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
4 — Tuesday, March 15, 2016
L
ast fall, University of Michi-
gan President Mark Schlissel
gathered the Greek commu-
nity and excori-
ated them for
devaluing
the
University’s
academic repu-
tation. This is
part of a larg-
er pattern on
our campus of
beginning
to
hold Greek life
accountable.
Greek life has
been the focus
of changes that address the drinking
culture and campus sexual assault
that has gone unchecked for too long.
Schlissel’s changes that target these
issues are a welcome change of pace.
It’s high time that the University no
longer turns a blind eye, and these
organizations bear the costs of their
actions. However, in an effort to curb
these serious problems with Greek
life, the administration has swung
the pendulum too far in an authorita-
tive direction.
While it is important to address
these issues, the University must
reevaluate disciplinary actions and
focus on creating a dialogue. This
past year, the University threatened
sanctions on members of Greek
life who attended the Mud Bowl, a
charity fundraising event. As Daily
columnist Brett Graham points out,
the Mud Bowl exemplifies the best
aspects of Greek life. The Univer-
sity’s response stepped over the line
and will likely have long-term nega-
tive consequences.
By simply treating anything Greek-
related with sanctions, the adminis-
tration is developing an adversarial
relationship with some members of
the Greek community. This isn’t a
good course to chart. Personally, I
have many issues with Greek life, and
I would love to see fraternities and
sororities play a diminished role on
campus. But that’s not a realistic
possibility. Much of the University’s
funding comes from wealthy donors
who were members of Greek life dur-
ing their undergraduate careers, and
the University won’t likely agree to
changes that risk losing that money.
Furthermore, Greek life is a cultural
institution at the University, with
more than 20 percent of undergradu-
ate students affiliated. What message
does the administration send to a sig-
nificant portion of our student body
when it intervenes in such a paternal-
istic way?
The University’s response mir-
rors a tendency within parts of
the social activist community on
campus to demonize Greek life; to
view it as a toxic mess that doesn’t
want to improve itself. However,
it’s important to note that there’s
will within Greek life to end these
abuses. I spoke to Henry Adams,
president of the Interfraternity
Council, about these issues, and
from his perspective, there’s a
growing
self-awareness
within
the IFC of binge drinking and
sexual assault’s sheer extent. He
also stressed that he doesn’t view
the community meeting as a break
of the IFC’s working relationship
with the administration and that
they want to continue improving
Greek life at the University.
Furthermore,
Schlissel’s
com-
munity meeting was co-organized
by the IFC, and each of the fraterni-
ties’ presidents spoke at the event
about the meeting’s importance.
These issues are endemic: members
of Greek life are 2.5 times more likely
to be sexually assaulted than non-
members and more likely to binge
drink than the average student.
There’s an element within the Greek
community which earnestly wants to
curb these issues. These efforts have
begun to take shape: Fraternities
serve beer rather than hard liquor at
open parties and new members are
given an orientation that aims to pre-
vent the aforementioned behaviors.
Other communities at the Uni-
versity have made similar attempts
to prevent sexual assault and over-
drinking. My co-op asks our guests
to define consent before entering a
party and all of our house officers
are given bystander intervention
training by the Inter-Cooperative
Council. I’ve seen other co-ops
hang the definition of consent
around the house. These policies
show our guests that we have a
zero-tolerance policy on sexual
assault. They also make the defi-
nition of consent salient to party-
goers and help prevent potentially
disastrous encounters. We put in
a tremendous amount of work to
prevent sexual assault, but why
should this be outside the norm?
After Schlissel’s community meet-
ing, Tom Allen, fellow Fordie and
former president of Alpha Sigma
Phi, said that “(Greek life) is defi-
nitely going to be open to what was
said yesterday and in the future work
really close with the University to
make things safer.” According to
Allen, eight fraternities within the
IFC have already invited SAPAC for
bystander intervention training and
we should applaud that. But what
about the rest?
Students who are in co-ops and are
part of the University’s social justice
community should reach out to the
Greek community. I envision a broad
partnership between Greek life,
cooperatives,
the
administration,
CSG, SAPAC and other groups on
campus dedicated to creating a safer
campus. This won’t be a cure-all —
some aspects of toxic masculinity are
so deeply entrenched that we’ll need
to see a nationwide cultural shift
before we can eradicate them. My
co-op has a deep history of activism,
but only began aggressively fighting
against sexual assault in 2014. Let’s
accelerate that process and instead of
working in silos, combine our efforts
to make the University safer.
