this is 
questionable, if not doubtful. This problem 
emerged earlier this academic year, when the 
Daily submitted FOIA requests for e-mails 
to and from former Athletic Director Dave 
Brandon 
immediately 
following 
former 

football kicker Brendan Gibbons’ permanent 
separation from the University for violating 
the Student Sexual Misconduct Policy. In 
this case, the University could not fulfill the 
request because the e-mails — which are 
public record — had been deleted due to the 
lack of a records retention policy.

These problems find their origins in both 

systemic practices within the University 
and in the details of the state’s FOIA 
requirements. The Michigan Freedom of 
Information Act requires the public body to 
respond to requests for documents within 
five business days, but this response can 
simply state that more time is needed before 
the documents can be released. It does not, 
however, require the public body to specify 
exactly how much time is needed.

In addition, the bill states that public bodies 

may charge requesters fees “for the necessary 
copying of a public record for inspection 
or providing a copy of a public record,” and 
that they may charge additional fees if not 
doing so would result in “unreasonably high 
costs” for the public body. These terms are 
vague and ultimately give public bodies the 
discretion to determine the cost of obtaining 
the requested documents. This ambiguous 
legislation could have led to the unreasonably 
high costs demanded of the Daily.

Fortunately, 
earlier 
this 
year 
the 

Michigan legislature passed changes to the 
bill, effective July 1, that will amend these 
problems. Such changes require public 
bodies to release a timeline, albeit non-
binding, for the documents’ release, and 
also cap fees at 10 cents per page prepared 
for release.

Although these changes are commendable, 

the problem still remains: the University is 
not being transparent about its practices and 
procedures. Even though their practices are 
not currently illegal, withholding information 
from the public and from students is morally 
concerning, regardless of whether it be 
because the records are poorly organized or 
the records reveal incriminating information.

In light of all of these events, it is absolutely 

imperative — for ethical reasons and for 
the sake of re-earning students’ trust — for 
the University to provide the documents, 
or at least a timeline for the release of the 
documents that were requested two months 
ago, with or without legislation mandating 
the University do so.

Unsurprising behavior

University has failed to provide documents requested through FOIA

FROM THE DAILY

There are problems 
that cannot be fixed 
with simple solutions.

The PC trend

NATHANIEL MACANIAN | VIEWPOINT

Awaken Ann Arbor

When was the last time you took a second 

to reflect? From the day we step into our 
freshman dorm rooms, we’re taught that 
college students should be busy, booked and 
stressed from the moment they wake up to 
the moment they fall asleep. Here in Ann 
Arbor, we especially feel a need to maximize 
all of the great resources Ann Arbor has to 
offer, oftentimes sacrificing our personal 
comforts and mental health in the process. 
Ultimately, what these self-induced pressures 
often result in is a tunnel-vision view of our 
real priorities.

Few are aware of the biological benefits of 

engaging in meditation. Studies conducted at 
the University of North Carolina and Wake 
Forest University concluded that mindfulness 
techniques consistently displayed improved 
cognitive abilities, and even higher GRE 
scores. Additionally, MRI studies have 
shown that enlarged hippocampal and right 
orbito-frontal regions in meditators were 
associated with enhanced memory capacity 
and affective experience, as well as emotional 
regulating abilities.

Meditation and Zen habits are gaining more 

traction in our culture every day, and for good 
cause. Other similar studies have shown that 
meditating 20 minutes for just four days result-

ed in improved test scores than control groups.

Big questions are hard to answer and 

even harder to ask. Awaken Ann Arbor is a 
relatively new student organization dedicated 
to helping students learn how to meditate, 
find a more meaningful purpose in their lives, 
and grow spiritually without emphasizing 
dogma. Awaken’s weekly meetings aim to 
foster a more spiritually minded student body 
on campus, and offer a community of like-
minded individuals to learn from sharing 
meaningful life experiences every week.

These processes are a workout for your 

brain, and getting started is the hardest 
part. Awaken Ann Arbor provides certified 
instructors who guide group meditation 
sessions for all levels, and the dialogues that 
follow connect students with the knowledge 
and resources needed to help maximize our 
potential here at the University of Michigan.

All ages, skills, and perspectives are 

encouraged to join us at Awaken’s meetings 
every Sunday at 12 p.m.

Remember, the best time to plant a tree was 

20 years ago. The next-best time is today.

To get involved, e-mail Will Ellis at elliswil@

umich.edu.

 Nathaniel Macanian is an LSA junior.

In this day and age, 

social awareness 

seems to have become 

a status symbol.

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