Friday, February 3, 2017— 3
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“I come from a community
that’s
a
large
immigrant
population with a large Yemeni
population,” Ahad said. “It’s
really important to get to know
more about this and get a
dialogue about the things that
are happening.”
Elmir
discussed
the
vagueness of the executive
order and how it was clarified in
the following days by the Trump
administration
and
several
lawsuits. It was unclear how
green-card holders, visa holders
and
legal
and
permanent
residents would be affected.
“As of yesterday, they put
out a memo clarifying the
legal,
permanent
resident
issue,” Elmir said. “And what it
says here is that the executive
order does not apply to legal,
permanent residents, does not
apply to green card holders.”
Elmir spoke to U.S. Customs
and Border Protection, the
government agency responsible
for
carrying
out
Trump’s
executive order, about how it
exercises its role in airports.
CBP often takes travelers to
secondary inspection for further
examination to determine their
eligibility to enter the country.
“Their job is to determine
whether non-U.S. citizens and
legal permanent residents have
the authority, the right, to enter
the country,” Elmir said. “CBP
does not have the authority
to take you to the secondary
inspection
based
on
your
religion, your race, your national
origin, your gender, ethnicity or
political beliefs.”
The speakers also offered
advice
to
people
directly
affected by the executive
order, and with what legal
status someone should or
shouldn’t
travel.
Elmir
highlighted
a
person’s
rights while in secondary
inspection, focusing on their
rights when CBP asks to
inspect their computers and
cell phones.
“Whether
you
have
the right to decline your
technology to a CBP officer
after they’ve asked for it …
it’s a contested legal issue,”
Elmir said. “Some courts
have said they have this right,
some courts have said they
don’t have this right.”
Public Health student Sami
Shalabi is both directly and
indirectly affected by the
ban.
“I think it’s important for
us to know our rights, see
how we can help each other
out,” Shalabi said. “See when
we’re at the airport or when
someone’s in crisis, what are
different options that we
have.”
Elmir
concluded
by
answering
questions
and
addressing
concerns
from
the
audience,
including
discussing
specific
cases
of what somebody with a
student visa should do and
what actions people should
take.
“Our work should be to
dismantle this ban, not to add
more countries,” Elmir said.
“Criminalizing Saudi people
by
suggesting
that
they
should be on this travel ban is
incredibly counterproductive
and counterintuitive to our
movement to dismantle the
ban as a whole.”
GREEN CARD
From Page 1
President
Mark
Schlissel
in
October of last year. The plan
established
programs
across
several
departments,
which
include research, event planning
and designing course materials.
There is currently no paid staffing
attached to these programs.
“Usually the people who are
doing diversity work are people
of color,” said Rackham student
Sara
Chadwick,
co-chair
of
communications for the GEO.
“So the purpose of asking the
University to create some paid
positions for that kind of diversity
labor is to ensure that that labor
doesn’t unfairly fall onto the
shoulders of people of color, who
are not getting paid for it.”
Rackham
student
Rachel
Miller added not having these
positions means the burden of
implementing the University’s
initiative is disproportionately
falling on the people it is meant to
serve.
Many graduate student staff
were
also
concerned
about
protections
for
international
students. According to GEO
President John Ware, a Rackham
student, more than 30 percent of
GSIs are international.
“Most of those people have
visas that prohibit them from
working more than 20 hours
a week, but under our current
contract, their supervisors can
require them to work more than
20 hours a week,” Ware said. “We
proposed a change to the work
hours rules that would protect
people from being required to
violate their visas.”
Ware argued the University
has offered insufficient solutions
or outright declined to take on
the problems that the GEO’s
proposals aim to solve. In the
case of international students,
Ware said the University declined
to change the work hours rules
and proposed a change in the
language of offer letters instead.
Rackham
student
Drew
Johnson
emphasized
the
importance of this proposal.
“One
thing
that’s
really
important to me, especially at
this political moment, is that we
look out for graduate employees
who are international students,”
Johnson said. “And that we
make sure that they’re receiving
whatever protections we can put
in place for them.”
Improved
protections
for
international students have been
demanded of the University at
large following executive orders
made
by
President
Donald
Trump, and committees and
initiatives have been formed to
work to that end.
Other important issues for
graduate
students
impacted
by the bargaining process are
affordability and accessibility.
“We really need (a pay
increase) that would bring
us up to a living wage in Ann
Arbor, which we really need
if graduate education is going
to be accessible to people
without family wealth to rely
on, people who may have debt
from undergrad,” Ware said,
adding the University’s offer
of pay increases over the next
three years was not sufficient.
