The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Friday, November 10, 2017 — 3A

Public 
Policy 
junior 
Lauren 

Schandevel, 
communications 

director for the University’s 
chapter of College Democrats, 
wrote in an email the group 
was struck when they learned 
Clinton had lost.

“I think everyone in the 

organization was really shaken 
by the news,” Schandevel wrote. 
“It took us a while to process 
what had happened and issue a 
response because we were just so 
blindsided.”

On Nov. 9, the University 

campus was noticeably somber 
and confused. That night, both 
a vigil and anti-Trump rally 
took place in the Diag, featuring 
speakers including University 
President Mark Schlissel.

“Ninety 
percent 
of 
you 

rejected the kind of hate and the 
fractiousness and the longing for 
some kind of idealized version of 
a non-existent yesterday that was 
expressed during the campaign,” 
Schlissel said that night. “So I 
urge you, continue your advocacy 
and your voices are already being 
heard. They are loud and clear — 
this is the way America changes. 
It’s the way it always changes. 
It’s the way it will change for the 
better.”

That 
comment 
sparked 
a 

petition on campus written by 
LSA junior Amanda Delekta, 
who in the letter condemned the 
University administration for not 
respecting all ideologies. This 
eventually led to the Mackinac 
Center for Public Policy filing a 
FOIA against President Schlissel 
to release his emails regarding 
Trump and the election.

After the election, the College 

Republicans 
celebrated 
the 

victory, having endorsed Trump 
the September prior. They also 
outlined their plan to defeat 
identity politics on campus, 
which they believe have grave 
effects on free speech.

“Overall, a lot of people are just 

tired of the political correctness 
and we’re just trying to give 
them an outlet,” Merrill said. “I 
think it’s going well … it is an off 
year because there’s not really 
any elections, but next year will 
be an even bigger year for trying 
to fight back.”

On the other hand, the College 

Democrats discussed shifting 
their emphasis from promoting 
Clinton to progressive issue 
advocacy.

“Once the dust settled from 

the election, we were able to 
harness a lot of anti-Trump 
energy and use it to either 
champion policies that reflected 
our values or block those that did 
not; unfortunately, it was mostly 

the latter in this administration,” 
Schandevel said. “People are 
more engaged now than ever in 
current events, and we’ve used 
that to our advantage in terms of 
building capacity and mobilizing 
students who wouldn’t have been 
involved in politics otherwise.”

In April, the Senate confirmed 

Trump’s 
nomination 
to 
the 

Supreme Court to Neil Gorsuch, 
filling the spot that was left 
vacant for over 400 days.

“I think that everything else 

aside, that was his huge thing, 
that he got to appoint Gorsuch 
to the Supreme Court,” Merrill 
said.

Later, 
Trump 
moved 
to 

implement one of his campaign 
promises by pulling out of the 
Paris climate accord, in June. He 
stated it was too costly for the 
American people and didn’t put 
America first.

“Our exit from the Paris 

climate 
agreement 
coupled 

with 
Syria’s 
more 
recent 

entrance into it is concerning,” 
Schandevel said. “It reflects the 
selfish, isolationist values of the 
administration and signals to the 
rest of the world that we’re going 
to be difficult to work with for at 
least the next few years.”

Immigration
Trump made several promises 

to the American people during 
his campaign including having 
Mexico finance a U.S.-Mexico 
border 
wall, 
deporting 
all 

undocumented 
immigrants, 

limiting 
legal 
immigration 

and blocking all Muslims from 
entering the country.

In ten months since he was 

elected president, Trump has 
been able to deliver on some of 
his campaign promises regarding 
immigration. In late January, 
Trump signed an executive order 
that would limit immigration 
from 
seven 
majority-Muslim 

Middle Eastern and Northern 
African countries for 90 days, 
a form of his promised Muslim 
travel ban.

A few days later, over 5,000 

people gathered at the Detroit 
Metropolitan Airport in protest 
of the travel ban, including 
elected 
officials 
and 
local 

officials. Rep. Debbie Dingell, 
D-Mich., spoke to the crowd, told 
the crowd both their activism 
and legal action were necessary 
to overturning the executive 
action.

“We are trying to introduce 

legislation that will overturn 
the executive order,” she said 
to cheers from the crowd. 
“This is not about Republican 
or Democrat, we are here as 
Americans. There is no one 
who doesn’t care about national 
security … but we are standing 
for 
fundamental 
rights 
in 

the Constitution: freedom of 

religion, freedom of speech.”

