As an editorial staff, we 
agree 
with 
the 
University 
that it is wrong for a student’s 
educational opportunities to be 
limited by the political stances 
of an instructor, rather than 
the merit of the student. The 
academic success of students 
should be a top priority for 
universities, and the denial 
of students’ recommendation 
letters 
on 
account 
of 
professors’ personal beliefs 
unfairly blocks students from 
academic opportunities based 
on 
circumstances 
outside 
their control. The decision to 
write a recommendation letter 
or not should be based on 
the student’s academic merit 
and 
performance 
in 
class, 
independent of the educator’s 
personal leanings.
However, on a campus that 
welcomes free speech and 
free thinking, the delineation 
between 
when 
certain 
personal and political views 
can and cannot be expressed 
on part of the professor is 
a 
blurry 
line. 
Professors 
have the freedom to craft 
their courses, design syllabi 
and 
work 
on 
independent 
projects, research and other 
scholarly work. The crossover 
of this ideal of professors’ 
free 
speech, 
so 
embedded 
in the University, with their 
relationships 
with 
classes 
and students is often a point 
of contention. Where do they 
draw the line in expressing 
their 
views? 
The 
reaction 
of the University this week 
provided a stark answer. The 
harsh disciplinary measures 
taken 
against 
Cheney-
Lippold’s 
statement 
which 
was, at its core, an expression 
of free speech, gave some 
clarity to this ever-blurred 
line. 
Yet, 
what 
remains 
an 
issue 
is 
whether 
the 
punishment was warranted 
given the lack of precedent. 
We believe it was not. Though 
Cole alluded to the Senate 
Advisory 
Committee 
on 
University Affairs’s statement 
condemning professors using 
political 
views 
to 
impede 
“free pursuit of learning in 

their students,” the University 
has yet to adopt a concrete 
policy regarding this matter. 
The absence of precedent on 
campus regarding the manner 
in which professors should 
or should not voice their 
perspectives 
and 
political 
leanings — a decision often 
left up to the discretion of 
the professor themselves — 
warranted a less severe mode 
of 
discipline 
on 
Cheney-
Lippold.
The University should have 
first expressed disagreement 
with 
the 
exclusionary 
behavior 
Cheney-Lippold 
presented towards a student 
in an academic setting and 
followed 
with 
a 
public, 
apolitical 
warning. 
This 
would 
help 
express 
the 
University’s main philosophy, 
which is to ensure academic 
opportunities, 
growth 
and 
support 
for 
students. 
Additionally, this would set 
a cautionary precedent for 
future University instructors 
who might consider doing the 
same in the future. This form 
of foreshadowing disciplinary 
action 
is 
more 
fair 
and 
effective than the immediate, 
reactionary discipline shown 
by the University.
Further, 
whether 
intentional 
or 
not, 
the 
swiftness 
and 
outspoken 
nature of the University’s 
action in this situation has 
the power to isolate some 
students on campus, namely 
Palestinian 
students 
and 
allies who have not seen the 
University as proactive in 
protecting 
their 
academic 
freedom 
and 
safety 
when 
they have been systematically 
targeted 
and 
harassed 
online for their own speech 
on the topic. Neutrality of 
the University is of utmost 
importance, as every student 
should feel equally supported 
by the University regardless 
of their religious or political 
beliefs. 
We 
would 
hope 
the 
outspokenness 
of 
the 
University on behalf of the 
two students in protecting 
their academic freedom is a 

sentiment that will be echoed 
for all students.
The 
institution 
of 
a 
university, at its core, is to be 
a place of development and 
thought — an environment 
conducive to growing academic 
interests, as well as personal 
values and perspectives. Free 
speech, then, is parallel to free 
thinking. If we as students are 
urged to, from day one, think 
for ourselves and be challenged 
by the theories, problems and 
readings we encounter daily, 
in an effort for us to leave 
this campus more confident in 
ourselves and beliefs, how can 
this expectation not extend to 
our professors? We recognize, 
however, that at the same 
time the students’ academic 
freedom 
was 
also 
limited 
by the refusal of both the 
graduate student instructor 
and professor to write study 
abroad 
recommendation 
letters.
These 
recent 
events 
have exhibited the ongoing 
tensions and hard questions 
we must grapple with on 
our campus. As a university 
with 
a 
teeming 
student 
population, various schools 
of focus and a slew of student 
and political organizations, 
national 
and 
international 
issues 
are 
essentially 
our 
own. In the last few weeks, 
we’ve 
all 
grappled 
with 
many of these conflicting 
ideals. 
In 
addressing 
the 
issue directly this week, the 
University tried to resolve 
many of these conflicts, but 
many questions remain. We 
hope that the University’s 
newly formed panel — faculty 
who are aiming to address 
when academic freedom and 
political ideology come into 
conflict — involves students, 
and takes into account our 
role in these instances. The 
reverberating 
effects 
their 
statement and disciplinary 
measures had on students and 
faculty alike will continue 
to leave us questioning all of 
our roles as part of a single 
academic community.

