The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Tuesday, November 14, 2017— 3

prejudice motivation will not be 
tolerated and will be sanctioned,” 
Sarkar said. “Not only will you 
be sanctioned for the act you 
committed, but you will also be 
sanctioned for the motivation that 
you had to commit the act.”

E. 
Royster 
Harper, 
vice 

president for student life, discussed 
the degree to which OSCR is 
engaged in the process of these 
incidents.

“(Students) believe the only 

recourse is the criminal recourse,” 
Harper stated. “Sometimes it’s not 
a crime in the criminal kind, it is 
a violation of our own values and 
standards.”

Martin Philbert, provost and 

executive 
vice 
president 
for 

academic affairs, served as a 
second guest speaker and reported 
University 
President 
Mark 

Schlissel believes the University 
should not tax the income of 
graduate students.

“These are people who have 

already engaged in undergraduate 
education 
and 
are 
going 
to 

contribute to society in a deeper 
and 
sometimes 
broader 
level 

through the acquisition of even 
higher education, and adding a 
financial tax on that commitment 
to deeper engagement to society 
just seems unwise,” Philbert said. 

“It puts them in financial jeopardy 
and deepens the divide between 
those who can afford and those 
who we would like to bring in but 
can’t necessarily afford.”

Though the University would 

like to reach this goal, the reality 
of budgeting interferes with any 
chance of it. According to Philbert, 
current budget proposals, being 
in the tens of millions of dollars 
with some reaching $20 million, 
create a challenging obstacle for 
administrators.

However, based on this financial 

need among students, Philbert is 
hopeful to make tuition as low as 
possible.

“There is a clear sense among 

staff and the student body that 
along with making a healthy living, 
there is a healthy need to make 
the world a better place, but that 
frequently comes at the cost of 
making a healthier financial living, 
so I think we need to provide as 
affordable education as we possibly 
can,” Philbert said.

Philbert also discussed the 

faculty’s role in diversity, equity 
and inclusion and how to create 
a more open campus climate that 
welcomes dialogue.

“The nearest I have come to it is: 

Are we welcoming of everyone?” 
Philbert 
asked. 
“Within 
that 

welcome we are mindful of the fact 
that people come from different 
places, different experiences, and 
they are all here, so that for faculty, 

students and staff this is a place of 
learning.”

When discussing solutions to 

reach this goal more effectively, 
Philbert 
emphasized 
the 

importance of using the humanities 
to connect with people rather 
than relying solely on science and 
numbers.

“Let’s 
not 
underestimate 

the power of the humanities in 
describing the world, describing 
society and the power of using 
the narrative rather than the 
measurement,” Philbert said. “One 
of the ways that President Schlissel 
has articulated this is by placing 
a greater emphasis on public 
engagement.”

Sami Malek, Senate Assembly 

member and associate professor 
of internal medicine, discussed the 
need for more open dialogue, since 
many faculty members believe they 
will be marginalized or labeled if 
they stand up for an issue that is 
important to them.

“We ought to look at the way 

we are permissive towards open 
dialogue,” Malek said. “There are 
many places in this University and 
this society that are not open to 
open dialogue, and unless people 
feel that they can say what’s 
on their mind without feeling 
ostracized for it, I think we’re 
missing the boat.”

STATEMENT
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about normative narratives of 
transpeople coming out as feeling 
like people are trapped in the 
wrong body when they’re a kid,” 
ze said. “I actually came out as 
trans in my late twenties.”

At the time Nicolazzo worked 

at the University of Arizona, 
primarily 
with 
students 
in 

fraternity 
and 
sororities. 
Ze 

moved to Ohio where ze attended 
Miami University to pursue hir 
Ph.D. in Student Affairs in Higher 
Education, and saw it is as chance 
to start over and come out.

In deciding on a topic for hir 

dissertation, Nicolazzo explained 
ze wanted to think about what 
life was like for people who 
didn’t necessarily have the same 
privilege that ze had, to move to a 
new place. Ze noted ze didn’t have 
a traditional transgender college 
experience.

“When I moved to Ohio I didn’t 

really have a whole lot of trans or 
gender nonconforming or gender 

queer people to spend time with,” 
ze said. “So I thought doing this 
research would be a way not 
only to write my community into 
existence but to find a community 
to spend time with in the first 
place, and really try to think 
about how we could do this 
project together — me and the 
participants.”