Later that day Ann Donnelly, 

University alumni and New 
York federal judge, issued an 
emergency 
order 
claiming 

the deportation of travelers at 
airports was unconstitutional. 
A week later, a federal judge in 
Washington state put the entire 
travel ban on hold.

Critics of the first order noted 

it lacked information regarding 
how specific federal agencies 
were to implement the order. In 
March, Trump crafted a new 
order that gave agencies more 
than a week to prepare for the 
changes.

In the second travel ban, 

Trump dropped Iraq from the 
list and any language suggesting 
any 
preferential 
treatment 

of religious minorities in the 
countries listed in the order. 
Before the order could take effect, 
federal judges in Maryland and 
Hawaii blocked core components 
of the travel ban.

In June, the Supreme Court 

permitted a partial ban to take 
effect, allowing only refugees 
and settlers who have a “bona 
fide” relationship to people or 
entities in the U.S. to enter the 
country.

It wasn’t until September 

when Trump acted on DACA, 
something he mentioned many 
times throughout his campaign 
and after, but never outlined 
exact plans to address the policy.

William Lopez, postdoctoral 

fellow in the School of Social 
Work, has studied the impact 
of immigration raids on Latino 
communities and said an end 
to DACA will have profound 
impacts 
on 
those 
currently 

protected under it.

“We won’t see an end to 

DACA for those who have it for 
another at most two years, for 
many folks less,” Lopez said. 
“So it puts us in this position 
where we need to plan how 
we’re going to react to folks who 
have been comparatively secure 
from deportation for the last 
two years who will suddenly 
find themselves in this position 
where they can be deported, they 
don’t have driver’s licenses, they 
won’t have the ability to work in 
the same way they do (now).”

In March, The Daily sat down 

with a handful of undocumented 
students protected under DACA, 
who 
voiced 
concerns 
about 

Trump and the uncertainty 
of the future of DACA. The 
students requested their names 
not be used, but one Rackham 
student fears how the end of 
DACA would limit their ability 
to participate in society going 
forward. 

YEAR
From Page 1A

Epsilon and Alpha Epsilon Phi 
members confirming the decision 
of the council.

In the meeting, IFC members 

urged the committee to vote in 
favor of the suspension because 
if the suspension was mandated 
by the University or the North-
American Interfraternity Council, 
IFC would have no say in when 
the suspension is removed. With 
this decision, the council itself can 
determine when the suspension 
will be lifted. However, IFC 
executives made it clear this 
suspension is not being taken 
lightly.

Date parties and social activities 

that have already been paid for will 
still be allowed to take place — but, 
according to the executive board, 
these events will have to submit 
bank statements and official plans 
for sober monitors at the events.

Chris 
DeEulis, 
assistant 

director of Greek life and IFC 
adviser, clarified the definition 
of a social event as to imagine 
an impartial source was looking 
at an event and it looked like a 
fraternity-sponsored social event, 
and therefore would be in violation 
of the suspension.

In a statement sent to the Daily 

after the time of publication, IFC 
Executive Vice President, Alec 
Mayhan, stressed that the decision 
made by the council tonight 
was a measure taken to address 
these serious allegations before 
resuming social events.

“As an Interfraternity Council 

community, we believe in holding 
our members to a high standard 
at the University of Michigan,” 
Mayhan wrote. “It has come to 
our attention that some members 
of the Interfraternity Council 
community have not been living 
up to these standards... We believe 
that social events are a privilege, 
and we, as a community, have not 
earned this privilege at this time. 
We will immediately begin the 

process of assessing our policies 
and practices and developing a 
formal plan going forward.”

The suspension also mandates 

a halt on initiation activities for 
current pledges. According to the 
executives, NIC will be coming 
to fraternities and initiating the 
pledges in the coming weeks. 

According to a report from the 

University Office for Institutional 
Equity, 80 sexual assault cases 
were reported between July 2015 
and June 2016.

Earlier 
this 
week, 
Florida 

State University fraternities and 
sororities suspended all activities 
after a fraternity pledge was killed 
and another fraternity member 
was arrested on drug charges.

University spokesperson Kim 

Broekhuizen wrote to the Daily 
that they are waiting to hear from 
IFC. 

“We are trying to reach the IFC 

leadership to confirm,” she wrote. 
“As you know, IFC leaders are 
students and this is part of their 
self-governance function.”

