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Vol. CXXVII, No. 82
©2018 The Michigan Daily

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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
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ACADEMICS

Getting good grades, having 

the best teachers and applying 
to college are all integral parts 
of one’s education. But for 
students of color, many of these 
aspirations cannot be met due 
to structural racism and the 
broken pipeline within our 
educational system.

Nikole 
Hannah-Jones, 
a 

New York Times investigative 
journalist and 2017 MacArthur 
“Genius”, came to the University 
of Michigan’s Institute of Social 
Research Wednesday to discuss 
educational 
segregation 
and 

racial inequities.

Jones 
opened 
the 

conversation 
by 
discussing 

the prevalence of segregation 
within the public education 
system and why the system 
continues to be propagated.

“Segregation has produced 

benefit for white Americans and 
harm for Black Americans,” she 
said.

Jones cited statistics that 

compared schools with a white 
majority 
and 
schools 
with 

students-of-color 
majority. 

Universities 
were 
not 
an 

exception 
to 
the 
presented 

inequality.

“The share of Black freshmen 

at elite schools is virtually 
unchanged since 1980,” Jones 
said. 
“Black 
students 
are 

just 6 percent of freshmen 
but 15 percent of college-age 
Americans.”

Jones continued to explain 

those in positions of privilege 
often 
believe 
they 
are 

fighting for equality, but do 
not acknowledge their own 
hypocrisy in separating their 
children by sending them to 
schools that have extremely 
small populations of students of 
color.

“We cannot say we want equal 

opportunity for all children 
then fight for the advantages of 
our own children,” she said.

Jones also spoke about her 

personal conflict when deciding 
whether to send her daughter to 
a predominately white school 

Journo talks
educational
disparities, 
segregation

Teach-in discusses history of 
white supremacy, inaccuracies

CHUN SO/Daily

Matthew Spooner provides insight on politics and the history of white supremacy at the Disrupting White Supremacy Teach In at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre 
Wednesday.

NYTimes’ Nikole Hannah-Jones spoke 
on prevalence of racial inqualities 

TAL LIPKIN
For the Daily

Event held by University History Department intended to disrupt injustices

On Wednesday evening, the 

University of Michigan History 
Department 
held 
a 
teach-in 

surrounding “Disrupting White 
Supremacy: 
Global 
Histories 

and Local Struggles.” The talk 
included 12 speakers in an effort 
to reclaim and retell the history 
of race in the U.S. and globally. 
The speeches were followed 
by a student “talk back” panel, 
focusing 
on 
the 
historical 

injustices and their inaccurate 
recordings that have shaped our 
current political climate. 

Views could follow the talk on 

twitter and pose questions to the 
speakers using the #UMDisrupt.

Teach-ins have a long and 

storied history at the University. 
The nation’s first “teach-in” took 
place on campus in March of 1965 
with 3,000 students gathering 
across rooms in Angell Hall to 
discuss and protest the war in 
Vietnam. 

Rackham 
student 
Tara 

Weinberg explained the urgency 

to come to events like this, 
especially with the controversy 
surrounding white supremacist 
Richard Spencer’s potential visit 
to campus next semester.

“I think it’s really important 

to counter him because if there 
is no counter, then it’s almost 
taken as a given that he’s been 
received with silence and with 
complicity,” Weinberg said.

Several professors and one 

graduate student spoke on how the 
current political climate has been 
shaped from an international, 
historical 
perspective. 

Katherine French, a J. Frederick 
Hoffman professor of history, 
accompanied 
by 
Rackham 

student Taylor Sims identified 
medieval 
fantastical 
symbols 

used by white supremacists in 
the Charlottesville protests, and 
how their modern use incorrectly 
represents the Crusades at large. 
This misrepresentation has given 
white supremacists an empty 
sense of security and support, 
and 
has 
misconstrued 
their 

presence to the public. 

“If you know your history, then 

ABBY TAKAS

Daily Staff Reporter

On Feb. 12, Detroit workers 

left their jobs and gathered 
in Martin Luther King Jr. 
Memorial Park to protest for a 
$15 statewide minimum wage. 
Linked to the 50th anniversary 
of the 1968 Memphis sanitation 
worker strike, where workers 
walked away from their jobs 
to protest inadequate pay and 
dangerous working conditions, 
similar protests were held in 
other major cities including 
Chicago, 
Houston 
and 

Cleveland.

