Opinion SHOHAM GEVA EDITOR IN CHIEF CLAIRE BRYAN AND REGAN DETWILER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS LAURA SCHINAGLE MANAGING EDITOR 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 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. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4A — Thursday, February 4, 2016 Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, 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, Hunter Zhao EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS S aturday evening, I slid into the back seat of the third Uber I have ever been in. I was on my way to a near-Main Street bar with two friends, both from states with stricter seatbelt laws than Michigan. They instant- ly harnessed themselves into the passenger and rear-pas- senger seats of the Uber driver’s car. I remained unbuck- led in the rear driver-side seat. I didn’t even notice I was the only one without a seatbelt on until we arrived at our destination. Though I always buckle up in the front seat of any car, it isn’t as instinctive to me when riding in the back. Fifty years ago, the federal government passed the National Traffic Safety and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, allowing it to create and enforce safety stan- dards for motor vehicles. As the years passed, seatbelt require- ments became more and more strict. In 1984, New York became the first state to require drivers to wear seatbelts. About one year later, Michigan was the third state to enact some sort of seatbelt requirement. By 2000, the Michigan legislature, similar to several states across the nation, instituted a primary enforcement law giving police officers the authorization to pull over drivers for not wearing a seat- belt. Originally, officers were only authorized to ticket unrestrained citizens after pulling them over for a separate offense. In 2004, Michigan was the first state east of the Mississippi River to achieve a 90-percent seatbelt use rate. Five years later, it held the national record for highest seatbelt use at 97.9 percent. Today, Michigan requires that all drivers and front-seat passengers always wear their seatbelts. However, if you are over 15 years of age, a seat- belt is not required in the back seat of vehicles. In 2010, the state had the fifth-highest seatbelt-use rate at 95.2 percent. Nationally, the rate is 87 percent for drivers, 85 percent for front-seat passengers and 78 percent for rear-seat occu- pants in 2013. According to the National High- way Traffic Safety Administration’s 2010 State and Territory survey, “Jurisdictions with stronger seat- belt enforcement laws continue to exhibit generally higher use rates than those with weaker laws.” The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the High- way Loss Data Institute notes that seatbelt rates are often lower among men, younger people and occupants of pickup trucks. A 2012 national telephone survey found that short-distance drives, forget- fulness and discomfort were the top reasons for not wearing a seat- belt among those who sometimes used a seatbelt. Among those who never wore a seatbelt, discomfort, the belief that seatbelts are not necessary and a dislike of being told what to do were the top three reasons for their decisions. Seatbelt-use rates have soared since the 1960s as researchers and citizens have come to realize how vital they are to protection while riding in vehicles. In 2009, more than half of passenger occu- pant fatalities occurred while the passengers were unrestrained. NHTSA estimated that seatbelts saved more than 62,000 lives from 2009 to 2013. Growing up in a rural Michigan county, I witnessed a lot of unbuck- led car passengers. Whenever I went on long trips as a kid with my cousin and her dad, he would make the back seat of his van into a pull-out bed and let us sleep during the ride. My mom always scolded me, telling me to make sure to wear my seatbelt in cars, but I was a kid. It was fun not having to wear a seatbelt. When I turned 16, I stopped wearing my seatbelt in the back seat during short-distance rides or with drivers whom I knew. With fewer than 800 residents in my home- town, the roads are nearly always empty. I never questioned my behavior until I came to Ann Arbor and made friends who did. After watching the Democratic debate nearly three weeks ago, my friend Derek offered to drive me to my car. It was freezing outside. We piled into Derek’s roommate’s car, dropped another friend off at her apartment and then headed across campus to the Maynard Street parking garage. Almost 300 feet from our destination, Derek had a sudden realization. “You’re not wearing a seatbelt,” he said. “You don’t have to in Michigan when you’re over 15 years old and in the back seat,” I retorted. “There’s a strict seatbelt rule in this car,” replied Derek’s room- mate, Sam. “I wouldn’t even start the car until everyone was buckled when I was a camp counselor.” “Well, I trust your driving,” I directed toward Derek. “It’s other people on the road that you have to worry about,” responded Sam, poking me in the knee as he said it. Instantly, I felt guilty. As much as I hated to admit it, they were right. How many times have I heard of a fatality when a car pas- senger was unrestrained? How many public service announce- ments have I watched about the importance of seatbelts? How many lives could have been saved with a seatbelt? The answer is too many. And yet, last weekend I found myself once again slipping into old habits. I remained unbuck- led during that Uber drive Satur- day night. But, looking