IFC
From Page 1A

ethnostate, 
which, 
according 

to him, would be accomplished 
through 
“non-violent, 
ethnic 

redistribution of populations.”

On 
Oct. 
27, 
without 
an 

invitation from any member 
of the University of Michigan 
community, Cameron Padgett, 
a 
Georgia 
State 
University 

student 
organizing 
Spencer’s 

tour, requested to rent a room at 
the University of Michigan for 
Spencer to hold an event. News 
of the request was immediately 
met with fierce opposition and 
demands that the University deny 
Spencer’s request.

In a recent interview with The 

Daily, University President Mark 
Schlissel said the University could 
not deny a speaker based on the 
content of their speech, but that it 
was seriously reviewing potential 
safety and security concerns of 
the event.

Spencer has also made speeches 

and made requests to speak at 
several other colleges. Following 
the white supremacist “Unite the 
Right” rally in Charlottesville, 
Va., — in which one woman was 
killed by a participant in the rally 
— the University of Florida denied 
Spencer’s request, but allowed 
him to come after Spencer 
threatened to bring suit, leading 
to the University of Florida 
spending $600,000 on security 
for the event. When Michigan 
State University denied a request 
from Spencer at about the same 
time, Padgett sued. The judge 
presiding over the case recently 
ordered the parties to enter 
mediation.

Facing intense pressure from 

members of the campus and 
larger University community, the 
University’s administration is still 
in deliberation about whether or 
not it can legally deny Spencer’s 
request, and whether it is willing 
to go to court should it choose to 
do so.

“There has been no decision 

regarding this request,” said 
University 
spokesman 
Rick 

Fitzgerald. “Beyond that, there 
just isn’t anything else we can 
share.”

LSA senior Leah Schneck, 

outreach 
director 
for 
the 

University’s chapter of College 
Democrats, attended a recent 
meeting with Schlissel, all 11 
University vice presidents and 
approximately 20 other student 
leaders to discuss major areas of 
concern on campus, including 
Spencer’s 
request 
to 
speak. 

Schneck said no is “still on the 
table” for the University, she said, 
and she hopes the administration 
realizes the message it could send 
by doing so.

“I think that the University has 

been so inadequately responsive 
to students in particular, even 
if we’re just thinking about the 
last year and a half of incidents 
on campus, and the particularly-
marginalized 
feel 
like 
the 

University is targeting them, and 
I think that saying no would be 
hugely powerful,” she said. “I 
don’t want him anywhere near 
campus, and I know students 
don’t want him on campus either.”

Schneck 
acknowledges, 

however, the University is facing a 
tough decision, and needs to send 
a message regardless of how they 
respond to Spencer’s request.

“In 
the 
event 
that 
the 

University decides that they do 
need to say yes, I’m hoping — and 
this is something we talked about 
— that, at the same time they let 
people know they’re saying yes, 
they say, ‘Here’s our plan for how 
we’re going to support the campus 
community when he does come,’ 
“ she said. “But that they have a 
plan of, ‘We’re going to support X 
amount of alternative events that 
are going to be on a spectrum of 
teach-ins and healing spaces,’ that 
they maybe are giving students 
the option to miss class, or that 
faculty should be understanding 
of students that have to miss 
class, that they’re giving faculty 

resources about how to talk about 
it in class.”

However, students are not 

unanimous in thinking Spencer 
should be rejected. Engineering 
sophomore Lincoln Merrill, press 
correspondent for the University’s 
chapter of College Republicans, 
said though he strongly disagrees 
with Spencer’s views, he thinks 
Spencer has a First Amendment 
right to speak at the University. 
Protests to similar events, like 
the recent speech of controversial 
social scientist Charles Murray, 
Merrill said, have reflected poorly 
on the University.

“I want to say that the CRs 

definitely do not support his views 
in any way. We are completely 
opposed to the things that he 
stands for, and we just flat-out 
don’t support this guy. That being 
said, he has a First Amendment 
right to speak,” Merrill said. “So, 
we believe that he should be able 
to speak at the University, but we 
would also, after that, encourage 
people to go and challenge his 
speech in productive ways. The 
things we’ve been seeing is when 
people have been speaking on 
campus recently, people go crazy 
and they don’t challenge their 
speech in a productive way.”

