Burns said, in her experience, 
she has never seen such a concrete 
commitment 
asserted 
at 
a 
conference. She said conferences 
are usually a place for speakers 
to voice their opinions to an 
understanding audience rather 
than roll out plans.
“This 
was 
a 
pretty 
unprecedented 
event,” 
Burns 
said. “It says a lot about her 
commitment 
to 
reproductive 
rights and protecting women in 
the state of Michigan.”
Kaylee Tegethoff, Michigan’s 
state captain for Students for 
Life of America, serves as the 
spokesperson for the state’s pro-
life student advocates. She believes 
Nessel’s announcement does little 
to protect Michiganders. 
In an interview with The 
Daily, Tegethoff said Nessel’s 
position on abortion prosecution 
would only serve to confuse local 
procedure across the state.
“Dana Nessel is our state’s 
chief law enforcement officer, and 
when she picks and chooses what 
laws she wants to enforce, I think 
that’s a problem,” Tegethoff said. 
“All Michigan citizens should be 
concerned about that position, 
whether you’re young or old, in 
college or out of college.”
In the event, Roe v. Wade is 
overturned federally, the legal 
issue of abortion is delegated to 
individual states.
“Michigan has a law on the 
books right now that would ban 
abortion if Roe v. Wade were 
overturned,” Tegethoff said. “I 

think whether you agree with the 
law or don’t agree with the law, 
the attorney general’s job is to 
enforce the law.”
Luescher said Nessel received 
the loudest cheers when she 
justified her decision to selectively 
enforce state laws by citing her 
predecessor’s, 
Bill 
Schuette’s, 
choice not to enforce a “single” 
environmental 
protection 
provision over the course of his 
incumbency.
“I think she knows what she’s 
saying, and she’s not saying it just 
to be inflammatory,” Burns said. 
“She’s not saying it just to make a 
stance. She’s saying it because she 
really is convicted by it and she 
wants to hold to it.”
Luescher said she sees the 
attorney general’s announcement 
as an assurance of security for 
women in Michigan that their 
rights will not spontaneously 
disappear if Roe v. Wade is 
overturned.
“There is this sense that a lot 
of people had that suddenly this 
giant turn in the tide occurred,” 
Luescher said. “Suddenly a lot of 
people are against reproductive 
justice or abortion rights and 
what the attorney general and the 
whole conference was saying was 
that ‘no, there are a lot of people 
supporting this and proactively 
working on it.’”
Burns 
believes 
Nessel’s 
announcement positions her well 
for re-election because her young 
voters 
strongly 
support 
this 
portion of her platform.
“At the University of Michigan, 
we have a large community that 
supports Students for Choice 
and 
supports 
reproductive 

rights, broadly speaking,” Burns 
said. “The younger generation 
is more politically favorable of 
these policies and Dana Nessel’s 
stances. I also would say that if 
we are the ones that are going out 
to vote in the next election, then I 
think this is a favorable thing for 
Dana to say because it speaks to 
our interest and it speaks to our 
concerns as young people.”
Tegethoff disagrees. She said 
there are more pro-life young 
adults than there have been since 
the Roe v. Wade ruling. Tegethoff 
believes these young advocates 
will eventually eliminate Roe v. 
Wade.
“Most 
people 
are 
now 
not saying ‘if Roe v. Wade is 
overturned,’” 
Tegethoff 
said. 
“It’s now ‘when Roe v. Wade is 
overturned.’ The when and how of 
that has yet to be determined, but 
we do have a pro-life majority on 
the Supreme Court, and I do think 
that in the next few years, Roe v. 
Wade is likely to be overturned.”
Tegethoff said she hopes that, 
along with a change in abortion 
law, the United States will alter 
Americans’ 
perspective 
on 
abortion in general.
“Ultimately, I also hope to see 
that hearts and minds would 
change,” Tegethoff said. “I don’t 
just want abortion to be illegal. I 
want abortion to be unthinkable. 
I want women to realize that the 
unborn is a human being that has 
value and that we should respect 
that life.”
Tegethoff said she hopes the 
law will soon align with her 
morals and ethics, strengthening 
the respect Americans have for its 
authority.

“If we all have disrespect for 
the law, just think about what 
the result is,” Tegethoff said. 
“That’s kind of scary. Pro-life or 
pro-choice, we can all agree that 
respect and adherence to the law 
is important.”
Burns worries that even if the 
law changes, it will not be adhered 
to by communities privileged 
enough to ignore it.
“This is not really a big 
concern for a lot of students at the 
University of Michigan because 
the University is filled with a 
lot of upper middle-class white 
students who will always have 
access to reproductive rights 
and health care, whether or not 
it’s criminalized,” Burns said. 
“That’s not to say that it will be 
easy moving forward if Roe is 
overturned, but it is to say that the 
people that are truly at risk here 
are 
low-income, 
marginalized 
communities.”

