7-Opinion

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A

s members of the faculty at 
the University of Michigan, 
we are deeply troubled by 

the administration’s response to the 
ongoing strike led by many of our 
graduate students.

The administration has been quick 

to characterize the strike as “illegal.” 
But so were many of the strikes that 
make up the history of the labor 
movement worldwide. Strikes are by 
definition meant to disrupt business 
as usual.

The 
Graduate 
Employees 

Organization has made several 
important demands with regard to 
the administration’s reopening of the 
campus in the midst of the COVID-
19 pandemic. GEO has persistently 
raised concerns about the lack or 
inconsistency of testing, tracing, 
quarantine, 
distancing, 
masking 

and other actions that would help 
improve safety and reduce infection 
spread on campus and in the 
surrounding community. 

GEO’s insistence on a universal, 

unqualified right to work remotely is 
in the best interest of the broader U-M 
community. While the University has 
consistently responded that they are 
“not aware” of any coercion to teach 
in-person or in a hybrid format, they 
have also refused to institute such a 
guarantee as university policy.

The health and safety of the 

community are also at the heart of 

GEO’s demands regarding policing. 
In recognition of the persistence 
of police violence and surveillance, 
which 
disproportionately 
impact 

the communities of individuals that 
are Black, Indigenous and people 
of color, GEO has called for the 
redirecting of 50% of the funding 
allocated to the Division of Public 
Safety and Security to community-
based justice initiatives. They have 
also asked that the University cut 
ties with the Ann Arbor Police 
Department and with Immigration 
and Customs Enforcement. As the 
#BBUM campaign has powerfully 
documented the “unique experiences 
of being black at Michigan” since 2013, 
Black students regularly experience 
racism on the part of both campus and 
city police. We must also remember 
the 2014 killing of Aura Rosser by Ann 
Arbor police, for which the officer 
responsible was promoted and the 
then-chief of AAPD was later hired 
by the University as the Director of 
Housing Security for DPSS. 

GEO’s demands for reallocating 

funding from DPSS and cutting 
ties from AAPD are particularly 
pertinent in light of the University’s 
forming of student ambassador 
teams, which effectively recruit 
and employ students to become 
extensions of the campus police and 
surveil their peers. The money spent 
on this programming could easily be 

used for COVID-19 testing, personal 
protective equipment or remote 
learning — any number of things that 
would make our campus safer for all.

Most recently, residential advisers 

at the University have initiated a work 
stoppage to protest their working 
conditions, as have dining hall 
workers. Like the members of GEO, 
R.A.s used the official channels to 
voice their concerns before taking this 
measure. As non-unionized student 
employees, many of whom come from 
working-class families, they take a 
considerable risk in their collective 
action. Like our striking graduate 
students, they have determined that 
the risks to themselves and to the 
campus community posed by the 
University’s reopening plan outweigh 
the risks of going on strike.

We are deeply disappointed that, 

while so many of the University’s 
constituents 
bravely 
risk 
their 

livelihoods to raise grave concerns 
about public health and safety on 
campus, the administration has used 
procedures and technicalities to 
silence, delegitimize or ignore their 
concerns. Some of the University’s 
language — along with its use of 
non-disparagement clauses — carry 
an implicit threat of retaliation. We 
are gravely concerned about the 
language of intimidation deployed 
in the University’s response to GEO 
and in its communication with 

faculty about the strike. We believe 
that those striking and protesting do 
so for the health and safety of both 

the University and surrounding 

community, envisioning a more 
robust and just culture of care that 
all members of our campus and 
neighboring communities deserve.

The University’s official response 

and attitude to the demands and 
concerns raised by GEO echo 
attempts by the administration 
to undermine faculty governance 
and obfuscate the communications 

of the faculty during COVID-19 
by ignoring or dismissing faculty 
petitions and protests over the 
campus reopening plan. 

We express here a concerted 

show of faculty solidarity with GEO, 
our graduate students and R.A.s, and 
demand a more forceful and concrete 
condemnation by the administration 
of the assaults to which people of 
color and immigrants are subjected 
on a daily basis. 

We call for a more serious 

engagement by the University in 

hearing and responding to GEO’s 
important and timely demands. To 
sign the letter, please complete this 
form. 

Several faculty members 

co-authored this op-ed collaboratively 

and can be reached at concerned@

umich.edu. A growing list of 

signatures, which includes the 

authors and indicates support of this 

article and for GEO, can be found 

online. At the time of publication, the 

number of signatories was 436.

UNIVERSITY FACULTY | OP-ED

Faculty letter supporting GEO strike

M

y morning routine has 
been the same for years. 
I wake up to the blaring 

sound of my alarm, and as soon as 
I touch my phone to turn it off, I 
have an instinctual reaction to open 
up Instagram and scroll through 
my feed. I am normally greeted 
with genuine pictures of friends, 
aesthetically pleasing nature photos 
from someone’s most recent vacation 
or a funny meme that offers a good 
morning laugh. However, Instagram 
has looked much different in the past 
few months. 

