A
s
alumni
of
the
University of Michigan,
we
were
deeply
disappointed by the recent
actions of two instructors who
refused to support students’
desire to study abroad in
Israel. While we applaud the
University
for
disciplining
Prof. John Cheney-Lippold,
we are concerned that the
campus climate is undergoing
a
dangerous
trend
toward
restricting academic freedom
and
unfairly
singling
out
students
who
pursue
educational
opportunities
involving Israel.
The
recent
actions
of
Cheney-Lippold
and
Lucy
Peterson,
a
graduate
student
instructor
who
similarly
refused
a
letter
of
recommendation
to
an
undergraduate student, are not
isolated incidents. During a
mandatory lecture for U-M art
students, a speaker displayed
two
anti-Semitic
images
—
one
likening
Benjamin
Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler
and another depicting Jews
as pigs drinking money from
a bottle. Such dehumanizing
imagery and hateful rhetoric
have
repeatedly
led
to
violence
against
Jewish
communities
and
have
no
place on campus. The timing
of the presentation and denial
of letters of recommendation
is alarming to us and leads us
to believe that more must be
done to ensure a safe learning
environment
for
students
and protect the University’s
academic integrity.
By refusing to pen letters
of recommendation for Israel-
bound U-M students, Cheney-
Lippold
and
Peterson
are
allowing their personal beliefs
to interfere with and obstruct
students’ educational goals.
Not only should Peterson be
similarly disciplined for her
refusal, but the University
must strengthen its policies to
ensure that faculty members
and instructors will prioritize
support
for
students
over
personal political agendas.
A recent piece by other
U-M
alumni,
published
in
these
pages,
misguidedly
alleges that the University
is “weaponizing” letters of
recommendation by punishing
professors
who
pick
and
choose
when
to
support
students
based
on
their
political views. In fact, it is
the
instructors
themselves
who are weaponizing such
letters to promote a campaign
that violates the academic
freedom of Israeli scholars
and
U-M
students.
While
professors should be able to
decide whether or not to write
a letter of recommendation for
their students, that decision
should be based on academic
merit and not political bias.
Academic
boycotts
of
Israel in general demonstrate
peak
hypocrisy
for
those
claiming to support academic
freedom. The free exchange
of ideas is central to the
University’s mission and has
been a proud tradition for
two centuries. Trying to shut
down engagement with Israeli
universities
—
routinely
ranked among the best in
the world — unjustly limits
educational opportunities for
students at the University and
beyond.
Even more alarming are
the
reports
that
Cheney-
Lippold used his power as
a professor to promote the
Boycott,
Divestment
and
Sanctions movement against
Israel
during
classes
that
are completely unrelated to
the
subject.
BDS
unfairly
singles out Israeli businesses
and supporters, seeking to
isolate the state of Israel via
international and economic
pressure. It is very concerning
that a movement rooted in
anti-Semitism and extremism
has not only made its way
into the classroom at the
University, but that it has
directly
affected
students’
ability
to
pursue
higher
education. As Interim Dean
Elizabeth Cole wrote, Cheney
failed in his responsibility to
teach students material related
to his field of expertise.
Thankfully,
opposition
to BDS has always been the
policy
of
the
University’s
administration.
University
President
Mark
Schlissel’s
recent statement that “the
academic aspirations of our
students — and their academic
freedom — are fundamental to
the University of Michigan,
and our teaching and research
missions,”
gives
us
hope
that
the
University
will
prevent bias and propaganda
from damaging the student
experience.
However,
the
administration must continue
to make it clear that it will not
tolerate abuses of power by
biased instructors.
As U-M students, we were
proud to attend a university
that supported our academic
endeavors, regardless of our
own opinions or individual
pursuits.
As
a
growing
coalition of Michigan U-M
alumni and parents who are
members of Alums for Campus
Fairness, we hope campus
leaders continue to speak out
and act against hatred and
bias that affect Michigan U-M
students’ ability to maximize
their academic potential.
“Y
ou’re supposed to
make more of what
you wish you saw —
what’s missing from the
visual art conversation
in this moment,” Pat
Perry, the artist of the
new mural on the North
side of Grizzly Peak on
South Ashley Street,
said in an interview
with the Daily. The
painting adds value to
downtown Ann Arbor,
a value that is explained
better with walls than
words.