Nicolazzo explained what ze 

called the transgender paradox 
— that there appeared to be a 
lot of research and writing on 
the transgender identity, new 
communities, new industries and 
new disciplines in the late-20th 
century, yet there was not a lot of 
research on transgender college 
students.

As part of hir work, Nicolazzo 

spent 
18 
months 
with 
nine 

transgender college students; ze 
spent time on campus without 
them, observing the campus, and 
then spent time with them. Ze 
traveled to the places the students 
enjoyed on campus and those they 
avoided, as well as the events and 
classes they attended. 

In 
compiling 
hir 
findings, 

Nicolazzo explained it wasn’t 

fair to simply pull together and 
“package” the common themes, 
because there are too many ways 
to consider one’s transness, gender 
and identity. Ze explained those 
identities change across time and 
space as well. Instead, ze explained 
ze wanted to discuss the ways in 
which the participants’ narratives 
converge, or arrive, at similar 
points, but also how they diverge, 
or depart from one another, so as 
to not lose outlying moments.

Ze explained the students ze 

observed seemed to understand 
what cultural discourses were 
operating on their campus.

“There 
was 
a 
binary 

understanding of gender,” ze 
said. “There were only two ways 
people could exist on that campus. 
You could either be a cisgender, 
nontrans man, or a cisgender, 
nontrans woman.”

Ze found the participants could 

easily articulate what these two 
groups looked like.

Additionally, 
Nicolazzo 

developed the term “compulsory 
heterogenderism.”

“Participants would talk about 

how their gender identities were 

erased and instead they were 
understood through stereotypical 
notions of sexuality,” ze said.

For example, one participant 

in Nicolazzo’s study identified as 
agender. This student explained 
identifying as agender would 
require an explanation for what 
agender meant. Since people don’t 
typically understand transness, 
the student explained, it was 
easier to identify as a lesbian, 
because that is how this person 
was perceived.

“This is about cultural erasure,” 

ze said. “Both the notion of 
compulsory heterogenderism and 
the gender binary discourse are 
what I call twin cultural realities. 
This is kind of the cultural ether 
in the air and constructs college 
campuses as spaces in which trans 
people are not understood nor can 
they be understood.”

Another key component of 

Nicolazzo’s discussion was talk 
of resilience. However, ze wasn’t 
interested in using the word in 
the stereotypical sense, where it 
is often paired with words like 
grit. Ze explained the notion of 
grit implies one is living in a toxic 

environment and individualizes 
the reality of someone needing 
to push through, rather than 
considering the negative cultural 
climate itself. 

Nicolazzo 
explained 

participants did many things 
to navigate their toxic climate. 
Some described not walking past 
certain areas, what ze described 
as a practice of resilience. Some 
would listen to music or text as 
they walked.

“All of these (are) small, little 

micro-examples of how it is that 
we’re able to navigate through our 
day.”

Nicolazzo also discussed what 

ze described as the labor of being 
trans on campus.

“The ways in which knowledge 

is commodified and packaged 
and basically sold to students 
who are then seen as consumers 
of that knowledge and then spill 
it out all over tests … in much the 
same way these trans participants 
were often put on the spot to do 
the work of educating cisgender 
people on campus,” ze explained.

At a fall welcome event for the 

LGBTQ community at the school 

Nicolazzo observed, ze explained 
the chief diversity officer actually 
called on the trans and gender 
queer community to teach the rest 
of the community what they need 
to know.

“This was exhausting that 

students were basically told in no 
uncertain terms you need to teach 
us what we need to know: you 
different people — is the words 
that weren’t there — need to teach 
us normal people what we need to 
know,” ze said.

Nicolazzo 
explained 
hir 

findings don’t mean anything 
unless they are used to change 
how campuses are constructed.

Mark 
Chung 
Kwan 
Fan, 

assistant director for engagement 
at the Spectrum Center, said there 
is a lot of conversation around 
how to support trans students on 
campus. Fan explained Nicolazzo 
has been a pioneer in this space. 
He also said he thinks measures 
taken to support trans college 
students vary from college to 
campus.

AWARENESS
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Organizations and the School 
of Social Work Student Union. 
This 
year’s 
proposal 
also 

leans upon the University’s 
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 
strategic 
plan 
to 
argue 

divestment represents a campus 
commitment to inclusion by 
uplifting marginalized voices of 
Palestinian students. 

