The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Thursday, March 9, 2017 — 3A

We 
are 
a 
coalition 
of 

organizations 
committed 
to 

transforming 
the 
University 

of Michigan campus climate 
through policy change. We 
believe 
that 
the 
Diversity, 

Equity and Inclusion strategic 
planning initiative will fail 
without financial investments 
into 
the 
infrastructure 

for DEI work: The current 
policy of expecting free labor 
from 
marginalized 
people 

undermines the integrity of the 
entire DEI campus enterprise.

Since 
the 
DEI 
strategic 

plans were released last fall, 
the University has repeatedly 
declared its aspirations for a 
truly diverse, equitable and 
inclusive campus environment. 
However, a recent decision by 
the University conflicts with 
this vision.

In 
December 
2016, 
the 

Graduate 
Employees’ 

Organization, the labor union 
representing Graduate Student 
Instructors 
and 
Graduate 

Student 
Staff 
Assistants, 

put forth a proposal to the 
University to create paid DEI 
positions for graduate students 
within each school unit. As 
part of negotiations for its labor 
contract, GEO proposed hiring 
at least one DEI GSSA per school 
unit 
at 
a 
20-hours-a-week 

appointment, with additional 
positions at larger schools such 
as LSA and Engineering. These 

GSSA roles would substantially 
increase the capacity of each 
school unit to implement their 
DEI plans, and officially place 
value on the diversity labor 
and expertise contributed by 
graduate students. Moreover, 
GSSA positions dedicated to 
DEI work would lift much 
of the labor burden off of 
students, faculty and staff who 
have 
historically 
done 
this 

work on a voluntary basis. Paid 
GSSA positions would make it 
possible for the University to 
be proactive on campus climate 
issues, rather than reactive, 
and institutionalize DEI labor 
as core to campus operations.

In February, the University 

rejected that proposal. As part 
of 
negotiation 
proceedings 

between GEO and Academic 
Human Resources, HR flatly 
rejected GEO’s proposal to 
fund GSSA positions for DEI 
labor in each campus unit. 
This concerns undergraduate 
students, 
graduate 
students, 

staff and faculty alike. It sends 
a message to our communities 
that the University does not 
place a high value on DEI labor 
if it is unwilling to pay for it.

Recent 
campus 
events 

ranging 
from 
racist 
and 

anti-Semitic emails to white 
supremacist fliers have made it 
abundantly clear that now more 
than ever the University needs 
to take proactive measures and 
ensure that each school unit 
has the capacity to respond 
to acts of hate efficiently and 
effectively. 
Without 
paid 

DEI positions as part of the 
University 
infrastructure, 

school units will continue to 
struggle when responding to 
such incidents as they arise.

We call on the University to 

meaningfully 
integrate 
DEI 

labor into the structure of 
our institution by hiring and 
paying students to support the 
implementation of DEI plans. 
We specifically declare our 
endorsement of GEO’s proposal 
to create paid DEI graduate 
student staff positions. In doing 
so, we join the more than 900 
students, faculty and staff who 
have signed a petition in support 
of the proposal. Several of our 

organizations have previously 
described the need for fair 
compensation 
for 
diversity 

labor and the importance of 
investing in human resources 
in order to address inequalities 
in the distribution of diversity 
labor on campus. There is 
clear and broad support for the 

creation of paid DEI positions.

Hiring GSSAs across school 

units 
would 
substantially 

increase 
staff 
capacity 
to 

implement DEI strategic plans. 
Most campus units have formed 
working groups and committees 
to begin the work of developing 
and implementing such plans. 
These 
advisory 
committees 

serve an important role in 
overseeing progress, but they 
are not equipped to carry out 
the day-to-day tasks involved in 
actual implementation. Those 
who serve on the committees 
do so voluntarily, and on top 
of their existing job duties, 
academic workload or both. 
Meetings held once a month 
or once a semester are not 
enough to promote systemic 
change within any campus 
unit. These facts coupled with 
the high turnover rate most 
committees 
experience, 
as 

students and faculty move on 
to serve other needs, can make 
DEI 
committees 
ineffective. 

