michigandaily.com — The Michigan Daily
News
Wednesday, April 12, 2017 — 3A 

Little’s link to eugenics, he said, 
he was shocked. “Obviously, this 
isn’t a fact the University likes to 
publicize.”

Following the recent pop-up 

Stumbling Blocks installations 
on campus, Hasler said he was 
surprised not to see anything 
addressing 
Little 
during 
the 

bicentennial exhibit.

“We didn’t see anything at 

the C.C. Little building,” Hasler 
said. “Even when students do 
hear about C.C. Little’s eugenics 
past, I feel that sometimes we fail 
to grasp the gravity of it. Every 
University does have a building 
like this, but that doesn’t mean 
we should keep these buildings. 
A mainstream thought nearly 
a century ago doesn’t reflect 
the values that we hold at this 
University today.”

Hasler said he thinks that as 

president, Little might have been 
able to distribute information 
on 
eugenics 
to 
students 
as 

mainstream 
science. 
The 

University, he said, should work 
to remove references to him from 
campus.

“As we think about, as students 

and faculty members, how we 
relate to this building, we need 
to ask ourselves: Regardless of 
the faculty who reside in this 
building, is C.C. Little a president 
whose 
legacy 
— 
specifically 

relating to what he did for the 
University of Michigan during 
his tenure — is something that we 
want to institutionalize?” Hasler 
said.

History Prof. Martin S. Pernick 

spoke in defense of Little’s views, 
as well as his role as a leading 
researcher of the time.

“Many of his views were widely 

shared by other scientists,” he 
said. “He was a leader in a vast 
number of important national 
and international organizations, 
and he had a flare for publicity 
for language and promotion that 
helped shape public attention.”

Despite 
this, 
Pernick 
said 

many of his studies were intended 
to create doubt, saying out-of-
the-box things such as smoking 
and climate change were both 
“harmless.” 

“Little focused on genetics,” 

Pernick said. “He seemed to 
revise his views to fit the tobacco 
industry’s views.”

Pernick stressed a building 

renaming cannot simply erase 
Little’s legacy.

“The point is that removing his 

name from a building, whether 
we do it or not, should not result 
in erasing him from memory 
or forgetting the important but 
complex things we can learn from 
understanding the connections 
among his multiple activities,” he 
said.

History 
Prof. 
Matthew 

Countryman 
placed 
building 

renamings in a historical context, 
citing the significance of Yale 
University renaming John C. 

Calhoun College to the Grace 
Murray Hopper College instead.

“Naming itself is a political act 

or an institutional act that should 
be 
examined 
and 
evaluated 

like any other historical event,” 
Countryman said. “What does 
the act of naming reveal about 
the political, social and cultural 
terrain in which it occurred?”

Countryman 
supported 

a 
balance 
in 
assessing 
the 

accomplishments of the figures in 
question before deciding whether 
to keep their names.

“Weighing of the fullness of 

the historical figure’s acts seems 
to be a more appropriate way,” 
Countryman said.

Prof. Kumea Shorter-Gooden, 

visiting from the University of 
Maryland, spoke about renaming 
the football stadium on her 
campus after student protests in 
2015. The stadium was originally 
named after former Maryland 
President Curley Byrd, who, 
despite bringing the university to 
national prominence, espoused 
racist 
views 
and 
actively 

prevented Black students from 
attending the school.

“The symbolic act of removing 

President Byrd’s name would 
continue the university’s work 
to make the campus a more 
diverse, inclusive, fair, just and 
welcoming 
place,” 
Shorter-

Gooden said. “For many African-
American citizens of the state of 
Maryland, alumni, faculty, staff 
and students of the University, 
Byrd’s name is associated with 
a 
history 
of 
exclusion 
and 

discrimination. Maintaining the 
name contributes to a hostile and 
unwelcoming climate.”

Shorter-Gooden 
also 

addressed some of the arguments 
against 
removing 
his 
name, 

such 
as 
disregarding 
Byrd’s 

positive contributions to the 
university, 
not 
focusing 
on 

actual policy to create a more 
inclusive 
environment 
and 

setting a precedent to reconsider 
everything on campus with an 
eponym. 

