The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Wednesday, October 25, 2017— 3A

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Liz Barry, Special Council to the President, speaks about ongoing projects of the President at the CSG 
meeting in the Union Tuesday.

“I 
find 
myself 
consistently 

disappointed by the hero-worship 
within 
the 
Democratic 
Party 

because it distracts from the policy 
issues that actually affect people’s 
lives,” 
Stehlin 
said. 
“Former 

presidents often do release books, 
(but) Hillary was not a former 
president. She was a presidential 
nominee who failed to win the 
election.”

Prior to the event, Engineering 

freshman Simrun Buttar said while 
she was a bit swayed by the price of 
attending, Clinton has been one of 
her role models since long before the 
2016 election.

“I think especially with this 

past election, so many events were 
skewed in ways that the general 
public wasn’t really made aware 
of, like the way things actually 
happened,” Buttar said. “I think, 
especially in Michigan itself, it 
was such a pivotal state in the last 
election that in being a swing state, 
she can maybe help things for the 
future.” 

Similarly, LSA freshman Brett 

Zaslavsky said he had been looking 

forward to the event due to the fact 
Clinton would be spending time in a 
state she lost in the election.

“It’s not every day that a former 

presidential candidate comes onto 
campus, particularly not one with 
the historical significance that 
Hillary Clinton has,” Zaslavsky said. 
“It was an election with tremendous 
consequences whatever side you’re 
on, and to be able to hear such a 
firsthand and unique perspective I 
think is a special opportunity.”

Nevertheless, 
the 
audience 

applauded 
for 
Clinton 
when 

she took the stage. Clinton first 
addressed some of the main points 
of her book, including the double-
edged sword of being a woman in 
politics.

“The only way we will get sexism 

out of politics is to get more women 
in them,” Clinton said, but she also 
noted one caveat: “Women are seen 
favorably when we advocate for 
others but unfavorably when we 
advocate for ourselves.”

A substantial part of Clinton’s 

talk was focused on addressing 
Russian 
interference. 
Clinton 

noted a necessity to demand 
evidence among media filled with 
“alternative facts,” especially with 
regard to critically considering the 

issues with cyber interference.

Clinton received applause when 

she called Russian interference in 
the election “more than alarming.”

“The administration is doing 

virtually 
nothing 
to 
prevent 

future attacks. … If you are an 
American, this should alarm you. 
It is shameful,” Clinton said. “The 
president swore an oath to faithfully 
execute the law and defend our 
constitution, and he should start 
doing his job, and the rest of us 
have to keep up the pressure.”

While the election was nearly 

a year ago, Clinton listed several 
next steps for the American 
public, particularly with regard 
to cyber safety and demanding 
transparency 
from 
those 
in 

office. 

“I know when it comes to 

Russia, we’ve got to get serious 
about 
cybersecurity,” 
Clinton 

said. “Beyond that, we must insist 
on truth and accuracy, and hold 
elected leaders and the press 
accountable. … We must summon 
the courage to stand up for human 
rights and democracy.”

In the Q&A portion of the 

evening, moderator and English 
professor Anne Curzan took 
questions from the audience, 

many of which primarily focused 
on Clinton’s personal experience 
writing the book and her advice 
for the future.

When discussing her decision 

to 
write 
the 
book, 
Clinton 

said after the election she was 
“devastated and shocked.”

However, 
touting 
again 

the negative impact Russian 
interference 
held 
in 
the 

election, 
Clinton 
noted 
the 

novel experience of having to 
circumvent this contemporary 
issue.

“It’s 
so 
unprecedented,” 

Clinton said. “It’s hard if you 
have never lived in the midst of a 
propaganda campaign.”

Clinton 
noted 
technology 

companies were slow to accept 
responsibility for the breach 
of cyber security, to applause 
from the audience. She then 
emphasized that the acceptance 
of this information by the public 
was accompanied by denial and a 
question of the legitimacy of the 
reports.

However, Clinton’s tone turned 

hopeful when addressing different 
types of leadership in position of 
power.

“If we get more people who 

put country before party, I think 
… some positive changes could 
actually come about,” Clinton 
said. “The cooperation between 
the parties has really deteriorated 
to the great harm of our nation 
and getting things done.”

