2-News

A

s students and faculty at 
the University of Michigan 
started their second week of 

the fall semester, a day was set aside 
to observe Labor Day. In a Twitter 
post on Monday, GEO wrote, “(Our) 
membership has authorized a strike, 
effective (Tuesday). This is a historic 
moment: we are striking at the 
beginning of the year, in the midst 
of a pandemic, to protect our whole 
community.” On Tuesday, Sept. 8, 
the day after the national holiday, 
members of the Graduate Employees’ 
Organization and their supporters 
convened before daybreak on the 
dark campus, with cardboard signs, 
raincoats and courage. As the early 
morning rain and thunderstorms 
caused the marked words of “U-M 
Makes Us Sick” to bleed, individuals 
popped 
open 
umbrellas 
and 

began the first day of their strike 
against the University’s inadequate 
reopening plans. On Wednesday 
evening, a historic number of GEO 
members congregated to discuss 
an offer presented to them by the 
University. With an overwhelming 
majority, membership rejected the 
offer, concluding that it inadequately 
addressed their demands and did not 
express any continued progress. 

During a deadly pandemic with 

cases rising in college hotspots 
around the country as a result of 
tens of thousands of students and 
faculty returning from around the 
globe, university environments and 
administrations were devastatingly 
unprepared. With approximately five 

months to plan for the fall semester 
after classes moved to virtual formats 
in mid-March, students, faculty and 
the greater Ann Arbor community 
hoped that the University and their 
public health experts would create 
effective and safe plans for the fall. 
Within the first two weeks of the 
majority of students being back on 
campus, many feel they have not. 
In an interview with The Daily, 
GEO Secretary Amir Fleischmann 
commented, “We’re striking over 
the University’s totally inadequate 
reopening plans and just the series 
of policies they put in place over the 
summer that’s making students and 
workers on campus unsafe.” 

Fleischmann 
continued, 
“It’s 

important because GEO is supporting 
the safety of everyone on campus. 
One of the reasons is the University’s 
totally inadequate testing policy, 
which doesn’t include randomized 
testing of asymptomatic people, 
which all experts, including the 
University’s own (experts), think is 
necessary for a safe campus.” 

In 
addition 
to 
striking 
in 

response to reopening plans, GEO 
is also concerned about the lack of 
communication and transparency 
from the University administration 
during the implementation of the 
Michigan 
Ambassadors 
program 

and resulting partnerships with 
the Ann Arbor Police Department 
and the Division of Public Safety 
and Security. After a particularly 
momentous summer that centered 
on the national protests against police 

brutality, violence and racial injustices, 
the University’s ploy to work with 
law enforcement to police students 
did not sit well with the community. 
Motivated by fear for livelihood, 
health, security and the future during 
a pandemic and civil rights movement, 
hundreds of people have gathered 
across campus to stand in solidarity 
with graduate students. 

However, 
in 
an 
email 
to 

undergraduate 
students 
on 

Wednesday morning, Susan M. 
Collins, provost and executive vice 
president for academic affairs, wrote, 
“I strongly affirm the importance 
of student perspectives and student 
activism at the University of Michigan. 
The University has a long and 
celebrated history of its community 
members standing up for what they 
believe in through acts of freedom 
of speech and peaceful protest. The 
strike violates Michigan law; in 
addition, GEO has agreed by contract 
not to take actions that interfere with 
the University’s operations, in this 
case, your education. Nonetheless, 
the University’s team will continue 
to meet with GEO in good faith to 
resolve remaining issues.” 

In 1973, after a University policy 

was initiated that would charge 
non-resident graduate employees 
out-of-state tuition for the first 
time as well as a 24-percent tuition 
increase, graduate student employees 
founded 
the 
Organization 
of 

Teaching Fellows, deriving from a 
group that first started organizing 
as “teaching fellows” three years 

prior. The University administration 
refused to recognize the concerns 
of the teaching fellows unless they 
were certified by the Michigan 
Employment Relations Commission, 
an election process that had already 
failed a few years before. OTF began 
loose associations with the American 
Association of University Professors, 
and discussions of a strike were 
underway but never came to pass. 