Public art is anything that
enhances our environment by
breaking the pattern of blandness
and is a resource that is freely
accessible. Public art is a sign of the
times, reflecting neighborhoods’
histories
and
cultures
while
simultaneously recording them.
Most simply, public art adorns
blank community spaces with
colorful conversation starters.
“We can’t wonder why people
feel gray when gray is all people
see,” Perry argued. Public art
makes us unconsciously conscious
of beauty.
The Ann Arbor Art Center,
on behalf of local real estate
development company 3 Mission,
commissioned Perry to promote
public art experiences as part of
their new Art in Public initiative.
The downtown space, previously
overwhelmed with faded brick
and chipped paint, now depicts
a scenic Michigan landscape as
a backdrop for a man watching
an incoming storm. Perry rejects
a
didactic
narrative—I
asked
and it is not a self-portrait—and
intentionally leaves the message
open for us to interpret using our
own perspectives.
“Part of the idea is that (the
Ann Arbor Art Center) wanted
something accessible, universal
and something that encourages
more public art; something for
people that aren’t proactively
consuming contemporary art on a
regular basis” Perry said.
This is how art in a public space
differs from art on canvas; it’s seen
by everyone, not just by those with
a pre-existing interest in the arts.
“People that are taking the
bus, driving by to work, in the
bank across the street. Making
something accessible to them
means a lot to me,”
Perry reflected.
A mural’s design
warrants
careful
consideration.
With
no way of ensuring
that his message will
resonate
positively
with
everybody,
Perry
reflected
extensively on how
his experiences varied
from those of the Ann
Arbor folk who would eventually
view his work. He had been
wanting to paint his home state’s
scenery for quite a while and
decided on a meditative landscape
to see how something outside of
political topics would be received.
In Ann Arbor, one can spend a
whole day and, without spending a
dollar, enjoy the countless displays
of art in the public realm. On East
Liberty Street, a there’s an alley
of graffiti that lets artists leave
their mark. At the end of October,
international
art
movement
“Literature vs. Traffic” paved
part of East Liberty street with
thousands of discarded books
and light displays. On Saturdays,
Western Michigan student Ahmid
plays
classical
saxophone
on
the corner of East Liberty and
Maynard streets. He will continue
to play until his fingers can no
longer stand the winter weather.
Perry hopes the new painting
will encourage an art trend in Ann
Arbor and recognized Detroit has
already caught wind of the creative
movement. Through community
programs like Summer in the
City Detroit, art is being skillfully
sowed in the community’s roots.
Established in 2002, the volunteer
program
gathers
locals
and
assembles activities — themed play,
plant or paint — where volunteers
run daycares, plant gardens or
paint murals.
Alexandra Isabel, a returning
volunteer in the paint division,
painted flowers on a shipping
container,
repurposing
the
eyesore into a shed for the local
garden. She talks about her
summers in Detroit with pride
and sports her Converse that
got covered in paint drips just as
boldly as the brick walls in Detroit
flaunt their murals. According to
Isabel, buildings volunteer their
space and sponsors provide the
paint.
“(The murals) are for everyone.
Yes, the ones at schools are mostly
for kids, but if walls are painted,
they won’t get graffitied. A blank
wall is going to get tagged,” Isabel
said.
Alexandra’s energy in Detroit
is manifesting across the country,
as reflected by efforts in St. Louis
and Charleston, W.Va., to keep
the growing cities vibrant and
dynamic and make them more
unique places to live.
Public displays of art are
often
symbols
that
represent
inarticuable
messages.
Art
has a fundamental grip that
holds us all together, allowing
movements
to
unfold
across
countries and languages. Love
is in the Bin, better known as
Banksy’s shredded Balloon Girl
epitomizes the artist’s intended
satire in London. Meanwhile, in
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, our very own
Pat Perry worked with refugees to
paint flags of peace and tolerance.
He’ll be returning to the Middle
East this spring.
Throughout
our
entire
conversation about his mural,
Perry
only
mentioned
one
complaint
about
the
project:
“It was very cold when I was
painting.”
