and that they can be very
triggering and disruptive to
survivors’
healing,”
Saks-
Fithian said. “Trauma tends
to hover close to the surface,
and it can be very triggering
when survivors are bombarded
by stimuli related to their
experiences.
As
a
survivor
myself, I know that I become
more emotionally vulnerable
when
I‘m
continually
exposed to stories of sexual
violence, especially in such
highly publicized cases like
Kavanaugh’s because there’s
really no way to avoid it.”
Saks-Fithian
also
highlighted
how
issues
in
society are reflected in the
University campus community,
and public figures should be
held to higher moral standards
of
behavior.
Saks-Fithian
made the distinction between
limiting Kavanaugh’s career
opportunities and ruining his
life.
“The
Kavanaugh
case
is
extremely
relevant
for
our
campus community and for
the world because it involves
someone trying to join the
highest echelons of legal power
that exist in our country,” she
explained. “I find it interesting
that people are focusing on
the impact these allegations
may
have
on
Kavanaugh’s
career
without
taking
into
account the impact the assault
has had on the survivor. The
impact of sexual violence is
not limited to memories of the
experience(s).
The
violation
of bodily autonomy, agency
and
independence
have
consequences that are often
widespread and long-lasting
and can and often do completely
alter the survivor’s life.”
This situation has made some
question the legitimacy of the
Supreme Court nominations
process, a conflict stemming in
part from Republicans’ blocking
of former President Barack
Obama’s
nominee
Merrick
Garland
as
a
replacement
for former Justice Antonin
Scalia.
Senate
Republicans
refused to hold any hearings
on
Garland’s
nomination
and
successfully
appointed
and confirmed Justice Neil
Gorsuch in 2017 under the
Trump
administration.
In
addition,
Kavanaugh’s
confirmation would make him
the second sitting Supreme
Court justice, including Justice
Clarence Thomas, accused of
sexual misconduct.
Michigan
Law
Professor
Richard Primus weighed in
on the issue, describing the
implications of this case and
how it relates to the hearings
regarding
the
accusations
against Thomas by attorney
Anita Hill.
“The
Kavanaugh
confirmation
hearings
are
turning out to be potentially the
most explosive and damaging
confirmation hearings in the
history of the Supreme Court.
Many
people
are
drawing
parallels
to
the
Clarence
Thomas
hearings
in
1991,”
Primus wrote in an email to The
Daily. “But in 1991, there was a
much higher degree of trust and
cooperation between the rival
political parties in Congress,
and in 1991 the President who
nominated the candidate was
not himself famous for bragging
about
committing
sexual
assaults.”
Primus
explained
the
importance of accountability
within the Supreme Court in
order to preserve its status as
an institution that exercises fair
judicial proceedings.
“It’s a mistake to think
that the Supreme Court is
permanently and automatically
a respected institution whose
rulings the other branches are
willing to respect,” he wrote.
“It took the Court a hundred
years after the Constitution
was ratified to accumulate the
capital necessary to exercise
judicial
review
of
federal
legislation on a regular basis.
In large part because of the
stonewall of Merrick Garland,
the Court’s stature was already
wobbling before the current
sexual assault allegations came
out. If things go badly now,
the Court might face a rough
future.”
Primus
emphasized
the
importance
of
sensitivity
regarding the issue because of
its wide-reaching impacts on all
women who have experienced
sexual assault.
“No matter what happens to
the Court, the process is taking
a serious toll on many women
who have been victims of sexual
violence and who are finding the
intense public discussion of the
current allegations particularly
difficult,” he wrote. “Very few
of us have direct contact with
the confirmation process, but
probably all of us have contact
with someone who is having a
hard time because of the way
current events intersect with
her personal experience. We
should be thoughtful about
being sensitive to that reality as
events unfold.”
The Coalition to Defend
Affirmative Action, Integration
& Immigrant Rights and Fight
for Equality By Any Means
Necessary,
also
known
as
BAMN, held a protest on the
Diag Monday afternoon calling
for the removal of Trump from
office and the subsequent defeat
of Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Kate
Stenvig,
a
national
organizer with BAMN and
chair of BAMN’s U-M chapter,
explained the mission of the
protest.
“We believe Christine Ford,
and now Deborah Ramirez,”
Stenvig said. “The nomination
of Brett Kavanaugh now to the
Supreme Court is a real threat
to democracy, and to the rights
of women, and because Trump
has chosen Kavanaugh because
of his longstanding position
that a sitting president should
be above the law. I think it’s
been clear from the beginning
that Trump’s whole platform
and his whole support base
is
fundamentally
based
on
misogyny, immigrant bashing
and racism.”