Contracts
are
renegotiated
every three years.
The cost of living in Ann
Arbor is higher than in the
majority of other cities in
Michigan, and the housing
market for students is highly
competitive.
“A lot of the time (the work
GSIs do) becomes kind of
invisible for undergrads and
for the day to day life at the
University,”
Johnson
said.
“We want to make sure people
can see the work that GSIs do
and how committed we are to
making Michigan a great place
to be a graduate student and
a great place to be a student,
period.”
Rackham
student
Mary
Hennessy also advocated for the
grade-in to spread awareness
about the work of the GEO.
“We’re a democratically run
organization, and this is a way
for us to show our commitment
to diversity, equity, inclusion
and democracy on a local level
— where we work and learn,”
Hennessy said during the event.
She
added
this
was
especially important given the
environment created by the
Trump administration, which
seems to be undermining these
principles.
This
statement
elicited nods and snaps from
the circle of graduate students
seated on the floor with her,
laptops and books surrounding
them.
GEO
From Page 1
same protections as, for example,
churches.
Chavez finished the speech by
noting the connections between
the queer movement of the early
2000s and the protests of the
undocumented population now,
and the need for fundamental
grassroots
protests
going
forward.
Following
Chavez,
Silvia
Pedraza, a professor of sociology
and American culture at the
University, discussed the origins
of DACA and why it has become
such
a
point
of
contention
for people on all sides of the
immigration debate.
According to Pedraza, there
seems to be a paradox between
accepting the system is broken
and a lack of activity on the part of
Congress. In this vacuum, Obama
signed
the
DACA
executive
action, aimed at providing legal
protection from deportation to
students currently residing in the
United States.
“I think that had we ever
managed to couple the DREAM Act
— which as I have said has had lots of
support — with a sort of ‘get tough’
provision, it would have increased
the chances of the DREAM Act
passing, because it always failed by
just a few votes,” Pedraza said.
Despite the benefits of the order,
Pedraza also emphasized how it
lacked what she considered to be
the two fundamental aspects that
all good immigration reform have:
a humanitarian aspect, which helps
those currently undocumented, and
a “get tough” component, which
helps close an existing loophole or
problem with immigration.
She concluded by remarking that,
despite the current political climate,
the increase in participation and
organization among the Latino
community boded well for the
long-term future of undocumented
workers.
“I think that what we have been
seeing is that the protests have
grown larger than ever, and that
participation within them has
widened so that now there is not
just Latinos participating in these
protests,” she said. “And I think
that, ironically, given the rejection
that Latinos have been the brunt
of in recent years, more than ever
Latinos have come to understand
the political process in this country,
and in so doing have become
American.”
Engineering senior Dulce Rios
spoke on her first-hand experience
as an undocumented student, and
what the recent changes at the
University meant to her.
In high school, she said, her
undocumented status prevented
her from receiving a scholarship,
despite being among the top
students in her class, and prevented
her from receiving financial aid,
which left her unable to pay for
classes at community college.
Even with all these difficulties,
she said she has had a series of lucky
breaks that have helped her achieve,
including a friend who generously
worked to help her pay for her
first term as a full-time student
and a connection to a fellowship at
the University, which eventually
led to her being able to attend the
University.
She
talked
about
how
appreciative she was of the
University for giving her a
platform to speak on these issues.
To
her,
the
sometimes-slow
response of the administration
is an indication of the University
wanting to help students like her,
but dealing with the blowback of
opponents.
“Right now, helping people
is a little more important,” she
said.
DACA
From Page 1
top,” Whitmer said. “To see such a
spectacular failure of government
hurt so many people and still not be
fixed … it’s been 1,000 days since the
people in one of our cities have been
able to turn on their taps with any
assurance (of clean water).”
Whitmer also stressed the need
for the future leadership of the
Democratic Party to understand
people who voted for President
Donald Trump and to work to pull
voters back into the party.
“We cannot demonize Trump
voters, and that’s a hard thing to
tell people who are passionate
Democrats,” Whitmer said. “But we
can’t win if we don’t start pulling
people back into the party that
really is focused on helping people
throughout our state.”
Additionally,
Whitmer
emphasized Democrats should not
assume large voter turnout and
traditionally blue voters, such as
union members, will always persist.
