Engineering 
sophomore 
Carla Voigt, the University’s liaison 
to the ABTS, said the passage of 
the proposal aligns with CSG’s past 
actions.
“We really just wanted to 
get the other Big Ten schools to 
be a part of the same thing that 
we were investigating, pulling 
out of investments in fossil fuel 
industries,” Voigt said. “It’s not 
unlike claims that we have made 
in the past or actions that we have 
done, like when we divested from 
the tobacco industry in 2000.”
Voigt said the legislation works 
hand in hand with other proposals 
passed at the conference, such as 
the University of Indiana’s proposal 
to create a sustainability committee.
The Climate Action Movement 
has been a big proponent of 
pressuring 
the 
University 
of 
Michigan to divest in the past year. 
They released a statement Tuesday 

in support of CSG’s resolution. 
Engineering senior Logan Vear, 
member of the Climate Action 
Movement and member of the 
President’s Commission on Carbon 
Neutrality, signed the statement.
“Today, students of the Big 
Ten have sent a clear message to 
the nation: the time has come for 
universities to act on the urgency 
of the climate crisis,” Vear wrote. 
“Divestment from the harmful 
fossil fuel industry can and must 
be normalized across the nation’s 
public-facing institutions.”
Vear compared calls to divest 
from fossil fuels to past massive 
student 
protests 
when 
the 
University divested from apartheid 
South Africa and the tobacco 
industry.
“The University of Michigan 
has precedent in this regard — 
past 
Administrations 
divested 
from apartheid South Africa and 
the tobacco industry after robust 
student-led activism,” Vear wrote. 
“Divesting the $1 billion U-M has 
invested in the fossil fuel industry 

requires the same moral urgency.”
Abdul El-Sayed, politician and 
runner up in the 2018 Michigan 
gubernatorial election, tweeted his 
praise for the resolution.
“This is a big deal,” El-Sayed 
wrote. “Our young leaders know 
what’s at stake. And they know 
what our major institutions need to 
be doing to defend us.”
Voigt said she was surprised but 
glad to see the support the proposal 
has gained among students as the 
issue of climate change is pressing. 
She said she is hopeful other work 
CSG and the ABTS does also 
receives similar attention.
“It’s definitely surprising, but at 
the same time, it’s also kind of not 
surprising because it is something 
that is really important,” Voigt 
said. “It’s really good to see it 
gain traction. I hope that some of 
the other things that we do gain 
traction in the future.”

can and decoding the genomic 
structure of the virus.”
Gallagher also commented on 
the quarantine of Wuhan city 
and several others in province, 
noting potential shortcomings of 
this strategy. 
“The 
problem 
with 
the 
quarantine is that the quarantine 
comes after this period of local 
coverup and a huge exodus of 
people 
from 
Wuhan, 
partly 
probably because of the fear 
of the virus, but also because 
Chinese New Year was about to 
happen and people were going 
home to celebrate the holiday,” 
Gallagher said. “So, it’s not really 
clear to me that the quarantine 
is going to stop the virus from 
spreading.” 
Adam Lauring, an infectious 
disease specialist at Michigan 
Medicine, described the likely 
origin of the virus in humans 

as well as likely first treatment 
steps.
“Based 
on 
the 
sequences 
that are out now and have been 
analyzed, there was probably one 
animal to human spillover event 
that happened probably in late 
November or early December, 
and since then the virus has 
been spreading from person to 
person,” Lauring said. “The first 
thing they’re probably doing is 
a lot of what we call ‘supportive 
care.’ The biggest issue is that 
it 
apparently 
causes 
a 
bad 
pneumonia or lung infection, 
and the thing that most people 
would be needing would be help 
with their breathing.”
On 
Monday, 
University 
students 
received 
an 
email 
from 
the 
University 
Health 
Service concerning the novel 
coronavirus.
In the email, Preeti Malani, 
University of Michigan Chief 
Health 
Officer, 
wrote 
the 
University is closely monitoring 
the situation and the risk is 

