Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
 4A — Wednesday, January 23, 2019

We need an effective carbon neutrality commission

THE CLIMATE ACTION MOVEMENT AT U-M | OP-ED

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

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 MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA 

AND JOEL DANILEWITZ

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

What the Empowered Arab Sisterhood has done for me

MARIA ULAYYET | COLUMN

C

ulture shock.

For the first time in 

my life, I finally knew 

and felt what those two words 

really meant. As I walked 

into that lecture hall in the 

Chemistry Building on the first 

day of my freshman orientation, 

I felt like an alien. I desperately 

looked 
around 
the 
packed 

auditorium 
to 
find 
another 

person of color, to find someone 

even remotely like me, even if it 

were just in our shared feeling 

of being different.

During the last month at 

home between my orientation 

and my move-in day, I dreaded 

having to go back to Ann Arbor. 

Everyone had made friends at 

orientation and was relieved to 

be leaving home, but I couldn’t 

relate. I was scared. I felt so 

alone 
during 
my 
three-day 

orientation. I couldn’t believe 

that the joy of the moment 

of going away to an amazing 

school, a moment I had been 

waiting for for years, had been 

so discreetly stolen away from 

me.

As both the oldest child 

and oldest girl in my Arab 

immigrant family, going away 

for college had been out of the 

question until my junior year. 

My parents told me if I could 

get into a good school, I could 

move out for college. Seeing 

my hard work as a student go 

to waste was my greatest fear. 

With limited help from my 

school and no help from my 

family, I tried to figure out the 

ACT, SAT, Common Application 

and other college application 

materials. So when I got into 

the 
University 
during 
my 

senior year, I felt like I finally 

succeeded. Little did I know 

that the struggles for me were 

just now beginning.

As 
a 
first-generation 

American, 
first-generation 

college student and an Arab-

Muslim 
woman, 
I 
quickly 

realized that, as I sank into 

my seat in the corner of that 

auditorium in the Chemistry 

Building, 
the 
odds 
weren’t 

really in my favor.

Who could I relate to here? 

Who would I be friends with? 

Who was I going to study with? 

Who was I going to spend the 

alleged “best years” of my life 

with?

Enter 
Epsilon 
Alpha 

Sigma — better known as the 

Empowered Arab Sisterhood 

— the first and only nationally 

recognized 
predominantly-

Arab sorority. Nearly a year and 

a half later, with my 14 sisters 

by my side, I can finally say 

the University has become my 

second home. I never pegged 

myself for the sisterhood type, 

let alone a “sorority girl,” but 

now I can’t imagine my college 

life any other way. EAS was the 

space I never knew I needed, 

but in reality, I was drowning 

without it.

As Arab women, many of us 

the daughters of immigrants, 

our presence of simply being 

at the University of Michigan 

is stigmatized. For me, a lot of 

Arab women from my hometown 

either didn’t go to college or 

went to local schools. Going 

away was almost always out of 

the question. Simply being at 

Michigan felt groundbreaking 

to me. But simply being here 

isn’t enough.

As minorities, we’re always 

playing catch up. We can get the 

good grades and the test scores, 

but we lack the key component: 

the network.

One of EAS’s many purposes 

is to fill this gap. By bringing 

together the most ambitious 

and passionate Arab women 

leaders 
on 
campus, 
it 
is 

creating a network of young 

female professionals. Rather 

than a toxic culture of women 

constantly tearing each other 

down and competing with one 

another, EAS serves to provide 

a breath of fresh air of women 

lifting 
each 
other 
up 
and 

helping each other reach their 

academic 
and 
professional 

goals. We want to break the 

stigma against Arab women in 

leadership roles.

Throughout 
my 
life 
as 

an Arab woman, I’ve never 

truly felt like I fit in with 

white people and drifted to 

other communities of color. 

And while I find solace in 

our conjoined alienation and 

marginalization, 
there 
still 

remained a gap. As more Arab 

women are reaching college and 

our communities continue to 

grow, it is especially pertinent 

to provide these spaces like 

EAS so that we no longer have 

to feel lost and alone.

Through EAS, we’re going 

to beat the odds that have 

always been stacked against us.

Maria Ulayyet can be reached at 

mulayyet@umich.edu.

CHANDLER COUZENS | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT COUZCHA@UMICH.EDU

AMANDA ZHANG | COLUMN

T

he pressure of choosing 

a 
good 
partner 
for 

class projects is all too 

familiar to us college 

students. 
But 
even 

worse 
than 
having 

to choose is getting 

stuck 
with 
the 

incompetent kid your 

Graduate 
Student 

Instructor randomly 

assigned to you. This 

scenario became all 

too familiar to me 

last semester in my 

physics 
lab 
when, 

every 
Thursday 
morning, 
I 

would walk to my classroom in 

Randall Laboratory and sit next 

to a complete stranger.