It 
is 
not 
clear, 
however, 

whether a denial of Spencer’s 
request would necessarily be a 
violation of his First Amendment 
rights. In a panel discussion of 
several University of Michigan 
law professors on the issue of 
Spencer’s request, Prof. Don 
Herzog, who specializes in the 
First Amendment, noted that 
fighting words — defined by 
the Supreme Court as words 
which, “by their very utterance, 
inflict injury or tend to incite an 
immediate breach of the peace” 
— were not protected under the 
First Amendment, but said the 
possibility of violence brought 
by Spencer’s speeches didn’t 
necessarily meet that criterion.

SPENCER
From Page 1A

are very dependent on where 
they are put in place and who 
is interpreting them and who is 
performing them,” Shatkin said. 
“So the zero tolerance policy is 
obviously something that in theory 
sounds like a good idea, but when 
you put it in different communities, 
it’s implemented in very different 
ways that will end up having 
injustices that are not meant to 
arise — or maybe meant to arise 
depending on who is creating them 

in the first place.”

Public Policy graduate student 

Juan Jaimes also attended, and 
was drawn by the presence of 
Antonio Flores, president and 
CEO of the Hispanic Association 
of 
Colleges 
and 
Universities. 

Flores holds a doctorate in Higher 
Education Administration from 
the University of Michigan and 
has garnered nearly $3 billion 
in federal funding for Hispanic-
serving institutions.

Jaimes 
currently 
studies 

policies regarding how institutions 
deal with minority groups such as 
Latinos and immigrant students. 

He eventually aspires to work 
in addressing disparities in the 
Latino community in order to help 
improve outcomes.

“I think a lot of the things that 

(the panelists) talked about are 
things that I am familiar with 
but it is just helpful for it to be 
re-emphasized by professionals 
doing work or faculty doing 
research on this topic,” Jaimes 
said. “I learned that even them as 
professionals don’t have all of the 
answers so it is going to require 
more students to get into that field 
to expand the research and focus 
on different areas.”

SYMPOSIUM
From Page 1A

and organizer, explained the 
significance of continuing to 
honor Aura’s life every year. 
Beckley also drew attention 
to the severity with which the 
AAPD treated Rosser.

“This marks the third year. 

Aura was killed three years ago 
by Ann Arbor Police Officer Ried, 
and this marks the third year 
that she was not only tased — but 
also shot,” Beckley said. “The 
question was once: You tased 
her; why did you have to shoot 
her in the heart and kill her? And 
they’ve never answered that.”

Paquetta Palmer, a friend 

of Rosser’s and an Ann Arbor 
community 
member, 
also 

discussed the injustice against 
Rosser and said she felt Rosser’s 
family deserved redress from the 
city.

“I feel it was an unjustified 

killing and I think it’s better for 
the city to admit that than to 
keep acting like what happened 
was OK. I think that harm was 
done and that her family should 
be compensated and I just feel 
really sad that someone that 
young was taken away from us.”

Beckley was also frustrated 

by the lack of action taken by the 
Ann Arbor City Council, Police 
Department and mayor. She 
specifically called for the firing 
of Officer Ried.

“They could let Officer Ried 

go, but he still works with the 
police department. I know the 
police has a strong union, but to 
me, if they’re in the business of 
killing people then they ought 
to be let go and that hasn’t 
happened,” Beckley said.

Ann Arbor Alliance for Black 

Lives member Maryam Aziz 
furthered Beckley’s sentiments 
about the ignorance of the City 
Council on matters regarding 
anti-Blackness.

“We remember today, not 

so long ago, as Aura lay resting 
among the beauty of the art she 
imagined. Chris Taylor — your 
mayor — reiterated at a rally after 
Charlottesville that her murder 
was justified. These Ann Arbor 
and Michigan Democrats don’t 
care about anti-Blackness. When 
did they take knees before their 
lives were threatened?”

Austin McCoy, a postdoctoral 

fellow at the University of 
Michigan, called attention to 
the vigil on Twitter and echoed 
Aziz’s comments about Mayor 
Christopher Taylor’s response.

Aziz ended by emphasizing 

the importance of pressuring the 
local government until justice is 
served for Rosser.

“There is power in love, to love 

Aura is to honor her memory; it 
is to make haste and take action 
because an ultimate form of love 
for Aura is to make sure there is 
no peace. No justice, no peace; we 
have to continue to resist.”

VIGIL
From Page 1A

Read more at 
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MichiganDaily.com

