M

ore than seven weeks have 
passed since Gov. Gretchen 
Whitmer issued Executive 
Order 2020-21, urging all Michigan resi-
dents, except essential workers, to stay 
home to combat the spread of COVID-
19. Life on campus had already been 
uprooted, with classes being moved 
online and University President Mark 
Schlissel urging students to return 
home if they were able. All non-essential 
businesses were closed, jobs were lost 
and some local businesses even closed 
their doors permanently due to financial 
turmoil. Decreasing numbers of new 
cases of COVID-19 in Michigan and 
recent protests against stay-at-home 
orders have sparked a conversation 
regarding whether we are ready to loos-
en restrictions and begin reopening our 
state’s economy. This leaves University 
of Michigan students wondering what 
we can expect for the fall 2020 semester. 
Schlissel has spoken of having a 
“public health informed fall semester,” 
with ideas being thrown around to hold 
large classes online and smaller classes 
in person. This would include urging 
students to wear masks and reducing 
student density in campus buildings. 
His announcement followed news that 
the University’s losses from the pan-
demic could range from $400 million 
to $1 billion. Since other universities 
in Michigan have already announced 
plans to have online classes in their fall 
semesters, Schlissel’s optimism to open 
campus again seems to be somewhat 
financially motivated. However, since 
a vaccine for COVID-19 won’t be avail-
able for at least a year, it is crucial that 
we rebuild our campus infrastructure 
to allow for high-quality learning while 

still taking the proper precautions to 
keep our students and faculty safe. This 
is precisely what the University is trying 
to do. 
If the University makes an effort to 
enforce social distancing in classes held 
in person, decreases student density in 
campus buildings and asks students to 
wear masks on campus, returning to 
campus could be feasible. However, an 
issue arises when considering social life 
on campus. The school may ban large 
gatherings, but they lack power when 
it comes to off-campus gatherings and 
nightlife.
In public health, when we cre-
ate interventions meant to better the 
health of the public, we evaluate the 
amount of individual effort needed. 
Interventions that depend more on 
individual participation are less effec-
tive than those which rely on gov-
ernmental authority. For example, 
executive orders that are more strict 
with their stay-at-home requirements 
and qualifying essential businesses 
would be more effective than simply 
asking people to stay home. In context, 
this means that keeping campus closed, 
holding classes online and urging stu-
dents not to move back to Ann Arbor 
would be more effective than asking 
students to follow the recommended 
guidelines. Since this doesn’t seem to be 
financially practical for the University, 
I believe Schlissel wants to do what he 
can to open campus and bring students 
back. This means that we, the students, 
hold the responsibility of reducing the 
spread of COVID-19.
Whether we agree with prioritiz-
ing University finances during the 
pandemic, we all can admit that we 

would love to return to some kind of 
normal. As students who just lost half 
of a semester and already miss their 
campus and friends, doing our part to 
reduce the spread of the virus is going 
to be incredibly difficult. We are all 
desperate to return to school, see 
our friends, go to tailgates and enjoy 
what is left of our college experience. 
We will want to throw parties, go to 
Rick’s and enjoy a game day. 
As a rising senior, I feel this too, 
but as a public health student, I’m 
afraid that opening campus and 
bringing tens of thousands of stu-
dents back to Ann Arbor is a danger-
ous idea. Many of us will care more 
about having these college experi-
ences than we do about hypotheti-
cally getting ourselves or someone 
else sick. We think that it will never 
actually affect us, and if it does, our 
youth and health will protect us 
from severe illness.
Unfortunately, there is still so much 
we don’t know about the virus. People 
in their 30s and 40s have been suffer-
ing severe strokes caused by COVID-
19. Many of the impacts the virus can 
have on younger, healthy populations 
are still unknown. Because of this, we 
cannot just assume that our campus 
population is young, healthy and able 
to survive the virus without serious
complications. We must consider our 
peers who are immunocompromised, 
our older faculty, staff and the sur-
rounding Ann Arbor community.

4

Thursday, May 14, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 
the University of Michigan since 1890.

 BRITTANY BOWMAN
Editorial Page Editor

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Elizabeth Cook

Jess D’Agostino
Jenny Gurung
Cheryn Hong
Zoe Phillips
Mary Rolfes

Michael Russo
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EMMA STEIN
Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

ELAYNA SWIFT | COLUMNIST

Elayna Swift can be reached at 

elaynads@umich.edu.