Noting a need for women in 

leadership roles, Clinton said 
women should be prepared for 
character attacks, criticism and 
questions. However, she cited the 
importance of encouraging girls 
from a young age to succeed and 
gave advice for young women 
looking to lead. 

“Don’t become so closed off, 

so bitter, so cynical that you can’t 
remain open to the people you 
need, the people you’re trying to 
represent,” Clinton said.

Eastern Michigan University 

alum Asia David said she looked 
to Clinton for ways to improve the 
future.

“I 
supported 
Hillary 
in 

the primary and the general 
election,” David said. “We need to 
understand what happened in that 
election and … also maybe get tools 
for what we can do next time.”

After the event, Public Policy 

graduate student Ammara Ansari, 
who was previously an organizer 

for the Clinton campaign, said 
she admired the honesty Clinton 
demonstrated 
throughout 
the 

evening.

“After almost a year of the 

election, 
it’s 
good 
to 
know 

that she’s still around,” Ansari 
said; however, Ansari did not 
think Clinton was completely 
comprehensive in her talk. Ansari 
said, having worked on Clinton’s 
campaign, she wanted to know 
more of the former Secretary of 
State’s personal experiences in 
this aspect of her presidential 
run. “I wanted to know what she 
thought of her (campaign) staff.” 

Wayne 
State 
University 

sophomore Robert Swetlic said he 
appreciated Clinton’s tasteful and 
humorous demeanor, particularly 
with regard to “alternative facts.”

“I 
especially 
liked 
her 

comments about fake news. As 
someone who considers himself 
very active politically and in 
the realms of communication 
in journalism, I think it’s really 
important that we don’t let the 
conversation about fake news and 
propaganda die, and I like that she 
was really hitting on that, as well 
as telling us a more personal view 
of the election,” Swetlic said.

CLINTON
From Page 1A

patient side, where the mental 
health problem makes it difficult 
to go out there and try to do the 
things you need to do to find 
employment.”

“But then there’s also the 

employer’s side, and on the 
employer’s 
side 
people 
with 

mental 
health 
problems 
are 

sometimes discriminated against 
in employment situations, because 
employers worry about people 
with a history of mental illness. 
Our job is to try and help people 
with mental health problems be 
more active in trying to find work, 
and also be more successful in 
sustaining work over time,” he 
added.

TIDL has numerous projects 

they are working on to help 
achieve their goal of a world 
where mental health issues do 
not prevent people from finding 
and keeping employment, as well 
as bettering the treatment these 
people receive. For example, 
Himle is the principal investigator 
of a project called Reaching 
Independence through Successful 

Employment, which is funded by 
the National Institute of Mental 
Health.

RISE, which has locations in 

Detroit and Los Angeles, focuses 
on helping people with anxiety-
related barriers to finding and 
keeping work. They have placed 
the intervention program in a 
vocational service center, and are 
working on training vocational 
service 
professionals 
at 
the 

center to deliver mental health 
interventions focused on work in 
their employment agency.

“Most mental health treatments 

are developed in university towns, 
or areas where people are highly 
educated, or large cities, often 
with mostly white, educated 
participants helping to evaluate 
and design the new mental health 
treatment,” Himle said. “But in 
our case, we often do the design 
and development as well as the 
initial testing of new mental health 
interventions 
in 
underserved 

communities, for later use by the 
broader population.”

He added hosting the sessions 

in Detroit allows the researchers 
to form better relationships with 
the group.

“If we develop a treatment in 

Detroit, it will always have a sort 

of home-field advantage — it will 
have a foundation that fits well 
with that group. It doesn’t mean 
that a person in Ann Arbor might 
not find that intervention useful, 
but the idea is to develop that 
intervention in an underserved 
urban and rural areas. Treatments 
often fit best with the people 
they’re initially developed with, 
and we would like turn that 
typical pattern around.”

Addie 
Weaver, 
another 

co-director of TIDL, is the 
principal investigator of another 
project, 
Raising 
Our 
Spirits 

Together. Weaver, who grew up in 
a rural area of Pennsylvania, feels 
a personal connection to the work 
TIDL does.

