“This time is for us to come 

together and say, ‘Well, the 
University’s cruelty is on full 
display, we gave them every 
opportunity not to be cruel, they 
have every opportunity not to 
be, it’s a choice, in a big way,’” 
Peterson said. “These people have 
real power: President Schlissel 
has real power, Provost Collins 
has real power, Anne Curzan has 
real power, the regents have real 
power. So that all of them pander 
to us by saying they care and then 
make the choice that they did was 
quite devastating.”

Several 
undergraduate 

students attended the vigil to 
express 
their 
disappointment 

with 
the 
administration’s 

handling of COVID-19. 

Engineering 
junior 
Joshua 

Sodicoff said his disillusion began 
in March when students were 
sent home from campus, adding 
that he has since gotten involved 
with an activist coalition that 
works with GEO. 

“Since March, I have been 

incredibly disappointed in the 
University’s response to the 
coronavirus — that started with 
their plan to send everyone 
off campus once they brought 
a whole petri dish of students 
back after spring break, and 
extended as they kicked people 
out of dorms without giving 
them a fair refund,” Sodicoff 
said. “Throughout the whole 
summer, a pretty large coalition 
of groups have been working on 

trying to get their demands from 
the University. Everyone thought 
that there really wouldn’t be that 
many concessions to people’s 
health and safety.” 

LSA junior Trenten Ingell 

said he was displeased with the 
University’s response to the 
GEO’s demands for public health 
and safety, claiming that the 
University’s decision to reopen 
was driven solely by profit. 

“The University has still not 

met a lot of GEO’s demands when 
they canceled the strike, their 
anti-policing demands and even 
a lot of their COVID demands 
were completely rejected,” Ingell 
said. “Their intentions for profit 
have been very clear — how they 
really only understand what 
makes them money, and they 
have no idea how to care for 
people, how to provide a safe 
environment for campus.”

The students at the vigil 

aren’t 
the 
only 
people 
on 

campus with a shortage of trust 
in the University’s leadership. 
Members of the Faculty Senate 
held two votes of no confidence 
in 
the 
administration 
on 

Wednesday, one focused on the 
University’s reopening plan for 
fall semester and the other on 
Schlissel’s role as president. The 
first failed narrowly, while the 
second passed. The symbolic 
measure means faculty members 
do not have faith in Schlissel to 
execute his job as head of the 
University.

“I as Senate Chair, along 

with the Senate Secretary, and 
SACUA have conclusively and 
unanimously determined that 
the University Senate Rules on 
voting using Robert’s Rules of 
Order for interpretation leads 
all of us to the same conclusion. 
Abstentions should not have 
been counted as votes, and 
Motion 6 should have passed,” 
Conway wrote. “We ask for your 
patience and understanding 
while we not only discussed 
how abstentions should be 
handled, but we also discussed 
in depth our concerns about 
the lack of accessibility to 
voting experienced by some of 
our colleagues.”

David 
Potter, 
interim 

secretary 
of 
the 
Faculty 

Senate and professor in LSA, 
confirmed the motion passed 
in an email to The Daily.

Conway said the vote of no 

confidence was the first in the 
University’s history.

When 
asked 
about 
the 

result of the vote, University 
spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald 
told The Daily Schlissel had no 
further comment.

At the Wednesday meeting, 

957 members voted in support 
of the motion with 953 voting 
against and 184 abstentions. 
While more people in the 
Faculty Senate said they did 
not trust Schlissel’s leadership 
than those who said they did, 
Potter initially announced that 
the motion had failed because 
it did not receive a majority 
of all votes cast, including 
abstentions. 

More than 2,200 Faculty 

Senate members participated in 
the meeting. The body, which is 
part of the University’s central 
faculty governance system, has 
approximately 4,300 members 
and is made up of professors, 
executive officers and deans, 
among others. 

Potter’s 
ruling 
sparked 

confusion among the faculty 
members. Conway declined to 
announce a decisive result.

Faculty Senate leaders later 

clarified they would need a 
few days to review the matter. 
In an email to The Daily after 
the vote Wednesday, Potter 
said the Faculty Senate Office 
would “speak to the issue” of 
abstentions in a few days.