“You can’t take anything for
granted,” she said. “You can’t
assume that (the) Democratic Party
is a machine that will naturally
turn out 45 percent of the vote,”
Whitmer said. “We can’t assume
that everyone in the city of Detroit
is going to vote Democrat, we can’t
assume that if you have the (United
Auto Workers’) endorsement it
means every one of their members
is going to vote for you.”
Whitmer said she is embarking
on a 21-month campaign and
emphasized she will focus on
visiting college campuses in the
state to address the concerns of the
younger generation.
“I’m going to make sure that at
the campuses — all the campuses —
I’m stopping and engaging students
at that level,” Whitmer said. “If
we had left the election up to the
millennial generation, it would
have been a totally different result,
so I think there’s a lot we can learn
about young minds.”
Whitmer also fielded policy
questions and spoke about the future
of health care in Michigan, saying
she hopes the Healthy Michigan
Medicaid Plan, which receives
funding from former President
Barack Obama’s Affordable Care
Act, will continue to provide care for
Michigan residents. However, she is
unsure about its future, given the
current focus of the U.S. Congress
on repealing “Obamacare.” She also
claimed she was influential in Gov.
Rick Snyder’s support of the plan in
2014.
“It’s my hope that the Healthy
Michigan Plan is intact by the
time this election comes around,”
Whitmer said. “I worked very
hard to expand Medicaid through
‘Obamacare.’ I have been a chief
critic of Governor Snyder, but
there were a couple of things we
worked on together that he could’ve
accomplished without me and my
caucus — and that’s one of them.”
Snyder also said he anticipates
forthcoming changes to health care
in his State of the State address last
month and would like to see Healthy
Michigan serve as a modelpolicy for
the rest of the country.
“There’s going to be changes
in health care,” he said. “The
important thing is we need to let
them know that Healthy Michigan
is a model that can work for the rest
of the country. We look forward
to reimagining health care for
all Michiganders and our entire
country with Michigan being a
leader in that dialogue.”
LSA junior Collin Kelly, chair
of College Democrats, said he
believes Whitmer is a strong
candidate with experience and
was honored she chose the
University’s College Democrats
chapter as the first college
campus visit in her campaign.
“It’s nice to see a vision
for Michigan that is hopeful,
that things can look up in the
future,” Kelly said. “This will
give her almost two years to
make sure people in the state
have a voice through her —
that’s awesome. We’re excited
and happy she made the time to
come out here.”
WHITMER
From Page 1
Americans at the University of
Michigan, there’s a real problem
there.”
Jones said the differences
between
admitting
students
based on merit, excellence or
diversity must be examined when
discussing a diverse campus.
“Merit
has
been
largely
challenged
and
discredited
as the way forward,” she said.
“Excellence is alive and well
here and I think there’s a tension
between excellence and diversity
that I think we can talk a lot
about … To recognize, in the third
century, the ways in which our
commitment and our definitions
of excellence hamper how we
construct our objectives and our
purpose of diversity.”
In his opening statements,
Terrence
McDonald,
history
professor
and
chair
of
the
President’s Advisory Committee
on University History, thought
back on the history of the
University and its past forms
of
discrimination
toward
minorities,
including
forced
segregation and the many years
before women and minorities
could attend the University. He
also addressed the University’s
ban on race- and gender-based
affirmative action in college
admissions and how we respond
to this history in terms of
diversity.
“We have two legacies from
the past of the University,” he
said. “One is the revolutionary
commitment to equal access and
equality. The other is a practical
history of obstacles … Our history
is both one of privilege and pain
and one of understanding and, on
that basis, change can happen.
We can move forward.”
Addressing
Sotomayor’s
denouncement of the low number
of African Americans on campus,
Associate English Prof. Ruby
Tapia said 5 percent is too low
compared to the 14.2 percent
of Michigan residents who are
African
American.
However,
she noted the University has
programs in place that are
working to increase this statistic.
“The
University
administration has been clear
about its commitment to remedy
the
significant
challenges
in
regards
to
diversity,
equity
and inclusion,” she said. “Our
participation in the American
Count Initiative, … the HAIL
Scholarship, Wolverine Pathways
and the rigorously researched
Poverty Solutions program are
all testimonies to an important
institutional
commitment
to
equity and inclusion.”
Tapia went on to denounce
President Donald Trump’s recent
executive orders and appointments,
including the travel ban from
multiple predominately Muslim
countries, the order to complete
the Dakota Access Pipeline and the
nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch
to the Supreme Court. Both Tapia
and Jones diverged from their
syllabi this week in response to
the president’s recent orders and
actions.
