Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Cheryn Hong
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Michael Russo

Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Joel Weiner
Erin White 
Lola Yang

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Managing Editor

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MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA 
AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

BRITTANY BOWMAN | COLUMN
Why are men so obsessed with their daughters’ virginity?

SOLOMON MEDINTZ | COLUMN

U-M has $1 billion invested in fossil fuels. Let PCNN talk about it

30 years on, has German reunification hit a wall?

R

ecently, 
musician 
and 
singer T.I. went on a 
podcast called Ladies Like 
Us on Nov. 5, and boasted about how 
his daughter’s hymen is still intact, 
and he knows because he forcibly 
takes her to the gynecologist. Here’s 
why that is problematic, and frankly, 
sickening. 
When Deyjah, T.I.’s daughter, 
turned 16, her father posted a 
note on the fridge stating they 
would be attending the doctor’s 
office within the next few days. 
When I first heard this story, I 
was straining to be optimistic, 
hoping this would be a case of 
teaching children and teens about 
sexual wellness and awareness 
by taking the time to familiarize 
them 
with 
their 
reproductive 
health resources. Instead, Deyjah’s 
father 
is 
inherently 
obsessed 
with maintaining his daughter’s 
socially-constructed 
purity 
and 
her virginity. Every year since she 
turned 18, he’s been driving her to 
the gynecologist as a post-birthday 
tradition. 
The 
American 
College 
of 
Obstetricians and Gynecologists 
recommends that girls first see a 
gynecologist between the ages of 
13 and 15, with a yearly checkup 
every year post initial exam. 
However, if reproductive health 
and overall health are maintained 
smoothly, there may not be a need 
to attend a specialized branch of 
medicine like the gynecologist. 
Many women’s health needs can 
be fulfilled by a primary care 
provider or even on the third floor 
of University Health Services 
at the University of Michigan, 
the Women’s Health Clinic. The 
Women’s Health Clinic provides 
comprehensive care for patients of 
any gender, and any patient seeking 
gynecologic 
information, 
STI 
treatment or post-sexual assault 
services can surely find some 
degree of help on the third floor. 
Granted, if the financial resources 
are available, it can be important 
to have a gynecologist. However, 
due to the potentially invasive 
nature of medical procedures 
or practices, gynecology visits 
can be intimidating. Some of 
the top reasons people make a 
gynecologist appointment are for 
overall physical health check-ups, 
pregnancy-related visits, irregular 
menstruation, breast or pelvic 
exams, pap smears, birth control, 
etc. Even then, the idea of making 
an appointment or going to the 
gynecologist is intimidating. 

For this reason, gynecologists 
and other medical professionals 
tend to stress the importance 
of not performing unnecessary 
procedures. 
One 
of 
these 
unnecessary medical procedures 
is a virginity assessment, or 
hymen check. There is no factual, 
scientific or medical basis for 
determining 
whether 
or 
not 
someone has experienced vaginal 
penetration, and therefore has “lost 
their virginity.” In cultures where 
female virginity is prized, many 
women and girls are subjected to 
these invasive examinations in 
order to ensure that they are still 
“pure.” In addition to there being 
no scientific or medical evidence 
of virginity, these examinations 
can 
be 
psychologically 
and 
even physically harmful to girls 
and women. Examinations are 
oftentimes done without proper 
patient consent, normally when 
the patient is coerced into the 
procedure by an elder family 
member or even a partner. 
It is the physician’s job to ensure 
patient safety and not violate 
commonplace HIPAA guidelines. 
When the physician seeing T.I.’s 
daughter attempted to get her 
consent for the procedure with 
her father knowing the results, 
the exchange was frighteningly 
forceful. T.I. stated, “Is there 
anything you would not want 
me to know? Oh, OK. See doc? 
No problem.” Madeline Brewer, 
an actress on “The Handmaid’s 
Tale”, tweeted, “This makes me 
feel physically ill. It’s abhorrent 
… The level of toxicity and malice 
and control he’s exerting on his 
own daughters (sic) life and bodily 
autonomy and privacy. I’m sick.” 
T.I. was then informed again that 
there are other ways to tear the 
hymen, such as riding a bike or 
horse, running on the playground, 
playing sports, etc. Furthermore, 
sometimes people can be born 
without a hymen entirely — so 
the presence or absence of this 
thin piece of mucosal tissue is not 
indicative of one’s virginity. Each 
person is different. Presented with 
this information, T.I. promptly 
responded, “Look, doc, she don’t 
ride no horses, she don’t ride no 
bike, she don’t play no sports. 
Man, just check the hymen please 
and give me back my results 
expeditiously.” You can notice in 
T.I.’s language that he objectifies 
his daughter by saying “the 
hymen” and “my results,” not a 
single mention of his daughter or 

