In response, administrators
eliminated multiple portions of
its speech code in an effort to
“remove potential ambiguity,”
as University President Mark
Schlissel put it. Dictionary
definitions of “bullying” and
“harassment” were removed
from the code.
“We’re changing the way
we describe things, but we’re
not changing the function of
these groups,” Schlissel said in
a June interview.
As
students
make
their
way back into classrooms this
week, multiple departments
and professors include clauses
on free speech and dialogue in
their syllabi.
“Now
as
interim
dean,
I plan to champion some
fundamental values of a liberal
arts and sciences education —
citizenship, engagement, and
true dialogue,” LSA interim
dean Elizabeth Cole wrote in
an email to students Thursday.
“By
dialogue
I
mean
the
ability to speak authentically
about what you think and
feel while also being able to
hear, understand, and respect
different perspectives.”
other and the campus.
Education senior Camyrea
Barnes,
BSU
secretary,
said Umoja and other Black
Welcome
Week
events
can
be crucial programming for
incoming students.
“The Black community, when
I was a freshman, welcomed
me,” she said. “And I wanted
to do my job as a senior to
welcome the Black community
and welcome the freshmen
into the community, to let
them know that when things
go down, when they deal with
microaggressions, when they
deal with bias incidents that
happen to them, or just being
a student here — that they
know that they have the Black
community here to lean on.”
Music,
Theatre
&
Dance
freshman Mattie Levy attended
Umoja,
and
expressed
her
excitement
about
the
SIBS
mentorship program and the
additional groups she plans on
joining after Welcome Week.
“SIBS is support for incoming
Black students,” Levy said.
“You can sign up to be a big sib
or a little sib. So for freshmen,
I’m a little sib so you’ll get a
mentor ... at the event, they gave
us soul food, they had activities
and they had a magic show. I’ll
probably join the Black Student
Union too. That community is
going to help you, always have
people there for you, always
have somewhere to go, someone
to call.”
Earlier
in
the
month,
Assisting Latin@s to Maximize
Achievements
held
an
additional student orientation
for their student participants.
The orientation was a four-
day program through which
incoming students were given
introductions to faculty and
given resources that promote
their academic, cultural and
emotional wellbeing.
Last fall, ALMA participants
painted messages of Latinx
identity and pride on the Rock,
only to find racist graffiti
plastered
over
the
popular
student landmark. Community
members repainted the Rock
in solidarity the next day,
and
students
began
more
concereted efforts to organize.
“A
year
later
and
the
momentum is still growing,”
Ford senior Yvonne Navarrete,
former La Casa lead director,
wrote in a Facebook post this
week. “The Latinx community
bounced back and hasn’t looked
back.”
LSA
sophomore
Ronnie
Alvarez,
head
of
ALMA,
shared his excitement about
the turnout and meaningful
relationships built during the
orientation.
“I was very surprised that
the
participants
were
able
to
create
very
meaningful
relationships
despite
the
large group and limited time,”
Alvarez said. “They also have
expressed that they feel a lot
more aware of the resources
that are available to them at the
University. ALMA is important
for this campus because it
helps
students
transition
into a space where they are
largely
underrepresented.
ALMA
participants
become
empowered
through
the
workshops
centered
around
their identities and also become
much
more
aware
of
the
resources that the University
has to help them succeed.”
The Office of Multi-Ethnic
Student Affairs and the Arab
Student
Association
also
hosted an event called SALAM
— Successful Arab Leaders at
Michigan. SALAM is a two-
day program that aims to
introduce
incoming
Arab
students to campus resources,
support networks and the Arab
community. They met with
current students and faculty,
and as LSA freshman Hilal
Bazzi recounted, the event
was important for her social
acceptance on campus.
“Coming from Dearborn, we
have one of the largest Arab and
Muslim
populations,”
Bazzi
said. “Coming to the University
of Michigan — it’s a much more
diverse population ethnically,
racially,
and
religiously.
I
thought it was very important to
stay true to who you are and be
able to connect with others like
yourself on campus. So finding
this
community,
connecting
with
this
community,
and
educating others about your
culture and identity I think is
so important.”
Public Health junior Nour
Eidy, SALAM’s co-organizer,
said she believes there are
more steps to be taken when
planning
multicultural
events. She thinks programs
like SALAM are especially
meaningful when building the
social and emotional wellbeing
of incoming students.
“I know that we’ve done
programs like Arab and Latinx
Wolverine Day where we’re
trying to show new admitted
students all the community has
to offer, but we really wanted
there to be a follow up to that,”
Eidy said. “Now you’re here,
what now? Your journey has
begun, where’s the community
at, where’s that family aspect
we were talking about? There’s
such value in peer mentorship
and when it’s organic, when
you have shared identities and
similar identities it’s this whole
new level of comfort and trust
that’s built up.”
medical services and support
and conducts research focused
on children and adolescents who
identify as trans.
“We are a young clinic,” Selkie
said. “It’s a steep learning curve,
I would say … At this point, very
little that we do has any evidence
behind it, which is frustrating
clinically but exciting from a
research perspective.”
Selkie said the clinic seeks
out input from patients and their
parents when considering and
conducting research.
“When you’re doing research
with a sensitive, marginalized
population,
you
really
need
their input in how you are going
to conduct the research and
what your priorities are even
going to be,” she said. “I think
that in pediatric research that’s
interesting because our specialty
by nature is a paternalistic
specialty because our patients are
literally children, and so I think
that we often ask for parents’
input, but we serve so many
adolescents that it behooves us to
involve the youth in our research.”