at my two friends safely strapped to their seats, I once again felt guilty. Aarica Marsh can be reached at aaricama@umich.edu. On seatbelts and identity AARICA MARSH E-mail BoB at wEisBEcr@umich.Edu BOB WEISBECKER In September 2015, I launched a UROP- supported project with four undergraduates and a graduate research assistant to explore and make public the history of LSA’s Race and Ethnicity requirement. The first question we set out to ask and answer was: What conditions on campus led to the creation of the Race and Ethnicity requirement? The second question has to do with the process that led to the vote of the LSA faculty on Oct. 8, 1990, which established the requirement. Leading up to the decision were what then-Dean Edie Goldenberg called “several years of soul-searching and intellectually challenging dialogue” in the Spring 1991 issue of LSA Magazine. “Faculty of all ranks and disciplines questioned the rationale of a ‘diversity requirement’ and asked how it could fit within the traditional understanding of a liberal arts education. Some expressed skepticism that a requirement would lead to the desired outcome, however worthy the intent. They were answered by others who argued that the College would be derelict if it failed to attempt to prepare students to face one of the most pressing social problems of the late 20th century,” Goldberg said. While Dean Goldberg uses the phrase “diversity requirement” in her carefully worded letter to LSA alumni, the real impetus behind the requirement was about racism. The first proposal for a “racism requirement” was generated by a student activist group, the United Coalition Against Racism, in tandem with two faculty groups: Concerned Faculty, and Faculty Against Institutional Racism. Motivated by a string of racist incidents on campus in 1987, they worked for over a year to get the proposal on the agenda of an LSA faculty meeting. Though this first proposal — sometimes called the “radical alternative” — was defeated, authorization was given to establish UC 299 as a pilot course dealing with issues of racism and intolerance. This was not what UCAR envisioned; the organization sought a committee consisting of seven faculty members from various ethnic and gender studies departments and two students from the Baker-Mandela Center to work together over the development of the course. They feared the course’s supervisory board would consist of people who had little understanding of race, racism and discrimination. In the meantime, the LSA faculty continued to consider and debate several alternatives. All of this unfolded against the backdrop of continued student protest by UCAR and within the broader Black Action Movement, dubbed BAM III. As was the case with BAM I and BAM II issues of campus climate, the diversity of the student body and the faculty, questions of equity in funding and, of course, the nature of the curriculum continued to swirl. Some administrations, like LSA’s Dean Peter Steiner, were denounced as unresponsive and obstructionist. The debates over what would eventually become LSA’s Race or Ethnicity requirement (the name was changed to Race and Ethnicity in 1995) revealed stresses and fault lines within the faculty and on campus. Some warned of an overly politicized curriculum that would substitute “indoctrination” for “education”; others warned that the proposed requirement would not go far enough in fully addressing the underlying problems of racism; some feared more student activism, while others sought to promote more radical alliances between students and faculty. The tensions over whether the requirement should focus on racism or on diversity was never, we think, fully resolved. Most understood that no single course or degree requirement was sufficient to solve the problems of race and racism, intolerance and discrimination. The debates — captured in the pages of the local press, including the Daily, in archival materials stored at the Bentley, and in the living memory of participants — offer a historical window into the origins and evolution of the Race and Ethnicity requirement. We also believe they tell us something important about the history of our campus and the ways we have struggled with, and sometimes struggled over, questions of race, identity and education. The main goal of our project is to use a variety of sources to tell the story of the Race and Ethnicity requirement and to find creative ways of share our findings with the Ann Arbor campus. You can follow us on Twitter (@reumhistory). We’ll also be partnering with the Daily on an oral history project to capture the voices of faculty, students, alumni and administrators who took part in the events of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As LSA continues to review the requirement and to think carefully about the role of the curriculum in its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion plan, we hope that this history will help to inform our contemporary perspectives. Stay tuned for more. Angela D. Dillard is LSA’s associate dean for undergraduate education. She is also the Earl Lewis Collegiate Professor of Afroamerican & African Studies and a professor in the Residential College. History of the R&E requirement ANGELA DILLARD | OP-ED W ith surprisingly no obligations to fulfill, no deadlines to meet and no meetings to attend, I laced up my running shoes. After almost four Ann Arbor winters, 45-degree days in January are still anom- alies to me, but they’re anomalies I take full advantage of. I jogged around the cen- ter of campus and rounded my way south through a large section of student neighborhoods. I origi- nally told myself it’d be an easy jog — a short distance at a gentle pace. But I figured I could do a lit- tle bit more. I kept pushing onward. One more lap around the law buildings seemed feasible. Once I reached the last stoplight on my street, my over-ambitious mind told my tired limbs to work a little harder. