 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