Q

uoting Martin Luther King 
Jr., former President Barack 
Obama often stated, “The 
arc of the moral universe 
is long, but it bends toward justice.” 
Contrary to optimistic interpretation, 
this statement does not attest to the 
supposed inertia of justice or equality. 
Indeed, history’s darkest moments 
provide plentiful proof that apathy, 
and the assumption of inevitable 
righteousness that gives rise to it, can 
preclude the march of progress, and at 
times even reverse it. Sadly, we often 
partake in this apathy by allowing 
ourselves to forget the moments and 
movements that precipitated great 
instances of progress, be they equal 
rights written into law or the inclusive 
attitudes that breathe life into these 
liberties.
This coming Tuesday, Oct. 16, 
serves as a chance to remember one 
such moment. It marks the 50th 
anniversary of a silent protest that has 
found a worthy complement in former 
quarterback 
Colin 
Kaepernick’s 
actions on the football field, one that 
took place in a crowded stadium and 
ultimately found itself at the center 
of something much larger. Captured 
forever in a photograph that embodies 
the tempest of 1968 like no other 
photograph can, the national anthem 
protest by African-American U.S. 
Olympians Tommie Smith and John 
Carlos has solidified their legacy as one 
of legitimate resistance.
The 1968 Summer Olympics in 
Mexico City, like others before them, 
were supposed to be exercises in 
wholesome athletic competition, but 
that did not exempt them from the 
turbulence of that year. America’s 
racial and domestic wounds were 
still fresh four months after the 
assassination of presidential candidate 
Robert F. Kennedy and six months 
after the assassination of civil rights 
leader Martin Luther King Jr. The 
violence seemed to follow American 
athletes to the Olympics — just two 
weeks before Smith and Carlos 
would mount the podium, dozens 
of students were ruthlessly gunned 
down by Mexican soldiers following 
weeks of protests.
It was still in America, however, 
where Smith and Carlos had the least 
to be happy about. As if systemic racial 
prejudice was not enough, only slightly 
more than half of African-American 
adults held high school degrees in 
1968, and less than a tenth had gone 
on to earn bachelor’s degrees. These 
despairingly low rates of educational 
attainment, paling in comparison to 
similar measures for whites, spoke 
to the fallacy of an American Dream 
for all.
Smith and Carlos wanted to do 
something about it and demanded 
better treatment for Black athletes 
by organizing the Olympics Project 
for Human Rights earlier that year. 
They initially considered boycotting 
the 1968 Olympics, but later decided 
to compete in order to give their 
campaign a more visible platform. At 
a time when most white Americans 
still winced at the very suggestion 