The movement responsible 

for this, Fight for $15, aims to 
raise the minimum wage to 
$15 and was created when New 
York City fast-food workers 
led a strike for higher wages 
in 2012. Since then, California, 
New York and Washington 
D.C. have crafted incremental 
plans to reach a $15 minimum 
wage in the coming years, while 
Seattle already implemented 
a $15 minimum wage for large 
employers this year.

Despite these large national 

movements, however, public 
opinionis still largely split on 
whether a $15 minimum wage is 
a good idea.

Charles 
Brown, 
an 

economics professor at the 
University of Michigan, worked 
on the Minimum Wage Study 
Commission from 1979 to 1981 
and published several related 
papers in the following decades. 

While the $15 minimum wage 
has been approved in several 
notable cities and states, Brown 
said he views Detroit as a 
different case.

“As a group , these wages are 

in more prosperous areas than 
Detroit,” Brown said. 

Though Detroit is a large city, 

its economy lags behind Seattle 
or San Francisco according to 
the speakers. Wallace Hopp, 
a professor of business and 
engineering, said the prevailing 

wage rate should be considered 
when adopting a new state 
minimum 
wage. 
Michigan 

just raised its minimum wage 
from $8.90 to $9.25 on Jan. 1, 
the last step of an incremental 
minimum 
wage 
increase 

plan enacted in 2014. When 
Seattle began its incremental 
minimum wage raise to $15 
in 2015, its large employers’ 
minimum wage was $11, and its 
small employers with medical 
benefits’ minimum wage was 

$10. 

“In some cities, like Seattle, 

with hot labor markets, low-
wage jobs were much closer to 
$15 per hour than in less hot 
labor markets like Detroit,” 
Hopp said. “So the ability of a 
Seattle to absorb an increase 
to $15 per hour is much greater 
than that of Detroit. Of course, 
the cost of living is also lower 
in Detroit than Seattle. So the 
minimum wage does not need to 

The 
Office 
of 
National 

Scholarships and Fellowships 
announced the winners of the 
Gates Cambridge and the Knight-
Hennessy Scholarships Tuesday.

Gates 
Cambridge 
selected 

University 
Medical 
student 

Warren Pan to join the fully-
paid one-year master’s program 
plus living stipend at Cambridge 
University in England. Knight-
Hennessy selected alum Yiran 
Liu 
to 
pursue 
a 
doctorate 

degree in cancer biology at 
Stanford University’s School of 
Medicine. Both recipients plan 
on beginning their respective 
programs in the fall.

Pan graduated from Harvard 

University before pursuing his 
medical and doctorate degrees 
at the University. Pan said he 
hopes to be a physician-scientist 
working directly with patients 
while 
continuing 
medical 

research. Pan will be taking a 
one-year leave of absence before 
his final year of medical school to 
study in Cambridge under Steve 
O’Rahilly, the head of the Clinical 
Biochemistry Department. 

Prestigious 
fellowship 
recipients 
announced

ACADEMICS

Knight-Hennessy, Gates 
Cambridge provide one-
year Master’s programs

REMY FARKAS
Daily Staff Reporter

ROSEANNE CHAO/Daily

After protests for $15 minimum wage, 
University weighs possible impacts 

Protests come after wage increase to $9.25 in beginning of January 2018

JULIA FORD

Daily Staff Reporter

Lindsay Haas, an MDining 

Culinary and Nutrition Support 
Specialist, met with University 
of Michigan students last year 
to listen to their concerns over 
the lack of healthy beverage 
options 
at 
the 
residential 

dining halls. After considering 
their feedback, Haas decided 
to test a new healthy beverage 
dispensary machine called Bevi.

A Bevi machine, which offers 

students the choice of either still 
or sparkling water with four 
different flavor options, will 
be installed in the South Quad 
residential dining hall on Feb. 
26, as part of a two-month trial 
period.

Haas found many students 

were looking for a way to 
customize their drinks. Bevi 
gives 
students 
control 
over 

how much flavor goes into their 
drink, with possible options 
ranging from lemon lime to 
blueberry cucumber. All flavors 
are zero calories, unsweetened 
or naturally sweetened. The 
machine functions through a 
touch-screen, and ingredient 

Dining hall 
introduces 
sparkling 
beverages

BUSINESS

After popular demand, 
South Quad to trial new 
machine called Bevi

NATASHA PIETRUSHKA

Daily Staff Reporter

See WAGES, Page 3

See ONSP, Page 3
See MDINING, Page 3

See HANNAH-JONES, Page 3
See TEACH-IN, Page 3

