The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, February 26, 2020 — 3A

SCHLISSEL
From Page 1A

ADVISING
From Page 1A

PENCE
From Page 2A

TMD: In late September, the 
Public Accountability Initiative 
released a report showing that 
$26 million of the University 
endowment was invested in 
private equity fund Lime Rock 
Partners as of October 2018. 
The fund finances oil driver Tim 
Dunn and Empower Texans, a 
conservative group that has a 
major role in supporting far-
right rhetoric and legislation, 
such as opposition to same-sex 
marriage, in Texas politics. 
In our interview last month, 
you told The Daily ideology 
does not play a large role in the 
endowment. Do you believe 
the University should work to 
incorporate the beliefs of the 
student body in its investments? 
MS: No. So, what I said last 
month is still the same. Imagine 
if we start making, as a filter for 
our investments, the perceived 
political beliefs of the people 
that own or manage the firm 
that’s doing the investing. Who 
gets to decide what political 
beliefs are allowed? And why 
should we make decisions about 
investment opportunities, not 
based on the risk and the reward 
of the investment, but based on 
our perception of whether we 
like the beliefs or not of the 
person who owns the business? 
I think that’s both inappropriate 
and very risky. You know, in 
a world where we value free 
speech and we value diversity, 
I think I can disagree with the 
owner of a business but still do 
business with the business. So, I 
don’t think those things should 
enter into investment decisions 
at all. … So, the student voice is 
important, but it doesn’t have a 
big input into the endowment. 
TMD: I guess I want to push 
you a little on that, because 
some of these organizations 
oppose same-sex marriage or 
gender-neutral 
bathrooms. 
Does the University not have 
an obligation to not invest in 
organizations that directly or 
indirectly might cause harm to 
others?
MS: 
My 
understanding 
is it’s not the organization 
that’s causing the harm, it’s an 
individual who is one of the 
owners of an organization who 
gets paid a profit because he’s 
running a business and that 
he decides or she decides what 
they want to do with that profit. 
Can you imagine how difficult 
it would be to make investment 
decisions at all if what we had 
to do was not just look carefully 
at the company we’re investing 
in and what they do but look at 
the people who benefit from 
those investments and what 
they do with the money they’re 
benefiting (from). I think that’d 
be almost an impossible task. 
TMD: Last interview, you 
said, and I quote, “We make a 
commitment to the donor to be 
a good steward of their money.” 
In the past, when the Regents 
have divested from apartheid 
South Africa and the tobacco 
industry, was there a financial 
indication that divestment from 
these industries was the best 
way to steward these donors’ 
money? Do you think they made 
the right call? 
MS: You know, it’s really 
tough to use hindsight to make 
these decisions. When it comes 
to the tobacco industry, it’s 
still a thriving, money-making 
business. So, it’s not clear that 
divestment affected the tobacco 
business, but way fewer people 
in your generation smoke than 
in my generation in college. 
So, I think there has been a 
movement away from cigarettes, 
which is a good thing. So, 
I think it’s complicated to 
assess 
whether 
divestment 
played a role in decreasing 
the popularity of smoking as 
compared to lots of research and 
then some good public interest 
campaigns 
and 
advertising. 
When it comes to apartheid, 
it’s also very hard. I think it’s 
unarguable that, in its day, 
apartheid was the most obvious 
and visible manifestation of 
evil in the world, affecting tens 
of millions of people. The fact 
that it was dismantled speaks to 
the consistency and bravery of 
many freedom fighters within 
South Africa, Mandela, the 
most famous of them. It speaks 
to a global pressure campaign 
that eventually influenced the 
government of that country. 
And I could imagine that the 

