Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4A — Thursday, March 22, 2018 Confirm Pompeo, Deny Haspel BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN C orporate America has a lot of work to do if it wants to achieve any form of gender equity. According to a 2014 fact sheet from the Center for American Progress, women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of master’s degrees. Yet, somehow, they make up only 14.6 percent of executive officers, 8.1 percent of top earners and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. They hold only 16.9 percent of Fortune 500 board seats. Here we face a dilemma. We want the girls and young women to grow up and earn these upper- level business positions, therefore increasing gender equality in the business world. But we also know, based on these statistics alone, corporate America isn’t always the most welcoming place for a woman. How can we ensure the women who enter the business world feel empowered to believe they are capable of earning a highly-paid leadership position? According to Quinnipiac University’s Women’s Rugby Head Coach Becky Carlson, the first D1 women’s NCAA coach for a full-contact sport, the first step to achieving gender equity in the workplace is working toward gender equity in sports, she said in a phone interview with The Daily. More than 3.2 million girls in the United States played high school sports in 2010, and about 200,000 young women played college sports in 2012. This is often their first experience working as part of a team to achieve a greater goal, and one of their first experiences taking on a major leadership role, such as team captain. The skills student athletes obtain through their sport translate directly to the business world. Unfortunately, for female athletes, playing a sport is often also their first experience facing blatant sexual discrimination. Carlson often notices major gender inequity in college athletics, even when it means schools are noncompliant with Title IX, the law that requires federally-funded institutions (such as public schools) do not discriminate based on sex. At athletic events and seminars, she often explains her position to athletic directors and administrators by saying, “Women’s Varsity Rugby, the only full contact sport of women in the NCAA.” “I get this response from people, and it ranges from insulting, to, ‘Oh, sweetie, our gender equity is fine, we don’t need you’ or, ‘You don’t look like a rugby player,’” she explained in a phone interview. “I often got the, ‘We’re in compliance (with Title IX), we’re fine,’ and I would always take notes on these universities that would say this, and they were not fine or in compliance.” Even though Title IX was implemented almost half a century ago, the glaring gender inequity in today’s sports world is no secret. According to Athletic Business, girls’ sports lack not only recognition, but uniforms and equipment. Take a trip to any high school athletic facilities and this will be made abundantly clear. Or look at the ESPN or Sports Illustrated website to see that the sports world values the accomplishments of its male athletes much more highly than those of female athletes. Would it be much of a surprise if after female athletes graduate and enter the workplace, they subconsciously internalize the idea that their accomplishments are not as valuable as those of their male counterparts? “If we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing in athletics — and it doesn’t have anything to do with dribbling, kicking, running, passing — it has everything to do with preparing them for what lies ahead,” Carlson said. “And what lies ahead is a system that is not going to ask you if you’d like a raise, it is a system that is not going to ask you to speak louder, it’s just going to pass you over.” Carlson believes her primary role as a coach is to empower her athletes to succeed beyond the playing field. “The first pitch that I make when I’m with recruits isn’t, ‘Hey, this is the scholarship opportunity and this is how great it is to play on the field and this is the amenities we have,’” she said. “No, the first pitch is, ‘I want you to leave here with the understanding that you can speak in the boardroom.’” Her goal is for her athletes to graduate feeling comfortable asking questions, speaking up and negotiating their salaries. She doesn’t want them to graduate with the belief that no matter how hard they worked, they would still be second class compared to their male counterparts. Achieving this goal begins on the rugby field. “I coach a full contact sport and we’ve been three-time national champions,” she said. “And I still see that when an athlete tackles and goes down for a second and needs a moment to shake it off and get up, our male trainers are up, off the bench, running out there. I’m like, give them a second. Give them a second … That never happens when a male athlete needs a second. They’re not running out there. We rush; we see (women) as weaker. That’s something in our athletes that I would like to see change. I would like for us to be able to say, ‘I would push this athlete the same way I would push a male athlete.’” In other instances, she has seen women coaches criticized for being too “harsh” on their athletes, when male coaches are respected for the very same coaching tactics. “It’s always, ‘She’s tough on them and he’s a great leader,’” she lamented. “They show Coach K and they’ll show Geno and in every photo those guys are coaching and they look serious and they look badass, right? It’s revered: It’s strength, it’s impressive, it is a champion’s face. And then you take the pictures that DNT has been using of Shannon (Miller) and