Shortly thereafter, in the summer 

of 1973, the teaching fellows merged 
with research and staff assistants 
of the University to found the 
Graduate Employees’ Organization. 
In an effort to speed up the process of 
gaining certification, GEO members 
compromised, only calling for their 
recognition as employees of the 
institution. With low stakes, the 
University agreed to GEO negotiations 
for official recognition and there was 
an immediate Michigan Employment 
Relations Commission certification 
election, allowing the organization to 
be certified on April 15, 1974. 

However, things did not continue 

to proceed smoothly for graduate 
student employees. In June 1974, 
negotiations 
for 
a 
contract 
— 

demanding nondiscrimination, better 
working conditions and fair wages — 
began and lasted for months without 
progress. A handful of months later, 
all methods of negotiation were 
enervated, and union members 
decided to strike in 1975. On Feb. 11, 
with no clue of how long the intensive 
picketing and striking would last, 
hundreds of GEO members gathered 

on campus with signs, gloves and 
warm jackets: the onset of a cold 
February. 

In the early days of the strike, 

more than half of undergraduate 
students 
boycotted 
classes 
and 

joined the picket lines to stand in 
solidarity with their teachers, peers 
and fellow academics. Within the 
first week, agreements on affirmative 
action and non-discrimination cases 
were achieved and local workers, 
such as the Michigan Brotherhood 
of 
Teamsters, 
recognized 
the 

importance of the strike and vowed 
to not cross picket lines. The Strike 
for a Contract lasted for a month 
and on March 14, 1975, GEO proved 
successful with its demands and 
achieved tuition reductions, pay 
raises and other benefits.

The current strike against the 

University administration for the 
failure to enact proper safety protocols 
and an effective pandemic plan does 
not reflect new sentiments expressed 
by graduate students. Efforts for 
unionization arrived in a first wave 
throughout the 1960s and ’70s, 
where graduate students at public or 
state universities largely decorated 
the front of picket lines. Cedric de 
Leon, a professor and director of the 
Labor Center at the University of 
Massachusetts Amherst, explained, 
“Graduate 
students 
have 
been 

unionizing 
for 
decades.” 
These 

unionizing efforts were already 
instituted at the University of 
California system schools and the 
University of Michigan when strikes 
at other universities around the 
country happened. In 2016, Columbia 
University graduate students won 
bargaining rights when the National 
Labor Relations Board reversed 
a decision from 12 years earlier at 
Brown University. More recently, in 
June 2019, University of Chicago 
graduate students touted marked 
signs with “Workers’ Rights are 
Human 
Rights” 
and 
chanted 

“recognize our election.” This 
strong history of graduate students 
linking 
arms, 
forming 
picket 

lines and taking up unionization 
efforts has proved critical to the 
situations GEO is faced with in the 
contemporary moment. 

Apart from explicit GEO strikes 

at the University, there have been 
many notable and revolutionary 
protests, sit-ins and strikes worth 
mentioning when examining the 
atmosphere surrounding today’s 
concerns. In June of 1962, a group of 
students met in Port Huron, Mich. 
to discuss their ideologies and goals 
for a new organization, later named 
the Students for the Democratic 
Society. Their ideologies heavily 
reflected the political agendas of the 
New Left, and their quasi-manifesto 

highlights the members’ opinions 
on American society, politics and 
military actions. The creation of 
SDS’s manifesto, denoted as the Port 
Huron Statement, was spearheaded 
by Tom Hayden, a student at 
the University that came from a 
working-class family. An article 
titled “Resistance and Revolution: 
The Anti-Vietnam War Movement 
at the University of Michigan, 1965-
1972” outlines the impact of the Port 
Huron Statement. 