symbolism of people changing 
their 
investment 
patterns 
may also have influenced the 
eventual outcome. It’s hard 
to say what had the biggest 
responsibility for the very good 
change that occurred.
TMD: Do you think the 
symbolism 
of 
universities 
around the country divesting 
from fossil fuels could have the 
same impact?
MS: That’s a good question. 
I don’t know. Personally, I 
don’t think so. And the reason 
I don’t think so is, where I’d be 
spending my energy is working 
on demand for fossil fuels. So, 
what the divestment movement 
is working on is the supply of 
resources that that industry has 
to meet the demand. But, if the 
demand for fossil fuels goes up, 
there’ll always be entities that 
invest in fossil fuels, and the 
degradation of the environment 
will 
continue 
whether 
Michigan’s heavily invested in 
it or not. The symbolism I think 
is important to many people, 
and I see why. What I would be 
focusing on is putting pressure 
on our elected leaders to develop 
rules that hasten the transition 
to a low carbon economy. 
TMD: 
At 
the 
Regents 
meeting, a public commenter 
called on the University to make 
all endowment investments and 
records public. Is this something 
the University would consider?
MS: No. The reason why is 
we try to do research and hire 
smart people to help us invest 
our endowment to generate 
more money than the average 
investor. Over the last 20 years, 
we’ve averaged nearly 10 percent 
a year, and that’s with all the ups 
and downs of the economy over 
this very long period of time. It’s 
important to the University that 
we have a competitive advantage 
when it comes to our investment 
decisions. If we were to simply 
tell everyone what we’re going 
to do before we do it, we give up 
our competitive advantage.
Provost Martin Philbert 
and Robert Anderson
TMD: 
The 
Detroit 
Free 
Press 
recently 
released 
an 
article claiming the University 
administration 
knew 
about 
Provost 
Philbert’s 
alleged 
misconduct. One example was a 
lawsuit the University settled in 
2005 alleging Philbert engaged 
in 
inappropriate 
conduct 
with a female researcher in 
his toxicology lab. Another 
example 
is 
when 
former 
Provost Phil Hanson received 
multiple emails to investigate 
Philbert’s behavior. Do you have 
a response to these allegations?
MS: The things you mentioned 
are being investigated by the 
outside firm we’ve brought in 
to help us address allegations 
made against Provost Philbert. 
While those things are being 
investigated, I’m not going to 
talk about the details of the 
investigation, other than to say 
we have asked the investigators 
to address questions dating 
from the very beginning, so 
when the Provost worked for 
the University. … This case 
from the mid-2000s was when 
Provost Philbert was running 
a research lab, and it was an 
employment case brought by a 
male researcher that he let go. 
Nowhere in that lengthy lawsuit 
is sexual misconduct claimed 
against the Provost, and then 
during the adjudication case, 
there’s a discovery period where 
witnesses get deposed under 
oath, and nowhere was there a 
witness that said they observed 
sexual impropriety. 
TMD: 
Recent 
allegations 
against the late Dr. Anderson, 
former UHS Director and team 
physician, 
came 
out. 
What 
steps is the University taking to 
ensure that this pattern of sexual 
misconduct among high ranking 
University officials — and claims 
that the University was aware of 
them — stops now? Instead of 
providing support after the fact, 
how is the University working 
to proactively stop this before it 
happens?
MS: 
I 
think 
the 
most 
important thing in the short 
term is to understand as many 
facts as we can. We can look 
backwards and say, “What are 
the things that we might have 
done differently that would have 
prevented this inappropriate 
behavior from going on as long as 
it did?” That’s part of the goal of 
the investigation, to learn what 
those things are. But in general, 
we need to develop a culture, 
and every time I talk about 
this topic I say the same thing, 