During CSG’s final meeting 

in 
October, 
more 
than 
50 

members of the Latinx Alliance 
for Community Action, Support 
and Advocacy, expressed their 
support of divestment as well.

 “It is my moral obligation 

to stand here in solidarity with 
my Palestinian brothers and 
sisters,” Public Policy senior 
Gloriela Iguina-Colon said. “As 
Latinx people we know what 
it feels like to be run out of 
our homes, to know that there 
are 
legacies 
of 
colonialism 

persisting today, to feel in 
our souls the pain of ours and 
others’ oppression, to know 
that our liberation is bound 
together.”

 For many Jewish and pro-

Israel students, the implications 
of a resolution for divestment 
align 
with 
the 
broader 

Boycott, Divest and Sanctions 
movement, though SAFE states 
its resolution is unaffiliated. 
Many Jewish students said 
they feel divestment promotes 
anti-Semitism. 
University 
of 

Michigan Hillel, an organization 
providing 
programming 
for 

Jewish students on campus, 
recently circulated a petition for 
students who oppose divestment 
and the BDS movement to sign.

 In a statement to The Daily, 

LSA senior Joshua Blum, chair 
of Hillel, said the petition is 
evident 
of 
the 
resolution’s 

divisiveness. 

 “The resolution pits different 

student groups against each 
other, rather than promoting 
the diversity of voices,” he said. 
“For me, I oppose divestment 
because I feel as if it targets the 
one Jewish state unfairly and it 
is not conducive to solving the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

 Last January, after the 

2016 resolution to divest on 
the University campus failed 
by a vote of 34-13, then-LSA 
junior Gaby Roth — a CSG 
representative — and then-LSA 
sophomore Eli Schrayer — a CSG 
representative and member of 
Hillel — proposed a resolution 
to fund monthly luncheons 
to promote dialogue between 
sides of the Palestinian-Israeli 
conflict. Then-CSG president 
David Schaefer, an LSA senior, 
vetoed 
the 
effort, 
arguing 

CSG’s priorities did not align 
with the values put forth by the 
dialogues, and voiced concern 
SAFE did not sponsor the 
resolution. 

 The luncheon measure did 

not pass, even after the body’s 
judiciary committee overturned 
Schafer’s veto. Roth, along with 
members of the Palestinian 
and Israeli community, met 
unofficially four times, but still 
opposes the resolution due to its 
perceived ties to BDS.

 “It’s hard to see that this 

movement, the BDS movement 
that #UMDivest is part of, is 
anti-Semitic because it’s not 
necessarily blatant swastikas 
being painted around campus,” 
she said. “I think that at this 
point I can really relate to some 
of the calls to action in the 
resolution and I understand 
a lot of what they are saying 
just from hearing some of 
the author’s perspectives and 
stories and family history. It’s 
all real and it’s all their own 

truth. But with that said, I 
think that divestment is really 
problematic for a few reasons,” 
she said. “There are things 
happening in Israel that I really 
stand against, but at the same 
time it’s a complex issue and 
this just doesn’t paint the full 
picture.”

 
The 
Egyptian 
Student 

Association countered Blum’s 
points on division with an 
email 
statement. 
Supporting 

divestment, the board stated, 
is a cause uniting marginalized 
communities in their efforts 
to be heard and supported on 
campus. 

 
“ESA 
strongly 
supports 

SAFE’s mission to divest from 
companies that profit off the 
violation of human rights of 
the Palestinian people,” the 
statement reads. “ESA is part 
of a large campus coalition that 
stands with this movement,” 
it read. “This is what real 
DEI looks like — listening to 
marginalized 
and 
silenced 

voices on campus that are being 
amplified by communities of 
color. We urge CSG to listen to 
these communities and not to be 
complicit in this abuse.”

CSG 
representative 
Hafsa 

Tout, an LSA senior authored 
the resolution this year. She 
agreed on the need for dialogue, 
and emphasized its place within 
divestment. 

 “It’s not just dialogue between 

students at that point,” she 
said. “It’s an institutionalized 
conversation 
around 
this 

topic. If a committee—which 
the resolution calls for—will 
decide whether or not the 
University will divest, and to 
get there you have to start that 
institutionalized dialogue on 
the issue.” 

 Potential for Backlash
Even as SAFE members take 

action, they said they remain 

fearful of the repercussions of 
their activism. Divestment, they 
said, has received the support 
of faculty, including tenured 
professors, 
These 
faculty 

members, 
however, 
remain 

silent on the issue due to similar 
concerns of losing their jobs. 
A SAFE member argued the 
issue’s playing field is unlevel 
given no professors can publicly 
support the effort.