At the end of the symposium,
Associate Prof. Lawrence La
Fountain-Stokes,
director
of
Latina/o Studies, criticized the
lack of ethnic and racial diversity
among the speakers.
“That should be addressed
very specifically, perhaps taking
advantage of the Institute for
Research on Women and Gender
and their programs,” La Fountain-
Stokes said during a question-and-
answer session at the end of the
event. “Also, graduate students
have been noting how they didn’t
know about it and were not able
to present, so in moving forward,
it seems like it would be ideal to
have more spaces for graduates to
present.”
Public Health student Hyuri
McDowell agreed the symposium
would
benefit
from
more
diversity, saying more inclusion—
as well as increased involvement
from graduate students— would
have augmented the perspectives
offered at the event. McDowell
also said it was important to
discuss
the
intersection
of
research and LGBTQ identity.
“The
intersection
between
those two is very important
because no one has just one
identity,” he said. “I think those
two things have to work together.”
“Nurses are critical to the
delivery of safe patient care,”
the statement reads. “The most
critically ill patients in the state
come to Michigan Medicine. If
any of our nurses go out on strike,
their absences will put patient
safety at serious risk.”
Striking is technically illegal
for public employees. According to
Michigan Medicine’s statement,
employees will not be paid for
time out on strike.
In a bargaining session between
UMPNC and Michigan Medicine
administrators Wednesday, the
hospital offered a revised package
proposal to union representatives.
According to an email sent to
nurses by Michigan Medicine
president
David
Spahlinger
and shared with The Daily by a
Michigan Medicine spokesperson,
the package includes 3 to 4
percent pay increases across the
board over the next three years.
The package also offers increases
in shift differential, weekend and
on-call pay, as well as limits on
mandatory overtime and tuition
reimbursement
for
graduate
nursing programs.
on the ballot, warning that
Republican representatives will
only dismantle them in a process
known as “adopt-and-amend.”
Though no Republicans voiced
support for any of the policies
during debate, State Sen. Patrick
Colbeck, R-Canton, was one of
three Republicans who voted
against adopting the proposals,
saying
adopt-to-amend
is
a
“procedural gimmick.”
“That’s not how we should be
doing things,” Colbeck told The
Detroit News. “We should be
debating the merits.”
Public Policy junior Katie
Kelly, communications director
of the University of Michigan’s
chapter of College Democrats,
expressed
similar
concerns.
Though she supports the policies,
she worries about Republican
legislators gutting the initiatives
in their lame-duck session later
this year.
“The voters should be the
ones to pass these initiatives,
not those who do not have the
public’s best interests at heart,”
Kelly said. “This is simply a
ploy by the Republicans to take
this initiative off the ballot and
amend the laws after the election
to suit their own interests.”
Republican legislators have
not made any comment on
whether or not they intend
to amend the proposals, but
Michigan House Speaker Tom
Leonard, R-DeWitt, said the
legislature needs to have a say in
what is in them.
“Both
of
these
citizens-
initiated
laws
were
poorly
written,” Leonard said, according
to The Detroit News.
Some Democratic legislators
voted against the proposals to
avoid the “adopt-and-amend”
procedure, even though they
agreed
with
the
policies
themselves. State Sen. Curtis
Hertel, D-East Lansing, said the
adoption outcome was “a trick on
the voters of Michigan, an attack
on democracy,” according to The
Detroit News.
If the proposals are not
amended, the Michigan One
Fair Wage initiative would raise
Michigan’s
minimum
wage
to $12 an hour by 2022 and
include tipped workers by 2024.
Currently, a “tip credit” allows
employers to pay workers who
are tipped as low as $3.38 an
hour.
Tips are expected to make up
the difference between the $3.38
wage and the minimum wage
for workers who aren’t tipped,
which is $9.25 an hour. The Fair
Labor Standards Act requires
employers make up any other
differences, but enforcement is
said to be so relaxed, the One Fair
Wage website calls wage theft an
“epidemic.”
Allowing tipped workers to
earn full minimum wage would
have huge effects on women and
people of color. Studies from
Cornell University have shown
that Black workers earn less
than white counterparts, and
perceived attractiveness plays a
large role in how much women
get tipped. More than 7 in 10
tipped workers in Michigan are
women, and the poverty rate
among women who work for tips
is 20.8 percent. The poverty rate
for women of color who work for
tips is 27.1 percent.
The
Michigan
Restaurant
Association frequently opposes
minimum wage increases and
paid sick leave, and said the
proposal will increase costs by
241 percent and eliminate 14,000
restaurant jobs in the state. The
MRA also argues employees
like the tipping credit system ––
according to Upserve, 97 percent
of servers prefer the tip credit
system.
If the proposal becomes law,
Michigan would become the
eighth state to not use a tip credit.
The University’s chapter of
College Republicans did not
respond immediately to requests
for comment.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Friday, September 7, 2018 — 3A
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
NOVEMBER
From Page 1A
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Ikuo Kabashima, Governor of Kumamoto, Japan, discusses his journey in finding a dream in adversity in Weiser Hall Thursday.
A DRE AM IN ADVE R SIT Y
NURSES
From Page 1A
LGBTQ
From Page 1A
REVIEW
From Page 2A
MULTICULTURAL
From Page 1A
“That community
is going to help
you, always have
people there for
you, always have
somewhere to go,
someone to call.”