where people feel comfortable 
coming forward when they 
either 
believe 
they’ve 
been 
mistreated, sexual misconduct 
or any other kind of misconduct 
or harassment or if they witness 
or hear about somebody else 
being treated mistreated. Then 
on our end, the promise is to 
take every one of these things 
seriously and investigate them 
thoroughly. … In the case of Dr. 
Anderson, who passed away 
more than a decade ago, it’s a 
little bit harder to investigate 
so far backwards. But our police 
did a very thorough job. The 
prosecutor, probably because 
Dr. Anderson had passed away, 
decided there weren’t criminal 
violations to be brought, but 
we’re continuing to investigate. 
We have a law firm helping us 
with that investigation. 
GEO Bargaining
TMD: During the public 
comment 
portion 
of 
the 
Regents meeting last Thursday, 
speakers 
claimed 
University 
Human Resources threatened 
not to negotiate over salary 
and benefits until the subjects 
of 
climate, 
housing 
and 
protections 
against 
sexual 
misconduct 
were 
dropped 
entirely from the coalition’s 
platform. If this is true, why is 
the University removing certain 
issues from the negotiating table 
completely? 
MS: I have read — although 
I’m 
not 
involved 
in 
the 
bargaining — that GEO wants 
to include issues about carbon 
neutrality and issues about 
things that don’t just affect 
them but affect everybody. And 
you can imagine it might be 
difficult to have a negotiation 
with one particular subset of 
our community, or an issue 
that affects everybody in the 
community that we’re dealing 
with separately.
TMD: Both GEO and the 
University have agreed to reach 
a tentative agreement by March 
1. What can you tell us about 
how this process is going so 
far and how the University is 
working to support its graduate 
student employees? 
MS: I know that the clock 
is ticking as we’re heading 
towards March, so I would share 
a sense of anxiousness that we 
actually make serious progress, 
so we don’t bump up against 
the 
deadline. 
The 
graduate 
students are the lifeblood of the 
University, and we’re the biggest 
public research university in the 
country, if not the world. Most 
of that research is done by our 
graduate students. They’re our 
partners in scholarship, they’re 
our successors very often in the 
academy; they’ll be tomorrow’s 
professors 
and 
leaders 
in 
society. So, we’re invested in 
their success.
Health Services at U-M 
Flint and Dearborn
TMD: The 
University 
of 
Michigan 
offers 
UHS 
care 
to all students at the Ann 
Arbor 
campus. 
While 
the 
median income on the Flint 
and 
Dearborn 
campuses 
is 
significantly lower than on the 
Ann Arbor campus, they have 
no access to campus health 
services. Why is this?
MS: Although you can walk 
in to the health service here, 
it’s not free — you’re paying 
for it. So, there’s a student fee 
charged in Ann Arbor that’s 
specifically dedicated to the 
health service that pays for 
their budget, so you are paying 
for the health service. Flint and 
Dearborn in the past have each 
had on-campus health services 
that turned out to be used very 
rarely, and we think the reason 
why is most of the students in 
Flint and Dearborn come from 
the communities that surround 
Flint and Dearborn; in other 
words, they’re very often still 
living at home or living with 
their families in a community 
where they’ve already been 
functioning as adults, so they 
have their own health care. … In 
Flint and Dearborn, however, in 
both cases, the University makes 
arrangements for students that 
don’t have health care to get 
convenient health care. … So, 
rather than maintain their own 
and charge students to maintain 
it when it’s rarely used, they 
have relationships with local 
health centers.
News Editor Emma Stein can 
be reached enstein@umich.edu. 
Reporters Arjun Thakkar and 
Calder Lewis can be reached at 
arjunt@umich.edu and calderll@
umich.edu.

“Sometimes you don’t want to 
ask your personal questions in 
front of other people, especially 
when everyone else is trying 
to ask their questions in front 
of you, too,” Young said. “If I 
wanted to talk about my grades, 
I’d feel very self-conscious doing 
it in office hours rather than in 
one-on-one office hours.”
Young also said she worries 
about the number of questions 
the pre-health advisers need 
to answer in office hours while 
giving every student there an 
equal amount of their time. 
“At the office hours, I can 
tell that they are trying to get 
to everyone, so when I have 
multiple questions, I feel bad 
asking them when other people 
also have so many questions,” 
Young said. “So I have to ask 
one question, wait for others to 
ask theirs, and then ask another 
question and so on. I will hesitate 
and not ask a few, too, due to 
uncomfortability.”
David 
Brawn, 
associate 
director of the Newnan LSA 
Academic Advising Center, said 
two advisers have been added 
recently to help combat the 
extended wait times. Brawn 
advised students to also take 
advantage of other University 
programs 
for 
pre-health 
assistance.
“(We 
are) 
aware 
of 
the 
wait times for a pre-health 
appointment,” 
Brawn 
said. 
“We’ve been active in creating 
different ways for students to 
receive the guidance that they 
need. Additionally, students can 
take advantage of the University 
Career Center and the LSA 
Opportunity Hub, which also run 
excellent programs for students 
with pre-health interests.” 
LSA junior Hana Chung had a 
few quick questions and did not 
mind attending pre-health office 