The authors wrote that the 

statement “described the existential 
crisis of many Northern, white 
students as they experienced the 
disillusionment of the world that 
they were growing up in. From the 
campuses of their mega-universities, 
the students and activists witnessed 
the growing risk of nuclear war that 
the Cold War caused and the continual 
violence in the white segregationists’ 
resistance to the civil rights movement. 
The students felt disenfranchised by 
the American Dream that encouraged 
consumerism and conformism while 
alienating people of color and the 
impoverished.” 

This manifesto facilitated the 

much-needed steam and momentum 
that student activists sought during 
the era of the Cold War and the 
Vietnam War. In a Smithsonian 
Magazine interview with former 
SDS president Todd Gitlin, the 
editor wrote, “The 2016 election 
brought student activism back into 
the spotlight. No student activist 
organization in U.S. history has 
matched the scope and influence of 
Students for a Democratic Society 
(SDS), thwe national movement of the 
1960s.”

A few years later in 1968, on the day 

of the burial of Martin Luther King 
Jr., the newly founded Black Student 
Union at the University took over the 
Administration Building. After sitting 
inside for five hours while demanding 
more funding for Black students and 
higher rates of hiring for Black faculty 
members, the members of BSU had 
a discussion with then-President 
Robben Fleming and the lockout 
ended. The conversation between 
Fleming and the members resulted 
in the establishment of the Center for 
Afroamerican and African Studies. 

However, two years after the 

takeover, rates of Black faculty hires 
and Black student enrollment had not 
improved. Students called for a strike, 
campuswide.

E

arlier this year, I watched 
NASA 
astronauts 
Bob 

Behnken and Doug Hurley 

blast off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., 
in a SpaceX rocket. When the roar of 
the rocket’s engine filled the air, I was 
reminded of the boundless potential 
of American science as a tall, sleek 
spacecraft climbed past the outer 
reaches of the earth’s atmosphere.

As exciting as I — and so many 

Americans — found this SpaceX 
rocket launch, there wasn’t anything 
unusual about it. For almost 250 years, 
Americans have been at the forefront 
of science and innovation. Whether it 
has been exploring the depths of space, 
making breakthroughs in medicine or 
lighting up our homes and businesses, 
the American scientific community 
has made the impossible possible, 
transforming countless dreams into 
reality. 

Since public health experts first 

began warning of the threat posed by 
COVID-19, scientific communities 
across 
the 
country 
haven’t 

disappointed one bit. Instead, doctors, 
epidemiologists and others have 
worked tirelessly on the front lines in 
order to eradicate COVID-19 and get 
life back to normal. Whether it be right 
here at the University of Michigan or in 
labs across the country, scientists have 
gone to work to find safe medicines 
and therapeutic, plasma and antibody 
treatments, as well as an effective 
vaccine. Six months since much of the 
nation first went into lockdown, the 
fight against this invisible enemy now 
looks more promising than ever before.

While an effective vaccine remains 

one of our greatest hopes to defeat 
COVID-19, innovators are working 
on countless other fronts in this 
rapidly evolving battle against the 
coronavirus. As this vital effort moves 
full steam ahead, one of the most 
promising advancements has taken 
the form of monoclonal antibody 
treatments, 
which 
are 
already 

undergoing testing by companies such 
as Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. 
and Eli Lilly and Co., according to the 
Wall Street Journal.

At the moment, if someone 

contracts COVID-19 and is in need 
of medical attention, there are few 
options outside of medicines like 
Remdesivir, which might be somewhat 
effective against the coronavirus 
for serious cases. Therefore, these 
monoclonal antibodies — which can 
help prevent patients from developing 
severe cases of COVID-19 — change 
everything in our battle against this 
virus. “The drugs, which are injected 
intravenously or with a short needle, 
have the potential to work soon after 
someone is infected and still feeling 
only slightly sick, stopping the virus in 
its tracks before the seriously afflicted 
would need to be hospitalized,” the 
Wall Street Journal noted. 