Expecting school units to adhere 
to aggressive implementation 
timelines in the absence of 
paid staff dedicated to doing 
this work is both unrealistic 
and unsustainable. By hiring 
graduate students to support 
implementation 
activities, 

GEO’s proposal addresses the 
widespread 
capacity 
issues 

faced by diversity initiatives 
across campus.

Creating paid DEI positions 

would also harness valuable 
student 
expertise 
that 
has 

yet to be utilized through 
formal mechanisms. Students 
at the University have been 
successfully organizing around 
issues of race, gender and 
class for a long time. Leaders 
from across our organizations 
are 
routinely 
tapped 
as 

“on-the-ground” 
experts 
by 

administrators 
and 
asked 

to engage in diversity labor 
because of their knowledge of 
power dynamics and systems 
of oppression as they apply 
to 
University 
settings. 
In 

fact, 
many 
school-specific 

DEI plans tout the successes 
of student-led DEI efforts as 
their 
own. 
However, 
these 

students have largely engaged 
in 
diversity 
labor 
through 

informal channels, providing 
their recommendations on an 
unpaid basis to school officials 
who have limited expertise 
on issues related to race and 
inequality. Deans and chairs 
overwhelmingly 
hail 
from 

socially privileged groups and 
have not been tested on their 
qualifications 
to 
implement 

DEI plans effectively. Their lack 
of both lived and professional 
experience 
in 
this 
domain 

means that they rely heavily on 
students to engage in diversity 
labor for them. By screening 
and 
hiring 
for 
the 
most 

qualified 
applicants, 
GEO’s 

DEI 
GSSA 
proposal 
would 

create 
official, 
recognized 

roles dedicated to diversity 
labor. Graduate students with 
DEI expertise are uniquely 
positioned to assist with the 
effective 
implementation 
of 

strategic plans, because they 
know how to effectively engage 
with and gather information 
from 
students, 
faculty 
and 

staff constituencies, including 
those 
from 
marginalized 

communities.

Most 
importantly, 
GEO’s 

proposal 
promotes 
social 

equity by lifting the diversity 
labor burden off of minority 
and underrepresented faculty, 
students, and staff who engage 
in this work on an unpaid 
basis. 
DEI 
work 
continues 

to fall disproportionately on 

people of color, women, LGBTQ 
people, and religious/cultural 
minorities. Because this work 
is almost always voluntary, 
it 
means 
that 
folks 
from 

marginalized 
backgrounds 

end up assuming the costs 
themselves. 
Scholars 
have 

documented 
the 
ways 
that 

diversity labor diverts attention 
away 
from 
activities 
that 

promote professional success 
and harms the mental well-
being of women and minorities. 
When engagement with DEI 
initiatives is strictly voluntary, 
this 
reproduces 
the 
very 

inequalities they are supposed 
to eliminate. Students from 
marginalized backgrounds are 
especially vulnerable to this 
type of labor exploitation from 
the University.

People engaging in diversity 

labor 
must 
be 
adequately 

compensated 
and 
protected 

from potential retaliation by 
those in positions of power. It is 
not enough to hire individuals 
as hourly employees and pay 
them at minimum wage. DEI 
work is intense and difficult 
work because topics like race 
and gender can be seen as 
controversial. The challenging 
nature of the work mandates 

union 
protection 
to 
guard 

against retaliation and ensure 
an independent procedure for 
resolving grievances. No one 
engaging in diversity work 
should be subject to negative 
professional 
or 
personal 

consequences for doing so. By 
incorporating DEI GSSAs into 
the graduate employee union, 
GEO confers the same benefits 
and 
protections 
owed 
to 

graduate student laborers who 
keep this university running.

At its core, diversity work 

is a labor issue. Unpaid labor 
should be a concern to everyone 
in our community, particularly 
because it disproportionately 
affects people who are now 
under attack by hate groups 
here in Michigan and across 
the nation. Until our concerns 
about how diversity labor is 
uncompensated and unfairly 
distributed 
are 
addressed, 

statements 
from 
University 

administrators 
about 
the 

importance of DEI work will 
continue to ring hollow. Join 
us in telling University of 
Michigan that Diversity Labor 
is Not for Free. Sign the petition 
at 
www.tinyurl.com/geodei 

and tell your communities what 
is at stake.

