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Thursday, July 5, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
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Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
Y
ou
know
that
episode
of “Barbie: Life in the
Dreamhouse” where Malibu
has a glitter shortage and all hell
breaks loose because Barbie is
supposed to attend a Hollywood
premiere that night and she doesn’t
want her fans to see her without
any glitter? I feel like that’s a pretty
accurate depiction of how my
summer’s gone so far.
My
“dreamhouse”
is
a
little
apartment on Central Campus, and
toward the end of the school year,
my roommates and I began to allow
ourselves to consider the prospect of
summer. Summer. The word itself
drips with glitter. We all have jobs and
internships, of course, but we’re used to
being at the library until the early hours
of the morning every single day. When
you can’t remember the last time you
got seven hours of sleep without feeling
guilty about it, the idea of having
nights and evenings completely void of
homework sounds like something out
of a fairytale.
But now summer’s here. We’re
almost two months in, actually. And
though our shoulders are tanner and
our living room is packed to the brim
with box fans we bought from CVS,
it doesn’t really feel like summer.
Day-to-day life doesn’t live up to the
anticipation that the word “summer”
carries.
Why? My theory is that the
University of Michigan has a glitter
shortage.
When I was in seventh grade, my
mom told me I could practice wearing
makeup. I couldn’t wear it to school,
but I could wear it around the house.
Naturally, I spent hours at the family
computer watching tutorials from
girls with usernames like juicystar07
and itsbl0ndie. When my mom went
grocery shopping, I tagged along to
journey through the cosmetics aisle. I
used crumpled $5 bills I’d earned from
babysitting to pay for pink lipstick and
blue eyeliner.
The first time I was finally allowed
to wear makeup to school, I covered my
eyelids with silver glitter, just like I’d
practiced so many times before. I felt
glamorous all day. I wasn’t just another
gangling, awkward middle schooler. I
had created art on my face that showed
I was a stylish, dazzling it-girl.
Well, last night, I sat cross-legged
in front of the full-length mirror
in my bedroom and listened to my
roommates laughing and singing as
I put on my makeup. Foundation.
Concealer. Blush. Eyebrow gel. Black
eyeshadow to create the illusion of
longer lashes. Thick, dark mascara
that my mom got me for Christmas. No
glitter. Not even a drop.
I’m finally old enough to wear
whatever I want and I don’t even wear
any glitter? Come on. Adulthood is a
total rip-off.
During our walk down South
University Avenue on the way home
after our glitterless night out, my
roommate, Shannon, and I asked
ourselves why it doesn’t feel like
summer yet.
“It feels like we’re just waiting for
summer to start,” she said. “Like it’s
going to be fun and exciting and full of
adventure, but it just hasn’t happened
yet.”
“I think we’re still trying to figure
out who we are beyond homework,” I
said. “’Cause during the school year, all
we did was study and go to class and we
never had to figure out who we were
and what we wanted to do. And now
that we have the time to do that, we’re
just lost.”
I wouldn’t say that seventh grade
was the highlight of my existence, but
that may be the last time my identity
came from myself and not from my
grades or my job or my resume. I knew
what I wanted. I wanted more followers
on my Justin Bieber fan account on
Twitter and I wanted to wear as much
glitter as humanly possible. Now, all I
want is good grades, and when classes
end and I no longer have an ability to
earn good grades, I don’t know what I
want. How sad is that?
The thing is, I’m not the only one
who deep down inside is meant to
be wearing glitter. How do I know
this? Because if you walked down the
hallways of Mill Creek Middle School
in 2010, I wasn’t the only one with
glittery eyelids. I wasn’t the only one
whose first taste of independence was
the ability to wear as much glitter as I
wanted. Before we started spending
every spare moment in the library, we
all used to daydream about being glitzy
and glamorous. When did we become
so boring?
It doesn’t feel like summer yet
because I’m glitter-deficient. That’s
bad news. The good news? You can buy
glitter eyeshadow on Amazon for $3.
Anyone want me to order some for you?
ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN
EMMA CHANG
Editorial Page Editor
EMMA RICHTER
Managing Editor
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
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.
ASIF BECHER
Editor in Chief
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
HANNAH HARSHE | COLUMN
We have a glitter shortage
Hannah Harshe can be reached at
hharshe@umich.edu.
Protect and serve
T
he
Supreme
Court’s
latest
term
recently
concluded
with
a
slew of divisive decisions on
several crucial issues, as well
as groundbreaking news over
Justice
Anthony
Kennedy’s
departure
from
the
Court.
Overshadowed
by
these
developments,
however,
was
the
decision
handed
down
by the Court in Masterpiece
Cakeshop
v.
Colorado
Civil
Rights
Commission,
a
case
whose implications were eagerly
anticipated when the Supreme
Court heard arguments late
last year. The Court’s 7-2 ruling
in favor of baker Jack Phillips
of
Masterpiece
Cakeshop,
who in 2014 refused to serve
a same-sex couple, failed to
produce a conclusive standard
for
the
balance
between
religious freedom and anti-
discrimination protection.
Regardless of future action,
there
remains
an
issue
of
greater
interest
that
goes
beyond the Colorado cakeshop
and the gay couple to whom it
denied its services: that even in
Colorado – one of only 20 states
that protects LGBT citizens
from discrimination by public
accommodations – a couple like
Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins
could be so plainly deprived
of their civil rights and then
be rejected after taking their
case to court. Following the
progression (or lack thereof) of
the litigation, it soon becomes
impossible to dismiss the great
injustice of the status quo. More
than anything, the Masterpiece
Cakeshop case demonstrates the
need to define sexual orientation
as a federally protected class.
Conflict ensued shortly after
Craig and Mullins, a same-sex
couple seeking a cake that would
suit their marriage ceremony,
found themselves at the counter
of Masterpiece Cakeshop. The
bakery was headed by Phillips,
a devout evangelical Christian
who refused to make the couple
one of his bespoke wedding
cakes on the basis of Craig and
Mullin’s sexual orientation.
Namely,
Phillips’
counsel
sought
to
obfuscate
his
impropriety
by
framing
the case as one of stifled
personal
expression,
with
Phillips as a victim at the
hands of the Colorado Civil
Rights
Commission.
The
Court’s
conservative
justices
generally concurred, judging
the
Masterpiece
Cakeshop
incident along the lines of a
similar Colorado case wherein a
customer brought a cake design
bearing
an
anti-homosexual
message to a bakery, but baker
Marjorie Silva’s refusal to fulfill
his order was upheld.
The
justices’
cry
to
the
supposed
double
standard
the
Silva
case
presents,
however,
amounts
to
little
more than conservative self-
pity. The Colorado Civil Rights
Commission sided with Silva
precisely because she would
have refused the customer’s
same design request to any
customer. It is not relevant that
the man requesting the cake’s
message was doing so in light of
his own religious beliefs – it was
the simply the content of the
message, not the identity of the
customer, that disgusted Silva, a
characterization proven by the
fact that she offered to sell him a
plain cake and icing bag later so
he could implement the design
himself.
Phillips, on the other hand,
based his refusal to serve Craig
and Mullins solely on the basis
of their identity. As dissenting
Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg pointed out,
Craig and Mullins were not
even able to arrive at their
proposed design before Phillips
rejected them. This proves that
Phillips’ rationale lay with the
identity of his customers and
not with the content of any
services they had requested of
Continue reading on page 5.
“Regardless
of future
action, there
remains an
issue of greater
interest that
goes beyond
the Colorado
cakeshop.”