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.”