“The university risks losing 

alumni, donors and political 
support,” Shorter-Gooden said. 
“But 
since 
President 
Byrd’s 

time, the university has been 
transformed from a segregated 
university into one of the most 
diverse universities in the nation. 
I myself was delighted that the 
name was changed.”

Overall, Shorter-Gooden said, 

allowing Black students into 
universities is important, but 
making sure those students feel 
welcomed once they arrive is even 
more crucial. By changing the 
name of the C.C. Little Building, 
she thinks the University can 
make progress on that front.

“To name a building after 

Little, without any contending 
around his eugenicist past at the 
same moment that you’re opening 
up doors just tells us how this 
issue, how the whole agenda of 
diversity, was in its infancy and 
how much we have evolved,” 
Shorter-Gooden said. “We still 
have a ways to go.”

LITTLE
From Page 1A

reducing workload and patient 
overload in hospitals and saving 
time in emergency situations 
following mismanagement of 
medications, much more so than 
what is currently available in the 
medical field.

The team, spearheaded by 

Engineering senior David Peyer, 
the leader of the group who 
conducted all the preliminary 
research for the product, worked 
to create a user interface around 
an important medical procedure 
— something that could prove 
significant for both health care 
professionals and patients.

Peyer first began his research 

in the University’s Mechanical 
Engineering 
Department 

with Jianping Fu, an associate 
professor 
of 
mechanical 

engineering, performing clinical 
trials on the technique.

Peyer has since collaborated 

with Kevin Ward, the director 
of the Michigan Center for 
Integrative Research in Critical 
Care, in securing blood samples 
from the University of Michigan 
Hospital. Later, after enrolling in 
the Applied Liberal Arts course 
261, Social Science Topics in ALA 
— a course geared toward those 

minoring in entrepreneurship — 
taught by Eric Fretz, a lecturer of 
psychology and education, Peyer 
and his group members were 
able to explore the potential for 
the device even further.

Within the group are two 

subgroups: The first, centered 
around the business endeavors 
of the project, includes Business 
juniors Ajay Das and Jeet 
Shah. The second, focused on 
the physical development and 
implementation of the project, 
is led by Peyer and Engineering 
sophomore Kyle Fietsam and 
LSA sophomore Antonio Mika, 
who designed the encasement 
of the device, completed the 
circuit designs, and integrated 
subsystems and software design, 
respectively.

Das 
noted 
the 
business 

endeavor of the project aimed 
to challenge the device’s central 
competitors, specifically Roche 
Diagnostics, Alere, Abbott and 
Siemens.

“Our role was to more analyze 

the competitive vantage of the 
device, see how that plays a role 
with the major competitors in 
the blood coagulation market,” 
Das said. “What we’ve been 
doing this past semester is 
analyzing major competitors, 
what their products provide, 
how 
this 
device 
actually 

undercuts that and what the cost 

savings are that it could provide 
to potentially hospitals and 
other consumers.”

The devices of the central 

competitors 
cost 
thousands 

of dollars, Das said, and their 
tests take nearly an hour to 
complete. This is only if a 
hospital is equipped with the 
testing device. For many, the 
data have to be sent elsewhere, 
delaying the turnaround time 
even further. For the Sanguis 
Diagnostics prototype, however, 
the device costs less than $200 
to produce and takes between 
five and 15 minutes to complete 
the same data measurement.

Additionally, 
while 
the 

competitors’ devices are large 
machines — costing as much 
as 
$30,000 
—the 
Sanguis 

Diagnostics 
prototype 
is 

portable, simple to use and 
does not require a trained 
technician to run the diagnostic; 
instead, those already present 
at the hospital would be able to 
determine the correct medical 
treatment based on the device’s 
results in real time.

Peyer 
explained 
the 

functionality of the device: the 
user places a droplet of blood 
on a cartridge — a portion of 
the device only costing a matter 
of cents — and as the blood 
coagulates, it contracts, pulling 
a beam on the device downward. 

An electrical current is run 
across the beam; as the beam 
deflects, the resistance goes up, 
allowing the user to measure the 
resistance.

Jeet talked about the potential 

of the device when scaled to a 
global picture.