of integrated neighborhoods, Smith 
knew that sports gave minorities like 
him and Carlos a real voice, reflecting 
later that, “We had to be seen because 
we couldn’t be heard.”
By today’s standards, the defiant 
salute during the rendition of “The 
Star-Spangled Banner” that Smith 
and Carlos chose to protest these 
grievances was a relatively passive 
gesture. Even as they clenched their 
fists and donned symbolic clothing to 
convey their dissatisfaction with the 
status quo, they made sure to stand 
for the entire duration of the national 
anthem. And, though it is probably 
more a reflection of devolving 
presidential 
temperaments 
than 
anything else, then-president Lyndon 
B. Johnson and then-presidential 
candidate 
Richard 
Nixon 
were 
silent about the whole affair, while 
Kaepernick’s anthem protests have 
inspired rather undignified words 
from President Donald Trump.
However, society’s standards have 
evidently evolved since then. Smith 
and Carlos would not be icons today 
if their protest was well-received by 
Americans. They were expelled from 
the stadium and suspended from 
the U.S. Olympic team following 
the ceremony, and death threats 
predictably followed. Life was not 
made easy for them. Yet, to this day, 
neither regrets the courageous actions 
they took to show the public their 
struggle at home. Whatever they 
accomplished in Mexico City was 
clearly worth it.
But what exactly was it that Smith 
and Carlos accomplished with their 
gesture? They did not articulate a 
specific policy to alleviate the ills of 
Black America, nor did they put forth 
the funds to elevate their fellow, lower-
class African Americans, actions 
often demanded of those who dare 
to gripe about discrimination. Just 
as they do not aspire for acceptance 
in the mainstream, effective social 
movements do not often set their 
sights on an immediate redirection 
of policy. At a time when even violent 
dispersal of American protesters was 
widely supported, gaining the support 
of an American majority, especially for 
an act of protest during the national 
anthem, was grossly infeasible for 
activists.
Instead, in democratic societies like 
America, legitimate resistance against 
unjust status quos has nearly always 
relied on the ability of movements 
to capture the complacency of the 
uninterested majority and steer it 
toward a path of liberalization. This 
agitation, an inherent disruption and 
inconvenience to the majority, is what 
engenders a sense of injustice, and 
demand for subsequent change, where 
there was none before. When people 
like Smith and Carlos turn what should 
be a moment of personal pride into 
one of complaining about America’s 
problems at home — yes, complaining 
— then the rest of the country begins to 
see how real their anger must be, and in 
doing so, embarks on a journey toward 
increased tolerance and acceptance.
The work of Martin Luther King 

Jr. embodies this well: King did 
not expect to see a drastic decrease 
in 
anti-miscegenation 
sentiment 
in his lifetime, nor did he directly 
lobby legislators to mandate public 
acceptance of interracial marriage. 
But, the mere presence of his 
“radical” calls for racial equality, 
along with other, subtler attempts at 
normalizing interracial relations in 
the national discourse, helped make 
that evolution in racial attitudes a 
reality — contributing to an American 
tradition of using expansive platforms 
for meaningful speech.
By this measure, the decision 
by former San Francisco 49ers 
quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 
2016 to refuse to stand for the national 
anthem, since carried on by other NFL 
players, is simply a continuation of 
this tradition. Kaepernick’s kneeling 
during the anthem at NFL games 
was his way of using his platform for 
political means, like Smith and Carlos. 
In his case, it was to call attention to 
what he views as disproportionate 
police brutality towards African 
Americans, certainly a sacrifice if one 
takes into account his being effectively 
blackballed from the NFL and 
receiving death threats.
From the perspective of Kaepernick, 
there is no platform better to project 
dissatisfaction with the current state 
of affairs than the national anthem, 
our symbolic embodiment of the state 
itself. This sentiment was clearly not 
shared by Kaepernick’s employers or, 
as of the latest polls, a majority of the 
country as well.
Nevertheless, 
Kaepernick 
has 
demonstrated his desire to respect the 
men and women in uniform who have 
reason to view the anthem as more 
than a symbol. Instead of fixating on 
the supposed patriotism of his kneeling, 
we should ask ourselves whether his 
gesture was any more disrespectful 
than that of Smith and Carlos in 1968 at 
the Olympics, which attracted similar 
criticisms and backlash. For without 
the actions of Smith and Carlos and the 
like, the current atmosphere would not 
even allow Kaepernick to take a knee, 
and much less sit, for the anthem, nor 
would it allow Nike to successfully use 
his protest in a popular ad campaign.
That Kaepernick’s actions do not 
immediately fix the attitudes he takes 
issue with, or that he is generally 
not viewed favorably by his fellow 
athletes or Americans, is no reason 
to dismiss his protest as empty or 
unpatriotic. In fact, this view would 
constitute a failure on our part to 
recognize those who legitimately 
resist injustices, injustices that might 
not be solved by the next year or even 
the next generation. By definition, the 
Kaepernicks of the world do not often 
find majority approval in the present, 
but instead in the future. Tommie 
Smith said it best when recalling his 
controversial actions in Mexico City: 
“We were not wrong. We were only 
ahead of our time.”

