“I felt that two things 
couldn’t be true at the 
same time,” Zipursky said. 
“I wish I could tell myself 
that the joy I was feeling 
was real, and just because I 
was having fun didn’t mean 
I wasn’t taking what I had 
been through and my pain 
seriously … We are allowed 
to feel all of it and to feel 
fully alive, whatever that 
means for us.”
Zipursky 
said 
some 
survivors 
feel 
they 
are 
incapable 
of 
developing 
meaningful 
connections 
during the healing process, 
such as through friendship 
or a romantic partner. She 
said helping others is a 
community effort between 
survivors and allies. 
“Community is a source 
of resiliency and healing,” 
Zipursky said. 
Zipursky said healing is 
different for each survivor 
due to a variety of factors, 
including 
socioeconomic 
status, 
sexuality, 
race 
and 
gender. 
She 
said 
prescriptive advice can lead 
to a singular sexual assault 
narrative being accepted, 

and those who do not relate 
to that experience or set of 
identities can feel silenced.
“I am a cis white hetero 
woman from a great deal 
of financial and economic 
privilege, 
and 
I 
was 
harmed by a cis man,” 
Zipursky 
said. 
“That 
follows a specific narrative 
of survivorship. This is the 
narrative that gets told 
most. I have friends whose 
story doesn’t follow this 
same narrative and feel very 
invalidated … Especially 
when it comes to people 
who are survivors who are 
queer and/or trans. There 
is this thing that happens 
due 
to 
homophobia 
and transphobia in our 
country, 
especially 
for 
child sex abuse survivors, 
people 
will 
pathologize 
survivors.”
Zipurksy also explained 
how 
the 
#MeToo 
movement 
has 
impacted 
how survivors who are 
privately coping perceive 
their trauma.
“I see it a lot with 
sharing our stories and 
being a public survivor,” 
Zipursky said. “Especially 
in this moment in time, in 
this 
particular 
iteration 
of Tarana Burke’s MeToo 

movement, we see a lot 
of public survivors who 
are being exalted as being 
courageous and brave, and 
it is having an unintended 
effect of having survivors 
who feel that doesn’t feel 
that is part of their healing 
journey feel less brave.”
In an interview with The 
Daily after the event, LSA 
senior Nicole Ireland said 
she enjoyed the discussion 
about using sex as a method 
for reclaiming a sense of 
control over one’s body.
“I like to hear about how 
sex can be used in a positive 
way and to take back your 
bodily 
autonomy, 
just 
having that control over 
the choices you make and 
how that can be helpful for 
those who have felt their 
choice has been taken away 
in the past,” Ireland said. 
LSA senior Celine Roest 
said events such as these 
are 
crucial 
to 
creating 
a 
supportive 
campus 
environment.
“This is something that 
is so prevalent in the news 
and the media that we get,” 
Roest said. “Bringing in 
experts who can break it 
down for us and answer 
our specific questions is so 
helpful.”

In an email to The Daily, 
University 
spokesperson 
Rick Fitzgerald confirmed on 
Tuesday that the president’s 
office had received the letter 
and that Schlissel would 
respond directly to Climate 
Blue once he had time to 
review it.
In 
the 
letter, 
Climate 
Blue asks the University to 
drop its charges against the 
arrested climate advocacy 

protestors who sought a 
meeting with Schlissel at 
the Fleming Administrative 
Building on March 15, 2019.
Rackham student Akash 
Shah, one of the co-directors 
of 
Climate 
Blue 
and 
a 
delegate at COP 25, said she 
does not feel the group’s 
requests are unreasonable.
“What we’re asking for 
is not unreasonable,” Shah 
said. 
“We’re 
asking 
for 
something that is important 
for 
us 
and 
for 
future 
generations. 
So, 
I 
think 
it’s wrong to punish us for 
making these demands. And 
I think that the University 

should continue to provide 
a platform where we can 
express our views.” 
According 
to 
Rackham 
student Juan Jhong Chung, 
who 
participated 
in 
the 
protests at COP 25, the 
movement was a peaceful 
demonstration 
led 
by 
activists who felt their voices 
were 
excluded, 
despite 
climate change having a 
disproportionate impact on 
them. Jhong Chung claimed 
the U.N. called security and 
the Spanish police to remove 
them from the conference 
as they were protesting how 
large oil companies had a 