“As I was counting the votes 

I was seeing four categories, 
three that registered (yes, no 
and abstain) and then that 
there were people present in 
the meeting who elected not to 
participate in the vote, hence 
my statement that motion 6 
was not successful,” Potter 
wrote in the Wednesday email 
about the vote of no confidence 
in Schlissel. “It is possible that, 
after further exploration of the 

issue we will reach a different 
understanding.”

The Faculty Senate’s rules 

do 
not 
explicitly 
answer 

whether abstentions count as 
votes. In this case, the Faculty 
Senate defers to Robert’s Rules 
of Order, a set of guidelines 
for parliamentary procedure 
that date back to the 1800s. 
According to Robert’s Rules, 
the vote of no confidence 
should have passed because 
abstentions do not count as 
votes. 

Among 
other 
claims, 

the vote of no confidence 
accuses Schlissel of ignoring 
scientific evidence regarding 
the risks associated with the 
University’s reopening plans 
for the fall semester. According 
to the resolution, Schlissel did 
not take into account a report 
by the Ethics and Privacy 
Committee when crafting the 
school’s 
reopening 
protocol 

and did not respond to the 
committee’s concerns. 

In a rare move, Schlissel 

addressed members of the 
Faculty Senate at the start of 
the meeting, emphasizing his 
dedication to the University. 
He elaborated on his reasoning 
for allowing some classes to 
be held in person despite most 
being offered online or in 
hybrid formats and discussed 
efforts to expand surveillance 
testing 
of 
asymptomatic 

individuals. 

He 
also 
acknowledged 

concerns 
about 
the 

administration’s 
shortage 

of 
engagement 
with 
the 

community 
and 
lack 
of 

transparency.

“Criticisms and challenges 

are 
qualities 
that 
make 

universities great,” Schlissel 
said. “They also provide an 
opportunity to create solutions 
that 
benefit 
from 
multiple 

perspectives. We can and must 
work together as a university 
to solve problems.”

The 
motion 
also 
states 

that Schlissel fell short in 
his response to allegations 
of sexual misconduct against 
former 
Provost 
Martin 

Philbert.

At 
the 
virtual 
meeting 

Wednesday, 
Information 

Professor 
Kentaro 
Toyama 

pointed to the multiple high-
profile 
sexual 
misconduct 

charges 
uncovered 
during 

Schlissel’s tenure, including 
the 
accusations 
against 

Philbert and former Music, 
Theatre & Dance professor 
David Daniels. Both men were 
removed from their positions 
as a result of the allegations. 

Toyama blamed Schlissel’s 

leadership in part for the 
University’s failure to address 
systemic problems and prevent 
institutional failures. 

“Schlissel was the president 

of the University during all of 
these issues,” Toyama said. 

“The buck stops with him, 
and that’s why I’m voting no 
confidence.”

Stephen Ward, an associate 

professor in LSA, submitted 
the no-confidence motion. He 
also criticized the University’s 
response to the COVID-19 
pandemic 
and 
Schlissel’s 

handling of the allegations 
against Philbert.

“The 
president’s 
actions 

and 
inactions, 
particularly 

over the last six months, but 
perhaps over the last six years, 
are setting a precedent that 
we cannot and should abide,” 
Ward said at the meeting 
Wednesday. 

Engineering professor Peter 

Washabaugh spoke in support 
of Schlissel at the meeting.

“I’ve seen this president 

take the correct path, even 
though it might be difficult or 
uncomfortable,” Washabaugh 
said, adding that he believed 
Schlissel had “demonstrated 
thoughtfulness 
and 
caring 

actions.”

At a University Board of 

Regents 
meeting 
Thursday, 

Regent Denise Ilitch (D) read 
a 
unanimous 
statement 
of 

support for the administration 
and the University’s reopening 
plans. She said the board, 
which acts as the University’s 
governing body, knows the 
administration 
needs 
to 

communicate better with the 
broader community.

“Our 
Board 
supports 

President Schlissel and the 
administration as they continue 
to lead our University through 
these tremendous challenges,” 
the statement reads. “We know 
that the president and the 
administration will continue to 
listen and adapt through these 
challenges, honor our common 
values and advance the mission 
of the University.”