the control she should have over 
her own body. 
If virginity is not measured on 
a factual nor medical basis, what 
is it? First, virginity is strictly a 
heteronormative concept based 
on the first episode of vaginally 
penetrative sex, which excludes 
anyone who does not participate 
in 
heterosexual 
intercourse. 
It’s a social construct that was 
ultimately manifested to control 
women and to make them feel 
bad about being sexually active. 
This ideal is ingrained in religion 
and cultures around the world 
and is almost always harmful to 
women and girls. From the time 
we are young girls, we are told 
that if we do not “wait for the 
right man” or “save ourselves for 
marriage,” we are committing 
a sin, or we are ruined or we 
are not worthy. This certainly 
led to the patriarchal double 
standard where it’s perfectly 
fine, even encouraged, for boys 
to lose their virginity and gain 
sexual experience, but girls who 
are sexually active are considered 
damaged, ruined, used or slutty by 
the exact same standards. Why is 
something so different to everyone 
— this thin mucosal tissue that can 
be compared to an earlobe — so 
important in determining a young 
woman’s worth? 
T.I.’s 
behavior 
towards 
his 
daughter 
and 
her 
body 
is 
possessive, 
sickening 
and 
controlling. He is deeply invading 
her privacy by making her attend 
the gynecologist with him, but 
the fact that he also went on a 
podcast to talk about it showcases 
his gross sexism and misogyny 
toward women and, ultimately, 
his own daughter. T.I. is obsessed 
with saving his daughter, but from 
what? This idea of psychologically 
manipulating and ruining his 
daughter to “save” her from an 
evolutionarily 
and 
physically 
normal process is profoundly 
disconcerting. What’s even more 
frightening is the possible reaction 
when and if he learns that his 
daughter’s hymen is, for whatever 
reason, not intact. T.I.’s daughter 
is not his property, nor is any other 
human being. Young women are 
fully capable of making their own 
informed choices about their bodies 
and their sexuality and certainly do 
not need to have their sexualities or 
bodies policed.

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

Brittany Bowman can be reached 

at babowm@umich.edu.

T

his month, November 2019, 
marks the 30th anniversary 
of the fall of the Berlin 
Wall, one of the most momentous 
events of the 20th century. In many 
regards, the German reunification 
was an unbridled success: After 
being divided for more than four 
decades, the nation was able to come 
together quickly and peacefully, 
bridging major divides. On the 
surface, this reunification appears to 
be a miraculous success story. Since 
1990, all of Germany has cheered for 
the same national soccer team, used 
the same currency and operated 
politically as one united nation. 
However, below the surface, 
there are many signs that Germany’s 
seemingly 
smooth 
reunification 
process failed to address significant 
political, social and economic divides 
between the former East and West 
states. In recent years, increasing 
political polarization and rising 
cultural tensions have highlighted 
this problem, and in order to move 
forward, Germany and the world at 
large must critically re-evaluate the 
successes and failures of reunification.
Currently, 
the 
most 
obvious 
concern for Germany is the large-scale 
inequality that still exists between 
the affluent former West and the 
comparatively less well-off former 
East. Though the gap has shrunk in 
absolute terms since 1990, at which 
point the former East produced only 
8 percent of Germany’s GDP, a large 
chasm still exists. Today, Germany’s 
six poorest states (measured in GDP 
per capita) are the six that formerly 
composed East Germany. 
Furthermore, 
the 
disparity 
between disposable incomes in 
the former East and West states 
has 
actually 
increased 
since 
reunification. In 1991, former East 
Germans averaged 61 percent of what 
West Germans made in disposable 
income. Today, that difference has 
increased. Unsurprisingly, people 
from both the former West and 
East believe the two regions still 
have unequal living conditions — 