she’s greedy, stubborn, unwilling to work.” Carlson noted that this mindset translates directly to the business world. “That male CEO that you work under goes in and tells everyone how it is and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, he’s a boss, he’s badass,’” she said. “And you go into the boardroom and the woman tells you what to do and she’s considered bitchy, or considered moody.” Several times, Carlson has seen her athletes reap the benefits of her female empowering coaching tactics. One of her athletes had been interning for a company for two years and wanted to be hired there after graduation, but believed she deserved more than the entry level salary that employees who had never worked there would earn. “She went in,” Carlson recalled. “She directly said, ‘This is the value I bring to the company and if you want to hire me, this is my requirement.’ They said no initially, but she kept her head up after that, and she was still interning with them. Two weeks later, they turned around and were like, ‘You know, we really don’t want to lose you, we’ll take that salary bump and we want to hire you.’” Why was this athlete so confident? Carlson explained: “A recognition and appreciation and a reverence for strength in athletics moves over to this life after college.” The answer is simple. If we treat women as second-class citizens when they’re on the rugby field, we can’t expect them to understand that they’re equal as soon as they enter the boardroom. L ast week, in the latest round of “Survivor: West Wing Edition,” President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominated Mike Pompeo, current CIA director and former Tea Party congressman, to take his place. To fill Pompeo’s post, Trump nominated Pompeo’s deputy, Gina Haspel. Each of these people would be a disaster in their post and potentially irreparably harmful to both U.S. foreign policy and what little moral standing this country has left. Senate Democrats, however, in the current political climate, should consider biting the bullet and confirming Pompeo, while remaining firmly opposed to Haspel. First of all, it is important to establish why both are so odious. Pompeo is your standard order, run-of-the-mill Republican hawk; his career has been financed almost entirely thanks to the Koch brothers, he puts forward a “hard line” on terrorism that often bleeds into Islamophobia, he thinks the National Security Agency’s surveillance program does “good and important work” and he wants Edward Snowden extradited and sentenced to death. He resembles, in more ways than one, an external-facing, slightly younger Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff known for his controversial stance on immigration law. Compared to his deputy and potential successor, he’s also the more palatable of the two. Haspel ran a CIA torture site in Thailand in the early 2000s, where prisoners were waterboarded, slammed against walls and confined within coffin- like boxes. For those not already sold on her, she later oversaw the destruction of the video evidence that would have almost certainly damned her as a war criminal in violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. So, torture and a cover-up. Double trouble. There are, though, a few fundamental situational factors to take into account. First of all, consider the current state of the agencies that each of these would-be Kubrick characters have been nominated to run. The State Department has been understaffed to the point that, by many accounts, it is struggling to function properly. As recently as February, no fewer than 45 ambassadorships were left vacant, many of which are to important world powers and allies. South Korea, Australia, Germany, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all belong to this group. Though the thought of staffing these positions with conservative, reactionary ideologues is not the most appealing eventuality, there is foreign policy merit to having warm bodies in those chairs. Pompeo has been, according to reports, decently effective and well-liked at the CIA. A lukewarm performance like that would be a major step up from what State looked like under Tillerson. Secondly, after he staffs the place up and gets it in working order, there’s a good chance that most foreign policy will still be run out of the White House. More than temperament, what impeded Rex Tillerson’s ability to get things done was the fact that any diplomatic conversation or stance could and would be thrown out the window in 140 characters or fewer. Twitter is Trump’s State Department and he is his own ambassador to the world. That is not likely to change depending on whom is serving in that post. For those news sources that seem to suggest Pompeo is different in any way to the sycophants that came before him — that Trump listens, trusts or respects him more than anyone else who has come through the White House to this point — please stop. There was a time that he listened to Steve Bannon, too. At other times, it was going to be Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s cooler heads prevailing. Remember when we were supposed to collectively breathe a sigh of relief when John Kelly entered the picture because he was a moderating force to who Trump listened? How’s that working out? Pompeo is not a game changer and, at this point in time, we should treat that as a victory. Republicans face a tough road between now and the midterm elections. Now is not the time to pick a confirmation fight over a nominee as qualified as Pompeo, just to give them a bit of slack and make people think that this is partisanship business as usual. Senate Democrats should nonetheless make a distinction; Pompeo, though