In his statement to The 

Daily, Fitzgerald noted the 
results of a sentiment ballot — 
a vote made available to faculty 
members who were unable to 
attend the meeting Wednesday. 

The majority of voters who 

participated in the sentiment 
ballot 
said 
they 
did 
have 

confidence 
in 
Schlissel. 
A 

total of 1,092 faculty voted 
against the measure, while 
942 supported the vote of no 
confidence and 109 abstained.

Before the official vote at 

the meeting Wednesday, Ward 
highlighted what he described 
as a failure of leadership at the 
highest levels of the University, 
particularly 
the 
president’s 

office. 

“He has engaged in evasion, 

misdirection, distortion and 
falsehoods,” Ward said.

Managing News Editor Leah 

Graham and Daily News Editor 
Alex Harring can be reached 
at 
leahgra@umich.edu 
and 

harring@umich.edu.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, September 23, 2020 — 3

VOTE
From Page 1

“He 
really 
believed 
and 

really pushed the fact that when 
you do research with African 
Americans, it is okay to look 
at in-group analysis,” Taylor 
said. “Before his first major 
survey, we were unable to do 
that. So every comparison was 
between African Americans 
and whites. But when you do 
that, you don’t learn much 
about African Americans.” 

Taylor said Jackson will 

also be remembered for his 
mentorship of students and 
postdocs. Taylor compiled a 
list of dozens of Black students 
and alumni of the PRBA who 
have gone on to become deans, 
chairs 
and 
administrators 

at 
schools 
including 
Yale 

University, the University of 
Chicago and the University of 
California, Berkeley.

In Ann Arbor, nine former 

PRBA students became full 
professors, one became an 
endowed professor and one is 
the chair of the Department 
of Health and Behavior and 
Health 
Education 
at 
the 

School 
of 
Public 
Health. 

Taylor said these lists reflect 
Jackson’s 
commitment 
to 

his students’ success and the 
impact the PRBA had on those 
he mentored.

“He’d 
help 
people 
fill 

their potential,” Taylor said. 
“There’s a lot of people who 
would have left their doctoral 
programs 
if 
they 
hadn’t 

started working with James in 
the PRBA.” 

Cleo 
Caldwell, 
professor 

and chair in the School of 
Public Health, is a former 
student of Jackson’s. She said 
without him, she would never 
have ended up in academia. 
Caldwell recalled that as her 
research 
mentor, 
Jackson 

urged her to gain valuable 
teaching experience despite 
her initial skepticism.

“I said, ‘James, I don’t need 

teaching experience because 
I’m not going into academia,’” 
Caldwell said. “But he looked 
at me and he said, ‘You don’t 
know where you’re going to 
be, so what you need to do is 
to give yourself degrees of 
freedom so you can end up 
doing what it is you want to 
do.’ So for that year I taught, 
wonderful experience, and I 
left, and then I came back to 
academia.”

Jamie Abelson, a senior 

research 
associate 
at 
the 

PRBA, 
said 
Jackson’s 

mentorship style had a ripple 
effect across the academic 
world and created generations 
of 
scholars 
who 
became 

mentors themselves. 

“He was renowned for his 

optimism 
and 
his 
energy, 

which helped propel everyone 
forward,” Abelson said. “And 
not only are all the people who 
ever worked with him grateful 
but 
they 
all 
acknowledge 

that they learned from him 
how to be a better mentor, so 
generations after those (who) 
worked directly with him have 

benefited from him.”

Abelson 
said 
70 
PRBA 

alumni joined a Zoom call the 
night of Sept. 14 to gather and 
remember Jackson’s legacy.

“James was a powerhouse, 

even 
at 
age 
27,” 
Abelson 

said. “One of the renowned 
researchers … was on the call 
and was saying, ‘Picture what 
you were like at 27, or what 
your children were like at 27. 
And just think, that this man 
was doing such important 
stuff at that point.’ He hit the 
ground running.’” 

Angela Dillard, professor 

in 
the 
Department 
of 

Afroamerican 
and 
African 

Studies and the Residential 
College, 
said 
Jackson 
was 

funny and brilliant. 