— Roland Davidson can be
reached at mhenryda@umich.edu.
Lending a cooperative hand
ROLAND
DAVIDSON
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim,
Payton Luokkala, Kit Maher, Madeline Nowicki, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland,
Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Kevin Sweitzer, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung,
Stephanie Trierweiler, Hunter Zhao
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
A few weeks ago, a bright blue board on the
Diag sponsored by Students for Life stood next
to the Shapiro Undergraduate Library advertis-
ing for an initiative called Pregnant on Campus.
This project’s goal is to provide pregnant or
parenting students with the support, resources
and information they need to continue their
education even while they are dealing with
the added pressures of pregnancy or raising
children. Our group holds office hours where
students can come talk to their peers in a safe,
non-judgmental environment, and we gather
resources, references and information so that
pregnant or parenting students can find what
they need without spending hours searching
the Internet. This year, we have even estab-
lished a Pregnant on Campus scholarship. But
our efforts are tainted by the misconceptions
and controversies that are attached to our pro-
life label. We see this all the time, and our Diag
board was no exception — if you looked closely,
you could see someone’s black Sharpie addition:
“Abortions are OK too.”
The vandalism in and of itself was not par-
ticularly upsetting to me, despite the hours
of our time and the investment of our club’s
money that went into the advertisement. Even
the message itself was understandable, because
abortion does remain a legal and viable choice
for a pregnant student. What bothered me the
most was that the graffiti artist’s work implied
that Pregnant on Campus is an effort by Stu-
dents for Life to manipulate and shame women
into not choosing abortion. This is an assump-
tion that underlies many conversations that I
have had with pro-choice and even some pro-
life people, and I think it is important to clarify
our true intentions.
My question is this: If a woman wants to
carry her child to term, and the biggest barrier
is her fear that she will not be able to finish her
education and pursue her goals because of soci-
etal pressures and factors out of her control,
is abortion a “good enough” solution for her?
Is it acceptable to encourage her to make that
choice, instead of demanding that change be
made on a societal level to ensure that she will
still be supported and empowered throughout
her pregnancy and beyond?
This is not to say this is the only situation
in which a woman would consider abortion,
and I do not by any means wish to imply that
a woman makes the decision to abort lightly.
But the issue of finishing her education is some-
thing every pregnant college student will think
about, and it is not fair to her that she might
feel forced into abortion because of a lack of
support and resources. To me, empowering a
woman’s right to choose does not mean pushing
her toward abortion solely because society has
failed to provide for her and her child. It means
that if she is even considering making the brave
and sometimes terrifying decision to parent
or to give her child to an adoptive family, she
knows she will be supported and encouraged
every step of the way.
One of the long-term goals of Pregnant on
Campus is to make the University of Michigan
a place that both acknowledges and respects
the rights that pregnant women are granted
by Title IX, which forbids universities from
discriminating on the basis of sex. Since preg-
nancy is something only a woman can ever
experience, any structures of society that
punish her for being pregnant are inherently
sexist, and Title IX recognizes that to create
equal opportunities for women, pregnant stu-
dents need to be given special support to stay in
school. For example, one of the biggest impacts
of Title IX is that professors cannot penalize a
student’s grade in any way because of a doctor-
approved, pregnancy-related absence and must
give the student a reasonable amount of time
to make up work regardless of the attendance
policy for any other students.
Policies such as these increase a woman’s
agency to choose by allowing her to consider
decisions that might otherwise seem impossible
to make. As a pro-life group, we are not afraid
to say this increase in support for pregnant stu-
dents has the potential to reduce the number of
abortions sought by college-age women. And
we would celebrate this outcome, because it
would mean that young women are being given
what they need to truly make their own deci-
sions, free from restrictions imposed by a lack
of resources. At the most basic level, Students
for Life is built on a respect for all human life,
not just the life of the unborn. That means we
are dedicated to caring about women, too, and
protecting their rights and their freedoms.
So the next time you see Pregnant on Cam-
pus’ name on the Diag, try to look past your
preconceived notions of what it means to be
pro-life. Try to understand that what Preg-
nant on Campus strives for is something that I
believe pro-choice groups also seek passionate-
ly — the support and empowerment of women
in our society. A woman should never have to
choose between her child and her education,
and it is up to us to make our University a place
where she feels strong and supported enough to
have both.
