On Tuesday, University of 

Michigan 
Central 
Student 

Government will vote on its 
divestment resolution. Tensions 
have been ramping up, as it has 
in mid-Novembers over the 
past decade. The resolution 
aims to gain support from CSG 
on divestment from companies 
operating 
in 
Israel 
due 
to 

possible human rights violations 
of Palestinians.

 
This 
year’s 
iteration 
of 

the resolution has not been 
without conflict. Last week, 
an 
investigative 
committee 

within CSG was convened to 
review “improper use of CSG 
materials” by a member of the 
executive team stating CSG did 
not support the #UMDivest 
movement.

 According to the ethics 

committee’s 
reports, 
the 

undisclosed member of CSG’s 
executive committee sent an 
email to a recipient outlining 
CSG’s 
supposed 
opposal 
to 

the movement. According to 
allegations, the member then 
had a conversation with another 
student stating CSG’s opposition 
to divestment. A Facebook post 
also discussed anti-divestment 
sentiment in the body, this time 
in relation to the assembly’s 
diversity. 
The 
post 
claimed 

the 
individual 
stated 
there 

are “not enough white men” 

and “Jewish people” on the 
assembly; however, a self-survey 
distributed within CSG last year 
found a member of the body 
was most likely to be a wealthy, 
white heterosexual male. 

 History of the resolution
Students Allied for Freedom 

and Equality — a group of 
“student activists organized to 
promote social justice, human 
rights, 
liberation, 
equality, 

and self-determination for the 
Palestinian people” — brought 
the resolution in its current form 

in 2014, in what remains the 
high-water mark for the campus 
movement. After first reads 
in mid-March, the assembly 
voted to indefinitely postpone 
a decision on the resolution. 
AFE members and allies held a 
weeklong sit-in in CSG’s Union 
chambers to force a vote — but 
the resolution ended up failing 
in a secret ballot vote 25-9. 

 SAFE’s arguments center 

around alleged human rights 
violations 
by 
companies 

supporting 
Israeli 
military 

activities and operations. This 
year’s resolution names Boeing, 
Hewlett Packard and United 
Technologies as “companies that 
supply weapons and equipment 
to Israel’s illegal occupation 
of Palestinian territories in 
violation of international human 
rights law” through actions 
such as checkpoints and civilian 
casualties. 

 Divestment is rare. Since 

1817, the University has divested 
just twice — first in 1978 from 
apartheid 
in 
South 
Africa 

and later in 2000 from the 
tobacco industry. Yet before 
any resolution even reached the 
floor of any student government 
on 
any 
of 
the 
University’s 

campuses, 
former 
University 

president Mary Sue Coleman 
expressed in 2002 the University 
would not be divesting from 
Israel. In a 2005 statement 
describing 
the 
University’s 

investment 
portfolio, 
then-

Chief 
Financial 
Officer 

Timothy 
Slottow 
remarked 

the 
University’s 
endowment 

is profit-driven, veering away 
from 
political 
persuasions. 

SAFE draws upon the precedent 
of South Africa, tobacco in its 
resolutions, 
arguing 
human 

rights violations are antithetical 
to the University’s commitment 
to “invest in socially responsible 
companies.” 

 Institutions like Columbia 

and 
Harvard 
had 
already 

established endowment ethical 
advisory review committees. In 
the last decade, Northwestern 

University, the University of 
Wisconsin 
at 
Madison, 
the 

University of Minnesota and 
the University of California-
Berkeley have passed resolutions 
calling for divestment. Student 
governing bodies at the Ohio 
State 
University, 
meanwhile, 

spoke out against divestment 
where the resolutions failed to 
pass.

 
On 
this 
campus, 
the 

resolution’s 
proponents 
and 

critics seem to reach an annual 
impasse on core issues such as 
identity, inclusion and the role 
of dialogue. Students on both 
sides wonder if this year will be 
any different. 

 The divide between sides
Historically, the divestment 

movement 
has 
been 

characterized as divisive; critics 
argue SAFE seeks to break 
apart the student body rather 
than bring it together. In an 
interview with The Daily, two 
SAFE members — who wish 
to remain anonymous due to 
targeting 
of 
pro-Palestinian 

activists online — decried the 
“divisive” argument as one used 
to quell Palestinians’ concerns. 

 
“This 
argument 
has 

historically 
been 
used 

silence 
marginalized 
voices, 

historically in the country and 
not just on campuses,” one of 
the 
students 
said. 
“Voicing 

someone’s concerns about literal 
human rights violations should 
not be a divisive point.”

 During last year’s resolution, 

one SAFE member asked, “How 
is 
helping 
Palestinians 
on 

your campus hurting Jewish 
students?”

 
Earlier 
this 
month, 

SAFE released a “Statement 
of 
Solidarity 
to 
Support 

Divestment” 
in 
2017. 
More 

than 30 student organizations 
— many of which are social 
justice-oriented — signed the 
statement, including the Black 
Student Union, Jewish Voice 
for Peace, the executive board 
of 
United 
Asian 
American 

The 
Senate 
Advisory 

Committee on University Affairs 
convened 
Monday 
afternoon 

to 
discuss 
amending 
the 

Statement of Student Rights and 
Responsibilities — a University 
of Michigan document written 
by and for students that outlines 
University standards and norms 
of behavior — making tuition 
more affordable for students and 
increasing the faculty’s role in 
diversity, equity and inclusion. 