minimal at this time. 
“While 
there 
are 
some 
confirmed cases in the U.S., 
no cases have been confirmed 
in Michigan,” Malani wrote. 
“Of the four potential cases in 
southeast Michigan that were 
recently submitted for testing, 
three have come back negative 
for the virus. University officials 
are monitoring the remaining 
case 
closely 
in 
partnership 
with local and state public 
health experts. At this time, 
the immediate health risk from 
2019-nCoV to the general public 
in the U.S. is considered low.”
In his email to the University, 
Malani wrote there are no 
confirmed cases of the virus 
in Michigan and out of three 
potential cases sent for testing, 
three came back negative. 
Lauring 
elaborated, 
saying 
hospitals and clinics in the 
University area are employing 
careful screening procedures to 
ensure that any potential cases 
are recognized and the threat of 

infection is minimized.
“People at the medical center 
and clinics, everyone’s being 
screened (who has) traveled in 
the past few weeks to try and 
identify people who might be at 
risk or might have an illness that 
could be due to the coronavirus,” 
Lauring said. “That is probably 
the biggest thing that’s going 
on here is just making sure that 
potential cases are evaluated 
and making sure that we’re 
not missing anyone that could 
potentially bring the virus here 
or spread it here.”
The University of Michigan 
has 
contacted 
all 
travelers 
registered to be in China or 
traveling there in the upcoming 
months 
and 
designated 
a 
University travel warning for 
China, in addition to convening a 
team of experts to monitor new 
developments. The same post 
clarified that currently there 
are 
no 
University-registered 
travelers going to the Hubei 
province at this time. 

In an email to The Daily, 
University spokesperson Kim 
Broekhuizen noted there are no 
University students currently in 
the province.
Michigan University Health 
Services 
has 
created 
an 
information page for the 2019 
novel coronavirus containing 
general 
information 
about 
transmission as well as avoidance 
and risk. According to UHS, the 
Center for Disease Control has 
been monitoring the virus and 
do not see it as an active threat 
to the U.S.
The lack of knowledge about 
the coronavirus outbreak is the 
main reason there is currently 
no vaccine. As a result, the 
future risks associated with 
this particular strain remain 
ambiguous. 
Lauring 
said 
a 
vaccine could potentially be 
developed, but the analysis and 
testing required will require 
several months of research.
“We’re probably months away 
at least from a vaccine,” Lauring 

said. “There’s a number of what 
would be called platforms for 
coronavirus 
vaccines 
where 
people have tried to develop 
vaccines for other coronaviruses, 
so what they would do would 
be modifying those approaches 
specifically for this new virus.”
Michigan Medicine volunteer 
Natalie White, LSA sophomore, 
said 
she 
trusts 
clinics 
and 
hospitals around the country to 
contain the virus’s spread.
“In general, I haven’t seen 
enough cases to personally feel 
concerned about it,” White said. 
“I have a pretty strong faith in 
Michigan Medicine and a lot 
of the medical establishments 
across 
the 
country 
that 
it 
shouldn’t be a huge deal. I feel 
like some people definitely are 
getting a little bit of hysteria 
surrounding it.”

Throughout the Magazine 
issue, the various essays argue 
the founding principles of the 
country — including liberty, 
equality and democracy — 
did not come to fruition when 
written into the Constitution. 
The 
practice 
of 
slavery 
contradicted these principles 
because 
Black 
Americans 
continuously fought for their 
democracy, 
Hannah-Jones 
said. She argues slavery is 
not only the foundation of 
American 
history, 
but 
is 
deeply embedded in society 
today through the country’s 
education, 
housing, 
health 
care systems and more. 
Hannah-Jones said she was 
inspired to write the series of 
essays because of the 400th 
anniversary 
of 
1619, 
and 
because she has been thinking 
about 1619 since high school 
when she took a Back studies 
course. She called attention 
to how frequently American 
youth 
learn 
about 
The 
Mayflower in 1620, but not 
about the arrival of The White 
Lion in 1619.
Hannah-Jones said the lack 
of education about The White 
Lion erases key moments in 
history, and the glorification of 
The Mayflower is an example 
of 
Americans 
choosing 
to 
remember 
only 
a 
positive 
perspective of their history. 
“(There’s) 
this 
idea 
of 
national memory,” Hannah-
Jones said. “How we create a 
sense of our history, who we 
are and what decisions are 
made about what we learn and 
what we don’t.” 
Hannah-Jones 
said 
she 
chose to focus on themes such 
as capitalism, healthcare, 
music and mass incarceration 
to shock readers about the 
modern 
implications 
of 
slavery. 
While Hannah-Jones has 
received accolades for her 
work, a group of historians 
publicly 
criticized 
the 
project, arguing it failed to 
properly address the origins 
of 
the 
Revolutionary 
War 
and 
Abraham 
Lincoln’s 
role 
in 
abolishing 
slavery. 
Additionally, 
Hannah-Jones 
said she received criticism 