66 percent from the West and 74 
percent from the East. 
Though the German government 
has 
poured 
money 
into 
the 
former East since reunification, 
it has not been able to effectively 
bridge the economic gap between 
Germany’s two regions. In the years 
immediately 
after 
reunification, 
the German government used the 
poorer former East as a testing 
ground for new neoliberal policies. 
Unfortunately, this experiment did 
not promote increased economic 
growth in the former East to the 
degree many had hoped for. Today, 
only 7 percent of Germany’s 500 
biggest companies are based in 
the East. Historically, the most 

effective method of overcoming 
Germany’s economic chasm has 
been direct state expenditure into 
the former East in the form of 
solidarity payments, but these were 
largely used in the years immediately 
following reunification, and are not 
a particularly sustainable way to 
develop the East. It is imperative that 
Germany finds a way to address this 
wealth gap, since it ties into nearly all 
of the other divisions that exist today. 
A major cultural wedge still 
exists between the former East and 
West, which has been highlighted 
and worsened in recent years, most 
particularly by an influx of refugees 
and migrants into Germany. This 
divide, which is descended from a 
larger debate on what constitutes 
being “German,” is in part derived 
from Germany’s history of “jus 
sanguinis” 
inherited 
citizenship 

policy, which prioritizes German 
ancestry — not German residency 
— in determining national status. 
This ideology was thrust into 
the spotlight after the fall of 
communism, particularly after a 
number of Russians with German 
ancestry were granted citizenship, 
while ethnically Turkish German 
residents, who lived exclusively in 
the former West, were not. In 2000, 
Germany finally adopted a more 
modern citizenship system, but the 
sentiment that citizenship should be 
tied to ethnic background still exists, 
particularly in the former East. 
This internal conflict was again 
reinvigorated when Germany began 
accepting large numbers of refugees 
in the early 2010s. Today, the six 
states composing the former East 
have far fewer migrants than the rest 
of Germany and are categorically 
less supportive of Germany’s liberal 
immigration policies. Though the 
former West’s prevailing sentiment 
is that Germany should present 
itself as a bulwark of liberalism, this 
view is not particularly popular 
in the former East. Instead, many 
Germans in the former East 
believe 
refugees 
and 
migrants 
are dangerous and should not be 
welcomed. In many ways, this belief 
is rooted in Germany’s geographic 
inequalities: Many residents of 
the former East think they have 
received insufficient support from 
the modern German government 
and feel it is unfair that Germany 
devotes energy and resources 
to resettling migrants as they 
continue to suffer. Considering 
Germany’s 
political 
systems, 
institutions and parties descend 
from the former West, the former 
West’s outsize population gives 
it more electoral influence — 
hence why the former East feels 
somewhat put-upon.

Zack Blumberg can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu.