What we can expect for Fall 2020

T

he University of Michigan’s 
Board of Regents is consider-
ing revisions to Bylaws 5.09 
and 5.10, which have to do with the 
demotion or dismissal of faculty mem-
bers. The bylaws are the University’s 
legal constitution — they are an expres-
sion of our values, just as the U.S. Con-
stitution expresses American national 
values. It is thus of great concern to 
me, and to many other University fac-
ulty, that some of the proposed changes 
weaken academic freedom and erode 
the institution of tenure. The University 
should be a leader in supporting these 
institutions, not undermining them. 
Last fall, I was asked to join a work-
ing group of faculty to make recom-
mendations for revisions to Bylaws 
5.09 and 5.10. Though never officially 
acknowledged, it seemed clear that at 
least some of the impetus for revisions 
came in response to a recent 5.09 case 
that involved an allegation of sexual 
assault. 
Under the existing bylaws, a faculty 
member charged under 5.09 continues 
to receive their salary and benefits until 
the proceedings come to a conclusion. 
Thus, it can happen — as it did in that 
recent case — that a faculty member 
accused of a heinous crime receives full 
compensation while the formal 5.09 
process unfolds over several months. 
(We were told that a typical 5.09 case 
can take about nine months to com-
plete, though many end sooner through 
faculty resignation.)
I am as unhappy as anyone to see fac-
ulty members apparently guilty of seri-
ous crimes compensated with public 
funds during a lengthy dismissal pro-
cedure. But, the operative word here is 
“apparently”: To protect those who 
are innocent despite the appearance of 
guilt, we need a robust due process in 
every case, particularly in the case of 
tenure — the closest thing we have to a 
sacred institution at modern research 
universities.
The proposed revisions allow for 
a process occurring simultaneously 
with the main 5.09 hearing that would 
allow the president, under certain cir-
cumstances, to suspend the salary of 
an accused faculty member before the 
main hearing comes to a judgment of 
guilt. There are many problems with 
the proposal such as augmenting the 
president’s power over the proceedings, 
no compensation if found not guilty, 
poor definitions, racial bias and lack of 
protection for non-tenure track faculty 
altogether. But, arguably the greatest 
problem is the very possibility of sus-
pending pay prior to the completion of 
the main hearing. 
Such a provision violates the fun-
damental principle of “innocent until 
proven guilty.” Assuming that the main 
5.09 hearing includes the robust due 

process we believe necessary for dis-
missing a tenured professor, then why 
should anything less be acceptable for 
removing pay, the main intention of 
tenure? 
Allowing the president to suspend 
pay all but gives the president the power 
to fire a tenured faculty member at will 
— exactly what tenure is meant to guard 
against. Imagine that a faculty member 
writes public op-eds about a controver-
sial political issue. The University may 
come under fire for the op-ed, even if 
the contents are protected under the 
First Amendment and by the principle 
of academic freedom. The University 
may suffer declines in alumni dona-
tions, and the president might decide 
it would be best to remove the faculty 
member. Digging up an unverified 
anonymous complaint, the president 
could then invoke 5.09 and suspend pay 
(it would be easy enough for someone 
with the authority of the president to 
find three committee members willing 
to go along with the decision). Without 
pay, the faculty member might not be 
able to eke out a living, much less sus-
tain the legal fees required to mount an 
effective defense against the Universi-
ty’s well-funded legal team. They might 
give up and resign or lose in the hear-
ing, even if innocent. I do not expect 
that any reasonable president would 
do such a thing, but one reason we have 
bylaws at all is to protect against arbi-
trary authority and the abuse of power. 
And unfortunately, abuses of power 
do happen. Bylaw 5.09 was added in the 
aftermath of the McCarthy era, when 
three University of Michigan faculty 
members — Chandler Davis, Clement 
Markert and Mark Nickerson — were 
suspended, with Davis and Markert 
eventually terminated, for acting on 
their conscience and refusing to tes-
tify before the House Un-American 
Activities Committee. The Univer-
sity was subsequently censured by 
the American Association of Univer-
sity Professors, the foremost institution 
representing faculty at American uni-
versities, and the bylaws were instated 
in response. The AAUP continues to 
recommend that major sanctions such 
as suspension of pay “should not be 
imposed until after a hearing in which 
the same procedures apply as in a 
dismissal case.” The proposed bylaw 
revisions go against this AAUP rec-
ommendation, against the practices 
of most of our peer universities and 
against the original spirit in which the 
bylaws were enacted.

Keep tenure protections robust

 KENTARO TOYAMA | OP-ED

Kentaro Toyama is W.K. Kellogg Professor 

of Community Information at the School of 

Information and can be reached at 

toyama@umich.edu. 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

