Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH 

and DEREK WOLFE 

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MANAGING EDITOR

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Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, December 14, 2015

CSG continues silencing minority voices

SINDHU SREEDHAR | MICHIGAN IN COLOR

F

our months ago, I had an 
epiphany while working at 
my beloved sleepaway camp. 

As I lay awake in 
my 
child-sized 

bunk bed, feeling 
genuinely happy 
for the first time 
in a long time, 
I realized that 
I had things to 
say and I wanted 
to find a way to 
say them. Eight 
Daily 
columns 

later, I am ready 
to reflect on the 
heart of what I was really trying to 
communicate.

In my first column, I described how 

I began feeling empty and sad around 
this time last year. My heart and mind 
had finally come to terms with how 
disconnected I felt at the University, 
and I had trouble thinking of valid 
reasons to get out of bed each morning. 
Luckily, I was able to rediscover 
happiness over the summer by doing 
what I loved (working at my camp) 
with people I loved (shout out to my 
campers and co-counselors). Yet even 
while on such a high, I was perceptive 
enough to worry that I might relapse 
into depression as soon as I set foot on 
 

University property.

Miraculously, it’s finals week and 

I’m just as happy as I was back in 
August. However, I had to completely 
change my attitude this semester to 
ensure my happiness would stick, 
a process that I described through-
out my columns. Learning to see 
life through a positive lens has been 
draining at times, especially on bad 
days when I want to give up and revert 
to my old mentality. But staying opti-
mistic has also made life so much 
 

more enjoyable.

According to Forbes contributor 

Travis Bradberry, specific steps are 
required to stay optimistic, such as 
identifying positive thoughts and 
writing down negative thoughts to 
evaluate them more rationally. My 
attempted optimism began more 
haphazardly. I decided I was sick of 
being sad, and therefore I no longer 
tolerated sad thoughts. Whenever 
one surfaced, I attributed it to sleep 
deprivation and moved on.

Unsurprisingly, 
my 
simplistic 

optimism failed, and I crashed from 
my happy summer high right before 
classes started. I had just Skyped my 
best friend from home, who told me I 
was the most smiley and enthusiastic 
she’d ever seen me. I informed 
her that I had finally attained true 
happiness and my depression was 
gone forever. But as soon as I hung 
up, the wonderful feelings vanished. 
It dawned on me that I had to finish 
two more semesters at a place that 
didn’t feel like home, with people I 
didn’t connect with. I wasn’t sure if 
I could get through it, and worse yet, 
I felt disingenuous for proclaiming 
that I had finally found happiness 
when I clearly hadn’t.

In retrospect, I’m glad I crashed 

as early as I did. When I woke up 
feeling happy again two days later, 
I realized this wasn’t depression. 
This was just a bad day. If I could get 
through this bad day, then I could 
get through all the future bad days 
thrown my way. As the semester 
progressed, I rediscovered coping 
strategies, such as journaling and 
working out, which reduced my 
bouts of sadness from days to mere 
hours. And of course, taking time 
to connect with people and do my 
favorite hobbies gave me something 
to look forward to every time I start-
ed feeling down.

At first, I thought having a positive 

attitude meant being positive about 

everything in my life. But eventually, 
I realized it meant knowing when to 
step up versus walk away graciously. 
While seeking new connections 
with people who made me happy, 
I sacrificed a lot of superficial 
connections that had contributed 
to my emptiness and depression. I 
called my mom several times and 
told her I felt like a quitter, but she 
assured me I made the right choice 
and that I needed to re-label it in my 
head to sound more empowering. 
Like the song from “Frozen,” I wasn’t 
giving up; I was letting go. 

With all the positive changes in 

my life, I finally feel true happiness 
in relation to my college experience, 
and I no longer worry about the good 
vibes disappearing. Though it took 
me longer than most, I think I fig-
ured out how to do college right and 
I can’t wait to see where my positive 
attitude takes me next semester.

I’m in a place where there is 

no shortage of opportunity to do 
what I love, and no shortage of 
people to whom I can connect. I’m 
curious to see what will happen 
when I graduate and find myself 
in a whole new environment. After 
my first column, a University alum 
reached out and said that the coping 
strategies she learned while dealing 
with tough situations in college 
prepared her to deal with future 
challenges in her life and career. 
Based on her experience and my 
own unwavering optimism, I’m 
confident that I will be prepared for 
whatever obstacles come my way.

Finding a platform to say all the 

things I wanted to say this semester 
was such a privilege. Thank you so 
much to everyone who supported 
me along the way.

— Annie Humphrey can be 

reached at annieah@umich.edu.

Editor’s Note: The original version 

of this Michigan in Color piece was 
published November 30. The Michigan 
Daily temporarily retracted the piece 
due to factual inaccuracies brought to 
the Daily’s attention after publication. 
This is the final version of this piece.

On November 22, I, along with 

the other 10 members of the Campus 
Inclusion Commission under the 
Central 
Student 
Government, 

resigned. The original goal of the 
commission was to provide a space 
within 
the 
student 
government 

where students with marginalized 
identities felt safe voicing their 
concerns. 
However 
we, 
as 
a 

commission, came to the conclusion 
that CSG’s efforts to make campus 
more 
inclusive 
weren’t 
entirely 

genuine and we felt that working with 
them wasn’t in our best interests. 
 

