The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, January 26, 2017 — 3

MAX KUANG/Daily

Investigative journalist Azmat Khan talks about social justice and the importance of local history at the annual SAAN Conference on Saturday at the 
Michigan League.

YES WE CAN , YES WE SA AN

chairman back in December. 
The 
announcement 
came 

after 
former 
chairwoman 

Ronna 
Romney 
McDaniel 

vacated the position to head 
the 
National 
Republican 

Party.

LSA 
senior 
Casey 

VanderWeide 
interned 
for 

Weiser on both his regent and 
GOP chair campaigns. She 
said his decision to run was 
made after Republican Party 
members approached Weiser 
and recommended him for 
the position in McDaniel’s 
absence.

“He 
was 
approached 

by multiple people of the 
party just because of this 
vacancy,” VanderWeide said. 
“Coming up in 2018, we have 
the governor, we have the 
U.S. Senate, you have the 
Michigan 
House 
and 
the 

Michigan Senate. There’s a 
lot of important races for this 
state and Ron has had such an 
incredible legacy helping the 
Michigan Republican Party 
and other Republican parties 
as well across the nation.”

Public 
Policy 
Lecturer 

Rusty Hills has served as the 
Michigan Republican Party 
chair twice. He said the job of 
the GOP chair is to turn states 
red, as seen in November.

“The chair’s job, really, is 

to elect Republicans and to 
assist them in their efforts 
to win office,” Hills said. 
“It’s real simple. It’s about 
winning elections.”

Scott Hagerstrom, Trump’s 

campaign 
director 
in 

Michigan during the election, 
was Weiser’s only opposition 
for the position.

“I am confident that Ron 

Weiser 
understands 
that 

the future of the Michigan 
Republican 
Party 
lies 
in 

embracing the constitutional 
principles 
that 
led 
to 

President Trump’s historic 
victory,” Hagerstrom wrote 
Sunday in a Facebook post.

Once it was announced 

that Hagerstrom canceled his 
campaign, many expressed 

concern 
over 
whether 
it 

was a conflict of interest 
were Weiser to hold both 
positions. 
Some 
have 

questioned whether it would 
be a violation of the board’s 
bylaws to do so. 

The 
Regental 
and 

Executive-Senior 
Officer 

Conflict of Interest Policy, 
Section 1.14 of the board’s 
bylaws, 
says 
a 
regent 

is 
considered 
to 
have 
a 

conflict 
of 
interest 
when 

they have “an existing or 
potential financial or other 

interest which impairs or 
might appear to impair the 
regent’s or executive/senior 
officer’s 
independence 
of 

judgment in the discharge 
of 
responsibilities 
to 
the 

university.”

Hills 
said 
being 
both 

a 
regent 
and 
Michigan 

Republican chair is not a 
conflict of interest, but rather 
an advantage because he will 
bring his resources from the 
state job to the University.

“The advantage, as I see it, 

is that as a party chairman, 
Ron Weiser will, obviously, 
come in contact with a great 
number of people,” Hills said. 
“By virtue of that, I think 
he’ll make connections that 
will rebound to the benefit of 
the University of Michigan, 
making 
fundraising 

connections, making framed 
interactions, being a positive 
ambassador for the University 
helps to put the University 
in a good light with a wide 
range of Republican Party 
members.”

SACUA 
member 
Silke-

Maria Weineck, a professor 
of German studies, however, 
believes Weiser should resign 
from one of his positions. 
She said Weiser’s support 
of President Donald Trump 
and his current stake at the 
University creates a situation 
where 
Weiser 
cannot 

represent both organizations 
at the same time.

“Trump’s general campaign 

and 
his 
post-election 

statements have show him to 
be deeply at odds with UM’s 
core mission,” Weineck said. 
“I think there’s a chasm there. 
The way our cosmopolitan 
institution would have voted 
is to the creation of a nation 
of 
knowledge 
… 
I 
think 

(President Trump) is a proven 

brazen liar and I think Mr. 
Weiser can either side with 
a liar or he can side with the 
University which stands for 
the unbiased quest for truth. 
These two are incompatible. 
He cannot side with both.”