for 
her 
statement 
that 
Black Americans fought for 
democracy alone. 
The New York Times issued 
a response to the historians, 
defending the factual backing 
of the project. Hannah-Jones 
said a minority of white people 
helped Black Americans in 
the fight for democracy, but 
most of the time, Black people 
fought 
independently 
for 
their 
rights. 
Hannah-Jones 
said 
she 
would 
ultimately 
not apologize for the way she 
framed her argument and the 
organizing principle of the 
U.S. is slavery, not democracy 
— people already know about 
the history of Lincoln, she 
said.
“The pushback is about the 
idea that even in the telling 
of our own story, we have to 
center the white people, and 
that we don’t give enough 
credit,” Hannah-Jones said. 
Hannah-Jones also spoke 
about the project’s personal 
effect on her. She became 
emotional when speaking of 
her grandmother, who was 
born in Mississippi and gave 
birth to Hannah-Jones’s father 
in a sharecropping shack on 
a plantation because Black 
people were not permitted 
to give birth in hospitals. 
Hannah-Jones 
said 
her 
grandmother died of diabetes, 
her father died before he 
was old enough to get social 
security benefits and her uncle 
died at 50 of cancer because he 
didn’t have insurance and in 
turn, couldn’t receive an MRI. 
“All I kept thinking was 
everyone was lost,” Hannah-
Jones said. “All lives still are 
lost because we can’t purge 
this 
anti-Blackness 
from 
our country. And then, I can 
somehow, everything that my 
grandmother 
suffered, 
she 
could not imagine that she 
had a grandchild who could 
do something like this in The 
New York Times.”
The 1619 Project has been 
adapted into an education 
curriculum. The project was 
sold and created into a series of 
books that go from elementary 
school, middle school, high 
school and adults. Hannah-
Jones is also currently working 
on marking slave auctioning 
sites in U.S. cities and creating 
a photojournalism series. 

Public Health student Janae 
Best 
appreciated 
Hannah-
Jones’s honesty and felt her 
thesis emphasized the pride 
Black Americans should feel 
about their place in the U.S.
“How truthful she was, 
how raw she was and how 
unapologetic she was about 
telling the truth that has been 
hidden for so long, and just 
reminding us of the fact that 
Black people have a right to 
this country,” Best said. “Even 
more so than white people do 
because of the fact that the 
country was founded based 
off of slavery. That was very 
empowering.” 

Rackham student Gabriel 
Gadsden applauded Hannah-
Jones for her frankness. 
“Just how frank she was 
and just how unapologetic she 
was,” Gadsden said. “It was a 
conversation, and I think that 
she truly embodied that. And I 
think that’s the conversation 
that we need to have about 
race in America … You know, 
at a certain point you just can’t 
sugarcoat it. You just have to 
say what it is. And if it’s going 
to make people uncomfortable, 
so be it, but that’s the best 
trajectory that we need to go 
in.”
Gadsden said he grew up 
with slavery as an important 
conversation 
at 
home. 
He 
said it is crucial to discuss 
unknown actors in history 
beyond the activists commonly 
discussed in textbooks.
“It’s always the right time 
to talk about slavery and to 
talk about it, not just through 
the lens of Martin Luther 
King and Malcolm X, and 
these big names, but as she was 
addressing, was that the unsung 
heroes,” Gadsden said. “About 
those people who names are 
forgotten, whose plantations 
have been whitewashed, to 
bring that to the forefront of 
the conversation as well.”
The purpose of the 1619 
Project, Hannah-Jones said, 
was indeed to celebrate unsung 
Black American heroes.
“This was about telling the 
story that people do not get, 
and this was about telling the 
story that Black Americans 
were not just sitting around 
waiting for equality,” Hannah-
Jones said. “That we fought 
every day.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, January 29, 2020 — 3A