“A unique device like this has 

many different applications for 
emergency 
rooms, 
hospitals, 

NGOs, Doctors Without Borders 
and even the military,” Jeet said. 
“So right now, we’re going to 
get into analyzing the different 
avenues for this device.”

The team also discussed the 

device’s significance with regard 
to preventing doctor error — 
a study from Johns Hopkins 
Medicine 
recently 
reported 

errors take the third leading 
cause of death in the United 
States, 
causing 
more 
than 

250,000 deaths per year.

The 
team 
has 
received 

interest from Roche, a central 
competitor; however, following 
graduation, Peyer will focus 
on creating a company in Ann 
Arbor around the product while 
working with the others in 
between their academics. Peyer 
will also continue to maintain 
clinical testing with the hospital. 

“The purpose of this machine … 

is to give doctors more information, 
faster so that they can make better 
decisions,” Peyer said. 

DEVICE
From Page 1A

at the University of Washington. 
Wasser has used the DNA in the 
feces of the African elephant from 
around Africa to map out the places 
of origin of recovered elephant 
tusks. Through discovering where 
the tusks originated, Wasser can 
identify where poaching is taking 
place most frequently.

“It used to be thought that for 

these really big seizures of ivory 
… that poachers were assembling 
ivory from all over Africa,” Kolbert 
said. “But (Wasser) has shown 
that there are just two poaching 
hotspots: one is at the border of 
Gabon, Congo and Cameroon … 
and one is southern Tanzania and 
northern Mozambique.”

Rackham 
student 
Alex 

Truelove said he finds great 

importance, especially as a student 
in the School of Natural Resources 
and Environment, in combatting 
species’ extinction.

“I think everything that she 

talked about, whether it’s the 
species extinction, and things that 
also might affect humans as well 
(was important),” Truelove said. 
“I think our future depends very 
much on the actions we take in 
regards to these problems.”

As Kolbert continued, she told 

the story of the American chestnut 
tree in the United States, once a 
common tree, especially on the 
East Coast. The work of William 
Powell of the American Chestnut 
Research and Restoration Project 
at the State University of New 
York has genetically modified the 
American chestnut tree to make 
it resistant to a disease that nearly 
wiped the species out beginning at 
the turn of the 20th century.

“In principle, at least, this is 

quite at least an amazing result,” 
Kolbert said. “A fungus that 
humans brought to the U.S. wiped 
out the chestnut and now a very 
clever human has figured out a 
way to try to revive the chestnut.”

Rackham student Chris Askew-

Merwin emphasized how humans 
ultimately are worse off when they 
kill off more species. Especially 
in the Amazon rainforest, he 
said, humans lose thousands of 
potential medicines when they kill 
plants they have never discovered.

“I personally believe that all 

these animal species have a right to 
exist and we should do our best to 
make sure they continue to do so,” 
Askew-Merwin. “At the same time, 
but also appeal to everyone’s self-
interest because we are better off 
and healthier with biodiversity.” 

A number of non-native species 

have been introduced to New 
Zealand starting 500 years ago, 
Kolbert said. One of the first, 

the Pacific rat, nearly killed off 
numerous flightless birds native to 
New Zealand.

Rabbits were later introduced 

to New Zealand, and exploded 
in number, which took a toll on 
farms on the islands. To combat 
the rabbit population, stoats, a 
type of weasel, were introduced. 
The 
stoat 
furthered 
the 

population decline of birds on 
the island instead of the rabbits, 
leading native New Zealanders 
to attempt to eradicate the 
presence of all the non-native 
mammals on the island.

“So 
New 
Zealanders 
are 

passionate about their native 
birds … and they have taken 
it upon themselves to protect 
them and since the problem is at 
least the mammals, the answer 
they have come up with is to 
killing a lot of the mammals,” 
Kolbert said. “It has successfully 
de-ratted a number of islands.”

SPECIES
From Page 1A

election results, have suppressed 
voters — a process that resulted in 
modern-day voter ID laws.