Daylight
savings
gave
us
an extra hour. Use it wisely,
appreciate art. As a friendly
reminder, you do need permission
to paint in a public space.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, November 8, 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
ALUMNS FOR CAMPUS FAIRNESS | OP-ED
Recent campus BDS activities are deeply concerning
The value of public art
JULIA MONTAG | COLUMN
Alumns for Campus Fairness is a
non-profit organization that brings
together alumni to counter anti-
Semitism.
Julia Montag can be reached at
jtmon@umich.edu.
W
hen
students
arrive
at
The
University
of
Michigan
there’s
an inherent uncertainty on what
behaviors and activities will be
accepted. After all, we take students
from all over the world, inculcated
with different cultural idiosyncrasies
and moral values. For half of my life
(from kindergarten through eighth
grade) I went to a traditional, all-
boys school. We were taught the
values of hard work, competition and
working through adversity to achieve
excellence. Conformity to a commonly
held ideal of success was imperative.
There were many times, specifically
in athletics, when the goal was to
break us down as individuals so that
we could build ourselves up again as a
unit. Every afternoon in the gym, my
pain and needs as an individual were
subordinate to the wellness of the
collective, and in this way, we would
all persevere and take pride in our
achievements, not because they were
handed to us, but because we had to
sweat and scrape to get them. The
winner received a trophy, and everyone
else was told to work harder next time.
Living a life of relative comfort as a
boy from New York City, this was an
important lesson for my youth.
Then for high school I attended one
of the most progressive schools in the
country, where the ultimate values were
acceptance and inclusivity. For over a
century, the school had emphasized the
importance of making students feel safe
and accepted regardless of personal
identifiers like race, sexuality and
gender, and challenged those within
the loosely defined class of power to
self-reflect on the privileges life had
given them. The institution focused
on uplifting those dispossessed by the
hierarchies of society. Trophies, even
in athletics, were rarely distributed to
insulate people from exclusion. Every
individual, especially one who had
been dispossessed, was celebrated,
and creativity and individualism were
rewarded.
When I arrived on campus at
Michigan, I tried to reconcile these
two philosophies in my mind. Should
institutions here compel individuals to
compete and create exclusive groups
of some ideal of what is best or should
they accept everyone and do away with
hierarchical value? Should they treat
individuals as acceptable and special
the way they are or should they obligate
them to conform to the morals of a
different creed?
I began reading about these
systems that many scholars delineated
as moral relativism versus moral
absolutism or moral injunction. From
my understanding, moral relativism
applied at its extremes dictates that
everything is exactly the same and
because no single thing is superior to
anything else, nothing has value. By
contrast, when moral absolutism is
applied at its extremes, there’s only
one way to have value and anything
that deviates from that has zero value.
There’s obviously something lacking
in both of these systems. But could
they work together? Could students
at the University have an experience
marked by both fierce competition
and adversity and also inclusivity and
acceptance? I set off across campus
to discover how my university could
answer these questions.
During Welcome Week, I interacted
with Greek life, a collection of
organizations leaning towards moral
absolutism. By their very definition,
these
fraternities
and
sororities
are exclusive groups comprised of
individuals who had in some way or
another demonstrated value to those
who judged them and therefore had
been selected to join. Implicit in this
process was the reality that many
people who attempted to join their
ranks would be excluded. These
weren’t organizations for everyone.
After rushing to demonstrate your
worth and then pledging to prove
that worth, you would be accepted
into a brotherhood or sisterhood, but
until that day, you were tasked with
meeting their definition of value. To
some degree, you must conform to
their ideals of what makes a proper
person, and you must sacrifice time
and comfort for the betterment of the
group. That is Greek life.
The outsiders of these groups had
their own opinions of this philosophy.
I was reminded of the stereotype of the
archetypal “frat bro.” But the people
I met couldn’t be further from this. I
met girls and guys from Greek life who
were passionate, determined, social,
intelligent, diverse and aspirational. We
discussed their futures in the worlds of
everything from art to medical biology,
and their hopes to bring awareness
to charities that dealt with issues like
domestic violence and breast cancer.