Stenvig
described
Trump
and Kavanaugh as unfit for
their
government
positions,
citing the separation of migrant
children from their families,
which became a topic of national
discussion this summer.
“Trump has proven to be the
abuser-in-chief: his promotion
of sexual assault and predation
of women, the fact that he has
committed
massive
crimes
against humanity by already
using national security as the
premise for separating children
from their families and putting
children in cages, while denying
immigrants the basic right
of applying for asylum which
is their legal right,” she said.
“Nobody, neither Trump nor
Kavanaugh, who are abusers,
should be in the position to be
able to make decisions over our
lives.”
Rackham
student
Kate
Napier
protested
alongside
BAMN
and
explained
she
felt the accusations against
Kavanaugh
automatically
disqualified
him
from
the
Supreme Court.
“Brett Kavanaugh is not fit to
serve on the highest court in the
land,” Napier said. “Someone
who has committed an act
of violence against a woman
cannot be given power to make
decisions about women’s lives.”
Israel.
The
Big
Ten
Voting
Challenge began as part of
a
University
initiative
to
increase student turnout, and is
now a competition between the
14 Big Ten schools to achieve
the highest turnout rate in
the 2018 midterm elections.
After a protracted discussion,
the committee approved the
endorsement resolution. Some
SACUA
members,
however,
expressed
concerns
that
endorsing the challenge, which
has been endorsed by all 19
schools and colleges within
the University, would send
an unduly partisan message.
While
SACUA
member
Bill Schultz, a professor of
engineering,
agreed
with
SACUA chair Neil Marsh that
the endorsement “seems pretty
uncontroversial,” Schultz said
it wouldn’t be taken that way
by everyone.
“One of our major parties
would
like
to
encourage
students to vote and one would
like to discourage students
from voting in their own way,”
Schultz said. “I just don’t know
that this couldn’t be another
slight thing that is going to raise
eyebrows if we support this.
I think we should, but I think
it isn’t as non-partisan as we
would like it to be. I think this
is relatively uncontroversial,
but it will be viewed as a
political act, I think, by many
political views.”
The
University
frequenty
draws
ire
from
conservative bodies for its
historically
left-leaning
politics: after President Donald
Trump’s victory in the 2016
general
election,
University
president Mark Schlissel faced
criticism
for
comments
that seemed to disparage the
election outcome.
SACUA
Vice
Chair
Joy
Beatty, an associate professor
of
management
studies
at
U-M
Dearborn,
expressed
her disappointment that U-M
Dearborn could not be included
in the voting challenge since
it was not technically a part
of the Big Ten conference.
Beatty
also
said
despite
members’ views on whether
or not the endorsement was
controversial, the issue could
be avoided by voting not to
endorse.
“The
thing
about
not
endorsing it is no one’s going to
know we’re not endorsing it ––
except for people who read The
(Michigan) Daily,” Beatty said.
The assembly then shifted
to
discussion
of
sexual
misconduct
policies
in
relation to faculty and staff.
In February, the University
announced
it
would
hire
an unnamed outside firm to
conduct a review of its sexual
misconduct policies and the
Office for Institutional Equity,
which processes all complaints
related to sexual misconduct
within the University. The
review is to be divided into
two phases: one as a review of
just the University’s written
policies on sexual misconduct,
and
a
second
to
evaluate
examples of how those policies
are carried out. Schlissel said
at the meeting the reviewer did
not “have any final comments
to
share,”
but
shared
he
expects the review would be
complete by the end of the fall
semester.
SACUA
member
Sami
Malek, a professor of internal
medicine,
emphasized
the
degree to which faculty were
unhappy with the current state
of operations within the OIE.
“This is very important that
we have somebody looking at
it,” Malek said. “There’s a lot
of disappointed people in the
process.”
Last
winter,
The
Daily
reported on “The Whisper
Network,”
a
crowdsourced
database of sexual harassment
and assault in higher education
— incidents reported by and
involving University faculty
appeared more than a dozen
times.
“One thing to consider when
looking at these cases is in any
academic relationship there is
a power dynamic,” Rackham
student
Nicole
Bedera
commented
on
the
cases.
“That’s exactly why the people
who have sexually harassed
the same people for years have
been able to get away with it.
The decision to conduct
an external review of the
University’s
policies
and
procedures came shortly after
revelations in the case of Larry
Nassar, a doctor at Michigan
State
University.
