Pink “pussy hats” lined
the seats of Ann Arbor’s
local venue Neutral Zone
on
Monday
night
where
over
100
University
of
Michigan faculty, students
and
community
members
gathered
to
perform
and
watch
performance-based
art and comedy acts in a “Not
My President’s Day” rally
in opposition to the current
President Donald Trump.
The rally was organized
by Bad and Nasty, an online
movement that has organized
and planned performance-
based rallies at more than 63
locations in four countries,
including
the
U.S.
on
President’s Day in retaliation
against the 2016 election. The
movement
describes
itself
as a coalition of activists,
artists and concerned citizens
who wanted to create spaces
where they could express
their emotions in light of the
election.
Bad and Nasty was created
and
organized
by
Art
&
Design Prof. Holly Hughes.
She
described
how
the
movement came to exist based
on the responses she received
from what she called an “idle
threat” against Trump she
posted on a Facebook page
made in the weeks following
the election. In the post, she
invited all the “Bad Hombres
and
Nasty
Women”
—
referring to Trump’s dialogue
toward
undocumented
immigrants
and
women
during the election — to take
action on President’s Day.
Within a day, Hughes said,
she couldn’t keep up with the
number of people expressing
interest in and wanting to
participate in the movement.
“By
the
next
morning,
there were so many people
that
wanted
to
interpret
the idea on their own I was
moaning, because I couldn’t
add them quickly enough to
the Facebook group,” Hughes
said. “Within a day 2,000
people signed up on our Bad
and Nasty website.”
She went on to describe
how far the movement has
spread and how diverse it is,
spanning from a cabaret in
Wyoming to an all immigrant
poetry-slam in Brooklyn.
University
faculty
and
students performed a majority
On Monday evening, History
Prof. Juan Cole addressed a
group of approximately 30
people about the conflict in
Syria at a teach-in discussion
in the University of Michigan
League hosted by the student
organizations
Michigan
Refugee Assistance Program
and Books Not Bombs.
LSA
junior
Leila
Eter,
co-chair of Michigan Refugee
Assistance Program at the
University, said the event was
held to provide information to
students who had questions
about the refugee crisis but
may not have felt comfortable
asking them in public settings
— especially after President
Donald
Trump’s
recent
immigration ban on several
Muslim-majority countries.
“We had a lot of people come
up to us specifically after the
executive order on refugees
and immigrants asking us,
because they knew that we
knew about the topic, what was
happening in Syria,” she said.
“They almost felt embarrassed
michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 34
©2017 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
See PROFESSOR, Page 3
Professor
talks Syrian
civil war at
teach-in
GOVERNMENT
Talk-in outlines animosity
following President’s
recent executive order
JORDYN BAKER
Daily Staff Reporter
Art & Design faculty member creates
rally in opposition to Trump presidency
Prof. Holly Hughes, creator of online-based movement Bad and Nasty, hosts event
DYLAN LACROIX
Daily Staff Reporter
michigandaily.com
For more stories and coverage, visit
The University of Michigan
is slated to receive an overall
2.5 percent increase in funding
— a 2.4 percent increase for
UM-Ann Arbor, 3.1 percent for
UM-Dearborn and 2.8 percent
for UM-Flint — as a part of Gov.
Rick
Snyder’s
recommended
budget for the 2018 fiscal year.
Snyder’s
recommendations
include an overall state public
university funding increase of
$36.6 million, bringing total
operations funding to nearly $1.5
billion. If the budget is ultimately
approved by the legislation, this
would mark the seventh straight
year state funding for higher
education has increased.
At
the
February
Board
of
Regents
meeting,
University
President
Mark
Schlissel
criticized
Snyder’s
recommendation, saying it lags
behind previous state funding
levels
the
University
has
received.
“The budget recommendation
continues the recent progress
of reinvesting in public higher
education in our state,” Schlissel
See HIGHER ED, Page 3
Gov. Snyder
proposes
funding for
higher ed
GOVERNMENT
Recommends overall
rise of $36.6 million in
state university funding
CALEB CHADWELL
Daily Staff Reporter
Author, historian and activist
Rebecca Solnit drew a full crowd
to Rackham Auditorium on
Monday evening in her “Hope
and Emergency” lecture as she
discussed the importance of
maintaining hope in current
political climate and of using
stories to affect change.