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

A major cultural 
wedge still exists 
between the former 
East and West

A 

couple 
weeks 
ago, 
my 
colleague Timothy Spurlin 
wrote 
a 
great 
article 
explaining why fossil fuel divestment 
is necessary and why the University 
of Michigan should divest. He is 
right, but I want to go over some 
of the logistical barriers that are 
preventing U-M from divesting. 
In the column, Spurlin says that 
divesting is complicated. He’s not 
wrong that the process of divestment 
would be difficult, but President 
Mark Schlissel could take the clear 
and obvious first step of letting the 
President’s Commission on Carbon 
Neutrality discuss divestment. 
On Oct. 4, 2018, President Schissel 
created the PCCN. He charged the 
commission to recommend a path 
for the University to achieve carbon 
neutrality and to contribute to a 
“sustainable and just world.” While 
the commission’s charge is nominally 
ambitious, it is also contradictory; 
the PCCN was created to get the 
University to carbon neutrality, but 
it cannot engage with some of our 
biggest sources of carbon, including 
the expansion of the Central 
Power Plant and investments in 
fossil fuels. Schlissel has explicitly 
banned 
the 
commission 
from 
discussing these issues. This ban 
is especially egregious because the 
University has at least $1 billion of 
its endowment invested in fossil 
fuels extraction. And that number 
is rapidly increasing. Our tuition 
money is directly bankrolling the 
very industry creating the climate 
crisis. Refusing to even discuss the 
possibility of extricating U-M money 
from the fossil fuel industry means 
the University, even if it achieves 
carbon neutrality on its campuses, 
will continue footing the bill for the 
extraction and burning of fossil fuel 
around the globe. For this reason, 
Schlissel should let the commission 
discuss divestment. 
How do we know the University 
has $1 billion invested in fossil 
fuels? Of the University’s $12.4 
billion endowment, 8.2 percent 
of that money is devoted to 
“Natural Resources,” which brings 
the total to over $1 billion. The 
University is somewhat secretive 
about where the money from its 
endowment is going. We only have 
access to the most recent years of 
investments, but here are some of 
the highlights: In April 2018, the 
University invested $75 million 
into Kayne Private Energy Income 
Fund II, L.P., a natural resources 
private equity fund that “will take 
advantage of increased long-term 
demand for natural gas … and … will 
acquire large, long-life gas assets.” 
They also committed $50 million to 
PetroCap Partners III, L.P. to invest 
in “strong operators in oil and gas 
projects.” 
The University also says that the 
“Natural Resources” category of the 
endowment is not just oil and gas. 
They recently changed the section 
name from “Energy” to “Natural 
Resource” to suggest they are 
transitioning their investments to 
renewable energy sources. However, 
when 
comparing 
the 
relative 
returns 
of 
U-M’s 
investments 
to market-wide standards, they 
compare it to “the MSCI World 
Energy Sector Index, as energy is 
by far the largest component of this 
asset class.” “Natural Resources” 
really just means “Oil and Gas.” 
And the transition from oil and gas 
to renewables, if it is happening 
at all, is going slowly. The recent 
endowment reports show that of 
the 11 recent “Natural Resources” 
investments, 10 are in oil and gas 
and one is in renewables. 
Why should the University 
divest? Besides the University’s 
own goal of carbon neutrality, 
the most recent reports from 
the Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change say that humans 
need 
to 
nearly 
halve 
global 
greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 
to avoid the worst consequences 
of the climate crisis. If we trust 
these 
scientifically-based 
limits 
on greenhouse gases, it makes no 
sense to continue investing in fossil 
fuel projects that only encourage 
further extraction and burning of 
fossil fuels for the next 30 years. We 
need to undo these investments, 
stop 
making 
the 
investments 
altogether or at the very least have a 
conversation about it. But President 
Schlissel won’t allow the PCCN to 
have the conversation. 
Also, fossil fuels meet the 
University’s 
own 
criteria 
for 
divestment. When asked about 
divestment by both faculty and 
students at the President’s Special 
Town Hall on Carbon Neutrality on 
April 9, Schlissel said, “Essentially, 
we don’t divest,” and ended the 
conversation. He is mistaken. The 
University has actually divested 
twice and even has an explicit 
policy for divestment, though it is 
insufficient and unclear, as I wrote 
last April. Despite this lack of clarity, 
fossil fuels meet the policy’s three 
criteria for divestment. 