LSA senior Anushka Sarkar, 

Central 
Student 
Government 

president, served as a guest 
speaker and discussed amending 
the statement to include biased 
motivated 
misconduct 
as 
a 

violation of University behavior. 
The section regarding bullying 
and harassment violations does 
not explicitly state that biased 
and prejudice motivation against 
another 
student 
results 
in 

heightened sanctions, according 
to Sarkar.

“Under the statement, there’s 

no codification that says that if 
a student stalks another person 
or hazes another person and it’s 
bias-motivated — you hazed a 
person because they were Black, 
you hazed a person because they 
were gay — that you would receive 
heightened sanctions for that,” 
Sarkar said. “Myself and a lot of 
students find that to be wrong and 
that is something that should be 
codified in documents.”

Sarkar proposed amending the 

document to add “Violation V,” 
which clarifies bias-motivated 
misconduct language.

“Bias-motivated 
misconduct 

is a violation of community 
behaviors, 
including 
but 
not 

limited to characteristics such as 
race, gender, sexual orientation, 
gender expression,” Sarkar said.

Sarkar 
also 
announced 
a 

second amendment that will 
outline the measures that will be 
taken if a student is in violation of 

bias-motivated misconduct.

“Should a student be found 

of having committed an act 
against another person with 
bias or prejudice motivation that 
their sanctions be heightened 
automatically,” she said.

The 
purpose 
of 
these 

amendments is to deter students 
from committing bias-motivated 
acts, as they will know there 
will be heightened sanctions as a 
consequence. The level to which 

sanctions will be heightened will 
be treated on a case-by-case basis 
up to the discretion of the Office of 
Student Conflict Resolution, and 
each of these cases will result in 
two separate charges, according 
to Sarkar.

“The goal here is to set the 

precedence in our governing 
documents that action that is 
taken against another person in 
a malevolent way with biased or 

Z Nicolazzo addressed a crowd 

of approximately 100 Monday 
night at the School of Social Work 
as part of Transgender Awareness 
Week. Nicolazzo, who uses the 
gender-neutral pronouns ze and 
hir, is an assistant professor in 
the Adult and Higher Education 
program, and a faculty associate 
in the Center for the Study of 
Women, Gender and Sexuality at 
Northern Illinois University.

Nicolazzo’s 
dissertation 

consisted of an ethnographic 
study 
in 
which 
ze 
worked 

with 
transgender 
students 

to 
understand 
their 
college 

experience; 
hir 
work 
was 

published as a book — “Trans* in 
College: Transgender Students’ 
Strategies for Navigating Campus 
Life and the Institutional Politics 
of Inclusion” — which served as 
the primary focus of the talk.

Speaking 
of 
hir 
own 

experience, Nicolazzo explained 
hir coming out narrative is 
different from what is often 
considered as the normative 
narrative for transpeople.

“Oftentimes, 
we 
think 

michigandaily.com
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Tuesday, November 14, 2017

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INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 30
©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 AWARENESS, Page 3

Professor 
discusses 
being trans 
in college

CAMPUS LIFE

Transgender Awareness 
Week to explore identity, 
gender norms, narratives

JENNIFER MEER

Daily Staff Writer

ALICE LIU/Daily

The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs discusses campus issues in the Fleming Administration Build-
ing Monday afternoon.

SACUA talks changes to Statement of 
Student Rights and Responsibilities 

Faculty members discuss graduate student tuition, DEI bias reporting

ALEX COTT

Daily Staff Writer

michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

In an email sent to all students 

Monday 
afternoon, 
Central 

Student Government announced 
it will continue a program from 
the previous administration to 
encourage students to participate 
in Bystander Intervention training.

This initiative, a program CSG 

piloted under past-President David 
Schafer last year, will require any 
student 
organization 
wishing 

to claim more than $1,000 a 
semester in funding from the CSG 
Student 
Organization 
Funding 

Commission to have at least two of 
their authorized signers complete 
a Bystander Intervention course. 
The trainings, facilitated by Sexual 
Assault Prevention and Awareness 
Center’s Bystander Intervention 
and 
Community 
Engagement 

program and Wolverine Wellness, 
aim to bring issues of sexual abuse, 
as well as drug and alcohol abuse, 
into the open. They are focused 
on empowering people who might 
witness incidences of misconduct 
to intervene and change campus 
culture surrounding these issues.

CSG body,
SAPAC to 
incentivize 
 

trainings

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Efforts encourage student
 participation in Bystander 
Intervention initiative

MAYA GOLDMAN

Daily Staff Writer

The question of divestment: 

recounting a tense history at U-M

MAZIE HYAMS/Daily

University students protest during CSG on the Diag in favor of divestment November 8.

CSG votes today on resolution concerning alleged rights violations against Palestinians

JORDYN BAKER & 
DYLAN LACROIX
Daily Staff Reporters

See DIVEST, Page 3

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

See STATEMENT, Page 3