The lecture was a part of
the Jill S. Harris Memorial
Lecture series, honoring the
memory of Jill Harris who was
an undergraduate student at
the University in the 1980s.
Each year, as part of the
series, the University brings
a distinguished visitor who
will appeal to undergraduates
interested in the humanities.
English Prof. Megan Sweeney
introduced Solnit to the crowd,
sharing how she felt Solnit’s
writing — spanning 18 books,
numerous essays and a column
in Harper’s Magazine — has
impacted society.
“Rebecca
Solnit
tells
compelling,
lyrical,
essential
stories,”
Sweeney
said.
“In
telling these stories, she offers
fresh insights about politics
and social change, community,
geography,
wandering
and
walking, the environment …
Whether she’s writing about
an explosion in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, in 1917, or the birth of
Zapatismo in Chiapas, Mexico
in 1944, Solnit has an uncanny
ability to make the faraway seem
nearby.”
Indeed, when Solnit came
on stage, she used powerful
vignettes to illustrate the effect
of the current administration
has had on the nation in the
last month, which, according
to Solnit, has been to unite the
country in protest.
“When the Environmental
Protection Agency was silenced
early in the (President Donald)
Trump era, a rogue EPA Twitter
account appeared, and then
one for the National Parks
Service … (and) 200 coders
in a UC-Berkeley basement
set about saving NASA’s data
Progressive
historian,
writer calls
for activism
See WRITER, Page 3
JOHN YAEGER/Daily
Edouard Perrin, an investigative reporter for Premieres Lignes Television in Paris, discusses investigative journalism at the Leaks, Whistleblowers, and Big Data talk
at Rackham Ampitheatre on Monday.
CAMPUS LIFE
Rebecca Solnit, author of environmental
and political works, stresses value of hope
MAYA GOLDMAN
Daily Staff Reporter
Knight-Wallace fellows cover confidentiality, legal issues and collaborative news to over 200
Among
the
panelists
of
the University of Michigan
Knight-Wallace
Fellowship
panel held Monday at Rackham
Amphitheatre
were
Bastian
Obermayer and Marina Walker
Guevara, two journalists who
helped
break
the
Panama
Papers — a prominent story
implicating
high-ranking
government
officials
from
dozens of countries for tax
crimes.
Also included in the panel
discussion
were
French
journalists Edouard Perrin, a
former Knight-Wallace Fellow,
and Laurent Richard, a current
Knight-Wallace
fellow,
who
helped reveal the Luxembourg
Leaks,
which
involved
the
secret tax deals between the
government
of
Luxembourg
and
major
international
corporations.
The
event,
which
was
attended by over 150 students,
professors
and
journalists,
began with remarks about the
evolving
challenges
facing
journalists
in
the
United
States today from Will Potter,
a
former
Knight-Wallace
Fellow and visiting professor
of journalism at the University.
“We have a president that
calls CNN and The New York
Times
fake
news,
and
as
Charles
(Eisendrath)
noted
earlier, regards the free press
as an enemy of the people,”
Potter said. “I think it bears
a reminder of the importance
that it plays in the history of
the United States; it’s not one
that is new or unique in world
affairs but it is something
that is taken for granted — it’s
regarded as something that’s
always there.”
Potter emphasized to the
audience
President
Donald
Trump’s treatment of the media
represented the biggest threat
to the profession of journalism
in modern American history,
but
unlike
journalism
in
other countries, investigative
journalism
rarely
poses
a
TIM COHN
Daily News Editor
See JOURNALISTS, Page 3
Journalists responsible for Panama
Papers, LuxLeaks talk at Rackham
MATTHEW VAILLIENCOURT/Daily
Erin Markey, a performer and University alum, performs a protest piece expressing her displeasure towards President
Donald Trump at The Neutral Zone on Monday.
See RALLY, Page 3