voice in the negotiations.
“It was really frustrating 
to see politicians bend over 
backwards to appease big 
polluters 
like 
Chevron, 
Exxon and BP and make 
them 
be 
a 
part 
of 
the 
solution to climate change 
when these companies have 
not even acknowledged that 
they are the main culprits 
of these problems,” Jhong 
Chung said.
Rackham student Alexa 
White said this was her third 
time attending the COP. She 
said the idea to write the 
letter to the administration 
came 
about 
during 
the 

second week of COP 25 when 
the member countries were 
struggling to make progress 
in the negotiations. 
“Week-two delegates were 
very interested in what we 
could do on a larger scale,” 
White said. “So, most of 
the stakeholders and the 
things that we were doing 
were … not as impactful for 
the administration of the 
University … we just thought 
we want U-M to respond with 
urgency as it was presented 
at the convention.”
Jhong Chung said while 
the 13 delegates collectively 
wrote the letter, he said he 

worked to include specific 
recommendations 
for 
the 
University to divest from all 
fossil fuel investments and 
to center carbon neutrality 
efforts around social justice.
“The connection between 
indigenous 
people 
and 
climate change is highly 
interrelated,” Jhong Chung 
said. “The fact that we have 
taken their land, the fact 
that so many construction 
projects of fossil fuels or 
other 
natural 
resources 
are in indigenous people’s 
lands are part of why we are 
currently in this crisis.”

Bill 
McAllister, 
general 
manager 
of 
transportation 
at the University, noted they 
also chose to partner with 
Clever 
Devices 
because 
many area transit agencies in 
southeastern Michigan use the 
same technology.
“It gives us a lot of synergy 
with these other organizations 
so we can pool our resources 
together to troubleshoot items, 
and also be competitive when 
we ask for new features and 
things that we want to see from 
Clever Devices,” McAllister 
said. “We are much stronger 
stakeholders being together 
like that.”
Michael 
Berg, 
a 
Music, 
Theatre & Dance and LSA 
junior, said he uses the bus 
almost every day, and the 
change to U-M Magic Bus has 
made planning trips to and 
from North Campus easier.
“Overall, the new bus app is 
an improvement,” Berg said. 
“A greater proportion of blue 
buses overall are displayed in 
the new app versus the old one, 
which makes a big difference, 
because you can’t plan for 
new buses that you can’t see. 
Also, the estimated arrival 
times in the new systems are 
much more accurate than in 
DoubleMap.”
According to Transportation 
Senior 
Supervisor 
Michael 
Denemy, 
the 
increased 
visibility of buses on the map 

is the result of drivers logging 
into the Magic Bus system for 
their shifts.
“In 
the 
current 
system, 
it’s a several-year-old tablet 
on 
a 
vehicle 
that 
doesn’t 
necessarily 
update 
in 
real 
time,” Denemy said. “So, if it’s 
not communicating correctly 
to the server, then your vehicle 
isn’t going to correctly pop up 
on the map. In the new system, 
it’s 
all 
handled 
internally, 
so we shouldn’t see many 
instances of that anymore.”
Denemy said the Magic Bus 
system utilizes a prediction 
algorithm that considers the 
route, schedule database and 
real-time 
vehicle 
location 
data, 
helping 
increase 
the 
app’s accuracy.
“In the past, DoubleMap 
did not consider the schedule 
information or the historical 
data,” Denemy said. “Now it’s 
tied in there. It knows what 
the trips are, it knows what 
bus is performing that trip, so 
it can better predict where the 
vehicle is going to be, where 
the vehicle is intending to be. 
It also stores that information 
over the past 30 days or so. It’s 
a weighted average to make 
that even more accurate than 
it currently is, because it will 
take in real traffic patterns 
over the course of a month.”
Despite the perks, Berg still 
thinks the app has much to 
improve.
“The new app is still a bit 
clunky,” Berg said. “It doesn’t 
open directly to the live map, 
which I think for students, 