Nassar
assaulted students and patients
under the guise of medical
treatments over the span of
three decades and was aided
by other MSU employees who
failed to follow through on
student reports of misconduct
by Nassar and, in some cases,
actively
suppressed
the
reports.
While
Schlissel
acknowledged that since he had
come into his role as president,
there had been “a small number
of individual cases” involving
faculty misconduct, he said
there was no valid comparison
to the Nassar case.
“I
don’t
know
how
to
categorize
this
as
a
‘big’
problem, and to use the Nassar
example, I thoroughly reject,”
Schlissel said. “That person was
committing sexual misconduct
for 30 years. So, although we
aspire to have every case done
as perfectly as we can, to me
there’s no analogy between
a consistent handful of cases
that come through OIE that
faculty regrettably feel are
unfairly run, and 30 years of
sexual assault.”
Finally SACUA addressed
the case of Prof. John Cheney-
Lippold,
who
rescinded
a
letter
of
recommendation
for a student’s study abroad
application after learning the
program took place in Israel;
Cheney-Lippold
is
engaged
in an academic boycott of
the
country.
Shortly
after
news of the professor’s action
became public, the University
released
a
statement
expressing disappointment in
the professor’s decision, and
Schlissel spoke against the
boycott at last week’s Board of
Regents meeting.
“It is disappointing that a
faculty member would allow
their personal political beliefs
to limit the support they are
willing to otherwise provide
for our students,” the statement
read. “We will engage our
faculty
colleagues
in
deep
discussions
to
clarify
how
the expression of our shared
values plays out in support of
all students.”
Expressing his desire to
hear the “candid thoughts”
of SACUA members, Schlissel
moved the meeting into closed
session. Following the meeting,
Marsh released a statement
from SACUA on the practice
of writing students letters of
reference, saying they wished
“to
draw
the
University
community’s
attention”
to
the
American
Association
of
University
Professors’
Statement
of
Professional
Ethics.
“As
teachers,
professors
encourage the free pursuit of
learning in their students,” the
AAUP’s statement reads. “They
hold before them the best
scholarly and ethical standards
of their discipline. Professors
demonstrate
respect
for
students as individuals and
adhere to their proper roles
as
intellectual
guides
and
counselors. Professors make
every reasonable effort to foster
honest academic conduct and to
ensure that their evaluations of
students reflect each student’s
true merit. They respect the
confidential
nature
of
the
relationship between professor
and student. They avoid any
exploitation, harassment, or
discriminatory treatment of
students. They acknowledge
significant
academic
or
scholarly
assistance
from
them.
They
protect
their
academic freedom.”
The Michigan Daily — www.michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, September 25, 2018 — 3
students.
Detroit and the University
Last
week
the
University
announced a partnership with
Harvard University and the city
of Detroit to create programs
to combat the opioid crisis,
improve
economic
mobility
and
provide
educational
opportunities
at
Marygrove
College in Detroit for students
and teachers. The University also
recently acquired the remainder
of the Horace H. Rackham
Education Memorial Building in
Midtown.
With
these
recent
announcements, Schlissel said
the University plans for a higher
profile involvement in Detroit.
“I’m trying to find ways for
all the different research and
teaching programs that touch
Detroit to synergize with one
another, to know about each
other, and to take advantage
of one another’s expertise and
contacts,” Schlissel said.
In
navigating
the
communities within Detroit,
Schlissel said it’s important to
have partners in the community
and
to
communicate
with
them.
“The worst thing in the
whole world is to come in,
do a research program, and
leave,” Schlissel said. “There
you’re really taking advantage
of
people.
What
the
best
research and teaching does is it
identifies great partners in the
community, works together to
define what the important
problems are that need to be
studied or addressed and then
collaborates on their solution.”
Schlissel added the thought
process behind collaborating
with Harvard for the new
program in Detroit was to
utilize their data science and
economists and pair them with
Michigan’s expertise of the
city itself.
Future Plans
In announcements and focuses
for this semester, Schlissel said he
would save large announcements
for his leadership conference
coming up in a few weeks.
However, he did mention the
University will be looking at
sustainability and involving the
arts in other areas of campus.
The focus on environmental
sustainability
comes
after members of the University
of
Michigan
Climate
Action
Movement spoke during public
comment at last week’s board
meeting. Members stressed the
University’s place as a leading
figure
in
reducing
carbon
emissions. The group pushed the
University to go carbon neutral
by 2035 and carbon negative by
2040.
SCHLISSEL
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Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
are working to legalize civil
unions.