“The people who oppose 

the resolution usually bring in 
administration 
or 
professors 

to speak and have institutions 
backing them up,” the member 
said. “Although we have the 
same (support) as well, it’s 
that that institutional support 
cannot be voiced and show 
because they are scared.”

 
At 
first 
reads 
of 
the 

resolution last week, LSA Rep. 
Jay Cutler, a Public Health 
junior voiced concerns about 
the direct impact Palestinians 
face. One of the SAFE members 
answered the query to The 
Daily, 
describing 
the 
many 

threats affecting her day to day 
life.

“I 
know 
specifically 
a 

Palestinian student who was 
at the frontline of this issue, 
she literally attended therapy 
sessions because she was put 
on a blacklist for voicing her 
concerns about the violations 
of human rights of the people in 
her country,” she said.

 The SAFE member went 

on to argue consequences for 
speaking in favor of divestment 
play out differently in terms of 
student welfare than anti-divest 
students.

 “When you’re sitting there 

studying and then you get a 
tweet from a blacklist or a 
tweet that literally says we’re 
watching you, obviously that’s 
going to take away from your 
focus,” she said.

 The national — and global 

— context

Attempts 
at 
institutional 

action 
towards 
divestment 

at the University campus has 
primarily remained contained 
in CSG chambers. According 
to University spokesman Rick 
Fitzgerald, there has not been 
“involvement in this topic.” LSA 
senior Nicholas Fadanelli, LSA 
Student Government president, 
also confirmed he is not aware 
of divestment being brought to 
LSA SG.

 
In 
fact, 
no 
governing 

student body at any U.S. college 
or 
university 
had 
passed 

resolutions to divest from Israel 
until April 19, 2003, when Wayne 
State 
University’s 
Student 

Council voted 9-7 in favor to 
call upon its administration to 
divest from companies doing 
business 
with 
Israel. 
The 

Wayne State University Board 
of Governors signed a statement 
which reads: “Therefore be 
it resolved that the Board of 
Governors 
of 
Wayne 
State 

University supports the October 
2002 statement of the President 
and will not take action to 
divest the university in interests 
it may hold in companies that do 
business in Israel.”

 
Other 
local 
divestment 

efforts were soon successful, 
as the University of Michigan-
Dearborn’s student government 
passed 
a 
similar 
resolution 

one year later in 2004. For 
all of SAFE and #UMDivest’s 
struggles, 
U-M 
Dearborn’s 

Student 
Government 
passed 

five 
additional 
divest 

resolutions in six years. Though 
the group brought the measure 
to the same Board of Regents 
CSG reports to, yet none of the 
resolutions gained an actual 
foothold with the board after 
being deemed not in accordance 
with the board’s policy on 

student activism. 

 Outgoing U-M Dearborn 

student body President Fiana 
Arbab 
gave 
her 
farewell 

speech at the Board of Regents 
meeting held at the University’s 
Dearborn campus this March. 
Once 
again, 
she 
brought 

up 
the 
government’s 
most 

recent successful divestment 
resolution that passed last year. 

 
Regent 
Mark 
Bernstein 

(D) spoke out at the meeting, 
expressing his deep sentiments 
against BDS.

“I 
believe 
it 
is 
an 

intellectually bankrupt, morally 
repugnant expression of anti-
Semitism,” he said. He outlined 
a set of criteria known as the 
“3-D Test of Anti-Semitism” 
that argues the merits between 
constructive criticism of Israel 
and anti-Semitism.

 Arbab recounted the weeks 

leading up to the Regents 
meeting in an interview with 
The Daily. She said Schaefer, 
then-University student body 
president, repeatedly asked to 
review her address to the board, 
offering help and eventually 
suggesting to not bring up the 
divestment issue at all.

 “He had requested that I 

send him my speech for at least 
a week straight,” Arbab said. 
“He didn’t know exactly what 
I was going to do or say, but he 
did know that I was going to 
bring up divestment. He wanted 
to have a phone conversation 
with me in ‘preparation for the 
Regents meeting’ to help me 
out, and I knew exactly what he 
was doing. He tried to advise me 
on how I should bring it up, or 
like, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t bring 
it up at all, but if you did be very 
vague.’”

DIVEST
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