This exciting treatment also has 

the potential to prevent somebody 
from contracting COVID-19 in the 
first place, serving as a “temporary 
vaccine.” The United States has 
always prevailed even in the most 
trying times, and it’s become clear that 
monoclonal antibodies are another 
inspiring advancement from our 
nation’s scientific community that 
could help our country turn the page 
on the coronavirus crisis.

Excitingly, monoclonal antibodies 

are just one weapon in our growing 
arsenal against COVID-19. Another 
advancement 
somewhat 
similar 

to these monoclonal antibodies is 
convalescent plasma. As scientists 
have discovered, a patient who 
has been previously infected with 
COVID-19 is likely to have a high 
concentration of antibodies in their 
blood. This convalescent plasma 
treatment takes advantage of these 
antibodies, transferring them to a 
patient who is currently ill with the 
virus and is in serious need of help. 
“Hospitalized patients who received 

the plasma within three days of 
diagnosis, are under the age of 80 
and not on mechanical ventilation, 
benefited the most, with a 35% 
improvement in survival 30 days 
after receiving the transfusion,” the 
Wall Street Journal reported. While 
experts note that convalescent plasma 
treatment doesn’t mean we don’t need 
monoclonal antibody treatments or an 
effective vaccine, this is nonetheless a 
major step in the right direction. Even 
small flickers of hope delivered by 
treatments like convalescent plasma 
mark significant strides from the 
beginning of the pandemic, when we 
knew nothing about how to combat 
COVID-19.

Finally, beyond all of these 

intriguing developments, the most 
promising tool in our battle against 
this pandemic is a safe and successful 
vaccine, which we’re racing toward 
in record time. Although there 
are numerous vaccine candidates 
in development across the globe, 
American companies like Moderna 
Therapeutics and Pfizer remain at 
the forefront of this unprecedented 
effort. With the vaccine being rolled 
out so quickly, some people have 
expressed concern that medical 
officials are rushing the final stages 
of development and testing due to 
political pressure from President 
Donald Trump, who is fighting for 
a second term in the White House 
against former Vice President Joe 
Biden. But health officials have 
repeatedly 
reassured 
Americans 

that the final vaccine distributed to 
patients across the country will be 
safe and effective, and manufacturers 
have pledged that they will not 
release a vaccine to the general public 
until it is safe for all Americans. 

A

s schools around the country 
reverse their face-to-face 
reopening plans, it seems 

less and less likely that the University 
of Michigan will make it through the 
first few weeks of classes with the 
current hybrid model. If classes get 
moved to be fully remote, the blame 
will be shifted to students — it could 
have worked, but we just weren’t 
“responsible” enough. 

In an interview with The Daily, 

President 
Mark 
Schlissel 
said 

he “get(s) a little insulted when 
everybody says there’s no way that 
students are going to wear masks, 
and there’s no way that they’re 
not going to party in dangerous 
fashions ... I think you can and will 
step up as a community.” 

Here’s the thing: Even if 99 

percent of the U-M undergraduate 
student body are compliant, choose 
not to party, social distance and 
wash their hands, we could 
still have a massive community 
outbreak. As of Aug. 6 — well before 
tens of thousands of students from 
around the country descended upon 
Ann Arbor — a single gathering of 
100 students at a party (one-third 
of 1 percent of the undergraduate 
population) carried between a 30 
to 50 percent chance that someone 
had COVID-19. It is probably much 
higher now that students from states 
with higher incidence rates have 
returned to campus. 

Furthermore, while partying 

may be the most dangerous thing 
college-aged students can do 
right now, many students also 
must work service industry jobs 
which put them at risk. A recent 
Atlantic article rightly pointed out 
that a recent rise in cases in people 
under 35 would be predictable 
irrespective of parties, as newly-
opened restaurants and bars are 
overwhelmingly staffed by young 
people.