Don’t 
forget 
about 
Flint. 

People there still don’t have 
clean water.

I’m 
from 
Flint, 
lucky 
to 

have my water untainted and 
saddened by the hundreds of 
homes ruined, people poisoned 
and voices unheard.

We must never forget about 

Flint. The aftereffects of lead 
poisoning will continue to harm 
and haunt many for the years to 
come. May we learn from this 
negligence and work and speak 
so something like this will never 
happen again.

The following is a poem I 

wrote a year ago when the 
coverage of the crisis was just 
beginning:

Water That Has To 
Boil

I hold in my hand a map that 
pinpoints every area where lead 
is in the water
Just yesterday I said that we, 
that y’all weren’t going to keel 
over
That’s what the governor said 
too
But Rick Snyder knew that it 
was a possibility in a different 
kind of way
That we, that y’all were going 
to die
People die here all the time, 
we’re desensitized to what 
comes as a shock to another 
town’s news
I say “we” because I’m a 
Flintstone too, I say “y’all” 

because my water isn’t tainted 
and because
I use my cousin’s death by 
getting shot, my grandmother’s 
old 
address, 
my 
father’s 

high school alma mater, my 
familiarity to the city and its 
danger as sorry examples of 
street cred
I end my envelopes: Flint, 
Michigan 48532
But I’m in the middle of Flint 
and Flint Township, smudged a 
block in between the two
There is a flaw in this thinking
Do I not live in Flint because 
I don’t live where the crime is 
mostly concentrated?
Flint Township isn’t at all 
sunshine and rainbows, but 
Flint isn’t just eclipses and 
gunshots
We’re nearly one and the same, 
we share a name, families, 
histories, stories
It’s we, y’all

I look at the map once again
Damn, I am literally a block 
away from having my water 
look like piss and shit
What 
if 
my 
parents 
were 

potentially going to buy a house 
a minute more east?
But when the water plant made 
blueprints, this is where they 
stopped
A block away from my house
Once I cross Ballenger, the 
water turns to a broth
It’s alphabet soup, the names 
we forget in the Rolling Stone 
columns that put the scope on 
lives that have been demolished
The last time I was at a soup 
kitchen, I saw what I thought 
were polar opposites
A 
one-legged 
man 
in 
a 

wheelchair followed by a man 
in a three-piece suit with a 

Rolex on his wrist
But they were one and the 
same; they both were hungry 
and wanted company
Sometimes it’s nice to listen to 
voices
Or have yours listened to
A boy no older than 8 steps up
He isn’t even tall enough to see 
over the counter
But he directs us to fill plates 
for his three younger siblings 
like a seasoned parent
And I talk to them afterward —
“I don’t have a dad”
“I’m hungry”
One screams and yells in a 
tantrum

That’s what’s happening right 
now
Flintstones protest and babies 
kick and scream, scared of 
water that’s their Kryptonite
We get a response of, “I’m sorry 
this happened”
Later he says, “I’m sorry”
Well I’m not sorry, but how 
the **** are you still in office, 
Snyder?
I was about to address you as 
Mr., but I have no respect for 
you
My face twisted at the mention 
of your name since the moment 
your laws cut my mom and her 
friends’ pay because they’re 
teachers
You claim you’re one tough nerd
But let’s try one weak negligent

Every time you open your 
mouth with your American flag 
lapel on your jacket,
The North Side flies real ones 
upside down at half-mast
How do you smile?
How 
can 
you 
smile 
with 

cameras flashing when you 
knew of this months ago?
And did nothing
How could you send water to 
state employees in the city at 
the same time and now claim,
Oh, yeah, that was for the 
public too!