LSA junior Collin Kelly, 

chair 
of 
the 
University’s 

chapter of College Democrats, 
said Weiser’s situation might 
result in students being a 
backburner issue for him in 
the future.

“Even 
though 
(the 

chair position) isn’t a paid 
position, it’s still one of the 
most 
important 
positions 

in the state of Michigan,” 
he said. “Here, running a 
flagship 
university, 
that’s 

very important and to have 
explicitly partisan ties is, at 
the least, a big distraction. 
There’s a danger and a worry 
that his chairmanship of the 
Michigan Republican Party 
will affect that and might put 
conservative politics above 
what is in the best interests 
of 
the 
students 
and 
the 

University.”

With these claims above 

his head, Weiser said his 
holding both positions is in 
no way a conflict of interest 
and, like Hills, he said he will 
try to use his chair position to 
help the University any way 
he can.

“The other people who 

are regents also have full-
time jobs so the regents are 
not full-time jobs,” Weiser 
said. “On the other hand, 
I do believe as chair of the 
party of Michigan, that will 
give me some opportunity 
to try to help the University 
when it comes to government 
policy because I’ll have some 
influence over the legislature 
and the executive branch.”

WEISER
From Page 1

change takes time.

“I think often the way the 

story is told to us is she sits 
down and miraculously there’s 
this moment and then they 
win,” Theoharis said. “We miss 
the work of that, and for those 
of 
us 
building 
movements 

today, we have to see that 
that’s not the case, it takes a lot 
of work.”

LSA senior Lindsay Green 

appreciated this sentiment and 
plans to apply it to her daily life. 

“You 
don’t 
know 
when 

something is going to change, 
you have to choose to make 
change,” Green said. “I think 
that that’s really inspiring and 
a good reminder that today we 
have to choose to do that even 
if we might not get any positive 
outcome right away.”

Theoharis emphasized this 

idea throughout her talk, while 
also trying to communicate to 

students the idea that social 
change is not always positively 
received.

“Most Americans did not 

agree with the civil rights 
movement when it happened,” 
she said. “But it’s important to 
remember that doing the work 
of justice is not necessarily 
popular at the time, there’s 
nothing natural about it.”

By the end of the talk, 

Theoharis had elaborated on 
Parks’ story, and she inspired 
students to enact changes in 
their own communities.

LSA senior Lauren Rose was 

inspired by Theoharis’s talk 
and she plans to use lessons 
learned from the talk in her 
own community. 

“It’s important to be aware 

that the smallest things can 
make a huge change and a huge 
impact,” she said. “I think that 
I’m going to take that and go 
forward in terms of how I’m 
going to continue my activism 
in my own community.”

AUTHOR
From Page 1 

resolution states. 

Engineering 
Rep. 
Tania 

Haddad, 
an 
Engineering 

senior, said the resolution can 
provide more funds for the 
scholarship.

“We 
are 
especially 

passionate 
about 
this 

scholarship and establishing 
it so it can have a large 
enough 
endowment 
and 

have a profound and helpful 
impact on multiple students 
on campus,” she said.

Recipients 
are 
expected 

to serve as future mentors 
to 
younger 
students, 
and 

Schafer 
asked 
the 
board 

to 
consider 
donating 
to 

the 
scholarship—aimed 
at 

improving 
socioeconomic 

inclusion— which was well 
received by the regents. A 
recent internal survey of CSG 
found the body is mostly male 
and white and 37.2 percent of 
members come from homes 
earning more than $250,000 
a year.

“Seventy-five percent of 

CSG members come from 
a household from a total 
income of over $100,000,” 
Schafer said at the October 
meeting. “This simply does 
not reflect the experiences of 
many students on campus.”

To 
qualify 
for 
the 

scholarship, 
potential 

recipients must be full-time 
students at the University of 
Michigan, 
receiving 
need-

based funds from the Office 

of Financial Aid and either 
currently be a leader in a 
student 
organization 
or 

aspiring to be one.

Rackham 
student 
Rep. 

Andy Snow was critical of the 
idea, noting its similarities to 
a regressive tax.

