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

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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 — Monday, April 18, 2016

LILLIAN GAINES | OP-ED

Dear Colleagues:

Thank you for writing to share your 

condemnation of the repugnant chalkings on the 
Diag. These messages are hurtful to members 
of the University of Michigan community, 
inconsistent with the values to which we aspire 
and antithetical to the intellectual life of our 
campus.

We agree that all Arab, Muslim and MENA 

(Middle Eastern and North African) students, 
faculty, staff and visitors should feel welcome 
and have an equal opportunity to thrive at the 
University. Their presence makes our campus 
better in every way.

University leadership has had frequent, 

ongoing discussions with Arab, Muslim and 
MENA students about the campus climate for 
several months. This includes a Jan. 11 meeting 
at the president’s house with students from 
these groups and the Jan. 25 “Sharing Stories, 
Building Allyhood: Student Voices Against 
Islamophobia” event on campus.

Leaders from Student Life and the College of 

Literature, Science and the Arts have worked 
closely with the Islamophobia Working Group, 
including incorporating the group’s feedback into 
the college’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 
plan. E. Royster Harper, vice president for 
student life and Dean of Students Laura Blake 
Jones met with student leaders Wednesday. 
Senior 
University 
leaders, 
including 
the 

president, participated alongside students 
representing racial, ethnic, religious and 
LGBTQ groups in a listening session Wednesday 
organized by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

We have also worked to communicate our values 

of respect, civility and equality. The president’s 

speech at Winter 2015 commencement addressed 
the challenging balance between constitutional 
rights and a sense of safety, specifically referencing 
Islamophobia. Remarks at the University’s Martin 
Luther King Jr. Symposium in January discussed 
the hostility and hateful messages the students 
had experienced in the context of our work to do 
better as a university.

After learning of the offensive chalk messages, 

the University reaffirmed our values in our initial 
statement. This was followed by a March 31 post on 
the president’s website titled “We Stand Together 
Against Hate,” which was linked to his Twitter 
account. On April 7, the president published an 
essay on The Huffington Post discussing the 
degrading of our discourse through disrespect, 
hate, bigotry and targeted attacks.

Last Friday, former CSG President Cooper 

Charlton and President Schlissel sent an e-mail 
to all students on our Ann Arbor campus calling 
the messages “repugnant and hurtful to members 
of our community.” Correspondence with the 
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s 
Michigan Regional Office resulted in a message of 
support earlier this week.

We have been very impressed by the members 

of our community who have taken a stance against 
the anti-Islam messages. In addition to you and 
those you mentioned, we have seen students 
reaching out to one another and offering support.

We all agree that racism and discrimination 

have no place at the University of Michigan.

—Mark Schlissel is the University 

president, Martha Pollack is provost and 

vice president of student affairs, and 

Andrew Martin is the dean of LSA. 

In response to faculty letter

P

ublic policy in the United States has 
propagated social trauma for centuries. 
In Black communities especially, the 

government has betrayed 
its pledge to protect the 
human rights of life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness 
written in the Declaration 
of 
Independence. 
This 

historical record excluded 
Black 
people, 
setting 

precedent for the systemic 
violence that has created 
oppressive 
conditions 
— 

mental, 
social, 
physical, 

economic and legal — still 
reinforced today.

Public trust in the federal government 

has been declining since 1958. According 
to the Center for Michigan’s Community 
Conversation Issue Guide Book, “public trust 
in (Michigan) state government is (also) low, 
and dropping.” Currently, the Center for 
Michigan is conducting a series of Community 
Conversations around the state surveying public 
trust in Michigan’s government. The most 
recent conversation took place in Ann Arbor at 
the Ford School of Public Policy. The attendees 
comprised mainly white men and women over 
the age of 40 and only a few undergraduate 
and graduate students. In all of the survey 
questions asked, the results were consistently 
low: The participants in the room did not trust 
the state’s ability to oversee K-12 education or 
public higher education, the state’s ability to 
protect public health or the environment, or 
the state’s ability to provide services for low-
income residents or foster economic growth 
and representative government. 

It’s a general sentiment that the political 

environment in Michigan is grossly inept to 
meet the needs of all of its public constituents. 
The recent actions, or lack thereof, of the state of 
Michigan reflect the structural violence that has 
put Black people in harm’s way and has injured 
their economic, social, political, collective and 
spiritual wellbeing. The oversight of the Flint 
water crisis, the installment of emergency 
managers in predominately Black cities and 
the bystander approach toward refinancing 
Detroit Public Schools reinforce the idea that 
government institutions don’t view themselves 
accountable to Black people. The state’s passive 
policy approaches to these blatant fractures 
of human rights and political sovereignty are 
appalling and should incite outrage.