The 
first 
criterion 
is 
that 
“The concern to be explored 
must express the broadly and 
consistently held position of the 
campus community over time.” 
There is absolutely broad student 
and faculty support for divestment 
right now. On the student side, 
more than 10,000 people came to 
the Washtenaw County Climate 
Strikes in March and September, 
respectively. 
After 
the 
March 
15 strike, students conducted an 
extended study-in at the Fleming 
Administration Building for three 
weeks, calling for — among other 
things — divestment. On the faculty 
side, more than 300 staff members 
signed a letter last year calling 
for the University to divest from 
fossil fuels. Not only is there broad 
consensus right now, but there has 
been consensus for a long time. The 
Daily wrote editorials calling for 
fossil fuel divestment in 2014 and 
2015. 
The second criterion is that, 
“There must be reason to believe 
that the behavior or action in 
question may be antithetical to 
the core mission and values of the 
University.” The only way that 
fossil fuel investments do not meet 
this criterion is if you believe that 
investing in fossil fuels does not 
accelerate the climate crisis, or 
that contributing to the climate 
crisis is not antithetical to the 
University’s core values. Schlissel 
created the PCCN to recommend a 
path to carbon neutrality for U-M 
and to contribute to a sustainable 
and just world. This mission 
statement shows that the University 
recognizes its contributions to 
the climate crisis as antithetical 
to its core values. The University’s 
investments in fossil fuels are one 
such significant contribution, and 
should be treated as incongruent 
with its core values.
The third criterion is that, 
“There must be reason to believe 
that the organization, industry 
or entity to be singled out may 
be 
uniquely 
responsible 
for 

the 
problems 
identified.” 
One 
hundred fossil fuel companies are 
responsible for 71 percent of global 
emissions. Furthermore, fossil 
fuel companies like Exxon Mobil 
were aware of climate-changing 
risks from burning fossil fuels as 
far back as the 1970s, but concealed 
that science while undertaking 
massive, expensive disinformation 
campaigns to sow doubt in our 
society about the independent 
scientific 
evidence 
of 
climate 
change. This industry is uniquely 
responsible both for creating the 
climate crisis and for concealing its 
risks for decades.
So, the University has reason 
to divest from fossil fuels to follow 
its divestment policy, accomplish 
its goal of carbon neutrality and 
help the world meet the IPCC’s 
scientifically-required 
reductions 
in 
greenhouse 
gases. 
The 
University also has experience with 
divestment. When the University 
divested from South Africa during 
Apartheid and from the tobacco 
industry, it created committees to 
discuss and recommend whether or 
not to divest. The commission could 
serve a similar purpose, but U-M 
explicitly forbid its members from 
discussing divestment.
Finally, Schlissel should let the 
commission 
discuss 
divestment 
because it is a reasonable thing to 
do! Schlissel says he is no expert 
in carbon neutrality, which is why 
he 
appointed 
the 
commission. 
And to members of the Climate 
Action Movement, he says that 
we 
should 
trust 
the 
process 
and 
recommendations 
of 
the 
commission. But by silencing the 
commission on divestment, Schlissel 
shows that he does not trust it and is 
not committed to the political and 
financial steps required for U-M 
to achieve full carbon neutrality. 
The University should trust its 
experts on the commission to make 
decisions about our entire carbon 
footprint, not just the carbon sources 
that are convenient to eliminate. 
What is frustrating about this for 
me personally is that it would not 
be logistically hard to allow the 
commission to discuss divestment. 
All Schlissel has to do is give the 
order and the process would start. 
And while I don’t know this for sure, 
I speculate the expert members 
of the PCCN would be excited to 
hold productive discussions on 
divestment.
The PCCN could even look to 
peer institutions for guidance. Many 
universities have already divested, 
both for moral and financial reasons. 
In September, two officials from the 
University of California co-authored 
an op-ed explaining they are 
divesting 
for 
financial 
reasons 
(though it was more likely organized 
pressure from students and faculty). 
They said, “We continue to believe 
there are more attractive investment 
opportunities in new energy sources 
than in old fossil fuels.” 
Syracuse University, which also 
moved towards divestment from 
fossil fuels in 2015, reported that 
divesting from fossil fuels did not 
hurt the endowment. The University 
of Massachusetts, University of 
Maryland 
and 
Smith 
College 
have also divested. Letting the 
commission talk about fossil fuel 
divestment would align with the 
University’s stated value of carbon 
neutrality. This would allow the 
University’s divestment guidelines 
to work as intended, give appropriate 
weight to the severity of the 
scientifically-established, 
ongoing 
damage from the climate crisis and 
bring U-M into alignment with 
peer institutions working on carbon 
neutrality.

The University should 

trust its experts on the 

commission to make 

decision about our 

entire carbon footprint 

Solomon Medintz can be reached 

at smedintz@umich.edu.