I wish I could say my mind 

raced with thoughts like, “I 

wonder if this one is smart” or “I 

hope this one knows what he or 

she’s doing,” but the fact of the 

matter is my mind would already 

be two steps ahead by the time my 

partners even uttered a word. My 

assumptions were pretty binary. 

For guys, it was, “Thank God, 

he seems smart,” and for girls, it 

was, “Looks like I’m on my own 

this week.”

The longer I thought about my 

physics lab, the more I realized 

that this was far from an isolated 

instance. I say this as a self-

proclaimed feminist: I am sexist. 

But how could I not be? By age 6, 

society had already ingrained in 

me that my gender wasn’t cut out 

for the big leagues. I was raised 

to hail names like Albert Einstein 

and Isaac Newton, to gawk at 

CEOs like Steve Jobs and Bill 

Gates. As I grew older, I learned 

that seats for women at male-

dominated tables were limited 

and competition with my own 

gender was the only viable path 

to success.

By the time my 19-year-

old self reached physics lab at 

the 
University 
of 
Michigan, 

the logical side of my mind 

that staunchly supported the 

advancement of my fellow women 

was no match for those disgusting 

but subtle implicit biases that had 

been festering in my mind for 

years.

It is certainly important to 

acknowledge that women have 

made massive strides toward 

gender 
equality, 
but 
these 

past advancements should not 

overshadow the ones that have 

still yet to come. Modern day 

feminism 
faces 
a 

uniquely 
difficult 

path 
ahead. 
Our 

foremothers 
have 

largely 
battled 

and 
defeated 
the 

flagrantly 
obvious 

injustices 
toward 

women, but now it 

is our responsibility 

to 
defeat 
those 

injustices that are not 

so glaring — the ones 

that hide in our subconscious and 

manifest without notice.

It is a common but destructive 

belief that because these forms of 

sexism are so subtle, they are less 

important. But in fact, it is these 

hidden biases that hold women 

back, even when the tangible 

metrics like access to health care 

and education have significantly 

leveled out. The University’s own 

Ross School of Business Class of 

2020 master’s students currently 

consists of 43 percent women. 

While shooting for an eventual 

50-50 
gender 
ratio 
should 

undeniably be a major focus for 

business 
schools, 
we 
cannot 

forget that these advancements 

in higher education are meant to 

reap greater rewards in later life.

Women are 15 percent less 

likely to earn promotions than 

their male counterparts. And to 

make things even more disturbing, 

when the prevalence of females 

grows in a certain industry, 

wages for those jobs tend to see a 

decrease, even when factors like 

required education and relative 

difficulty 
are 
accounted 
for. 

This is not an issue of merit. Our 

society 
subconsciously 
values 

male labor more than female 

labor, and when industries see an 

influx of females, those jobs are 

subsequently perceived as less 

difficult and less valuable.

When 
we 
talk 
about 

programs that seek to advance 

women and minorities in the 

workplace 
and 
academia, 
we 

almost exclusively debate them as 

policies that give an upper hand 

to the disadvantaged and the 

less qualified. We debate these 

programs as if the inferiority 

of women is a given, and that 

the sexism of institutions is 

not. It is time we shift the 

conversation, not just regarding 

these programs, but regarding all 

barriers to female advancement.

Our history textbooks love 

to teach in terms of major 

milestones. 
The 
Nineteenth 

Amendment 
gave 
women 

the right to vote, Title IX 

prohibits sex discrimination in 

federally supported education 

programs and Roe v. Wade 

upheld a woman’s legal right 

to an abortion. But when it 

comes 
to 
eliminating 
the 

sexism that makes me feel 

relief upon getting a male lab 

partner but irritation upon a 

getting a female one, our future 

textbooks may never find a one-

sentence landmark moment.

Our generation may never 

be able to entirely shed our 

sexist tendencies, but we can 

take action to minimize them. 

We all need to make a greater 

effort to simply recognize and 

acknowledge these instances 

when they happen. Everyone 

can be, and often is, sexist 

— not just men or women or 

conservatives or liberals, but 

everyone — and we, as a society, 

must come to terms with that 

if we really want to achieve 

equality of opportunity.

I have spent my entire 

life staring at celebrations of 

successful men, and I am sexist 

as a result of this. We need to 

allow women their fair share 

of 
successes. 
Furthermore, 

we need to invite women to 

share the stage with men who 

are already in the limelight. 

Otherwise, 
our 
sons 
and 

daughters will grow up no 

differently.

Coming to terms with my own sexism

Amanda Zhang can be reached at 

amanzhan@umich.edu.

As Arab women, 
our presence of 
simply being at 
the University 
of Michigan is 
stigmatized

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“

It’s not that global warming is 
like a world war. It is a world 
war. And we are losing.” So 

claims renowned climate scholar Bill 
McKibben in his latest piece urging 
our leaders (and the public they 
serve) to devote the attention and 
resources demanded by the world’s 
scientists and military strategists 
to the greatest threat we have ever 
faced. Despite the University of 
Michigan’s intimate involvement in 
producing the very science behind 
McKibben’s appeal, the University’s 
climate 
efforts 
have 
remained 

painfully weak, with substantive 
action 
stymied 
by 
committees 

formed with little guidance and no 
structural accountability.