But it wasn’t just the smug 
smiling governor

Keith 
Creagh 
and 
the 

Department of Environmental 
Quality covered up proof of 
astronomical amounts of lead
Susan Hedman scoffed at a 
House memo that would’ve 
sent in the cavalry before the 
cavalry was needed
The 
emergency 
manager, 

Darnell Earley, put his name 
that should live in infamy on 
the dotted line to save a mere 
$5 million
What are the damages now, 
Darnell?
And 
this 
was 
after 
an 

incompetent city council voted 
7-1 in 2013 to switch back to 
Detroit water
A council that includes my 
dad’s drunken DUI childhood 
neighbor made a better decision 
than people who went to school 
for political science
Get this, political science:
The lead levels has been found 
as high as 104 ppb 
The federal maximum is 15
I saw Mr. Walling, the former 
mayor, praying in the chapel 
an hour before service every 
Sunday

And what about the city as a 
whole?
This would not happen in a 
majority white / affluent city
Think of the steps taken there 
just to water the tulips and 
lilies
And 
this 
majority-Black 

population lives in what looks 
like a third-world country
Ailing, dying from diseases 
nobody has ever heard of before
Legionnaires

I once wrote about the rise of 
the city, but we’ve been sent 
into a Hell
Back 
to 
looking 
semi-

apocalyptic
My 
subdivision 
is 
getting 

darker so my mom won’t go to 
the Kroger around the corner 
alone anymore
The 
town 
is 
now 
more 

inescapable than it was before 

and neighborhoods are cell 
blocks
Homes 
are 
literally 
worth 

nothing because it’s illegal to 
sell them and who wants to 
move here now?
But residents still received 
fliers of babies smiling in a 
bathtub, telling parents that it 
was OK to bathe their children 
in water that didn’t look like 
water
Again, a covertness to reveal 
the truth and a smile
Remember Ronald McDonald
The only thing people can do 
now to help is to send plastic 
water bottles to a food desert 
where some are forced to desert 
to fast food 
The damage has been done and 
this just adds to the multitude 
of problems
When I read my local paper, 
it’s not just the water that has 
to boil
The heat on our faces evaporates 
tears
There’s always a shoulder to cry 
on
Like 
murder, 
it’s 
somehow 

become commonplace to leave a 
sleeve soaking wet

Kids in the inner city have 
sleeves that are holy
Their community is set up to 
fail and it takes more than sheer 
will-power to have the power
Outsiders hear you’re from here 
and give you a look of disgust
I’ll never forget the raised 
heads 
and 
closed 
mouths 

disconnecting a sigh when I say 
my hometown’s name
Flint — like it’s the Lord’s name 
in vain
It makes you feel like less of a 
person on top of the experiment 
you’ve been treated like
The pride of being born and 
raised fades — a hometown 
burden

I think a lot of people forgot
Like people will forget
They’ll forget about Flint like 
always and they’ll forget the 
decades it’ll take to replace 

pipes and the near year until 
everything is relatively back to 
normal
But this isn’t just something 
you can put a blanket over like 
the blatant statements putting 
down this city
The half-life of lead is still alive 
in bloodstreams
Traumatic 
experiences 
for 

human 
beings 
cannot 
be 

forgotten overnight
Children who already have 
low IQs will have scores that 
continue to tumble
And the impact of stupidity will 
reign for years to come
From a stupid governor and his 
staff
To a sadly stupid kid who will 
make a bad choice
Because think about it, at least 
one of these children harmed 
will take a life
People don’t just die from the 
water poisoning
They die from guns and cars 
and knives too
Which will be held by those 
who were told that the water 
was safe to drink
That’s what happened to my 
cousin over a decade ago

At the same hospital I was born 
in, they’ll give children teddy 
bears
The media put a two-year-old 
on the cover of Time
This isn’t the press we wanted, 
nor deserved
We hate that the story told 
about Flint is a negative one
In what was once an oasis, we 
don’t look for water
We look for Pb and THMs
Holding on to hope and asking 
why to fathers and Father
I don’t know where everybody 
is or how my extended family is 
doing
So I just hold this map
Outside a city near death
On its last breath
But it’ll take two more, then 
three

We won’t suffocate
We won’t die of thirst

Pay Students for Diversity Labor

Don’t Forget 
About Flint

THE MULTICULTURAL 
LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

CHRIS CROWDER

Michigan in Color Contributor

GEO’s proposal 
promotes social 
equity by lifting 
the diversity labor 

burden

We call on the 
University to 
meaningfully 
integrate DEI 
labor into the 
structure of our 

institution