An outbreak would be difficult 

to control even if every person on 
campus were required to get tested, 
but only students living on-campus, 
about a quarter of students overall, 
carry that requirement. One party is 
enough for a residence hall outbreak, 
or several. The problem is that 
President Schlissel’s plan relies on 
100 percent compliance, something 
that he, as a medical professional and 
rational adult, should understand is 
utterly unrealistic. The opening of 
campus isn’t a reasonable risk, it is 
a recipe for a clusterfuck, as put so 
eloquently by The Daily Tar Heel.

The confusing part is that 

Schlissel understands compliance 
is unrealistic. In an email to faculty 
and staff on Aug. 18, he wrote, “after 
a few weeks, non-compliance among 
students might become common,” as 
a way to defend why the University 
will not be doing large-scale testing 
on asymptomatic individuals. It 
must take some mental gymnastics 
to write an email effectively saying 
there will be too much virus in the 
community to test, but we are going 
to open anyway. Research indicates 
that in the case of coronavirus 
testing, quantity is better than 
quality, and testing all students every 
two days is recommended. If this is 
impossible, as Schlissel suggests, we 
cannot open, period. 

Personal 
responsibility 
is 

important, but it is not the solution 
to a public health crisis. Don’t 
get me wrong, when I see people 
posting pictures of their parties 
and group events, I get angry. I 
think it is selfish and irresponsible 
to be hanging out in large groups 
of people. That said, 20-year-olds 
should not be responsible for the 
health of the nation. Irresponsibility 
is not a “risk” in the 18 to 22 year 
old age group, it is a given. Willful 
ignorance is the only explanation 
for President Schlissel’s refusal to 

recognize the impracticality of a 
plan predicated on the notoriously 
excellent 
decision-making 
skills 

of young adults. Countries that 
have 
successfully 
curbed 
this 

virus do not have supernaturally 
responsible 
young 
people; 
they 

have competent leadership that 
managed to control the virus before 
widespread quarantine fatigue set 
in. From New Zealand to Rwanda, 
swift governmental response with 
strong messaging and actions that 
emphasized scientific expertise has 
controlled, if not eliminated the virus. 

President Schlissel is not a 

governmental figure, but he does 
have the power to make decisions 
that will impact the health of tens 
of thousands of people. He is 
not making decisions in the best 
interest of the U-M community or 
the broader Ann Arbor community. 
He is making decisions in the 
best interest of the University’s 
bottom line. One could argue this 
is also a failure of the government 
or at the least, a flaw in our system. 
In countries where tuition is free, I 
don’t think they are panicking about 
enrollment numbers. Students have 
every right to question whether an 
online education is worth the same 
cost (or 1.9 percent more). If school 
were free, what would there be to 
question? 

The virus is not Schlissel’s fault 

and the lack of control in this country 
is not his fault, but any disease or 
death that results from the opening 
of campus? That is his fault. Schlissel 
has all of the science he needs to see 
that opening is not the way to go. 
If a statement comes out blaming 
students, I hope the Michigan 
community calls it out. A plan that 
relies on 100 percent compliance to 
work is not a plan, it’s a prayer.

9 — Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Why we must support GEO: The historical power of strikes at the University

BRITTANY BOWMAN | EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

The power of American innovation

EVAN STERN | COLUMNIST

Evan Stern can be reached at 

erstern@umich.edu. 

Jessie Mitchell can be reached at 

jessiemi@umich.edu.

‘U’ is positioning students to take the fall 

JESSIE MITCHELL | COLUMNIST

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Members of the Graduate Employee Organization strike in response to the University’s pandemic plan outside of the Biological Services Builiding Wednesday evening.

Allison Engkvist/Daily

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Brittany Bowman is the Editorial 

Page Editor and a senior in the 

College of Literature, Science & 

the Arts and can be reached at 

babowm@umich.edu. 