“He 
was 
enormously 

generous with his time and 
with advice,” Dillard said. “He 
was a really warm, collegial 
person, and a real role model 
about how to do first-rate 
academic 
scholarship, 
and 

then how to take on these 
administrative and leadership 
roles and really do them well. 
So I know that people say 
things like this when people 
die — they’re like, he’s a great 
person — but he really was 
incredibly warm, really funny, 
terrific smile, and is a kind of 
person who had the ability to 
really put you at ease.”

University President Mark 

Schlissel 
expressed 
his 

condolences for those who 
knew Jackson and noted how 
his research changed the way 
race is studied in the United 

States.

“Condolences to all who 

knew and learned from @
UMich Prof. James Jackson,” 
Schlissel 
wrote 
on 
social 

media. “He was a top scholar, 
leader, mentor, colleague & 
advocate for equity. He made 
our world better and smarter 
with groundbreaking research 
on the influence of race on the 
lives and health of African 
Americans.”

Caldwell said that while it 

would be impossible to list all 
the areas where Jackson made 
an impact, he is remembered 
for his work in fields spanning 
from social science to health 
science to social work.

“He was a giant in aging 

and physical health research, 
research on discrimination 
and social identity, research 
on mental health of Black 
Americans, political studies, 
neighborhood studies –– it’s 
so much, you can’t cover it all,” 
Caldwell said. “But with all of 
that, it was looking at Black 
populations, which allowed us 
to learn a lot.” 

Above all, Taylor remembers 

Jackson for his warmth. 

“One of the things that 

stands out was how warm he 
was to everyone,” Taylor said. 
“Anybody who visited James 
at the PRBA, James Jackson 
was one of the first people 
to come out and greet them 
and say hello. It didn’t matter 
who they were or where they 
were from, he was always very 
warm and very positive and 
very helpful.”

JACKSON
From Page 1

Regarding 
the 
accepted 

proposal, 
GEO 
spokesperson 

Leah Bernardo-Ciddio said the 
end result wasn’t the union’s 
preferred position.

“At this moment, we are all 

feeling a little bit upset and 
frustrated and devastated that 
we were backed into a legal 
corner, and we had to choose 
between our demands and the 
future of our union,” Bernardo-
Ciddio said. “The commitment 
we made last night was to keep 
pushing in other ways while 
making sure our union survives 
and that it can continue to 
protect our most vulnerable 
members.”

However, 
Bernardo-Ciddio 

said the union’s strike did allow 
for more progress on some of 
their key issues than they would 
have made otherwise.

“We did achieve more than we 

would have if we hadn’t gone 
on strike or if we had accepted 
the offer last week,” Bernardo-
Ciddio said.

Under the accepted proposal, 

GEO did not win the universal 
right 
to 
work 
remotely 
or 

partial diversion of funds from 
the Division of Public Safety 
and Security, two of their 
major demands. The proposal 
does, however, offer increased 
allocations for child care funding 
and the right to cancel class if 
students refuse to comply with 
the campus-wide mask mandate.

The University also agreed 

to assemble a task force that 
GEO will be involved with 
to evaluate policing at the 
University. The University will 
also create a panel composed of 
a representative from GEO, the 
University and one mutually 
agreed upon person to review 
requests to work remotely.

At the meeting Wednesday, 

1,074 GEO members voted to 
accept the offer, 239 members 
voted to reject and 66 abstained. 
The majority of the GEO steering 
committee supported accepting 
the offer, citing concerns of 
retaliation and the possible 
harm the injunction could cause 
to the union.

The 
University 
sought 
a 

court injunction and temporary 
restraining 
order 
to 
get 

graduate students to resume 
teaching earlier this week. In 
the complaint, the University 
claimed 
it 
has 
suffered 

irreparable injury as a result of 
the strike, including disruption 
of vital functions and a hit to its 
reputation.

The 
University 
requested 

relief against GEO in excess 
of $25,000 for “any and all 
additional 
costs, 
expenses, 

salaries and other economic 
damages 
suffered 
by 
the 

University 
as 
a 
result 
of 

GEO’s breach of the collective 

bargaining agreement.”

University 
spokesperson 

Rick 
Fitzgerald 
said 
the 

University worked with GEO 
to address all of their demands, 
claiming 
GEO 
membership’s 

overwhelming 
acceptance 
of 

the second proposal is proof 
that it was widely considered a 
fair offer. Fitzgerald also said 
the University never threatened 
criminal action or monetary 
damages against individuals.

