people can’t give it back to you
in the wrong form,” French
said.
Lecturer
Anne
Berg
explained how the Nazi party
used
fabricated
scientific
claims
to
promote
and
encourage racism in Germany
and compared this to the
current eugenics argument.
In this respect, she admitted
society
today
is
not
too
different from Nazi Germany.
This
past
fall,
protests
broke out across campus as
students groups called on the
University to change the name
of C.C. Little building and bus
stop, as their namesake was a
former University president
and President of the American
Eugenics Society.
“Nazis were lucky that they
had so much of a rich history of
scientific evidence and visual
legacies to draw on to build a
racial state that thankfully has
not yet been paralleled,” Berg
said.
Associate professor Rudolph
“Butch”
Ware
highlighted
the roots of racism from an
Islamic perspective in 18th
century Africa. Despite the
fact literacy rates were higher
in regions of Africa than in
any part of Europe, African
people were nonetheless seen
as slaves. Ware cited classical
Islamic teachings that racism
stems from pride, and urged
the audience to set their pride
aside and engage in dialogue
to
understand
how
white
supremacy has occurred and
what it has done.
Several
speakers
also
focused
on
the
historical
inaccuracies from a national
perspective.
Assistant professor Matthew
Spooner referenced the Haitian
revolution and Rebecca J. Scott,
a Charles Gibson Distinguished
University professor of history,
discussed the Reconstruction-
era government of Louisiana to
highlight the lack of historical
knowledge many hold, and how
this ignorance warps views of
current social problems.
“If we can’t understand the
past, we will be blind to the
present,” Spooner said.
information can be found on
the panel.
According to Elliott Rains,
the
MDining
Marketing
Coordinator, students wanted
something
that
wasn’t
necessarily water, other than
soft drinks.
“We want a good middle
ground that will satisfy people,
fit the need of students and is
also health conscious,” he said.
The University is joining
in a national movement as
more Americans are ditching
sugary drinks for healthier
alternatives, according to the
Huffington Post.
“We’ve realized that sugary
beverages aren’t the way to
go, but we still like things
carbonated,” Dana Ferrante,
Bevi’s
marketing
content
writer said. “So this sparkling
water trend or unsweetened
flavored water is definitely in
right now.”
The healthy drink craze is
not the only trend Bevi pursues.
The company also prides itself
on being ecologically friendly,
as they reported having saved
15 million plastic bottles in
2017.
Business sophomore Victor
Mahdavi interned at a start-up
in Cambridge, Mass. that used
a Bevi machine.
“Some of the appeal was …
not having to bring a plastic
water bottle, which would lead
to waste,” said Mahdavi. “(The
machine) looks really cool. It
would add some tech-savviness
to the dining hall.”
MDining will be gauging
students’
reaction
to
Bevi
with comment cards near the
machine.
“We’re looking for student
feedback,”
said
Haas.
“If
there’s a lot interest from
students across campus, then
we would consider keeping it
and bringing Bevi into more
locations next fall.”
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Thursday, February 22, 2018 — 3
DANYEL THARAKAN/Daily
Mayor Christopher Taylor participates in a conversation with students about public policy in Weill Hall Wednesday.
M AYOR TAYLOR ON POLICY
Pan wants to analyze the
effects of genetic mutations on
obesity, specifically in children,
in search of ways to reverse it. He
will be conducting the bulk of his
experiments on mice to model the
potential in humans. Though he
cannot specify the details of the
study, Pan noted England has a
large database of sequenced DNA
from morbidly obese children that
he will be using in his research.
“I will be using that database
and going after some of those
genes to figure out what those
genes are doing and whether
we can reverse it and see if mice
with this mutation can be cured
with a drug or virus or some
other treatment,” Pan said. “I
hope to better understand the
interface between human disease
and basic science research to use
translational research to create
new therapies for human disease.”
Martin Myers, professor of
internal medicine and molecular
& integrative physiology, acted
as Pan’s doctorate adviser and
scientific mentor at the University.