Luescher said Nessel’s plan 
will 
benefit 
marginalized 
communities such as people of 
color or low-income.
“Not only is (Nessel’s plan) 
going to help all women, but it’s 
going to make sure that low-
income women who are already 
burdened aren’t going to be 
burdened further by legislative 
maneuvers that are done, I think, 
quite carelessly,” Luescher said.
Luescher, Burns and Tegethoff 
all agree the state legislature will 
lead the way in how abortion law 
is implemented in Michigan.
“Whether Roe v. Wade is 
overturned in the next few years 
or further on down the road, 
that’s really just the start of the 

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News

ABORTION
From Page 1

In an email to The Daily, 
Gonzalez 
denied 
the 
email 
existed 
and 
said 
she was “amazed at how 
many invented facts are 

circulating.”
Gonzalez 
said 
LEO’s 
information 
was 
“not 
accurate,” referring press 
inquiries 
to 
David 
Gier, 
dean of SMTD.
Speaking 
on 
behalf 
of 
Gier, University spokesman 
Rick Fitzgerald wrote, in an 
email interview with The 
Daily, only the dean could 

represent the SMTD.
“The 
dean 
has 
been 
absolutely clear that SMTD 
has not and will not make 
personnel decisions as a 
result of LEO’s success at the 
bargaining table,” Fitzgerald 
wrote. “SMTD is, however, 
conducting 
a 
review 
of 
its 
entire 
instructional 
workforce, 
including 
all 
tenured, tenure-track and 
clinical faculty, lecturers 
and 
graduate 
student 
instructors. 
This 
review 
will include an examination 
of teaching loads and course 
enrollment.”
Fitzgerald explained this 
review was “a normal part 
of what any school and 
college on our campus does 
on a regular basis,” adding 
SMTD and the University 
would follow the process 
outlined in the LEO contract 
if any workload changes 
would impact lecturers.
According to LEO, Biza, 
a lecturer who has taught 
Congolese 
dance 
at 
the 
University for more than 
30 years, would be facing 
a two-thirds reduction in 
his course load. Both Beck 
and Biza are “long-serving” 
lecturers, 
a 
category 
defined by the 2018 contract 
as someone who has been a 
lecturer for at least 12 years.
LEO 
Vice 
President 
Kirsten Herold said despite 
Beck and Biza’s seniority, 
the union could not do 

much to fight any personnel 
decisions made by SMTD.
“We 
can’t 
tell 
the 
employer, you know, who 
teaches 
what 
classes,” 
Herold said. “If they decide 
they want to give a class 
that a lecturer has taught to 
a graduate student, they can 
do it. If they want to give 
it to a tenure-track faculty 
member, they can do it.”
At 
a 
performance 
put 
on by students in Biza’s 
class 
at 
the 
School 
of 
Music, Theatre & Dance 
on Saturday, about a dozen 
LEO members distributed 
fliers protesting the alleged 
cuts to Beck’s and Biza’s 
teaching assignments.
LSA 
senior 
Zi 
Yang 
performed at a showcase. 
She 
said 
the 
class 
was 
appreciative of Biza and his 
teaching.
“He’s been a really great 
lecturer 
and 
we 
really 
appreciated his class,” Yang 
said. “We hope that he 
can teach for as long as he 
wants to because he’s in his 
sixties, but he has so much 
energy. 
Everyone 
thinks 
he’s 40.”
Biza said SMTD had not 
informed him of reductions 
to his scheduled course 
load, but that Beck told 
him. He said that while he 
had 
not 
heard 
anything 
from the Music, Theatre & 
Dance School in regard to 
the reductions, he was still 

concerned.
“This is the only job I 
have,” Biza said. “I’m a part-
time teacher and I don’t 
get those many hours, so if 
they cut that, that means I 
have to look for some other 
job, I have to look for some 
other job or do something 
to support my family.”
Beck said she had not 
been given official word 
from SMTD. She said the 
school would have to inform 
her of its decision by April 
30 — the day her contract 
ends.
Herold 
said 
she 
was 
doubtful of claims from 
SMTD that the school had 
not yet reached a final 
decision. She said if there 
was misinformation, it was 
because SMTD “has given 
us 
different 
information 
every time we talked to 
them.”
“Basically they haven’t 
given 
us 
any 
answers 
about why it’s her and not 
less 
senior, 
less 
highly 
paid people, none of that,” 
Herold said. “They’re just 
stonewalling, 
so 
that’s 
why we’re just extremely 
frustrated at this point. I 

really think, you know, we 
were told they haven’t made 
up the real final decision 
yet. I don’t know anybody 
in the school believes that … 
They’re just trying to wait 
until students are gone and 
then to make the suddenly 
miraculously make the final 
decision to lay them off.”
Biza said he had not 
reached out to SMTD about 
the course load reduction, 
but added he did not feel 
the responsibility was on 
him to do so.
“If you have a boss, they 
will tell you what’s going 
on usually in a professional 
way — you call a meeting 
and you explain in detail 
what’s 
going 
on,” 
Biza 
said. “(Then) I can express 
myself, 
we 
can 
have 
a 
conversation … This is a 
big thing happening, so you 
can’t just send an email 
to somebody. You need to 
come sit down and give (an) 
explanation.”

LEO
From Page 1