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Friday, October 12, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

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

ELLERY ROSENZWEIG | COLUMN

A column about the column
L

ast week, after I shared my 
column about accepting my 
fat, curvy body on Facebook, 
I 
was 
flooded 
with 
support 
and 
recognition from my 
friends, family, teachers 
and 
even 
strangers. 
Everyone 
was 
kind 
and 
thoughtful 
in 
ways I never imagined. 
Reading some of the 
comments brought me 
to tears. I recognized 
how difficult it is to talk 
about insecurities, and 
there isn’t much space or a platform 
where people feel comfortable to do 
this. 
I’m still humbly surprised by the 
amount of attention l received from 
my community. And I’m happy I was 
able to be there for my fellow bigger-
bodied people — helping share our 
experiences for those who were not 
aware. But I am still exploring notions 
of body acceptance and positivity, 
notions I was not able to cover in just 
one column.
I try to live my life like an open 
book — I keep very few things to 
myself. As an extrovert, I normally 
tell people things without them even 
asking because I need to process my 
thoughts out loud with my friends or 
really anyone who is around. After 
releasing so many closed-off thoughts 
for my whole community to see, I was 
emotionally drained. Whether it was 
reliving the fatphobia I wrote about 
as everyone was reading it, having 
conversations about my body every 
day for almost two weeks, or trying 

to keep up with all of my school work 
and other commitments, I did not have 
much time for myself.
Last Tuesday, skipping 
class and procrastinating 
an assignment, as usual, I 
began listening to a new 
podcast 
called 
“Pretty 
Big Deal” by supermodel 
and body activist Ashley 
Graham. I have been 
looking 
up 
to 
Ashley 
Graham 
ever 
since 
I 
watched her Ted Talk 
about being a plus-size 
model and accepting her 
body. In the podcast, she was telling 
her interviewee, Kim Kardashian, 
how sometimes it is exhausting to 
always have to talk about her body, but 
it is a part of her job as a model, activist 
and just being herself. I was relieved 
to find that this emotional exhaustion 
was normal. That is, another woman 
like me had felt the same way and were 
out there sharing their experience.
As I’m continuing to express 
vulnerability and write about my 
experiences, I’m making myself open 
to having more conversations with 
people about my body. Even though 
this is something that is new to me and 
once scared me, I hope talking about 
it becomes normal and comfortable 
with time. With all of this in mind, 
I still need to be kind to myself and 
allow time to recharge, reflect and 
rest. This way I’m not too emotionally 
exhausted and can continue spitting 
truths.
Another topic discussed in the 
podcast that piqued my interest was 
the privilege and platform white 

curvy woman have in today’s market. 
Curvy, larger bodies are not a new 
type of body. There have always been 
fat, curvy, thick women, but recently, 
the fashion industry has allowed for 
primarily white women to represent 
this population. This is incredibly 
misleading, as there are fat, large 
people of all identities who need 
representation as well.
Looking back at my article, I 
shared several accounts of body 
activists who were curvy, full women 
but most of them were white women 
with hourglass figures. As a white 
woman, I’m aware of the privilege 
that people of my race and size are 
receiving representation. With this 
in mind, I want to share accounts 
led by women of color I follow that 
have amazing content, like one of my 
favorite musical artists, Lizzo. She is 
incredibly authentic in her music and 
posts about how much she loves her 
body. Also, check out model Sonny 
Turner, because she posts bomb 
unedited photos and is a hair icon. 
In addition, you should look at body 
advocate 
@p.skaguya’s 
beautiful 
pictures and videos of her photo 
shoots and everyday life. 
I’m not sure if I was entirely ready 
to release my column when I did, but 
I definitely learned a lot about myself 
and the fact that I have a new platform 
to advocate for beautiful, fat, thick and 
curvylicious people. If you want to 
chat about this more, reach out to me. 
 
I’m more than happy and ready to dive 
deeper with all of you. 

Legitimate resistance

ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN

Ellery Rosenzweig can be reached at 

erosenz@umich.edu.

Ethan Kessler can be reached at 

ethankes@umich.edu.

EMILY WOLFE | CONTACT EMILY AT EWOLFE@UMICH.EDU

FROM THE OPINION EDITORS

When academic freedoms collide
T

he sometimes contentious relationship between free speech and 
academic equity at the University of Michigan came to a head this 
week. In a letter to the University community, University President 
Mark Schlissel and Provost Martin Philbert stated that two instructors — 
who recently denied letters of recommendation for study abroad programs 
in Israel due to their own support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions 
movement — did not meet University expectations for the behaviors of 
instructors. Separately, The Michigan Daily and The Detroit News obtained 
a letter from Interim LSA Dean Elizabeth Cole, informing one of the 
instructors, John Cheney-Lippold, associate professor in the Department of 
American Culture, that his actions violated University policy, and he would 
be disciplined with loss of a merit raise and delay of his planned sabbatical.

ELLERY 

ROSENZWEIG