We left, not because the chair of our 
commission was fired, but because of 
what we believe are the reasons why 
he was fired — for making noise, for 
demanding justice, after I, personally, 
faced discrimination within CSG, for 
questioning CSG’s homogeneity, and 
for advocating for minority voices. In 
our opinion, for doing his job.

As a woman of color, I often feel 

as though I have limited influence 
in spaces. Because of that, I often let 
problematic things go unchecked and 
don’t say anything for fear of retalia-
tion. This experience will not be one of 
them. Here’s my story.

This past September, an Executive 

Committee member of CSG met with 
me to inform me of a significant change 
within student government structure 
— three separate commissions would 
be merged into one larger Campus 
Inclusion 
Commission. 
As 
the 

executive chair of the LGBTQ Issues 
Commission, that decision would 
significantly impact my role. However, 
before I could say anything, he seemed 
to imply that if the commission didn’t 
comply with the new structure, we 
could leave CSG, and they would find 
people to replace us. The preemptive 
threat caught me off guard and I felt 
pressured to go along with what he 
was saying, simply because of the 
power dynamic. He is a white man in 
a higher position than me, and had just 
implied that that I was dispensable. 
I’m a woman of color with seemingly 
no real authority in that space. Whose 
voice really matters here? I felt as 
though the LGBTQ community that I 
was advocating for had suddenly lost 
any voice that it may have ever had 
 

in CSG.

That meeting set the tone for the 

rest of my involvement in CSG. How-
ever, despite that encounter, I still 
tried to be open to the idea of working 
with the student government because 
of the credibility they have under the 
administration and the reach they 

have with students. I continued to 
brush that event and my skepticism 
aside in order to do what I came to do 
— create a more inclusive campus.

Things moved quickly from there, 

as they do in CSG. Applications were 
sent out for a chair position of what 
we now called the Campus Inclusiv-
ity Commission, or CIC. While I was 
invited to apply, I doubted I’d stand a 
chance in the process and didn’t have 
additional time to give an organization 
that had already shown they didn’t 
care about me. I ultimately decided not 
to, and a new commission chair was 
appointed soon after. The new com-
mission first met in mid-October, and 
by the middle of November, we had 
three large projects in process, and the 
members of our new team began to get 
closer. Feeling decently comfortable 
with them, I offhandedly mentioned 
the unsettling interaction I’d had with 
the CSG Executive Committee mem-
ber. Our chair immediately suggested 
that we report the microaggression 
to the rest of the Executive Commit-
tee, and after a day of thinking over 
it, I decided it should be addressed. 
Though I didn’t want to cause trouble 
or ill will within CSG, I believed that 
discussing the comment and its impact 
could begin to create a more inclusive 
campus, one person at a time. Espe-
cially given that doing so aligned with 
the mission of the inclusion committee 
that student government had just cre-
ated, I’d believed we would have their 
support. I was very wrong.

After the CIC chair and I reported 

the incident to the rest of the Execu-
tive Committee, we attempted sev-
eral methods of restorative justice. We 
tried implementing an ally training for 
all members of the assembly. We tried 
getting the Executive Committee 
member who’d made the comment to 
go to an ally training. We tried creating 
a new position on the Executive Com-
mittee to hold them all accountable to 
using inclusive language and taking 
the needs of marginalized students 
into consideration. These initiatives 
were either not taken seriously, were 
not done to CSG’s best efforts or didn’t 
even happen. For example, the person 
who had committed the microaggres-
sion against me was supposed to go 
to a Growing Allies retreat, a training 
that would educate him on microag-
gressions and social identity. Though 
he did receive a link to the wrong web-
site — which was not his fault — he still 
knowingly signed up for and attended 
a sexual assault training instead. His 
failure to question the training he 
was attending and how it related to 
the harm he did indicates to me that 
he was merely fulfilling a mandatory 
requirement instead of showing a true 
dedication to learning.

Finally, I met with the CSG advis-

er and president last week to talk 

about the original microaggression I 
had faced, at this point, two months 
ago. I explained it yet again, thinking 
this would be my final dealing with 
this issue. Instead of simply listening 
to what had happened and helping 
me find the solution I’d wanted, they 
began probing me about the commis-
sion chair — the person who’d helped 
me report in the first place. They 
asked me how I felt that our commis-
sion chair had taken charge in deal-
ing with the issue and making sure 
I was treated fairly. Though I didn’t 
fully understand why I was being 
asked about our commission chair, 
I was honest with them in saying he 
only took charge in dealing with the 
issue when I had asked him to. At the 
time, I’d believed they were just try-
ing to support me, but I now see that 
they had been trying to ambush me 
into providing the Executive Com-
mittee with an excuse to fire him.