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1A

1619
From Page 1A

CORONAVIRUS
From Page 1A

colorectal cancer.
“You have a normal colon 
that 
can 
develop 
(one 
of 
these) polyps — you can either 
have a germline mutation or 
develop somatic inactivation,” 
Carethers 
said. 
“Either 
possibility can affect DNA 
mismatch repair.” 
Anna 
Suk-Fong 
Lok, 
the Dame Sheila Sherlock 
Distinguished 
University 
Professor of Hepatology and 
Internal 
Medicine, 
began 
her career as a professor at 
the University of Hong Kong 
before deciding to move to the 
United States. She presented 
her work on viral hepatitis, 
of which the B and C strains 
are a leading cause of liver 
cancer.
Lok 
described 
her 
experience as a professor in 
medicine in the early 1990s. 

“In 1992, the chair of 
medicine told me to slow 
down because there was no 
more room to move up,” Lok 
said.
Lok went on to further 
explain 
her 
research 
on 
Hepatitis B and C. 
“These viruses can lead 
to 
chronic 
infection 
and 
cirrhosis, 
which 
means 
scarring of the liver, and in 
turn liver cancer,” Lok said. 
“Hepatitis B is more common 
globally, whereas Hepatitis 
C is more common in this 
country. Together, these two 
viruses result in roughly 1.2 
million deaths per year. This 
is the reason why, in 2015, the 
World Health Organization 
declared that we need to 
eliminate these viruses by 
2030.”
Scott E. Page, the John 
Seely Brown Distinguished 
University 
Professor 
of 
Complexity, Social Science 
and 
Management, 
then 

spoke about his research in 
cognitive 
diversity, 
which 
incorporates 
a 
fusion 
of 
different 
approaches 
to 
problem solving, including 
models.
“One of the things we do 
with models is we just explore 
the world,” Page said. 
Page 
then 
spoke 
about 
diversity, noting how it is 
closely related to accuracy.
“So, 
then 
here’s 
the 
question: Is more diversity 
better?” Page said. “As I ramp 
up diversity, you can just see 
accuracy go up.”
Business graduate student 
Gautam 
Kandlikar 
is 
one 
of Page’s students and said 
he found the lecture series 
inspiring.
“They’re 
gathering 
data, 
they’re 
analyzing 
systems, 
they’re creating new knowledge 
that helps us advance society, 
and 
I 
think 
that’s 
really 
fascinating,” Kandlikar said. 
“That’s really inspiring.”

RESEARCH
From Page 1A
BIG 10
From Page 1A

needs. 
The 
provost’s 
role 
though, is as a supervisor of 
the employees in the office. 
The provost does not sign off 
on cases, he doesn’t play a role 
in investigations, doesn’t play 
a role in assigning punishment 
in cases. He, in this case, was 
simply the supervisor of this 
function for the University. 
So, none of the cases that 
have come up during the 
months that the Provost was 
supervising, did he weigh in 
on the details of the case, but 
rather he was the supervisor 
for the office and responsible 
for its management and its 
budget. 
TMD: 
Given 
Provost 
Philbert oversaw OIE and 
was such an important figure 
at the University and now 
has 
accusations 
of 
sexual 
misconduct against him, how 
will the University ensure that 
this does not happen again? 
What steps will you take in 
hiring an interim provost – 
and all future administrators 
– to make sure they have no 
history of sexual misconduct?
MS: This sort of thing 
should never happen. So, if 
the allegations are proven 
true, and regardless, we have 
to think of how we select, 
and then vet our candidates 
for all different jobs at the 
University. … We have to look 
as carefully as we can of the 
people we hire to make sure 
that the likelihood of hiring 
people that have committed 
misconduct in the past or 
may commit it in the future 
is as low as possible. You 
can tell from all the reports 
around 
different 
parts 
of 
society, of episodes of sexual 
misconduct, 
that 
it’s 
not 
infrequent. And you know, 
our 
own 
survey 
data 
on 
campus have told us that it’s 
not infrequent. So, we’ve got 
to figure out how to do this 
better to figure out, how to set 
up a culture where this type of 
misbehavior, this category of 
misbehavior is not tolerated, 
that people feel comfortable 
to report it and to ask for help. 
That peers or other people in 
the environment that have 
suspicions that misconduct is 