“Since 2003, there were
eight attempts to introduce
civil unions,” Smiszek. “So far,
we are one of the last European
Union
countries
without
any legislation of this kind.
Poland is also another country
without any protection against
homophobic,
transphobic
hate speech and hate crime,
which has been condemned
many times by the council of
Europe.”
Smiszek noted similarities
between
Poland
and
the
U.S.’s struggle for LGBTQ
rights. He brought up a Polish
Supreme Court case known
as the “printer case” that
bears
resemblance
to
the
well-known
Masterpiece
Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil
Rights Commision in which
a
same-sex
couple
sued
a Colorado baker for refusing
to make a wedding cake. The
main difference between the
cases, however, was that the
Polish Supreme Court said
that sexual orientation, race
or gender could not be the
basis for refusal of services,
whereas
American
courts
place a much larger emphasis
on freedom of religionl.
Smiszek said coming to the
University helps to promote
the exchange of ideas within
international legal systems,
and helps him identify areas
of improvement in Poland’s
activism.
“I’m
a
human
rights
lecturer and academic, but at
the same time, I’m an LGBT
activist and lawyer litigating
different
pieces
on
LGBT
discrimination,” he said in
an interview with The Daily.
“I think it’s important to
present this perspective to
American colleagues. I get
to learn whether the U.S. is
behind the equality agenda or
not. Exchanging experiences
and thoughts about where is
the place of LGBT rights in
the American or Polish legal
system is important. I am here
to learn from the American
perspective,
and
I
am
astonished at what the LGBT
community has achieved in
this country in the last 40-50
years.”
Sociology
Professor
Kiyoteru
Tsutsui,
director
of the Donia Human Rights
Center,
said
their
center
brings in speakers based on
the desires of the students.
“I teach a course on human
rights, and in that class and
outside of the classroom I
sense and I hear our students
having questions about what
is going on in the world,”
Tsutsui said. “They want to
learn about human rights’
standards in the world, the
various laws- international
and domestic. So we are here
to provide that information
because we have a lot of people
on campus and outside campus
who have great expertise on
human rights issues, politics,
and law.”
While many of the people in
attendance were professors,
LSA
freshman
Jagienka
Timek, a Polish student, was
one of many students who
came to the lecture. Timek
said she tries to keep up with
news from her home country,
but didn’t feel like she knew a
lot about LGBTQ issues.
“My
parents
are
from
Poland, and I am strongly
Polish,” Simek said. “I like
to stay up to date with the
current political climate in
Poland, and LGBT rights, it
hasn’t been in the mainstream
in news outlets necessarily.
Going
to
Poland
every
summer,
and
seeing
the
referendums, seeing people
on the streets, demonstrating,
it makes a personal impact on
me. There are no protections
against discrimination or hate
crimes, and that was crazy to
me.”
The
event
also
drew
people
from
outside
the
University community. Kasia
Kietlinska, an English and
Rhetoric professor at Oakland
University,
said
she
was
excited when she saw the event
because of her immersion in
Polish culture.
“I’m Polish and live in
Ann
Arbor
––
I
follow
everything,”Kietlinska
said. “I’m addicted to reading
Polish publications. It just
seemed incredibly perceptive.
He really knows his stuff. And
just noticing how LGBT rights
have progressed, from being
not being not very popular for
the center to right parties, to
then becoming accepted by
these relatively conservative
groups of people, even in the
mainstream.”
At the end of the lecture,
Śmiszek emphasized there are
great strides being made in
the LGBTQ community, and
there has been a vast increase
in
participation
in
public
demonstrations and events.
“In
1998,
the
Pride
Festival
brought
together
only three people with their
faces covered –– three brave
activists,” Smiszek said.“And
twenty
years
later,
there
were almost 80,000 people
marching on Warsaw streets.”
Śmiszek
also
mentioned
the
election
of
Anna
Grodzka was the first openly
transgender
member
of
parliament in Poland, and
these
achievements
give
hope to the future of the
movement. In contrast, the
United States has never had an
openly transgender member
of Congress. Smiszek said he
hopes students will continue
to fight for the progression of
LGBTQ rights here in America
as well.
“You
have
to
talk
to
others,” Smiszek said. “It is
a challenge to speak to those
who are hostile. But, you have
to believe in your fight and
not give up. It took 20 years
in Poland, and it started with
extremely brave people who
started this discussion around
LGBT rights. And now, I would
say you have a blossoming
of LGBT infrastructure and
activism.”
POLAND
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