If you are pregnant or parenting and looking for
support, please do not hesitate to contact Preg-
nant on Campus at pregnantinfo@umich.edu.
Pregnant on campus
CHLOE ALBERTA | OP-ED
A
s I ran in a pack with my
best friends and track team-
mates on a bright and sunny
Florida morning,
I tried desper-
ately to focus on
the cadence of
my footfalls and
the overwhelming sense of calm-
ness that usually washes over me as
soon as I step out the door. However,
I quickly found it impossible to enjoy
the humorous conversation happen-
ing around me, or even the sound of
the waves gently lapping the shore-
line, due to the disturbing number
of middle-aged men who deemed it
their civic duty to comment on every-
thing — ranging from our activity of
choice (running) to our bodies. That
first run in Florida lasted only 30
minutes, but my friends and I were
cat-called 14 times.
Standing on a street corner, wait-
ing for the traffic whizzing by to
come to a halt so that we could cross
the road, a man leaned out of his
beaten-up truck and had the audac-
ity to snap a picture of us. In one
swift motion, he crossed all personal
boundaries and took with him the
image of our bodies — not knowing
anything about who we were. I shud-
der thinking about where the picture
is now or what it was used for. Essen-
tially, standing there in a T-shirt and
spandex, completely normal running
attire for a warm climate, I realized
that I had never felt more exposed
and objectified in my life.
Here we were, athletes on a train-
ing run so that we could become bet-
ter at our sport, and we were being
reduced to mere sexual objects.
Would it be appropriate to stand
on the sidelines of a college football
training camp and yell slurs at the
boys as they sprinted back and forth
across the field? Or even more simply,
at the countless shirtless male run-
ners we saw along our route? No, of
course not, because at no time in our
lives have we been taught that these
activities are sexual or that we have
the right to invade other people’s
comfort zones with our words. So
why is it that, because of an inher-
ently patriarchal society, we are
expected to deal with men ignoring
our athletic abilities to instead com-
ment on the size of our chests or the
curvature of our bodies?
The couple of times one of us
tried to counter the remarks with
a certain obscene hand gesture,
the men either yelled more loudly
or gave us the same motion right
back. In their minds, our bodies
were on display for their gratifica-
tion — and they had every right to
express their pleasure. How dare
we take away their right to self-
expression, or put in a more sac-
charine manner, their right to give
“compliments.”
For the record, compliments are
defined in the dictionary as remarks
of “esteem, respect, and affection.”
There is no way that these strang-
ers have any semblance of respect
for me when all they see is a sum of
body parts. They don’t know I could
like the same kind of music as their
daughters or that I am a student
attending a prestigious university.
Furthermore, affection implies
intimacy. Compliments from close
friends make me feel warm and con-
fident, while these so-called “compli-
ments” from strangers make me feel
like I have done something wrong.
They have not only made me feel
uncomfortable, but have also genu-
inely terrified me. Once, as I was run-
ning on the shoulder of a fairly busy
road, a car swerved much too close
to me, and a teenager leaned out
and screamed something about an
explicit sexual act. I flinched in sur-
prise and sprinted onto the sidewalk,
almost in tears due to my anger and
frustration. I was only a freshman in
high school. A man who genuinely
thinks that he is complimenting ran-
dom girls by shouting at them about
their assets is disillusioned and stuck
in a far bygone era.
What’s even more terrifying, how-
ever, is that I have heard girls say they
do not mind the jeers because they
prove that they are “hot” or that they
find the attention amusing. These
girls are missing out on the impera-
tive difference between a compli-
ment and a derogatory remark. With
each “hey, baby,” “how you doin’ girl”
or the incredibly uncreative “damn,”
the cat-caller is obtaining gratifi-
cation while the act of cat-calling
becomes even more socially accepted
in today’s culture. I have been the
recipient of this kind of harassment
in Florida, in my hometown of Grand
Rapids and even in Europe.
Cat-calling can seem benign, but
it is just the tip of an insidious ice-
berg. Young girls will grow up con-
fusing these invasive and honestly
just plain creepy remarks as signs
of genuine love and affection. They
will think that they must use their
bodies to garner male attention.
They will think that what they were
wearing warranted the harassment,
and eventually begin to blame them-
selves. This is the problem with cat-
calling. If a grown man can’t contain
himself while driving past a group
of barely-of-age girls in sports bras,
our society obviously still has a lot of
growing up to do.