occurring, feel comfortable 
and know how to report it. In 
terms of moving forward, the 
University, you know, really 
has to have a provost in place. 
So right now, I’m in the process 
of looking at people who have 
administrative 
experience 
and familiarity, because they 
sort of have to take over all at 
once, although I’ll be working 
with them very closely … And 
we’ll 
get 
talented 
people, 
it’s an important job. We’re 
fortunate at the University to 
have a large number of folks 
with a history of high-level 
service 
and 
demonstrated 
good 
judgment, 
and 
we’ll 
select and get a good person 
to serve.
The 
endowment 
and 
divesting from fossil fuels
TMD: At their last meeting 
in 
December, 
the 
regents 
voted down a $50 million 
investment 
into 
Vendera 
Resources, 
a 
company 
with assets in oil and gas 
production. Does this indicate 
a shift in the University’s 
investment pursuits? 
 MS: I just don’t have more 
to say about that now. I don’t 
have anything to add to the 
observation that you made. 
I’d love to talk about carbon 
neutrality 
efforts 
more 
generally, 
because 
they’re 
extremely important.
TMD: 
Do 
you 
believe 
the 
endowment 
should 
be 
governed 
by 
political 
ideology? 
MS: In general, the purpose 
of the endowment is to provide 
support for an area that we’ve 
agreed with a donor is an area 
that the University thinks 
is important and the donor 
wants to support. We make 
a commitment to the donor 
to be a good steward of their 
money. So that means trying to 
generate the right mix of risk 
and return, you know, that 
sort of yield to the investment 
so that in perpetuity, we 
can support the thing that 
we agreed upon — students’ 
scholarships, 
for 
example 
— and have the endowment 
grow so that its value is not 
eroded with inflation through 
the years. … So, I think that’s 
our 
primary 
responsibility 
… So, I’m giving a general 
answer. I’m not giving it in the 
instance of this issue or that 

issue or even your question of 
politics. I’m saying in general, 
our obligation to donors when 
we accept their money is to do 
this form of stewardship and 
support what we agreed to 
support. 
TMD: The Daily released a 
Statement piece in December 
about 
how 
mass 
student 
protests led up to divestment 
from apartheid South Africa. 
Just these last few days, 
Central Student Government 
passed a resolution with other 
Big Ten schools that demands 
the administrations of all the 
schools freeze all their fossil 
fuel investments. Do you see 
a connection between these 
situations?
MS: 
Well, 
the 
same 
words are used — the word 
divestment is used — so that’s 
an obvious connection. The 
details of the two causes 
that we’re talking about, I 
can’t make a statement, you 
know. 
It’s 
an 
interesting 
question. The fact that both 
CSG and then collectively 
the 
equivalent 
bodies 
all 
across the Big Ten made a 
statement about this, I think 
is important. I think we have 
to hear the student voice 
and respect it and try to 
understand it.
The President’s Commission 
on Carbon Neutrality
TMD: 
We 
reported 
earlier this month on the 
President’s Commission on 
Carbon Neutrality and how, 
in the process of preparing 
recommendations 
for 

achieving carbon neutrality, 
members 
of 
the 
Student 
Advisory Panel felt that the 
perspective of stakeholders 
such 
as 
themselves 
were 
overlooked. 
The 
co-chairs 
of the Commission, Jennifer 
Haverkamp 
and 
Stephen 
Forrest, also stated that they 
haven’t yet met with the other 
three advisory panels. What 
role do student perspectives 
have in the carbon neutrality 
process?
MS: I think we won’t be 
successful unless we have 
student 
perspectives, 
and 
more than just perspectives. 
You know, I think often we 