Between the COVID-19 pandemic 

and social justice movements, most 
people I follow have turned away 
from sharing light-hearted, personal 
material and have shifted to using 
their platform as a tool to educate 
their followers on societal issues 
and raise awareness. The beauty 
of social media is that it’s not just a 
way for users to keep their followers 
updated on themselves, but rather a 
way to connect and share valuable 
information across the globe, which is 
crucial during a divisive time like this. 

September is here, which means 

that it’s time for most college students 
to head back to campus. As students 
make this transition, the educational 
posts and stories remain present, 
but personal posts are starting to 
trickle in once again. The latter is 
not problematic alone; however, if 
a social media user’s personal life 
starts to contradict what their profile 
preaches — for example, if they 
constantly post about the importance 
of social distancing but fail to distance 
themselves — then it becomes an issue. 
Why preach what you don’t practice? 

Using social media as a tool to 

educate and spread awareness is more 
important now than ever. We are in 
the midst of a transformative time 
period in terms of our approach to 
public health and social justice, such 

as the Black Lives Matter movement. 
I applaud those who take time to find 
pertinent information and share it 
with their friends. Yet, I question 
those who do so, then explicitly — or 
implicitly — prove that they are not 
holding themselves up to the standard 
they preach. Instead, they do this to 
maintain a social media image that 
showcases passionate, high-ground 
activism. It has become “trendy” to 
be a social media activist. This needs 
to end. 

But 
the 
more 
education, 

information and awareness the better, 
regardless of the person posting it, 
right? The issue is not with the material 
itself, but rather the standard these 
social media users are promoting. 
By contradicting your own activism 
by clearly not following the action 
items you promote, you are showing 
your followers that the activism you 
are engaging with is indeed not that 
serious. It delegitimizes the work 
of real activists who put significant 
thought into their activism and then 
proceed to live a lifestyle that supports 
what they preach. 

There is a fine middle ground that 

people our age often fail to realize. 
It is not a black and white situation; 
just because an Instagram user 
does not make daily posts about 
the importance of wearing a mask 
does not mean that they are denying 
the pandemic’s severity. If you are 
someone who understands the 
severity of the pandemic but knows 
that there’s a likelihood that you will 
be in a large group setting (with a 
chance of posting it to your page), 
then you should not preach against 
large group settings. By contradicting 
your own activism, you are telling 
your followers that what you are 
preaching is only important enough 
to make stories or posts about, but not 
important enough to follow through 
in supporting. 

I understand why people in our 

generation often engage in this type 
of performative activism, and I do not 
believe these people are inherently 
bad. When social justice movements 
become prominent — especially as 
prominent as the Black Lives Matter 
movement, which may be the largest 
movement in U.S. history according 
to the New York Times — people 
begin to support the cause even if they 
were not passionate or knowledgable 
about the movement before. Some of 
these people become truly passionate 
supporters, 
while 
others 
simply 

become passionate posters on their 
social media accounts.

The latter type of activism stems 

from white guilt — people constantly 
posting information in support of the 
movement to prove to their followers 
that they, too, are passionate about 
supporting and protecting Black lives. 
It’s for mere self-validation rather than 
the intention to generate change and 
true impact. When everyone does 
this, the information shared becomes 
meaningless and fails to help the cause.

We are students at the University 

of Michigan. If we truly care about 
a cause, then we must work to do 
whatever we can to support it. As 
college students, we are capable of doing 
more to support a cause than simply 
raising awareness on social media and 
then failing to personally uphold what 
we exhort onto others. Oftentimes, we 
find ourselves under a lot of pressure 
to conform, especially in a society that 
is so interconnected. But just because 
someone else is using their social media 
platform to educate and exhort does 
not mean that you are required to do 
the same in order to be perceived as a 
good person. Keep yourself accountable 
and stay informed. Just remember to 
practice what you preach.

SPIROS KASS | COLUMNIST

Practice what you preach

Spiros Kass can be reached at 

spikass@umich.edu.

Michael Bagazinski/Daily

A

s reported by The Michigan 
Daily in January of this 
year, Witness for Peace, an 

anti-Israel hate group, has spent 
the past 16 years of Saturday 
mornings protesting outside 
Beth Israel Congregation in 
Ann Arbor. A congregant of 
the synagogue motioned to 
sue the group at the end of 
2019. On Aug. 19, 2020, the 
ruling was justified by the First 
Amendment and the lawsuit 
was dismissed by U.S. District 
Judge Victoria Roberts.