that’s the feature they use most. 
It’s not terribly responsive, 
and the bus positions don’t 
update 
terribly 
frequently, 
which makes it hard to tell if 
you’re viewing buses live or 
viewing buses that were there 
when you closed it hours ago.”
LSA 
freshman 
Rachel 
Himmel 
downloaded 
the 
app so she could familiarize 
herself with it before the 
official transition.
“I’ve 
definitely 
noticed 
some 
problems 
with 
it,” 
Himmel said. “Sometimes, I’ll 
check it whenever (the bus is) 
12 minutes out. When I check 
it again five minutes later, and 
whenever I try to do it and 
load the exact same thing I had 
previously done, it will tell me 
that there’s an error and that 
they’re experiencing technical 
difficulties right now.”
Babut said when the U-M 
Magic 
Bus 
app 
was 
first 
released, many of the users’ 
difficulties were caused by 
planned system outages. Babut 
said he values the community 
input on the app.
“We do welcome feedback 
and acknowledge that all apps 
are different, and we continue 
to listen to feedback,” Babut 
said. “It seems like the most 
consistent 
feedback 
we’re 
hearing is improving the rate 
that the bus refreshes on the 
app to provide a more fluid 
experience. We’ve heard that, 
and we’ve recognized that 
feedback, and we’re working 
with the supplier to improve 
that frequency.”

JSAN 
encouraged 
scholars and educators from 
colleges 
and 
universities 
across the world to sign 
the letter in support of 
condemning 
Trump’s 
executive order. More than 
100 names are attached to 
the letter, including faculty 
and staff at the University 
such as Veidlinger, Karla 
Goldman, 
Sam 
Shuman, 
Anita Norich, Rachel Rafael 
Neis and Shachar Pinsker.
Lila 
Corwin 
Berman, 
Temple University history 
professor and member of 
the 
JSAN 
coordinating 
committee, 
said 
the 
order specifically targets 
students who have origins 
tied to Israel, including 
Palestinian 
and 
Muslim 
students. Berman discussed 
the necessity of learning 
about 
the 
histories 
and 
the 
conflicts 
related 
to 
Israel, which she said will 
be hindered as the order is 
implemented in college and 
university campuses.
“Suddenly, 
there 
are 
people who feel like they 
don’t want to touch it, they 
don’t want to get involved,” 
Berman said. “You have 
this area of study that is 
incredibly 
important 
to 
think 
about 
historically, 
to think about politically, 
economically, in all these 
lenses that academia can 
bring, that people are going 
to feel like they can’t talk 
about it or they will face 
consequences. 
And 
that 
some people, by virtue of 
their identity, be seen as 
suspects already for this.”
National Jewish affinity 
groups 
have 
differed 
in 
their response to the order. 
While 
critics 
question 
if Trump is using it as a 
political tool to lure in 
Jewish support, prominent 
organizations such as the 
Anti-Defamation 
League 
and 
American 
Jewish 
Committee have released 
statements supporting the 
order.
The AJC noted it will 
continue 
to 
speak 
out 
against 
any 
“rational 
criticism” of Israel, though 
it does not see this order 
as an attempt to stifle free 
speech.
“We trust that a careful 
application of this directive 
will 
enable 
university 
administrators 
to 
avoid 
running afoul of free speech 
protections as they seek to 
root out anti-Semitism on 
their campuses,” AJC CEO 
David Harris wrote in a 
statement.
Students, faculty split 
on potential impacts of 
order
In addition to noting his 
department will not make 
any 
changes 
because 
of 
the order, Veidlinger said 
the order has no practical 
purpose, besides signaling 
to 
academia 
that 
they 
are being watched by the 
government.
“I think they recognize 
that universities promote 
liberal values of tolerance, 
diversity 
— 
and 
those 
values are an anathema to 
the current government,” 
Veidliner said.
LSA 
sophomore 
David 
Zwick, 
president 
of 
Wolverines 
for 
Israel, 
acknowledged 
that 
academic 
overreach 
by 
the federal government is 
a prominent concern but 
said anti-Semitism was a 
problem that many Jewish 
students face. 

