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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GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail 
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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