Myers helped train Pan as a
scientist and worked with him
throughout his research.
“As his PhD mentor, I know
how
smart,
energetic,
and
talented
Warren
is,”
Myers
wrote in an email interview.
“Not only does he deserve the
award because of his talent and
accomplishments, but also he
will use the opportunity to learn
more about translating his basic
research expertise to the study of
human disease. He defines what it
means to be a self-starter!”
The
Gates
Cambridge
Scholarship is given to students
with high academic ability and
the dedication to making the
world a better place, according to
ONSF Director Henry Dyson.
“The
Gates
Cambridge
Scholarship
is
looking
at
leadership
potential
and
demonstrated
commitment
to
improving to the lives of others,”
Dyson said. “Warren’s research
in obesity genetics is an obvious
fit for that, he is an exceptionally
well qualified applicant.”
Garth
Strohbehn,
Gates
Cambridge alum and a chief
medical resident at Michigan
Medicine,
worked
with
Pan
to prepare and apply for the
program.
“I’m thrilled for him to have
this
tremendous
experience,”
Strohbehn said. “He’s obviously
a talented person who’s worked
exceptionally
hard
for
this
opportunity –– it’s great to see
it paying off in this way. It’s
a really cool step forward for
his research and for him as a
developing
intellectual.
The
Gates community is an incredible,
multidisciplinary
one
full
of
brilliant people and so he’s going
to develop even more as a thinker.
It’s going to be an incredible
experience.”
Yiran Liu, winner of the
inaugural
Knight-Hennessy
Scholarship,
graduated
from
the University in 2017 with a
bachelor’s degree in cellular and
molecular biology. Yiran hopes
to obtain a doctorate in cancer
biology but has a diverse range of
research experiences and an open
mind.
“It’s really a huge honor to
receive this scholarship,” Liu
said. “I was not expecting at all
so it’s very humbling to feel that
I have the opportunity to become
part of this community. When I
went to the immersion weekend,
I met so many people. These
people were so grounded, kind,
compassionate and empathetic
and their work was driven by
some kind of passion or need
to make a difference in the
community and the world and it
is an honor to imagine myself in
that community in grad school.”
According to Dyson, Knight-
Hennessy is the newest of the
major scholarships, comparable
to the Rhodes, Marshall and Gates
Cambridge. He categorized this is
a truly global scholarship with a
49-student cohort, and 63 percent
of
which
are
international,
according to a Knight-Hennessy
press release. Dyson said Knight-
Hennessy
understands
the
solutions to today’s problems
are multi-disciplinary, thus the
scholarship is offered to those
pursuing a law, medical, doctorate
and a multitude of other degrees.
“What I think makes Yiran
really stand out as a candidate
is
that
she
is
exceptionally
well qualified in terms of her
research credentials. She really
is as good as any biomedical or
STEM researcher and I think she
belongs in that company and her
leadership
accomplishments…
and (her work with) social justice
and campus climate issues and
how she wants to combine them
in the future really makes her
stand out,” Dyson said. “We have
exceptional leaders in these areas
but we rarely see them combined.”
ONSP
From Page 1
MDINING
From Page 1
TEACH-IN
From Page 1
be as high here as it needs to be on
the coasts in order for our people
to achieve the same standard of
living.”
If a $15 minimum wage was
only enacted in the city of Detroit,
rather than the entire state, Hopp
said he worries businesses might
flock to the metro area to escape
the high labor costs, harming
surrounding areas.
“But
I
think
city-level
minimum wages are tricky,”
Hopp said. “While they may
help workers at restaurants and
hotels that can’t move out of the
city, they serve as an incentive for
factories, landscaping businesses
and any other business that can
relocate to move to the suburbs to
do so.”
Despite these qualms, Hopp
said he could foresee many
positives of a statewide minimum
wage increase, provided it is
incremental.
“In contrast, a plan to increase
the Michigan minimum wage in
stages over time would benefit
people
who
are
struggling
financially, help stem the tide
of rising income inequality and
do so with minimal harm to the
economy or job market,” Hopp
said.