“The whole point of this — 

the whole negotiations and all 
throughout — the University’s 
commitment was to getting 
GSIs back in the classroom,” 
Fitzgerald 
said. 
“We 
were 

able to accomplish that by 
listening 
carefully, 
I 
think, 

and responding appropriately 
to almost every issue that was 
raised by GEO.”

Because GEO members voted 

to accept the new proposal, 
the University said it will not 
retaliate against the union or 
individual students. Had the 
proposal 
been 
rejected 
and 

the court decided against the 
graduate students, GEO would 
be held in contempt of court, 
meaning GEO would be required 
to call for an end to the strike and 
any members still participating 
could 
potentially 
face 
fines 

of $250 per day of additional 
striking or arrests.

The decision to accept the 

plan came down to if the union 
could afford to keep picketing 
amid the injunction, Rackham 
student Ryan Glauser said. One 
of his main concerns was GEO’s 
ability to fight an injunction, 
which raised the possibility that 
the union could be financially 
drained if the court sided with 
the University.

“The Graduate Employees’ 

Organization is more important 
as an institution than winning 
small things in the short term,” 
Glauser said. “Once we lose our 
union, the University is going 
to take those small things from 
us, because they don’t have our 
trust.”

GEO’s strike gained traction 

on social media, which the union 
used as a way to circulate their 
message. The union presented 
the strike as a way to make 
everyone on campus safer, both 
in terms of protection from the 
coronavirus and from policing, 
as a national reckoning about 
racial justice surfaced following 
the death of George Floyd.

The strike served as a catalyst 

for other groups on campus. 
More than 100 resident advisers 
went on strike Sept. 9 — the 
day after GEO announced its 
strike — to demand additional 
personal protective equipment, 
enforcement of public health 
policies and hazard pay. Dozens 
of MDining student employees 
organized a work slowdown 
for two hours on Friday, with 
plans for a potential strike in the 

future. A hundred theatre and 
drama students signed a letter 
saying they would not attend 
class until School of Music, 
Theatre & Dance leadership 
agree 
to 
their 
demands 

regarding pandemic procedures.

GEO received a litany of 

support from different corners 
of 
campus, 
including 
the 

University’s chapter of College 
Democrats, labor unions whose 
members were commissioned to 
work on construction projects 
on campus and some faculty 
members. 
Central 
Student 

Government, the largest student 
government at the University, 
encouraged students to stand 
in solidarity with GEO and not 
attend classes for the duration of 
the strike.

Members said they went into 

the meeting Wednesday night 
excited and anxious to see what 
the University had offered the 
second time around. They said 
they felt like awareness and 
support of the strike was rising 
and that the University would 
feel greater pressure to meet 
their demands as a result.

But as the new proposal came 

to light at Wednesday’s meeting, 
Rackham 
student 
Katherine 

Wright said she realized the 
University 
had 
not 
made 

significant changes to what they 
proposed a week prior. The vote 
to accept the proposal, according 
to Rackham student Caitlin 
Posillico, was a result of “serious 
threats, not serious wins.”

Wright, Posillico and other 

members 
agreed 
that 
the 

University’s injunction became 
a game-changer for members. 
They 
described 
strong-arm 

tactics used by the University 
to corner them into accepting a 
plan they didn’t feel adequately 
addressed their demands.

“I realized that the University 

wasn’t going to budge on issues 
that we needed them to budge 
on, and that if we continued, 
we would be potentially putting 
ourselves in danger and our 
union in danger,” Wright said. 
“It just didn’t seem like that was 
the best course of action, given 
that there are other ways that 
we could push them to do the 
work that would be less risky for 
the union.”

Ultimately, Wright said she 

felt resignation upon hearing 
the offer from the University, 
but she also felt pride. She, 
and other GEO members, said 
they felt like they used their 
power to hold the University 
accountable and ensure a safe 
environment for all members of 
the community.

While there was a divide as to 

whether GEO should continue 
the strike, members agree that 
this proposal isn’t the end.

STRIKE
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

VIGIL
From Page 1

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