“They 
did 
what 
previous 

groups of people did, when they 
did not have the votes,” Kendi 
said. “They figured out new ways 
to suppress the votes of their 
opinions. They figured out how 
to birth the great-grandchildren 
of poll taxes, grandfather clauses 
and literacy taxes. And these great-
grandchildren were of course, 
voter ID laws.”

Kendi also discussed different 

forms of racist ideas and how 
they contribute to modern-day 
discussions of social justice issues. 
The Blue Lives Matter group, he 
said, uses the idea that Black people 

are inherently inferior to white 
people in its arguments.

“We saw this play out in this 

race and policing debate, Blue 
Lives Matter principally blamed 
who? Black people,” Kendi said. 
“Black women are a racial group, 
Black gays are a racial group, the 
Black poor are a racial group. Black 
people have multiple identities, 
and throughout American history, 
each and every one of the groups 
they’ve been a part of has been 
denigrated as inferior by people in 
other groups.”

Kendi’s 
analysis 
of 

intersectionality and the different 
ways racist ideas affect different 
groups impressed students. 

Moses Massenburg, a graduate 

student 
at 
Michigan 
State 

University, said he enjoyed the 
discussion of intersectionality and 
how racist ideas can interact with 

other systems of oppression such 
as gender or class. He also touched 
on the importance of educating 
communities in order to stop the 
spread of racist ideas.

“I appreciate his discussion 

of how racist ideas can cross 
between 
other 
systems 

of 
oppressions, 
be 
they 

class or sexism, and all the 
intersections,” Massenburg said. 
“I think educating and learning 
at the same time and going into 
places where people don’t get 
access to education is important, 
so prisons, going into elderly care 
homes, and going into different 
neighborhoods.”

Kendi concluded by urging 

audience 
members 
to 
fight 

against racist policies to halt 
the progression of racist ideas 
in U.S. society. He praised social 
movements as a harbinger of 

change, and emphasized the 
importance of believing in the 
work.

“If you really want to eliminate 

the ideas, you must eliminate the 
cradle, the policies,” he said. “It’s 
social movements that have lead 
the change. But we have to believe 
that change is possible, in order 
to engage in that kind of rigorous, 
and taxing, and difficult work of 
organizing and challenging power.

MSU student Jasmine Howard 

said she first heard about the talk 
on Facebook and appreciated 
Kendi’s 
explanation 
of 
the 

connection between how racist 
ideas 
and 
policies 
influence 

society.

“(It was) not surprising, but I 

enjoyed him going through the 
process of racist ideas and how 
they become policy and how they 
influence society,” she said.

BOOK
From Page 1A

a co-leader of the task force, 
the recommendations will be 
sent 
to 
administrators 
and 

stakeholders on campus.

Of these recommendations, 

there are five the task force feels 
can be implemented within one 
year, including implementing 
a Wellness Zone on North 
Campus. Six recommendations 
can be accomplished within 
one to three years, such as 
increasing 
the 
number 
of 

CAPS counselors. Two could 
possibly be accomplished in 
three or more years, such as 
establishing faculty training 
on mental health issues among 
students.

The task force will continue 

its work next year to further 
establish these policies.

“The goal of the task force 

next year will be to help 
implement the program and 
policy 
recommendations 

that 
are 
improved 
by 

administrators,” Nasr said.

Throughout the year, the 

task force also held two mental 
health town halls, one on 
Central Campus and one on 
North Campus.

The purpose of these town 

halls, which were open to the 
entire University community, 
was to share the survey results 

as well as gather information 
from 
audience 
members 

regarding 
their 
thoughts 

on 
the 
results 
and 
their 

recommendations for potential 
programs and policies.

While 
the 
task 
force 

acknowledges the University 
is 
privileged 
to 
have 
the 

resources it does to address 
mental health, it hopes its 
work will help to make these 
resources 
accessible 
for 

everyone on campus in order to 
ensure adequate mental health 
remains a priority for students, 
faculty and administrators.

“We 
never 
want 
mental 

health to become something 
that goes in the back burner,” 
Taguchi said. “Mental health 
is always something that is 
important, 
everyone 
will 

always have it and it will affect 
their experiences here as a 
student, as a faculty member, a 
professor.”