In some cases, outrage has occurred. 

Historically, when Black people express their 
discontentment with the government, they are 
silenced with legislation or imprisonment. As 
James Baldwin stated in one of his interviews: 
“It is one thing to demand justice in literature, 
and another thing to face the price that one has 
got to pay for it in life.” The risks Blacks face 
strongly asserting their political rights feel 
too dangerous, as proven in the incarceration 
of Black political prisoners during the 1960s 
to 1980s. Our trauma from political violence 
is so deeply rooted and continuously present 
that it feels as though Black Michiganders have 

become emotionally numb to this structural and 
systematic violence. It has become the status 
quo and part and parcel of our history and lived 
experiences. 

Black people were never allowed to heal 

from the trauma handed down from generation 
to generation and permeating our social 
consciousness. Black people are understandably 
exhausted from navigating spaces not designed 
to include them, fighting against structural 
exclusion, while simultaneously rehabilitating 
their communities from decades of political 
destruction.

Black Americans were never granted a truth 

and reconciliation commission forcing the 
government to acknowledge its past wrongs 
and allowing Blacks a healing space from the 
historical injustices we’ve endured, nor were we 
offered any reparations. Thus, our “recovery” 
from these historical traumas has been a violent 
one — one that perpetuates the systemic violence 
embedded in our social structures and kills 
people slowly by preventing them from meeting 
their basic needs.

How can Blacks be expected to trust a 

government that was never meant to serve us? 
A government that historically never viewed 
us as fully human? The government counted 
Blacks as three-fifths of a person, permitted life-
threatening medical experimentation, implanted 
racial inferiority that has since been internalized 
and physically removed us from our homes 
via incarceration, to name just a few. The 
continuity of systemic violence has wounded 
Black spirits, which has made the challenge to 
reverse the social ills of oppression that much 
more overbearing.

Black citizens cannot become tolerant 

of, or complacent in, the discrimination 
administered by our state government. We 
cannot become numb to the destruction that 
specific policies invoke. Violence is an urgent 
matter to address; it requires immediate 
attention and action to prevent further 
damage. A critical systems thinking approach 
to overhaul the political system is required 
for transformational change. This approach 
encourages restorative accountability in the 
political sphere, an important component to 
restoring public trust.

Dr. Miriam Ticktin wisely remarked, “While 

politics is a set of practices by which order is 
created and maintained; the political refers to the 
disruption of an established order.” The personal 
will always be political, and the trauma Blacks 
face is embedded within political institutions.

Black citizens must realize the fight for our 

political, social and economic rights means, in 
the long term, dismantling political institutional 
frameworks at their core. In the interim, Blacks 
should engage in the community restorative 
spaces afforded to us, such as community 
gardens, meditation spaces and trauma-informed 
community centers. There is a compelling and 
critical need for restorative policy practices that 
acknowledge institutional neglect but ultimately 
provide a pathway for social peace.

— Alexis Farmer can be reached 

at akfarmer@umich.edu. 

Reocurring trauma

MARK SCHLISSEL, MARTHA POLLACK, ANDREW MARTIN | OP-ED

Sororities have been criticized for 

many things in the past few years, 
including 
female 
objectification, 

racist exclusion and classism. Each 
organization’s constitution is unique in 
its approach to addressing these issues. 
What unites them all is a foundational 
promise and contractual pledge to 
promote female empowerment — a 
commitment that is increasingly being 
called into question.

The New York Times recently 

published a front-page story titled 
“When a Feminist Pledges a Sorority,” 
a report on Ivy League sororities 
that is both troubling and, in the end, 
overly optimistic: The author, Jessica 
Bennett, interviews women who feel 
they are making real progress in trying 
to turn what have been historically 
sexist and elitist houses into centers of 
feminist fervor.

As I read the article, I could not 

help wondering if sorority members 
at universities like ours, which are far 
more representative of national Greek 
life culture than the Ivy Leagues, 
feel the same way. In other words, 
do sororities actually empower their 
members, and if not, why?

While sororities can operate in 

social, academic and philanthropic 
spheres, for the most part, the 
primary motivation to “Go Greek” 
is the planned social schedule. 
These events promote ideas that 
plainly run contrary to female 
empowerment. To investigate these 
phenomena, I sat down with sorority 
members, past and present, both in 
and outside our University, so they 
could share their experiences with 
their respective organizations.

A senior at the University of 

Virginia and former member of Alpha 
Phi, Olivia Dillingham said Greek 
social 
regulations 
promote 
male 

dominance and, in turn, actually 
constrain women in the larger system.