Where were the knuckle-dragging
hedonists bent on casual racism
and sexism? Where were the beer
chugging degenerates blowing dad’s
trust fund? These caricatures were
not my experience of Greek life at the
University. What I realized is that no
matter how devoutly I conformed, I
could still serve my personal values
from within the collective. Once
inducted, you have the opportunity
to carve out your own identity and
integrate your individualistic features
into the group. It’ll take courage and the
convincing of others, but that might be
exactly what the collective needs. So
although many perceive fraternities
as oriented only towards moral
absolutism, there’s a lot more moral
relativism that one might expect.
But what about the University’s
institutions leaning entirely towards
moral relativism? These have become
a part of my daily life at Michigan as
well. In my learning community and
extracurricular clubs, I am reminded
of the core values of my high school:
acceptance and inclusivity. I hear the
perspectives of people who would
have been historically dispossessed by
the hierarchies of society, and I have
the opportunity to see their worth as
individuals and the tremendous value
they bring to the University and to the
community. Again, stereotypes here
strayed from reality. I haven’t found
any irrational social justice warriors
or dogmatic activists lecturing people
on not being “woke” enough. Instead,
I met thinkers who have sculpted
harmonious futures through their
ideas and strived for compromise, not
authoritarianism. These institutions
celebrate the individual and favor
creativity to conformity. They help
me play on my strengths as a writer
and personalize the experience of a
large, potentially generic university
into an intimate community. These
institutions
approaching
moral
relativism present the axiom that
every person should be able to
voice their ideas, a truth University
students are entitled to as humans
as much as they are as Americans.
Furthemore, I find myself realizing
aspects of life and my experiences
that I might have droned out had I
conformed entirely to the one value
system. I had a conversation with
a friend from my floor about his
experiences as an immigrant to the
United States, and the challenges
that this new life presented. With my
friend’s roommate, I sat by a window
and discussed the pros and cons of
societal concepts like participation
trophies and safe spaces. It’s a
good thing that we’re becoming
more accepting as a country and
as a society, but what are the costs?
In the future, with the advent of
experiential technology, will people
insulate themselves from adversity
altogether and reject concepts of
moral absolutism: this is right and
this is wrong?
I soon realized, however, that
these institutions aren’t without
their moral absolutist practices.
Many living-learning communities
at Michigan are accessed only
through an application process in
which many are judged against
the value hierarchies of artistic
talent or academic achievement,
and are turned away. How could
an institution of acceptance and
inclusivity exclude someone? These
communities know that just as
in nature, in order for there to be
value, there has to be selection.
An unpleasant reality of life is that
sometimes individuals must be
excluded so that the collective can
define value. So while many assess
university-sponsored
institutions
like learning communities as moral
relevatist, there’s still a great degree
of moral absolutism required to
create something of value.
Once I had a footing in each of
these institutions and understood
the
moral
philosophies
they
represented, I realized these groups
shared more in common than I had
initially believed. I could challenge
myself with struggle and sacrifice,
fit into a greater idea, and shed
my personal comforts in favor
of the collective, but I could also
question these institutions, reject
conformities that I found unbefitting
of good character, and interact
with those who many institutions
would dispossess because of rather
arbitrary criteria. It drew me back to
the contrasting philosophies of my
middle school and my high school,
the values of discipline and structure
but also creativity and individuality.
I realized the University presents us
with both of these experiences, and
in engaging with both, an individual
can prepare themselves for a life
of success. I’m beyond happy that
I have had the opportunity to
integrate both of these philosophies
into my life. I was challenged but
also accepted. I sacrificed but also
enjoyed. I was reminded of my
individuality as an American, and
of the brilliance and privilege of a
University of Michigan education
that offers us this dichotomy of
thought. This, beyond any idea
previously discovered, excited me
about the future of my freshman
year here at the University.
MILES STEPHENSON | COLUMN
A diversity of morals
Miles Stephenson can be reached at
mvsteph@umich.edu.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION
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The timing of the
presentation and
denial of letters of
recommendation
is alarming
JULIA
MONTAG
Public art adorns
blank community
spaces with colorful
conversation starters