“At the end of the day, I 

don’t care that it’s generally 
going to help students who 
need money — I see the 
student fee as basically a 
regressive tax for students 
the most, in general, and I do 
find it massively, massively 
insulting that we just act 
like financial aid covers it,” 
he said to the body. “People 
take out loans and pay, not 
only that fee, but finally pay 
back quite a bit when they 
finally get the money to do 
it, so without reducing where 

people pay, I will not be able 
to support this.”

Snow 
continued 
to 

criticize 
the 
body 
for 

introducing the resolution, 
stating it was against many 
of CSG’s beliefs.

“I don’t see fundamentally 

how so many of us can be 
against tuition hikes and 
increases and still be in 
support of this,” he said.

The Regents voted this 

July to increase tuition by 3.9 
percent for in-state students 
and 4.4 percent for out-of-
state 
students, 
translating 

to a $546 per year tuition 
increase for in-state students 
and $1,934 for out-of-state 
students. 

The resolution was tabled 

for further review at the 
resolutions committee. 

CSG
From Page 1

looking into mental health, 
and are listening. It’s nice to 
know that someone is taking 
your concerns and taking them 
higher.”

To gain information and ideas 

for potential recommendations 
and policies, organizers asked 
students to voice their concerns 
and suggestions in small groups 
to further discuss ideas. Task 
force co-chair Yumi Taguchi, 
an LSA senior, explained how 
the setup of the event was 
important in furthering the 
discussion of mental health 
issues.

“Both the surveys and the 

town hall are so important for 
this discussion,” Taguchi said. 
“We hear a lot of different 
stories about resources and 
the climate on campus, but this 
format lets us record it in a 
quantitative way in order for us 
to present it to administration, 
to actually make a difference.”

Data 
from 
the 
resource 

innovation 
survey 
reported 

90.3 percent of students are 
aware 
of 
Counseling 
and 

Psychological 
Services, 
but 

many students in the breakout 
groups 
pressed 
for 
more 

targeted campaigns to boost 
awareness. 
LSA 
sophomore 

Sujay Shetty, president of the 
Residence Halls Association, 
noted students living in dorms 
— 
particularly 
incoming 

freshmen — would benefit from 
an increase of awareness.

“Many students living in 

residence halls are freshmen,” 
he said. “Freshman year comes 
with 
a 
lot 
of 
transitional 

stressors. They are a population 
that needs a push in knowing 
what’s there for them.”

The task force reported most 

students understand resources 
available on campus, but still 
encounter significant barriers 
to utilize them. Respondents 
cited negative experiences with 
CAPS, anxiety about making 
appointments, 
accessibility 

and a fear of stigma from other 
students.

CAPS has focused recent 

efforts on equipping faculty 
and staff with diagnostic tools 
to field student mental health 
concerns, 
but 
the 
surveys 

revealed a lingering divide in 
the 
classroom. 
Eighty-seven 

percent of faculty respondents 
felt 
comfortable 
discussing 

and/or providing mental health 
accommodations for students, 
yet 68 percent of students 
felt comfortable approaching 
professors about mental health 
accommodations.

Task force members wore 

and handed out T-shirts with 
semicolons printed on them. 
The shirts are the outcome of 
a CSG resolution that allocated 
money for their production, 
representing 
Project 

Semicolon, which was created 
for individuals who were going 
through struggles with mental 
illness and whose story could 
have stopped moving forward, 
but did not.

Schafer lauded task force 

members for organizing he 
called “crucial” for organizing 
crucial 
University 
policies 

about mental health.

“These 
policies 
will 

normalize 
mental 
illness 

and 
expand 
student 
access 

to invaluable resources and 
strengthen the mental health 
climate in classrooms,” he said.

TOWN HALL
From Page 1

I think he’ll make 
connections that 
will rebound to 
the benefit of 

the University of 
Michigan, making 

fundraising 
connections, 

making framed 

interactions

(Freshman) are 
a population that 
needs a push in 
knowing what’s 
there for them

These polices will 
normalize mental 
illness and expand 

student access 
to invaluable 
resources and 
strengthen the 
mental health 

climate in 
classrooms