“While 
Greek 
life 
supposedly 

promotes a space for women to 
interact, it imposes rules on them 

that aren’t imposed on the men in the 
university, which,” she said, “allow 
men to completely dominate the 
social scene … (giving) women 
reason 
to 
want 
to 
objectify 

themselves in order to get invited to 
parties and fit in socially.”

Not only do fraternities host all 

the parties, but they also provide all 
the alcohol at these events. These 
rules are attributed to the National 
Panhellenic 
Conference’s 
policy, 

which states, “College Panhellenics 
shall not spend Panhellenic funds 
to purchase alcoholic beverages for 
any purpose.” Fraternities, free from 
these restrictions, maintain control 
of all the social capital, with free 
reign to choose party themes such as: 
Workout Bros and Yoga Hos, CEOs 
and Corporate Hos, and King Tuts 
and Egyptian Sluts. Younger members 
consequently feel pressured to dress 
in provocative clothing in order to 
continue having parties with the 
fraternity, fill the social calendar and 
attract new members. This attempt to 
emphasize female desirability invokes 
traditional, patriarchal gender roles.

“The whole idea of having gender-

segregated 
houses 
and 
parties 

with sexist themes … and guys 
having power over who they let 
into their house, it’s pretty sexist in 
its nature,” Ariela Levy, a member 
of Alpha Delta Pi at UC Berkeley, 
said of these regulations governing 
sorority social life.

In October 2015, University of 

Michigan 
Panhellenic 
sought 
to 

create a new partnership program 
between sororities and the Sexual 
Assault Prevention and Awareness 
Center. LSA sophomore Anna Bauer 
is one of SAPAC’s Peer Educators 
and an active member of Pi Beta Phi. 
Anna recognizes that even within 
this progressive group in the Greek 
community, female empowerment is 
minimal.

“(We) ironically only talk about 

our relationships with fraternity 

men,” she said, “and how basically 
everything that we do, think and act 
is influenced by how they think about 
us.” She consistently highlighted 
that this habit of female students 
viewing themselves through a male 
lens is perpetuated through Greek 
life’s gender norms.

This power dynamic between 

sororities and fraternities is deeply 
rooted in National Greek policies. A 
columnist for The Michigan Daily, 
Alison Schalop, recently published 
an article titled “Expectations and 
Regulations in Greek Life” comparing 
her sorority’s handbook, Alpha Chi 
Omega, with an unnamed fraternity’s 
handbook. She contrasted the laws 
governing guests stating, “No men 
are permitted in the Alpha Chi Omega 
household between the hours of 2 a.m. 
and 7 a.m.” In regard to the fraternity’s 
manual, she states she found “nothing 
related to having guests sleep over.”

This regulation, coupled with 

Nationals’ mandate that women must 
live in the sorority house for one 
year, effectively strips heterosexual 
women of any agency to decide 
where they want to be sexually 
active. In addition, since this rule is 
implemented to avoid instances of 
sexual assault, this regulation also 
invokes heteronormative assumptions 
that only men can be the perpetrators 
of sexual violence, as it does nothing to 
restrict female entry.

“I got in trouble with my sorority 

because I spoke out against some of 
their rules, many of which,” Schalop 
told me, “buy into a double standard of 
the expectations of men and women. 
I was immediately told to take my 
opinion down. My sorority, which 
boasts women empowerment and 
growth, wanted to silence my voice.”

—Lillian Gaines is an 

LSA sophomore.

Y

ou know how when you say a 
word so many times it starts to 
lose its meaning? Well appar-

ently that’s called 
semantic 
satia-

tion. 
That 
fact 

has nothing to do 
with this column, 
but 
psychology 

really does have 
terminology 
for 

everything.

Anyway, 
I’ve 

been living in Ann 
Arbor for close 
to 
four 
years 

now, and the oft-
repeated word I’m thinking about is 
“dialogue.”

“We need to have a dialogue,” they 

said when the Boycott, Divest and 
Sanctions movement was dominating 
the campus conversation during spring 
2014 and 2015.

“We need to have a dialogue,” they 

said about mental health on campus.

“We need to have a dialogue,” they 

said about sexual assault on campus.

“We need to have a dialogue,” they 

said about diversity on campus.

And most recently, “We need to have 

a dialogue,” they said in response to the 
Islamophobic chalkings on the Diag.

Dialogue is “an exchange of ideas 

or opinions on a particular issue, espe-
cially a political or religious issue, with 
a view to reaching an amicable agree-
ment or settlement.”

Reaching an agreement or an 

“agree to disagree” situation on 
whatever topic is the ideal result and 
generally leaves people on both sides 
of an issue satisfied, or at least content. 
This probably explains why calls for 
dialogue have become the most pre-
dictable response to anything remote-
ly controversial on campus.