“All of these things, and many,
many more, are producing concern,
demoralization and fear of our
nation,” Tapia said. “They are
clearly producing consequential
resistance as well.”
She went on to cite the many
protests on campus and across
the nation in response to the
president’s executive orders.
After the statements from the
panelists, LSA junior Stephen
Mitchell asked the professors about
their opinions on the student riots
on the University of California-
Berkeley campus Wednesday night.
The protests broke out when right-
wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos
was scheduled to speak on campus.
Students started fires and threw
objects at university buildings as an
act of protesting the speech.
Trump tweeted a threat of
rescinding federal funding to UC
Berkeley on the grounds that not
allowing Yiannopoulos to speak
because of his opposing views was
a violation of free speech.
Jones said the words from
the justices on Monday can
shed some light on how we
interpret the law in terms of the
difference between hate speech
and exercising your guaranteed
freedom of speech.
“I
heard
two
things
on
Monday,” she said. “On one
hand, yes, law has an answer to
the speech that was proposed at
Berkeley. I heard something else
on Monday from Justice Baer
which was her imploring us to
understand that the Constitution
is our Constitution and not …
a fixed text. It is a text to be
interpreted, to be struggled over
and to be transformed.”
After
the
panel,
Mitchell
said the discussion helped the
students contemplate both the
colloquium and who is part of the
University community.
“I think one thing that was
nice to see was we’re talking
about
diversity
and
getting
to hear and unpacking of the
experience of Monday’s talk with
Justices Sotomayor and Baer and
getting to hear these different
perspectives,” he said. “(The
panelists) are all members of our
community too and I think that’s
something, as students, that we
forget.”
SOTOMAYOR
From Page 1
enjoy delivering the cookies
personally.”
Though
Ethan
Forman
began as head baker for the
business, the brothers now
split their time baking and
delivering. Ethan also works
on
website
development
and
customer
relation
management,
helping
to
drive every order that gets
processed. Jared said being
brothers
has
only
been
beneficial to business.
“The great thing about
working
with
your
twin
brother is that you pretty
much know each other for
the past 22 years,” Jared
Forman said. “So in terms
of controversy or conflict,
that’s limited.”
The
biggest
challenge
they face is capturing the
support of the brand with
unfamiliar customers, said
Jared Forman.
“Our
retention
rate
for
customers
has
been
extremely positive,” Jared
Forman said. “But much like
starting a new business, the
largest feat can literally be
getting them into your door
or, in our case, placing an
order.”
Jared Forman said Dozen’s
is open to taking cookie flavor
requests from students, and
their most popular cookies
have been the red velvet,
white chocolate chip and
chocolate chip.
“We specifically focus on
cookies,” Jared Forman said.
“Whatever you think, we can
bake. We do have a variety
of recipes. We’re ultimately
there for our customers. We
want our customers to give
us their opinion. In the five
years that we’ve been baking
and perfecting this recipe,
it truly is like a science. In
terms of how we got this
recipe, it was just through
years of trial and error from
customer feedback.”
Engineering senior Aaron
Berro said he has been
eating the cookies for three
years. In addition to the
fast service, Berro said the
price plays a big role in his
consistent business.
“They literally sell a dozen
cookies for six dollars,” Berro
said. “Also, every time I’ve
ordered the cookies are ready
pretty much instantly.”
Business senior Adam Weiss
said, though not many people
know about Dozen’s yet, he
likes that they make their
cookies from scratch and offer
a lot of variety.
“As someone with a sweet
tooth, it is usually not too
hard to please me,” Weiss said.
“But with that being said, it’s
been hard to find a fresh, local
cookie that isn’t some premade
mix.”
Jared Forman said Dozen’s
sells cookies at Scorekeepers
Bar and Grille on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays, and
will also have pop-up shops on
campus during the semester,
donating all their proceeds
to the C.S. Mott Children’s
Hospital.
“It’s always great to see
Dozen’s Cookies being sold at
Skeeps,” Berro added.
Once back in California,
the brothers hope to open a
traditional brick-and-mortar
shop in Los Angeles. Until
then, though, Jared Forman
said they are excited to keep
serving students this semester.
“The best part is actually
doing it,” Jared Forman said.
“I think one of the most
fulfilling things for both of
us is just constantly having
that support and having the
time and the resources to do
something with 100 percent
integrity to the best of your
capabilities and to see those
results.”
COOKIES
From Page 1
I think it’s
important for
us to know our
rights, see how
we can help each
other