hours last December. She said a 
more timid student may not feel 
as comfortable, however. Chung 
said she chose to go to office 
hours last November because she 
wasn’t able to find a one-on-one 
appointment until the next year. 
“It might have taken me more 
time, but it wasn’t necessarily 
a waste of time at all,” Chung 
said. “I’m usually not shy about 
asking questions or talking about 
personal things. I do think that 
it’d be stressful for someone who 
really isn’t comfortable being 
around other people and asking 
deeper, specific questions.”
LSA 
sophomore 
Natalie 
White said long wait times for 
the office hours can impact pre-
med students’ mental health. She 
waited a month and a half for her 
one-on-one pre-health advising 
appointment.
“It definitely impacts your 
mental health when you’re really 
stressed out about your pre-med 
track and you have a resource 
there to call but they say, ‘We can 
get you an appointment, just stay 
stressed out for another month 
and a half,’” White said. “If I was 
a freshman (at office hours) and 
I heard a junior say they were 
doing volunteering, research, 
had a great GPA and they were 
still stressed out, that would 
have made me really nervous for 
my future.”
White said she believes pre-
health office hours would be less 
daunting to students if they were 
tailored to students who meet 
certain criteria.
“For freshmen, it might be 
beneficial to section off the office 
hours for those who are literally 
just getting started,” White said. 
“And different office hours for 
people who are applying this 
round… And I think that will be 
super helpful and will make the 
situation less intimidating to go 
into since you know where other 
people will be when you get 
there.”
LSA 
junior 
Ria 
Mahesh 
was able to get a pre-health 

appointment within a week 
of calling the advising office 
as 
a 
sophomore. 
However, 
she said she was disappointed 
with the advice she was given 
at her appointment once the 
adviser noticed a few B’s on her 
transcript. 
“All she could tell me was I 
need to be better, otherwise I’m 
not going to get into med school,” 
Mahesh said. “She was just kind 
of like, this is the general path of 
what kids take and here’s what 
you’ve done so far. But her main 
point was you need to be better. 
I remember leaving not feeling 
very confident in my ability on 
being pre-med.”
Mahesh said she believes pre-
health advisers should remember 
that though they see a large 
number of students every day, 
they should try their best to offer 
support and encouragement. 
“I think when it comes to how 
they handle students that are 
struggling in a certain track or 
for guidance on how to exceed 
expectations in a certain track, 
they also need to understand 
there is someone there that 
needs support and not just needs 
to know what classes to take,” 
Mahesh said. “I feel if I had an 
adviser that had my back, I’d be 
much more confident in myself.”
Brawn also explained they 
have resources, such as general 
adviser 
meetings, 
readily 
available in the case of time-
sensitive matters. The Newnan 
LSA Academic Advising Center 
also has online resources that 
may answer some students’ 
questions.
“Advisers in the Newnan 
Center are trained to respond 
quickly to emergencies of all 
types and we regularly make 
sure that we either help students 
directly or put them in contact 
with the appropriate resources 
when addressing this kind of 
situation,” Brawn said.
Daily 
Reporter 
Saini 
Kethireddy can be reached at 
skethi@umich.edu.

Under 
the 
Trump 
administration, 
roughly 
6.7 
million jobs were created over 
the past 3 years. In Michigan, 
over the first 30 months of 
his presidency, 111,300 jobs 
were created. By comparison, 
Obama created 205,000 jobs in 
Michigan in his last 30 months 
of office.
Pence closed out his speech 
by encouraging the crowd to 
vote for Trump in 2020. 
“Between now and November 
we’re 
going 
to 
keep 
on 
marching,” Pence said. “We’re 
going to make Michigan and 
America more prosperous than 
ever 
before 
with 
President 
Donald Trump in the White 
House for four more years and 
with God’s help.” 
Across the street from the 
Marriot, 
protesters 
stood 
outside 
of 
the 
Children’s 
Hospital to express discontent 

with 
Trump’s 
health 
care 
policies. Since Trump has been 
in office, he has undertaken 
efforts to repeal the Affordable 
Care 
Act 
and 
roll 
back 
protections 
for 
pre-existing 
health conditions.
Deirdre 
Waterman, 
mayor 
of Pontiac, Mich., spoke at the 
Michigan 
Democrat’s 
anti-
Trump protest outside of the 
hospital to denounce how the 
president has dealt with health 
care since taking office.
“He has shown insensitivity 
and a total lack of understanding 
of the need to provide affordable, 
quality 
health 
care 
options 
that 
everyone 
can 
afford,” 
Waterman 
said. 
“In 
budget 
after budget, he fought to slash 
critical programs like Medicare 
and Medicaid, thus taking them 
from so many who depend on 
them. We stand out here today 
as the voice, speaking loudly 
and 
emphatically 
for 
those 
who you cannot hear. We want 
real solutions to real problems, 
not fake solutions and empty 
promises.”
Pam Borowi, a supporter of 