But when you really think about 

it, what does dialogue really mean 
in the context it gets used in on cam-
pus? After four years of working at 
the Daily, I’ve concluded it means so 
much and so little at the same time. 
In some cases, establishing places to 
have a dialogue — real, honest con-
versation — has allowed students to 
safely discuss the issues that matter 
to them and seems to ensure that 
people are actually listening.

Take the topic of sexual assault, for 

example. The University of Michigan 
hosted several roundtable discussions 
about the sexual misconduct policy 

this past fall, which resulted in a much 
more comprehensive policy. It felt like 
people’s views were heard. This, in 
addition to the Speak Outs that the 
Sexual Assault Prevention and Aware-
ness Center has hosted, shows how far 
campus has come in trying to make a 
difference on this issue.

Since I came to campus in 2012, 

mental health has also become a much 
less taboo topic thanks to dialogue. The 
Daily has published countless articles 
about mental health and the need for 
more resources on campus. There have 
been all kinds of events about it on 
campus, too. And perhaps as a result of 
these efforts, though it’s far from per-
fect, Counseling and Psychological 
Services has worked to improve its 
intake time. And University Presi-
dent Mark Schlissel recently said 
the University is working on plans to 
establish a new mental health clinic 
on campus. That’s a big deal, and 
it’s happening because students are 
coming out and saying, “Enough is 
enough. We need better.”

In other instances, calls for dia-

logue have been little more than empty 
words. Though the word was tossed 
around, the debate over whether Cen-
tral Student Government should have 
passed a resolution to divest from com-
panies engaged in business in Israel 
was objectively anything but dialogue. 
There were two sides entrenched in 
their beliefs. One side said their piece, 
the other said theirs, and there was no 
attempt to really listen to one another.

And just a couple of weeks ago, 

after the anti-Islam chalking incident, 
Schlissel said this as part of a longer 
statement: “I am convinced that we 
have the ability to come together to 
engage in meaningful dialogue on dif-
ficult topics that is enabled by our deep 
commitment to respect for all.”

“We stand together against hate. 

We must work together toward deeper 
understanding.” Of course, I agree with 
the sentiment. The University is a bas-
tion of intelligent human beings. But 
what exactly does he mean by mean-
ingful dialogue?

The same strategies that may have 

worked to develop a better sexual 
misconduct policy can’t be expected 
to work when talking about race and 
religion. We know we need to combat 
Islamophobia on campus. We know 
people of color are marginalized. But 
if it’s sitting around a table for an hour 
and talking about our experiences that 

he’s proposing with this statement, 
then I’m not convinced progress will be 
made. That won’t help us reach a deep-
er understanding of one another. 

Part of what makes the conversa-

tion about race and religion so differ-
ent than others is that it takes a certain 
degree of courage to think past our pre-
conceived beliefs. There’s a reason why 
we often gravitate toward people like 
ourselves — as much as we may claim 
otherwise, we don’t like our beliefs and 
potential biases being challenged.

Because of this difference, calls for 

dialogue about race and religion must 
be treated differently as well. If the 
University really wants to do some-
thing, then it has to do everything in its 
power to get people from all different 
walks of life — races, religions, ethnici-
ties, socioeconomic statuses, etc. — liv-
ing and working together.

The University needs to work on the 

smallest details, such as who lives with 
whom in the dorms. It needs to think 
about the homogeneity in Greek life and 
its implications. It needs to think about 
who studies where in each library and 
who lives where off campus. It needs 
to think about why “safe spaces” need 
to be created in the first place. It needs 
to keep finding ways to make coming to 
this school more affordable and make it 
appealing to people of all backgrounds. 
Only with an understanding of all these 
things — how students live their lives 
— can the University make an earnest 
effort to change the status quo.

Dialogue has the potential to mean 

something all the time. I am so con-
vinced that students aren’t that dif-
ferent from one another, but we (me 
included) and the University don’t do 
enough to put ourselves in the position 
to recognize that. Hosting and attend-
ing events like “Muffins with Mus-
lims,” which happened last Friday, is 
only the beginning of what has to hap-
pen to bring ourselves together in ways 
beyond short conversations and writ-
ing articles of solidarity.

So now this is the end of my final 

column, and I guess all I’m trying to say 
in this article and all the previous ones 
I’ve written is for some reason, I believe 
in the human spirit. I know we can see 
the humanity in each other.

We just have to try harder and turn 

our words into action.

—Derek Wolfe can be reached 

at dewolfe@umich.edu. 

More than a dialogue

DEREK 
WOLFE

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

RE: When a feminist pledges a sorority

ALEXIS 
FARMER

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