I realized this on November 20, 

when I saw an e-mail in my inbox 
from the Executive Committee. It 
said, very bluntly and without expla-
nation, that our commission chair 
had been fired. In their words, “the 
chair of the Campus Inclusion Com-
mission was vacated.” The now-for-
mer commission members met with 
a member of the Executive Commit-
tee and the CSG adviser for one last 
meeting, in which we were told sev-
eral of the reasons the commission 
chair was fired. While some of the 
reasons given were understandable, 
other factors they listed and implied 
should have never been considered. 
For example, the Executive Commit-
tee member mentioned he didn’t like 
that the CIC chair told him to check 
his privilege during several meet-
ings. Even though our committee 
explained to him that this is a crucial 
part of inclusion work, he continued 
to complain that the CIC chair was 
belittling him for not understanding 
certain issues. Because of comments 
like this, it seemed that what the 
Executive Committee member was 
most upset about was the CIC chair’s 
challenging his perspective — a bias I 
doubt was applied to his friend (who 
made the microaggressive comment 
to me) when deciding what conse-
quences would befall him.

Though I will always be invested 

in advocating for a more inclusive 
campus, I (and the rest of the former 
CIC members) have realized that 
within student government is not the 
place to do it. From the unchecked 
comments to the subtle power plays 
to the unjust firing of our com-
mission chair, CSG is no longer an 
organization I trust or am willing to 
 

work for.

Sindhu Sreedhar is a Michigan 

in Color contributor

ANNIE

HUMPHREY

Maintaining happiness

FROM THE DAILY

Phase out fossil fuels 

The University must investigate divestment from oil and coal
C

oinciding with the last five days of the United Nations 
Climate Change Conference, Divest and Invest — the student 
campaign advocating for the University to divest from fossil 

fuel companies — hosted a Pledge to The Planet Climate Action Week 
to raise awareness about the University’s role in combatting climate 
change this past week. Similarly, during his last fireside chat of the 
semester, University President Mark Schlissel answered questions 
about his stance on fossil fuel divestment. While Schlissel maintained 
that the University is committed to sustainability, he believes fossil fuel 
divestment is ineffective and a “mostly symbolic action.” One day later, 
Schlissel released a statement on the University’s role in addressing 
climate change, sustainability and the possibility of divestment.

Though 
his 
concerns 
are 
realistic, 

Schlissel’s 
logic 
regarding 
fossil 
fuel 

divestment is flawed. Divestment from fossil 
fuels is more than symbolic; it’s a tangible 
action that demonstrates the University isn’t 
complicit in an industry that’s destroying our 
environment. Schlissel must reconsider his 
statement and request that the University’s 
Board of Regents form a committe dedicated 
to investigating the University’s investments 
in fossil fuel companies — which is what 
the Divest and Invest campaign is currently 
advocating for. 

There is a three-pronged requirement for 

the University to form this committee: there 
must be a consensus on campus for the issue, 
the industry or issue is antithetical to the 
University’s core values and the organizations 
being examined are uniquely responsible for 
the issue at hand. Divestment from fossil fuel 
companies fits all three criteria.

According to the Divest and Invest 

Campaign, the University has about $1 billion 
of its $10 billion endowment invested in 
fossil fuels. However, the group only seeks 
to have the University investigate coal and 
oil investments, providing a gradual and 
reasonable way for the University to divest 
from fossil fuels. 

In March, Central Student Government 

passed a resolution supporting the divestment 
campaign. The Senate Assembly also voiced 
its support for the resolution just last month. 
Agreement on the issue of climate change by 
both students and faculty demonstrates the 
urgency of the issue, which the University 
should not ignore. 

Other universities have already taken steps 

to reduce their financial investment in fossil 

fuels. Three months ago, the University of 
California system sold the $200 million it 
had invested in coal and oil sands. Stanford 
University, 
Georgetown 
University 
and 

Syracuse University have pledged to divest 
from coal mining companies. Other schools, 
such as New York City’s New School, have 
not only dropped fossil fuel stocks from their 
investment portfolios, but have also reshaped 
curricula to promote sustainability and 
combat climate change. About 40 universities 
have made such commitments, and the list of 
corporations and financial institutions that 
have fully or partially divested is large and 
growing fast. 

However, the University has yet to make 

a comprehensive study of divestment that 
would weigh its commitment to sustainability 
against the effect divestment might have on its 
endowment. No large research university can 
afford to mismanage its endowment, nor can it 
fail to examine its options when it can clearly 
identify investments that stand opposed to 
its professed values. Indeed, the Board of 
Regents has dropped socially irresponsible 
investments twice in the past, divesting itself 
of tobacco companies and entities associated 
with apartheid in South Africa. 

Schlissel objects to divestment in part 

because it would not reduce carbon emissions. 
But neither of the University’s previous 
divestments were expected to solve their 
associated problems. They were steps taken 
on principle in the interest of the global 
community and human life. For reasons that 
are impossible to ignore, the board must form 
a committee to research the possibility of 
divestment from fossil fuel companies, and 
then make its findings public. 

E-mail joE at jiovino@umich.Edu
JOE IOVINO

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Lillian Gaines, Caitlin Heenan, Ben Keller, 

Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, 

Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, 

Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe

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