“I had first-hand experiences 

where I saw friends and family 
members in need of mental or 
physical health care that had a lot 
of difficulty,” Weaver said. “There 
just really weren’t treatment 
options available, so it required 
substantial travel and substantial 
resources in terms of having the 
right type of insurance, having a 
job that allowed you to take time 
off to address your needs, or being 
able to arrange childcare support. 
And really the underlying issue is 
that there just aren’t a lot of mental 

health providers in rural settings.”

ROST, which is funded by 

the National Institute of Mental 
Health via a Mentored Research 
Scientist 
Career 
Development 

Award Weaver received, and has 
an intervention site located in 
Hillsdale, is focused on providing 
more 
accessible 
depression 

treatment to those in rural areas.

“What kept coming up was 

that many times when someone 
is feeling down or depressed, 
they are very likely to seek 
support from their clergy. So we 
started to talk about creating 
and developing an intervention 
for depression that could be 
delivered in the church setting in 
rural communities,” Weaver said.

Weaver and her team have 

found there is large community 
interest in this initiative, both 
among the clergy and those 
afflicted 
by 
mental 
health 

problems, as well as the general 
community as a whole. She will 
be using her grant to engage in 
community-based participatory 
research 
to 
adapt 
and 
test 

behavioral therapy for depression 
in the church setting.

LAB
From Page 1A

controversial occurrences on 
campus had vanished.

LSA 
sophomore 
Kevin 

Keegan, one of the students 
who attended the event, was 
intrigued by this notion.

“There’s still limited stories 

that are accessible about LGBTQ 
people and definitely as thinking 
about the erasure of stories as a 
form of discrimination and how 
that can allow discrimination 
to continue by erasing the 
hardships of the past,” Keegan 
said.

While much of what Retzloff 

described was negative, as time 
progressed there were certain 
landmarks 
that 
made 
the 

University notable in terms of 
being one of the first to recognize 
and accept LGBTQ people.

In 1984, University President 

Harold Shapiro instituted a policy 
statement that the University 
could not discriminate based on 
sexuality.

“The experience of queer 

people at Flint and Dearborn in 
the 1980s were worlds away from 

what was available here in Ann 
Arbor,” Retzloff said.

There were many people who 

were active in contributing to 
LGBTQ history, Retzloff said, 
including 
Nancy 
Wechsler, 

the first openly LGBTQ City 
Councilmember in Ann Arbor.

Retzloff included a picture 

of himself with a friend making 
a poster for the first gay and 
lesbian awareness day at the 
University in 1988. He noted 
this was a pivotal moment as 
a gay man and it was then that 
he was empowered through 
documenting the history.

He also spoke on the creation 

of 
the 
then-named 
Human 

Sexuality Office in the ’60s. He 
explained the students had to 
petition the University for an 
office space like other student 
organizations. The University 
did not want to have a name 
that specifically dealt with 
“gay” or “lesbian” students 
when they agreed upon the 
establishment of the office.

The Midwest, and Michigan 

in particular, offers a different 
narrative of LGBTQ history, 
which Retzloff studies. While 
cities like New York and 
San Francisco have a well-

documented 
history, 
social 

change within the LGBTQ 
movement also comes from 
areas like the Midwest and 
often get overlooked. Retzloff 
is currently writing a book on 
Detroit as a “gay city.”

When asked about how he 

felt impacted by this work, 
David Hutchinson, a Ph.D. 
candidate 
in 
the 
History 

Department, said it is vital to 
learn about the University’s 
relationship with activism.

“I 
think 
it’s 
important 

to learn about how queer 
students in the past navigated 
the very halls that we walked 
through today to understand 
how it is we are able to make 
up our lives that we live now,” 
he said.

Jennifer 
Jones, 
LSA 

collegiate postdoctoral fellow 
in the History Department, 
also enjoyed hearing about 
the Midwest’s role in LGBTQ 
history.

“I love the way in which the 

talk says yes there was violence, 
yes there was discrimination, 
but there was also opportunity 
to forge connections and build 
community and create lives,” 
Jones concluded.