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t jogged in more than a month or that I’d been running for 45 minutes already. I probably wasn’t going to be able to squeeze in another run for a while. I sprinted, ignoring the warning signals my body was sending. Darting around pedestrians on the side- walk, my foot landed in a patch of fresh, slippery mud. I tumbled forward, slamming onto the concrete driveway of the house next to my apartment. My hands — out- stretched to break my fall — were scraped and caked in layers of dirt and blood. Lying on my back like an overturned turtle, I con- ducted an injury inventory. “OK, so that was probably a bit too much at once,” I muttered bitterly as I hobbled along the last 30 or so feet to my apartment. That’s not the first time I’ve uttered that phrase, and the tendency to overexert myself crossed my mind countless times over the past few semesters. Overexertion, for me and many other college students, is a matter of hindsight. This realization hit as I collapsed on the couch at the end of the day, after get- ting little to no sleep the prior night. It accom- panied migraines and an empty stomach after realizing I forgot to eat until 8 p.m. or when two cups of coffee and a bowl of cereal were the only things sustaining me throughout the day. Additionally, it recently hit when a rela- tively mild case of bronchitis lingered for an entire month. College cultivates an environment of over- exertion, and its effects are as diverse as the students experiencing this atmosphere. As a student population, we’re continually reminded that “busy” is always somehow “better.” Our success is constantly measured according to how hard we push ourselves and whether we’re pushing ourselves enough. For some, this equates to dividing time out- side of class between numerous jobs, stu- dent organizations, internships and clubs. As these expectations increase, overexertion and exhaustion can plague students regard- less of their course load. In this balancing act, something is always sacrificed — whether it be one’s social life, their grades or their physi- cal well-being. For students of lower socioeconomic sta- tus, overexertion is an almost-certainty, and large amounts of money and the ability to even complete a degree are often at stake. For example, students often take heavy course loads of roughly 15 to 18 credits for a vari- ety of reasons: completing a double major, switching a major or merely trying to gradu- ate within four years. However, students from low-income households frequently do so out of financial necessity. Students coming from school districts located in low-income areas often are limited in their ability to accrue AP or IB credits that could count toward their degrees, placing them at a disadvantage in comparison to their peers. Taking more cred- its each semester lessens the time one needs to complete his or her degree, and decreases the immense financial burden placed upon these students. MELISSA SCHOLKE Falling before the finish line Recognizing that taking fewer than 15 credits prolongs both the duration and financial impact of one’s college education, the U.S. Department of Education recently proposed an initiative to restore access to Pell Grants throughout the year, which would enable stu- dents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to take courses dur- ing the summer. Additionally, the Department of Education advo- cated instituting an annual $300 bonus for students receiving Pell Grant funds who take at least 15 credits per semester. The Depart- ment of Education claims that the credit incentive would aid an esti- mated 2.3 million students and encourage students to complete their degree at a faster rate. This is all occurring in the midst of “15 to Finish” campaign that encourages students to take larger course loads in order to succeed. While these initiatives are well- intentioned and done with an awareness of how difficult it can be completing a degree in a timely manner, incentivizing and encour- aging students to assume heavier course loads places even more stress on a population of students who are already overworked and strug- gling with time constraints. Cur- rently the maximum annual award a low-income student can receive from a Pell Grant is $5,775. Even if a student receives additional aid or scholarships, it’s likely individuals from lower socioeconomic back- grounds will need to work to cover any remaining tuition costs and basic living expenses. The struggle to balance long work shifts with a larger course load may inhibit degree completion rates as well. The efforts and incentives are good first steps on a path to improve federal student funding and aid students in obtaining an education in the most efficient manner possible. However, these initiatives must be navigated care- fully, recognizing the pressures placed upon student populations as they try to balance myriad expec- tations. If enacted, these propos- als should aid students while still acknowledging that pushing over- burdened students to move too fast may cause them to fall before they finish. Melissa Scholke can be reached at melikaye@umich.edu. CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.