LSA freshman Matt Henning 

said he feels publishing these 
results is a good first step in 
addressing mental health on 
campus, and he hopes the 
University will continue to 
improve upon its resources.

“If these numbers and these 

facts don’t get published and 
don’t get out, then these problems 
will still happen, but we just 
won’t know about them,” he said. 
“Putting the data out there, I 
think, is the first step to actually 
making any sort of change.”

CSG
From Page 2A

they’re smaller like this, you can 
have more personal interaction 
and you can get your really salient 
questions about current events 
answered.”

When asked about Trump’s 

foreign policy mishaps, Noah 
Nathan, an assistant professor of 
political science, said she believes 
Trump’s team is directionless 
because of its inexperience and an 
ideological split between White 
House 
Chief 
Strategist 
Steve 

Bannon, who is known for his 
white nationalist views, and more 
mainstream officials.

“It’s not clear that there is 

a foreign policy apparatus of 
bureaucrats, of senior officials 
from the State Department … who 
are planning out what the foreign 
policy strategy is,” Nathan said. “I 
think (the administration is) just 
going from crisis to crisis to news 
event to news event figuring out a 
plan.”

In a question about who will 

suffer the most under the Trump 

administration, 
Lisa 
Disch, 
a 

professor of political science and 
women’s studies, answered women, 
particularly 
the 
elderly, 
will 

bear the burden of higher health 
care costs should a Republican 
replacement to the Affordable Care 
Act pass the House and Senate.

“It’s a return to the 1920s, when 

there were many elderly women 
living in poverty,” Disch said. “We 
didn’t think that was humane so 
that’s why we enacted policies that 
would help them.”

Recent events were also of high 

interest. Mark Tessler, the Samuel 
J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor 
of Political Science, responded to a 
question about last week’s missile 
attack on Syria by stating that 
though Trump likely did not have a 
coherent plan when he ordered the 
strike, it worked favorably for the 
president’s ratings by deflecting 
attention away from the ongoing 
investigation into his presidential 
campaign’s 
ties 
with 
Russian 

officials and showing he can do 
something his predecessor Barack 
Obama could not do.

“He gained some popularity,” 

Tessler said. “I hate myself for 
saying this, but he looked at least 

somewhat presidential in terms of 
taking action and standing up for 
people who are victims and got 
some credit for that.”

Ken Kollman, the Frederick G. 

L. Huetwell Professor of Political 
Science, compared his projection 
about Trump’s future to other 
world leaders’ fates — Charles 
de Gaulle, Silvio Berlusconi, 
Richard 
Nixon 
and 
Benito 

Mussolini 
— 
saying 
Trump 

can turn into any one of these 
leaders.

“I’m hoping for some blend of, 

just for the sake of us all, some 
blend of Berlusconi and Charles 
de Gaulle,” Kollman said.

When asked what the media 

can do to regain its credibility 
among 
those 
who 
distrust 

them, James Morrow, the A.F.K. 
Organski Professor of World 
Politics, said while the right 
disliking mainstream media is 
not a new phenomenon, media 
needs to cultivate a self-critical 
attitude, telling a story of how 
The New York Times “went nuts” 
about the Trump administration 
after the election.

“One thing I would like to see 

is for them to think about how 

is it that such a large portion 
of the American electorate has 
gotten to the point where they 
basically don’t believe anything 
(the media) say,” Morrow said. 
“It predates the internet, so it’s 
not just a recent phenomenon.”

LSA freshman Caitlin Brown 

said she was intrigued by hearing 
a variety of perspectives from 
the professors.

“I 
thought 
it 
was 
super 

informational,” 
Brown 
said. 

“I felt already pretty educated 
about what was going on and 
then I came here and I was like 
‘Wow, there is so much I didn’t 
know.’”

When 
asked 
what 
mark 

Trump would make in U.S. 
history, Disch said she preferred 
he leaves no mark because any 
mark would not be a good one. 
She warned that in the worst-
case 
scenario, 
Trump 
will 

change the course of history like 
how George W. Bush redefined 
war through his actions after the 
Sept. 11 attacks.

“I would love it if history 

doesn’t remember him; I would 
love it if they remembered Alec 
Baldwin,” she said.

TRUMP
From Page 1A