MAIZE
From Page 1A

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

from 
communities 
that 
could 

benefit most from listening to 
Cox — Black women and Black 
transgender women — may not 
have the opportunity to attend the 
event because of a limited amount 
of tickets. The tickets for the live 
event at Rackham Auditorium, 
which can fit about 1,000 people, 
are sold out, and the live-streaming 
locations are also at full capacity. As 
a way to ensure that Black women 
and Black trans women can listen to 
Cox’s presentation, some students 
are giving away their tickets. One 
of these students is Public Health 
student 
Vikrant 
Garg, 
whose 

Facebook post offered tickets to 
members of those communities 
who were interested in attending 
the event.

LSA junior Mayah Wheeler is 

one of the students who was not 
able to receive tickets to the live 

event. Wheeler explained the lack 
of availability was unfortunate 
because there are not many Black 
transgender 
women 
who 
are 

prominent social figures, and she 
felt it would be valuable to hear 
what Cox had to say.

“It’s important to see people who 

look like you creating social change 
because a lot of the time, especially 
for Black women and Black trans 
women, there aren’t many figures,” 
Wheeler said. “The way that Black 
women are represented in the 
media is ultimately a negative 
image, so if we have activists who 
are working to change that image it 
should be accessible.”

Wheeler was pleasantly surprised 

to hear about Garg’s actions and 
talked about how, as a Black woman 
on campus, sometimes it’s hard to 
remember she has the support of 
other communities.

“I think that giving the tickets 

away is really nice and really 
thoughtful,” Wheeler said. “It’s a 
horrible thing that you don’t expect 
people to support you, but being 

Black on this campus, you don’t 
expect it because of the way that 
a lot people act and what a lot of 
people do — you just don’t expect 
people to care.”

Garg 
also 
pointed 
out 
the 

multiple obstacles that made it 
difficult to get tickets to the event, 
such as limited seating capacity and 
institutional inaccessibility.

“It really depended on who 

was able to get there and reserve 
at the right time. When you talk 
about institutional access, there 
are people who don’t have access 
to the University as a whole,” Garg 
said. “For instance, Black student 
involvement is less than 4 percent, 
so if you’re looking at institutional 
access, U of M is highly inaccessible 
to Black people as a whole, let alone 
people with multiple marginalized 
identities.”

In the future, Wheeler hopes the 

University can offer Black students 
a chance to access events like these 
slightly ahead of time.

TICKETS
From Page 1A

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

have libraries and museums and 
the department of history,” he said. 
“But it’s equally as important to 
learn from the past. Right now, we 
have a building that’s named after 
someone who, if he were here today, 
would have believed that thousands 
of people who have walked these 
grounds are unfit to be members of 
society.”

CSG members discussed the 

distinction between controversial 
science 
and 
ideology 
which, 

presently, is no longer appropriate 
to preserve.

Members affirmed the ideology 

of C.C. Little’s work is against what 
the University stands for as an 
institution, and the act of changing 
the 
name 
would 
demonstrate 

solidarity with the beliefs of the 
current administration.

“One of the big things that I 

find extremely troubling about 
this situation is how normalized 
the name is within the campus 
community, so a lot of the times, 
students don’t even realize that 
buildings are named after vice 
presidents, let alone the history 
there,” said CSG Vice President 
Nadine Jawad, a Public Policy 
senior. 

Engineering 
sophomore 

Zeke Majeske claimed since the 
building’s name does not hold 
significance to the vast majority of 
the student population, this action 
would ultimately be ineffective.

He 
also 
pointed 
out 
the 

connection between C.C. Little 
and Planned Parenthood founder 
Margaret Sanger, who were both 
part of the eugenics movement 

but are not both condemned by 
University students today.

He attempted to amend the 

language of a section of the 
resolution that connected C.C. 
Little to the rhetoric which inspired 
Nazism, arguing Little’s actions 
historically preceded and thus were 
not linked to the rise of Hitler. He said 
C.C. Little was speaking in a scientific 
context and Nazism appropriated 
that thinking. However, the other 
members did not join Majeske in his 
amendment and it failed.

The original resolution eventually 

passed, with 25 in favor and four 
against renaming the C.C. Little 
Building.

Majeske later said in an interview 

with The Daily he had concerns with 
the lack of historical context in the 
resolution.

CSG
From Page 1A

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