Trump and Rochester Hills 
resident, spoke to The Daily after 
the rally about her consistent 
support of the President and her 
experience at the rally. 
“I love Trump, and I love 
Pence, and I love everything 
they’re doing,” Borowi said. 
“Mike Pence outdid himself. I’d 
never heard him speak before, 
but he’s very charismatic and 
I really enjoyed hearing him. 
He tells it like it is. He’s very 
authentic.” 
LSA senior Kate Nachazel, 
former vice president of the 
University’s chapter of College 
Republicans, said in a statement 
to The Daily she supported 
Trump and Pence’s choice to 
host a rally in Michigan.
“Pence 
coming 
back 
to 
Michigan 
reaffirms 
that 
Michigan will be a key swing 
state in 2020,” Nachazel said. 
“Because it was so narrowly 
won in 2016, it is unsurprising to 
me that Trump and his team are 
starting early and prioritizing 
in Michigan.”
Reporter Julia Forrest can be 
reached at juforres@umich.edu.

GERSTEIN
From Page 1A

LSA senior Sulayman Qazi 
said he was inspired by the 
speakers, 
the 
Assembly 
and 
Gerstein. He was discussing how 
his boyfriend purchased a scarf 
in Jerusalem from a Palestinian 
vendor to send a message of unity 
when Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, 
environmental 
toxicologist 
and Ann Arbor City Council 
candidate, 
interrupted 
Qazi’s 
speech, calling for the Assembly 
to condemn sending military aid 
to Israel. 
“Heartwarming stories are not 
going to do it,” Savabieasfahani 
said. “Just pretty words mean 
nothing. Cut military aid to 
(Israel). Cut it off!” 
Audience 
members 
called 
for Savabieasfahani to sit down. 
Savabieasfahani 
continued 
speaking for approximately two 
minutes, at which point she left 
the meeting. 
Gerstein 
apologized 
for 
comments 
he 
made 
about 
Palestine 
in 
a 
2017 
video 
interview and op-ed. In a public 
apology posted to his Facebook 
page, he called his comments 
racist and harmful.

“The Palestinian community 
at this University is a community 
of this University,” Gerstein said. 
“We have a duty as a governing 
body 
to 
ensure 
Palestinian 
students don’t feel like they don’t 
have a space.” 
Qazi 
then 
finished 
his 
comments with a call for unity. 
The 
resolution 
condemning 
Gerstein’s comments passed with 
25 in favor and four abstentions. 
The Assembly then passed 
a resolution calling on the 
University to end its contract 
with Delta Airlines in response 
to the airline making hundreds 
of deportation flights for ICE in 
2019. 
LSA freshman and ex-officio 
member 
Drishaan 
Jain 
said 
the resolution is less about the 
financial impact on the airline 
and more about the Assembly and 
the University taking a stance on 
injustice. 
“We talked more last week 
about how if the goal of this 
resolution is to be more of a 
monetary or financial step that 
we are trying to take or if it’s just 
a symbolic resolution to show 
that the University wants to end 
its partnership with the company 
that is doing the deportation 
flights,” Jain said. “The focus of 
the resolution is … more about 

our partnership with them.” 
Rackham student Siddharth 
Singh Chaudhari raised concerns 
about the resolution’s efficacy 
and 
sentiment, 
saying 
the 
resolution was a form of tokenism 
in regard to the experience of 
undocumented immigrants. He 
said the resolution achieves little 
due to Delta’s limited response to 
the CSG action. 
“I think that a resolution of this 
nature smacks of us wanting to 
wipe off guilt without necessarily 
looking to achieve things that are 
tangible,” Chaudhari said. 
Chaudhari also noted some 
Assembly members said they 
would want a Taco Bell on 
campus after the company has 
been criticized for its workplace 
practices. 
“Taco 
Bell 
is 
notorious 
for 
hiring 
undocumented 
immigrants, 
absusing 
them 
through long hours of work, and 
underpaying them,” Chaudhari 
said. “Are we now going to pass 
a resolution sanctioning the 
University’s relationship with 
Taco Bell as well?” 
LSA 
sophomore 
Sam 
Burnstein, an Assembly member, 

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