In 2015, University President 

Mark Schlissel’s Greenhouse Gas 
Reduction 
Committee 
released 

its report detailing how to achieve 
the meager University emissions 
reduction goals made in 2011, with 
numerous additional actions to take 
in the pursuit of carbon neutrality. 
In the four years since, progress 
has been seemingly non-existent. 
The 
administration 
has 
failed 

to undertake even the simplest 
recommendations to ones that 
better account for greenhouse gas 
emissions.

As is often the case, this failure 

is not due to the passionate and 
well-meaning 
individuals 
who 

volunteered their time and effort 
to produce the report, but rather 
seemingly due to a lack of top-level 
prioritization and a bureaucratic 
framework 
that 
rendered 
the 

committee impotent. More recently, 
another committee, the Blue Ribbon 
Panel, has been accused of being 
unrepresentative and ineffectual 
due to having a vague charge 
and limited power — suggesting 
a more systematic failure in how 
committees are being structured.

For 
this 
reason, 
it 
should 

be no surprise that Schlissel’s 
announcement in October to “put 
U-M on a trajectory toward carbon 
neutrality” was met with skepticism, 
as the only real commitment 
made was to create yet another 
commission “tasked with developing 
U-M’s plan.” Indeed, there is no 

indication that the new Presidential 
Carbon 
Neutrality 
Commission 

will not suffer from the exact same 
structural flaws that doomed the 
GHG Reduction Committee and 
waste precious time in the fight 
against climate change.

So what would make for an 

effective PCNC?

Firstly, the commission needs a 

clear mandate to develop a climate 
action plan in order to achieve an 
explicit goal: a target date of 2035 
for carbon neutrality. Without a 
commitment to a specific goal from 
the 
highest 
levels, 
committees 

spend time exploring irrelevant 
possibilities, and risk having hard-
wrung recommendations be ignored 
— wasting time we cannot afford to 
lose. As McKibben notes, “In this 
war we’re in — the war that physics 
is fighting hard, and that we aren’t — 
winning slowly is the same as losing.”

We know the emissions targets we 

need to hit, and from the resolutions 
passed unanimously by Central 
Student 
Government, 
Rackham 

Student Government, the Senate 
Advisory Committee on University 
Affairs and others, we know that 
the U-M community is united in its 
support of committing the significant 
resources necessary to achieve them.

Secondly, we must be assured 

that our leaders understand the task 
before us and that the considerable 
time taken to chart a path to a 
sustainable future will not be wasted 
because those at the top balk at the 
ambition it requires. Transparency 
of this entire process is therefore 
critical to sustain public trust 
and engagement and to hold the 
administration accountable to the 
plan developed by the commission. 
Attaining this level of accountability 
and transparency requires built-in 
structures mandating a publicly 
available review and assessment 
of 
each 
recommendation 
the 

commission produces.

Thirdly, the commission must 

have representatives from across 
the diverse spectrum of the U-M 
community and include members 
specializing in environmental justice. 
We commend the administration 
for its swift solicitation of public 

input for the commission, but true 
representation only comes from a seat 
at the table.

Finally, we can capitalize on 

the efforts of others to implement 
standards 
of 
transparency 
and 

facilitate the flow of information 
between the University and other 
institutions. A straightforward and 
powerful way to do this would be 
to sign the American College and 
University 
Presidents’ 
Climate 

Commitment, which would take 
advantage of the framework and 
resources already developed and 
employed by others in the pursuit 
of carbon neutrality. Rather than 
wasting precious time reinventing 
the wheel, the PCNC could learn 
from the experience of hundreds of 
other institutions, and easily share the 
efforts undertaken at the University 
so as to amplify our impact and join 
a growing community of institutions 
working to rapidly adapt to an 
uncertain future.

These reasonable and specific 

steps 
provide 
the 
foundation 

needed to achieve the difficult but 
necessary goal of carbon neutrality 
in a scientifically well-founded 
and fiscally responsible manner. 
Furthermore, by having a strong 
vision and adhering to the principles 
of transparency and accountability 
described herein, the University 
will serve as a model institution in 
the fight for a sustainable future, 
providing the framework for other 
institutions to follow. We are eager 
to work together to ensure the 
University is part of the Leaders and 
the Best in the fight for a sustainable 
future.

The Climate Action Movement is 

a coalition of University stakeholders 

(students, faculty, staff and community 

members) working to enact 

sustainability policy that reflects the 

values of the broader U-M community, 

with a focus on the commitment to, 

and attainment of, carbon neutrality.

This letter is adapted from a longer, 

open letter sent to University President 

Mark Schlissel in October 2018.

AMANDA

ZHANG

It is time we shift 
the conversation 

regarding all 

barriers to female 

advancement