Teia
McGahey,
a
2017
University
of
Michigan-
Dearborn alum and organizer
for the Lecturers’ Employee
Organization,
said
she
first
became involved with Detroit’s
division of Fight for $15, D15,
through the Social Justice League
on Dearborn’s campus. After
graduation, she worked as an
organizer for Jobs With Justice, a
nonprofit that fights for workers’
rights, until accepting a position
with LEO a couple months ago.
“The first prong of a better
future is first getting people what
they need, and I think that’s what
a lot of the D15 efforts focused
on,” McGahey said. “Making
sure people can eat, making sure
people have adequate housing,
adequate health insurance, those
sorts of things that we need to
just survive.”
Many champions for a higher
minimum wage argue minimum
wage has not been adjusted
properly for inflation. A 2016
report by Pew Research Center
stated the $7.25 federal minimum
wage had lost about 9.6 percent
in
purchasing
power
since
its adoption in 2009. In 2015,
The Economist reported that
given the United States’ wealth
compared to other countries, it
would expect a minimum wage
of $12.
Sociology
lecturer
Ian
Robinson, who has worked on
a team to analyze Washtenaw
County’s wages, said though
a $15 minimum wage might
induce productivity losses, the
magnitude of these effects are
currently relatively unknown.
“If
we
had
adjusted
the
minimum wage for productivity
growth since the mid-1970s, it
would now be at about $18 an
hour,” Robinson said. “From the
end of World War II through to the
mid-’70s, the minimum wage did
tend to keep up with productivity
growth. In those 30 years, we had
very low unemployment.”
While others share fears of the
possible loss of productivity and
lower employment related to a
higher minimum wage, Robinson
said much of this is offset by
increased purchases from the
lower class.
“Even if some jobs are lost in
some sectors, the higher wage
for millions of low-wage workers
means
increased
purchasing
power for working class people
as a whole,” Robinson said. “That
group will spend more money, and
that extra spending will create
more jobs. Maybe not in fast-
food, but from a macroeconomic
point of view, the important
questions are how many jobs are
there and how well do they pay.
If more money is spent on better
paying jobs, that’s more good
paying jobs in the economy.”
While Hopp said job loss is an
undeniable counterpart of raising
minimum wage, he has seen
minimal negative impacts with
small increases in places such as
Seattle. However, a rapid increase
to a $15 minimum is uncharted
territory, so Hopp recommends
proceeding cautiously.
“No one doubts that increasing
wages decreases jobs,” Hopp said.
“But we’ve had a lot of experience
with small increases in the
minimum wage that show very
little impact on unemployment.
We don’t have much data on
large increases and so need to be
cautious. The policies in Seattle
and other places who are pushing
minimum wages up at a faster
pace look encouraging so far. But
we’ll know more in a few years
when we’ve had time to study the
impacts.”
Among
low-wage
workers,
McGahey note dstudents are
especially susceptible to unfair
wages.
“I think in every job I’ve had
I’ve been underpaid, but that’s so
many of us right now too, because
we are an exploitable group of
people,” McGahey said. “Students
just need whatever we can get, so
it’s really easy to pay us less than
we deserve.”
As prices, especially rent costs,
continue to soar in Ann Arbor
and other cities, affordability
becomes an even more pressing
issue for many students. With the
University’s median income of
parents of students at $156,000,
about three times the median
income of Michigan households,
LSA senior Zoe Proegler finds
economic inequality on campus
hard to ignore.
“Affluence is incredibly visible
on our campus, from the clothes
people wear to the places they
live and eat to the ways they talk
about socializing, vacations and
more,” Proegler said. “I think
after spending four years in that
kind of environment, especially as
someone who does occasionally
have to worry about money, it was
almost a given that I was going to
be at least aware of the economic
inequality discourse taking place
on campus.”
In support of a $15 minimum
wage in Michigan, Proegler said
she especially sees a need for
higher wages in expensive areas
like Ann Arbor, Detroit, Lansing
and Grand Rapids.