As a young Jewish adult, 

I am often confronted with 
the question of whether anti-
Israel beliefs equate to anti-
Semitism. Many of my Jewish 
peers accuse people who are 
simply critical of the Israeli 
government’s actions as being 
anti-Semitic, though in my 
mind, these aren’t equivalent. 
On the other hand, I have had 
non-Jewish 
peers 
assume 

my 
identity 
automatically 

constitutes 
support 
of 
the 

Israeli government’s actions, 
a conflation which I perceive 
as anti-Semitic. It is possible 
to defend the existence of a 
Jewish state while criticizing 
its politics and to advocate for 
Jewish people while advocating 
against the Israeli government. 
Judaism exists independently 
of 
the 
state 
of 
Israel, 
so 

legitimate disapproval of the 
Israeli government should not 
include ridicule of the Jewish 
people.

However, 
legitimate 

disapproval 
of 
Israel’s 

government does not describe 
what 
is 
expressed 
in 
the 

protests outside Beth Israel 
Congregation. According to the 
Anti-Defamation League, an 
organization that aims to “stop 
the defamation of the Jewish 
people and to secure justice and 
fair treatment to all,” criticism 
of Israel becomes anti-Semitic 
when the actions of Israel are 
attributed to the Jewish people, 
when “Israel is denied the right 

to exist as a Jewish state and 
equal member of the global 
community” or when known 
anti-Semitic “symbols, images 
or theories are used” to defend 
anti-Israel ideologies. 

Signs 
displayed 
by 
WFP 

protestors 
meet 
all 
three 

criteria, making their anti-
Israel 
protests 
undoubtedly 

anti-Semitic. 
Their 
slogans 

included 
“Resist 
Jewish 

Power” and “Jewish Power 
Corrupts,” 
implying 
that 

the 
corruption 
within 
the 

Israeli government is a direct 
result of the Jewish faith of 
government 
officials, 
even 

though Israel is not governed 
by Jewish law. Furthermore, 
these phrases allude to the 
widespread conspiracies that 
claim Jewish people have “all 
the power,” which are anti-
Semitic by nature. Another 
sign held during WFP protests 
demands that people “boycott 
Israel.” 
In 
promoting 
the 

shunning of Israel as a whole, 

WFP denies its equivalence to 
other members of the global 
community. 
Although 
it 
is 

possible to denounce Israel 
without 
being 
anti-Semitic, 

WFP does not use such tactics 
in their protests.

The WFP conducts protests 

at the same time each week, 
specifically 
during 
Jewish 

holidays, which adds to its 
blatantly anti-Semitic message. 
Since 2003, members of the 
group 
have 
stood 
outside 

Beth 
Israel 
Congregation, 

holding 
signs 
with 
anti-

Semitic language, on Saturday 
mornings, when many Jews 
come 
for 
Shabbat 
services. 

Chabad, among the largest 
Jewish religious organizations 
globally, describes Shabbat as 
“the centerpiece of Jewish life.” 
It is widely known as a day of 
rest. It is said in the Torah, 
the holy scripture in Judaism, 
that G-d created the world 
in six days and rested on the 
seventh, blessing the day and 

declaring it holy. This seventh 
day is what we now know as 
Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. 
The WFP intentionally protests 
outside the synagogue during 
congregants’ 
celebration 
of 

Shabbat, ultimately tarnishing 
the holiness of the day and 
denying 
congregants 
the 

opportunity to observe the 
day of rest. The fulfillment 
of traditions in the Jewish 
faith has no correlation to the 
questionable actions of the 
Israeli 
government, 
so 
the 

WFP’s interruption of one to 
protest the other is sacrilegious 
and unjustifiable.

There is no issue to be had 

with a protest of the Israeli 
government’s actions; many can 
agree that the state’s politics 
are deeply flawed. However, the 
defamation of the Jewish people 
as evidence against Israel is not 
an ethical way to approach such 
concerns. I can confirm that we, 
as a Jewish people, have not been 
asked by Israeli government 

officials for our input regarding 
their actions, so the protest of 
the Jewish people as a means 
to protest the state of Israel is 
futile. Instead of perpetuating 
debunked conspiracies about 
Jewish people while disrupting 
their religious practice, the 
WFP should lobby Michigan’s 
representatives in the United 
States Congress and encourage 
them to decrease American 
funding to Israel. Not only 
would these efforts be better 
received by the public, but they 
would also be more effective 
in bringing about the tangible 
change they wish to see.

The lawsuit against the WFP 

was dismissed, as the U.S. 
Constitution upholds freedom of 
speech in the First Amendment. 
However, it is important to 
remember that the legality of 
an action does not speak to its 
integrity or morality. It is okay 

ILANA MERMELSTEIN | COLUMNIST

When criticism of Israel becomes anti-Semitism 

Ilana Mermelstein can be reached 

at imerm@umich.edu.

ZOE ZHANG | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT ZOEZHANG@UMICH.EDU

Wednesday, September 16, 2020 — 10