— Kaela Theut can be reached
at ktheut@umich.edu.
End cat-calling
KAELA
THEUT
W
hen I first joined Facebook in 2008,
my posts would typically read
something like, “Elliott Rains is
going to school … again!!”
Nobody ever commented
on, liked or probably even
read these updates.
Nearly a decade later, I
sit at my computer with two
of my Facebook posts col-
lectively approaching 200
comments. The times have
certainly changed.
Each of these posts were
prompts asking my Face-
book friends to openly
discuss two of the most
polarizing figures in recent American politi-
cal history: Donald Trump, who has openly
supported torture, and Bernie Sanders, a self-
described democratic socialist. Given the gen-
erally hostile nature of this year’s presidential
primaries, one might assume the contents of
those 200 comments were equally hostile, agi-
tated and not all that constructive.
Having grown up in a small, rural and mostly
conservative village and now attending a pub-
lic university in one of the most liberal cities in
the country, I have collected a diverse group of
Facebook friends over the years.
Many people might question why I did such
a silly thing in the first place. Nick Bilton, a
New York Times writer, called social media
arguments “Can’t-Win Propositions.” When
interviewing fellow journalists, Bilton was
even told, “The rule about engaging is that you
should never engage.” Some respondents noted
the format and immediacy of social networks
cause misunderstandings.
According to Bilton and his interviewees,
the nature of social media, along with the way
in which people have grown to use them, has
created this mentality where it is better to say
nothing at all than to possibly engage in a con-
troversial dialogue. In other words, the most
civil and safe social media are not social at all.
However, a recent study by the University
of Delaware suggests that social media com-
ments and discussions might influence voters’
perceptions of candidates. Though the findings
are limited and relatively new, the idea of politi-
cal discussions among friends and family that
shift narratives and shape opinions is not all
that radical.
Knowing a Facebook comment might help
determine who will be written about in history
books centuries from now should be enough to
dismiss the idea of “can’t-win” posts. However,
there is still much apprehension when it comes
to commenting on somebody’s meme about
Bernie Sanders taking kids’ lunch money.
After reading and responding to all 200
comments, you might be surprised how civil
and productive the discussions were. As a
whole, I believe a lot was won in the proposi-
tion of engaging. Many of my ultra-conserva-
tive friends from high school conversed with
many of my ultra-liberal friends from college
in a civilized and constructive manner. Though
I can’t attest to anybody’s personal opinions
being changed, it was visibly apparent that
many involved in the discussion got something
out of the experience. A Sanders supporter
talked with a Republican about progressive tax
brackets; a vocal Trump supporter and a Sand-
ers activist discussed their mutual distaste for
Hillary Clinton’s political history.
None of these constructive conversations
would have taken place if my friends, fam-
ily and I had embraced the mentality that
social medias are not suitable environments
for political discussion. Had we accepted the
criticisms that the technologies underlying
social networks like Facebook and Twitter
breed conflict and hatred, we would have
lost out on educational and enjoyable social
interaction. If we willingly accept the narra-
tive that the only types of discussions we can
have as a society on social media are super-
ficial or silent, we might squander one of the
most revolutionary social developments in
human history.
Never before has a technological platform
enabled 200-plus interactions between so
many complete strangers, allowing them to
engage with one another on a globally impact-
Social media politics
ELLIOTT
RAINS
ful process — much less on a random
Wednesday night in March. By col-
lectively shifting the narrative to
one of mutual respect, understand-
ing and civic engagement, the par-
ticipants in the 200-plus interactions
were given the motivation to partici-
pate harmoniously. The affordances
of social media were used not as
enablers to “can’t-win” hostility but
to possible democratically influential
connection.
In both 2008 and this past week,
it was clear to me that we as citi-
zens — be it students, factory work-
ers or CEOs — shape the future of
social media. Though its affordanc-
es present us with new opportuni-
ties and experiences, we ultimately
dictate how those affordances will
be put to use.
I am all in favor of dog memes,
sports highlights and birthday wish-
es taking up a portion of our news
feeds. But, I can’t help but think it
would be a shame if we didn’t take
advantage of the opportunity to
change human history with a politi-
cal Facebook post every now and
then.
— Elliott Rains can be reached
at erains@umich.edu.
“Students who are in
co-ops and are part
of the University’s
social justice
community should
reach out to the
Greek community.”