abhorrent, is qualified to do the job and the State Department needs a secretary. The CIA, on the other hand, is not in any state of crisis whatsoever (that we know of). It does not necessarily need this modern-day Torquemada to keep the lights on and the trains on time, so to speak. Pompeo is just about on par when it comes to what we expected from a Trump nominee. Confirm him. The State Department needs a secretary. Haspel is almost undeniably a war criminal. The CIA can wait for someone much better. Gender equity starts on the rugby field HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN Emma Chang Joel Danilewitz Samantha Goldstein Elena Hubbell Emily Huhman Tara Jayaram Jeremy Kaplan Sarah Khan Lucas Maiman Magdalena Mihaylova Ellery Rosenzweig Jason Rowland Anu Roy-Chaudhury Alex Satola Ali Safawi Ashley Zhang DAYTON HARE Managing Editor 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. ALEXA ST. JOHN Editor in Chief ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND ASHLEY ZHANG Editorial Page Editors Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Lecturers vary from part to full time, teaching one to three or even more courses per semester. These educators teach in nearly every department and program across all three campuses and have worked closely with fellow University educators and students, contributing to both the academic and greater University community. As an Editorial Board, we believe it is imperative the University takes the demands and propositions of LEO seriously and invest in our educators, giving them the support that they need and deserve. A great number of University undergraduate students have been taught by lecturers, and these qualified University employees are being underpaid and left without the beneficiary support they need. The current minimum salary for University lecturers is $34,500 at Ann Arbor, $28,300 at Dearborn and $27,300 at Flint. As reported in the University’s 2016 and 2017 audited financial statements, these lecturers brought in $462 million in revenue, while the cost of employment for these educators was only $85 million. Their contributions and work contribute significantly to the economics of the University, and yet they are not receiving wages and benefits that reflect this. When compared, many lecturers are being paid less than their surrounding colleagues at various institutions, including Washtenaw Community College and a variety of public high schools, and definitively less than tenure-track professors at the University, where the average salary is $148,800 at the Ann Arbor campus. This contrast becomes even starker when considering that the average salary for female lecturers is $13,154 less than their male counterparts. The lecturers of the University are not being paid fairly, and when considering what they bring to all three campuses in terms of academics, economics and community-engagement, the LEO request to raise the minimum salary to $60,000 in Ann Arbor and $56,000 in Dearborn and Flint does not seem unwarranted. LEO has been very vocal about their bargaining platforms and have a strong online presence that they use to document their successes and progress as negotiations continue. This platform, when reviewed, focuses not only on the issue of salary but also on benefits. Aspects such as an increase in child subsidy are crucial to the LEO platform, as these types of benefits are necessary to support lecturers in their work and with their families. Consistent health care and job security also aid this struggle, giving lecturers more stability in their family lives. Referring specifically to the Ann Arbor campus, lecturers are often not even able to live within the city they work in and contribute to due to the high cost of living and their own struggles with wages and benefits. The lack of direct support from the University to lecturers and their families could lead to them potentially leaving for other institutions, where they are more consistently supported and paid, with our campus losing critical members of the University community. Lecturers are qualified and impactful educators who enrich the University experience for countless students, and their partnership and support helps the cause and impact of LEO. Students can get involved with LEO by showing up in solidarity to grade-ins and bargaining sessions (the next grade-in is March 29, with a regents meeting to follow). These events are often publicized on the LEO Facebook page, and outline how students can make an impact on the LEO negotiations. Lecturers are able to build strong relationships with a wide range of students on campus, often working in small classrooms and contributing to campus culture. By having not only members but also other faculty and students show their support and partnership with LEO, this could put pressure on the University to concede and meet the needs of University lecturers. The University has taken steps to reach fair and necessary compromises with LEO, but their stagnant changes to salary increases hurt not only the lecturers and academic excellence of the school, but the people who work consistently and closely with students. Both the University and students need to do their part by supporting those who dedicate their time and effort to our Michigan experience. JOE IOVINO | CONTACT JOE AT JIOVINO@UMICH.EDU Hannah Harshe can be reached at hhharshe@umich.edu. Brett Graham can be reached at btgraham@umich.edu. FROM THE DAILY Support LEO T he University of Michigan’s Lecturers’ Employee Organization is continuing to bargain with the University, as their current contract is set to expire on April 20. 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