“Students 
feel 
frankly 
scared 
to 
walk 
around 
wearing symbols of Judaism 
publicly, like a yamaka or a 
Star of David, on some of the 
most diverse campuses that 
we have, not only diverse but 
one of the most prestigious 
college campuses in this 
country,” Zwick said.
Goldman, 
a 
professor 
of 
Judaic 
studies 
and 
program director of Jewish 
Communal Leadership who 
signed the JSAN letter, said 
the executive order may feel 
unsettling for many in the 
Jewish community because 
she believes singling out 
Jewish people may lead to 
increased anti-Semitism.
“We discussed this in 
class, 
this 
blurriness 
of 
what Jewish identity is in 
general,” 
Goldman 
said. 
“It’s not just a religion, it’s 
not just a culture, it’s not 
just a peoplehood. But these 
things, like nationality or 
race, are just very clumsy 
fits, as well as religion. 
Those 
are 
categories 
that our culture gives us 
that aren’t great fits for 
describing an identity that 
has lots of facets and means 
different things to different 
people.” 
After the executive order 
was signed, students and 
activist groups on campus 
alternatively praised and 
criticized the move. 
Social 
Work 
student 
Simeon Adler is currently in 
the first year of the Jewish 
Communal 
Leadership 
Program. 
Adler 
said 
Trump’s 
decision 
may 
further 
alienate 
Jewish 
students. 
“It singles out the Jews 
themselves, which I think a 
lot of Jews on campus and in 
general are really skeptical 
about, and a little cautious 
about,” Adler said. “This 
whole idea of labeling us as 
a nationality has people a 
little uneasy.”
Students 
also 
acknowledged 
that 
the 
order will influence the 
academic freedom of faculty 
teaching about Israel.
LSA 
senior 
Silan 
Fadlallah, who took The 
Arab-Israeli 
Conflict 
in 
Middle Eastern Literature 
and Film, noted that the 
executive 
order 
could 
have 
a 
negative 
impact 
on 
discussions 
in 
the 
classroom, specifically for 
Palestinian students.
“Some 
Palestinian 
students, specifically, may 
feel a little less encouraged 
to be able to participate in 
these types of discussions 
for 
fear 
of 
being 
anti-
Semitic,” 
Fadlallah 
said. 
“Personally, 
I 
have 
no 
problem 
speaking 
out 
about it and standing up for 
myself, but I know a lot of 
students would take a step 
back because of that.”
Deborah 
Dash 
Moore, 
Frederick 
G.L. 
Huetwell 
professor 
of 
history, 
currently teaches several 
courses related to Jewish 
history and culture. Moore 
said she will focus her 
classes more on the history 
and methods of combating 
anti-Semitism. 
“That approach I will 
probably pay a little more 
attention to because those 
are efforts to dismantle 
the practice of anti-Semitic 
discrimination by explicitly 
calling 
upon 
American 
ideals, 
rather 
than 
grounding it in definitions 
of what constitutes as anti-
Semitism,” Moore said. 
Moore’s classes examine 
the 
history 
of 
Zionism, 
which 
Israel’s 
Ministry 