“A $15 minimum here would
not only make achieving a livable
income for working students
possible, but would do a great
deal to cut down on the growing
wealth inequality in the county
and help address the problem of a
lack of service and food industry
workers — or very long commutes
— in cities like Ann Arbor,”
Proegler said.
No matter the wage proposal,
Brown takes issue with the
process
of
minimum
wage
increases. He hopes the often
politically-motivated
method
becomes more systematic and
fair.
“In
an
ideal
world,
the
legislators would agree on the
‘right’ minimum wage for 2018
and then have that value change
smoothly
and
mechanically
based on growth in average
wages,” Brown said. “The current
pattern –– no change, followed by
big jumps –– reflects a political
inability or unwillingness to
agree on a more orderly process.”
WAGES
From Page 1
with better resources, versus the
underfunded school with a higher
population of Latino and African-
American students.
“I had to make a choice: either
live my values, when I know how
harmful these schools can be, or
was I going to use my privilege
to get my daughter away from the
kids who live next door to me” she
said. “I decided that no child was
worth less than my child.”
Jones
explained
this
segregation is not occurring in
remote locations far away from
the University students she was
addressing.
“Michigan schools are the
second most segregated in the
country,” she said. “Michigan
schools have the worst test scores
for Black kids in the country.”
She also explained the obvious
problem of underrepresentation
at the University.
“You look at the flagship
university,
the
University
of
Michigan, and it is 5 percent black
and 30 miles away from a majority
Black city,” she said.
Jones posed the question of
which children should be left
behind in the educational system.
She gave an example of an African-
American college student, Alicia,
who was forced behind because
of the broken educational pipeline
within the American system.
“Alicia
was
part
of
the
Tuscaloosa
education
system
and she spent 13 years in entirely
segregated schools that looked
like her grandfather’s,” she said.
“When Alicia took the ACT, she
got a 16 … When I asked Alicia if
she was going to take it again she
responded, ‘Why? I can’t make up
for everything, I haven’t had in
time for this test.’”
Jones ended her talk by saying
all students should have equal
opportunities to go to schools
which provide them with the
resources necessary for success.
“You shouldn’t have to be an
exceptional child in this country
to get a quality education,” she
said.
The
presentation
then
shifted to a series of smaller
presentations
from
students
and
University
alumni.
The
presentations focused on the
underrepresentation of Black and
Latinx teachers, the financial
burden of education for students
of color and how Students of Color
of Rackham — a graduate student
organization — has made its voice
heard on campus.
SCOR President Rosalyn Kent
explained
the
overwhelming
burden
students
of
color
experience
in
institutions
of
higher education, as they must
balance their school work and
while confronting racial issues on
campus.
“We have to produce this
scholarly work and be responsible
for the hateful acts that happen
around us and make sure we don’t
drown in that hate,” Kent said.
The presentation ended with
a Q&A session between Hannah-
Jones and Tabbye Chavous, the
director of the National Center for
Institutional Diversity.
Chavous’
first
question
addressed
how
to
prepare
students of color for an integrated
context. Jones responded though
integration would take careful
planning and time, it’s vital for the
future success for the country
“I’m pushing for a radical
rethinking
of
our
education
system. It has to be that the
curriculum is reflective of all
children
and
all
American
history,” Jones said. “I’m not
pushing for small numbers of
Black children in white schools
and forced assimilation.”
Jones also spoke about the lack
of resources that schools with
majority Black or Latino students
have compared to white students.
“The
difference
is
the
concentration of poverty. Ninety
percent of the parents in my
daughter’s school cannot make
up for the difference of what they
do not get within the school” she
said. “I wish we could disentangle
race and resources.”
Rackham student Kayla Fike
explained the necessity in coming
to events like these to understand
ones personal role in these issues.
“I think it’s valuable to come to
these events because it helps us to
see where our individual choices
actually do make a difference and
uphold inequality.
HANNAH-JONES
From Page 1
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com