of Foreign Affairs defines 
as 
“an 
ideology 
which 
expresses the yearning of 
Jews the world over for 
their historical homeland — 
Zion, the Land of Israel.” 
Similar 
to 
Cheney-
Lippold, Fadlallah raised 
concerns that anti-Zionism 
could be considered anti-
Semitism when they are not 
the same. 
“Just because you are 
against the state of Israel, 
that does not mean you are 
against 
Jewish 
people,” 
Fadlallah said. 
According 
to 
Zwick, 
there are two main types 
of discussion surrounding 
Israel. The first is fair, 
just 
criticism 
of 
Israel 
similar to how any person 
could 
criticize 
the 
U.S. 
However, in Zwick’s eyes, 
the second type — criticism 
that 
disproportionately 
scrutinizes 
Israel 
— 
is 
unhealthy. 
Zwick 
thinks 
that pro-Palestinian groups 
are sometimes unable to 
distinguish between those 
discussions.
“Their 
claim 
that 
is 
that their free speech is 
being stifled, specifically 
disproportionately 
being 
stifled, I think that’s also 
ridiculous,” 
Zwick 
said. 
“The reason I say that is 
because what they accuse 
us of doing is conflating 
criticism 
of 
Israel 
and 
anti-Semitism, but really, 
it’s really they who are 
conflating it.” 
Education junior Diana 
Yassin has taken History 
244: The History of the 
Arab-Israeli Conflict and 
Political Science 353: The 
Arab-Israeli Conflict. She 
said the courses were taught 
with a pro-Israeli focus.
“I really don’t agree with 
the ways these classes are 
taught often just because 
I feel like it really neglects 
a lot of the Palestinian 
perspective 
and 
really 
puts a lot of blame on 
Palestinians,” Yassin said. 
Zwick, however, said he 
has not witnessed any bias 
in 
the 
Middle 
Eastern-
focused 
classes 
that 
he 
has taken. He noted anti-
Semitic 
teachings 
might 
not always happen in the 
topics strictly pertaining to 
Middle Eastern or Judaic 
studies. 
“A lot of the issues of 
anti-Semitism come from 
classes that are completely 
irrelevant 
to 
this 
topic, 
oftentimes in departments 
that 
you 
wouldn’t 
even 
imagine this would come 
up,” Zwick said. “Go and ask 
so many pro-Israel students 
on this campus … they will 
be painfully familiar with 
instances on this campus 
and/or on other campuses 
of 
teachers 
using 
the 
classroom as a platform 
to 
promote 
anti-Semitic 
movements against Israel.”
Goldman 
said 
universities 
should 
be 
places 
for 
encouraging 
conversations 
and 
broadening 
perspectives, 
and this order undermines 
that goal. Because of this, 
Goldman 
said 
she 
sees 
the order as a threat to 
academic freedom.
“Most of us are here 
because we want to have 
access to voice, to financial 
security — these things 
that a university can help 
provide — to legitimacy,” 
Goldman said. “Our hopes 
— our ideals — are that it’s a 
place for opening discourse, 
rather 
than 
shutting 
it 
down. And that’s why this 
(executive order) feels bad.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 — 3

LETTER
From Page 1A

ORDER
From Page 2

Rosenfeld discussed his 
predictions of what would 
happen 
moving 
forward 
from 
Hitler’s 
theoretical 
assassination. 
“And over the next few 
years, I argue two million 
Jews are going to be shipped 
to Palestine, largely thanks 
to the efforts of French 
German and Romania is the 
Navy’s of French France, 
Germany 
and 
Romania,” 
Rosenfeld said. 
After 
Rosenfeld 
spoke, 
University professors Devi 
Mays and Jeffrey Veidlinger 
began 
a 
discussion 
that 

focused largely on the duty 
of historians to follow in 
Rosenfeld’s 
footsteps 
and 
consider 
alternatives 
to 
certain histories. 
“I was very convinced by 
the case you made in the 
introduction to your book,” 
Mays 
said 
to 
Rosenfeld. 
“There is something very 
valuable 
for 
historians 
in 
doing 
counterfactual 
history. There are multiple 
things that are valuable.” 
When Ann Arbor resident 
Ted Beimoel heard about 
this seminar, he said he 
was interested in learning 
more about the “what ifs” of 
Jewish history and decided 
to attend.
“This 
seemed 
like 
an 
interesting 
alternative 

history,” 
Beimoel 
said. 
“Other than that, I don’t 
really know a lot about this 
topic.”
LSA senior Maya Tinoco is 
a Judaic studies minor and 
is taking the class “Jews in 
the Modern World: Texts, 
Images, Ideas.” Tinoco said 
the students in this class 
were encouraged to attend 
the event to learn more 
about Jewish history and 
what it could have been.
“I 
thought 
this 
topic 
would be really interesting,” 
Tinoco said. “‘What if’ is 
a really big topic in life in 
general, specifically, in this 
sort of history. It’s very 
interesting, like ‘what ifs’ 
could change a lot of the 
trajectory of history.”

HISTORY
From Page 1

APP
From Page 1

SAPAC
From Page 1

