statement
A reluctant
‘Go Blue!’
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, December 2, 2020 — 13
B
ack in March, when COVID-19
hit and it became clear that
schools would have to shut
down, I remember thinking: well, at
least I go to the University of Michigan.
I was lucky, I thought, to go to such
a cutting-edge school. Our president
is a physician. We have a faculty of in-
credibly
knowledgeable
researchers
and professors. We have one of the best
medical schools in the nation, as well as
a stellar public health program. More
than that, even: Thias university is run
by good people. They’ll figure this out.
Whatever the best policies are, Michi-
gan will find them and put them in place
as needed. They might stumble, as any-
one does when facing a novel threat, but
certainly they won’t lag behind other
universities or organizations. At the
very least, I thought, I can trust them to
act in a morally upstanding way.
How wrong I was.
In June, tuition hikes and a “COV-
ID fee” were approved for the 2020-21
school year, despite the economic crisis
gripping America and the University’s
growing endowment. Then, in August,
the University reopened campus for fall
semester, despite a recommendation
from their own COVID-19 safety team
that the University stay shut down. In-
stead of offering testing surveillance
systems like other major universities,
University President Mark Schlissel
made controversial comments claim-
ing that testing can create a false sense
of security, as, he argued, it did during
the HIV epidemic. He was lambasted
for the comments and quickly retracted
them, but he and other administrators
failed to significantly change the Uni-
versity’s testing policies. They insisted
they simply did not have the capacity to
test more students, while working with
sports teams to ensure student-athletes
received daily testing through the Big
Ten Conference.
In September, the University’s Grad-
uate Student Instructors went on strike
to protest the lack of COVID-19 protec-
tions. They were quickly followed by
the RAs, who criticized the University’s
safety policies in dorms. Both strikes
were treated with complete disrespect
by the University administration, who
filed an injunction against the Graduate
Employees’ Organization and threat-
ened to fire striking RAs. Dining hall
workers had to cancel their own strike
when they were told the University
would retaliate against strikers.
Only in the last few weeks, following
a Washtenaw County stay-in-place or-
der targeting University students, has
the University finally walked back some
of its policies. So far, the University has
limited the number of students who
can return to dorms next semester and
asked all students to stay home come
January if they are able. But the Uni-
versity is still holding in-person classes
next semester, and administrators like
Schlissel have refused to apologize for
their missteps, with Schlissel saying in
a recent The Michigan Daily interview
that he doesn’t regret how he chose to
handle of the virus.
Things are, to put it lightly, a total
mess. I’ve watched it unfold from the
safety of my parents’ homes with a small
measure of awe and a large measure of
fury. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but
I truly am disgusted by how the Uni-
versity has handled this crisis. At ev-
ery turn, they have placed profits over
safety, and chosen to place the whims of
young adult students above the advice
of educated experts. In doing so, they’re
not only putting the health and safety of
their students, staff and faculty at risk
— they’re also endangering the greater
Ann Arbor population, a community
which has always supported the Univer-
sity. This type of selfishness is frighten-
ingly similar to the attitudes we see at a
national level, with the Trump adminis-
tration’s abysmal response to COVID-19,
and it makes me ashamed to say I go to
the University of Michigan.
I know I’m not the only student who
feels this way about the current admin-
istration, but I think students who are
seniors, such as myself, are put in a
uniquely frustrating position because of
it. This is my last semester at the Uni-
versity. Next semester, I’m taking part-
time classes from home, and then I’m
graduating. My college career is rapidly
wrapping up, and I’m stuck in the frus-
trating position of wondering: Is this it?
Is this how I’m going to remember col-
lege?
As a graduating senior, I get asked
often about my time at the University.
Recruiters, relatives and friends want
to hear about my college experience —
often, I suspect, expecting that I’ll wax
poetic about how amazing the Univer-
sity is as a school. That seems to be the
expectation from alumni, and part of the
reason the University has such a stellar
reputation. Objectively, I know there’s a
lot I could talk about: I had a very good
experience during my first three years
at the University doing all the stereo-
typical college things — going to football
games, getting surreptitiously drunk in
dorm rooms, even studying in the Sha-
piro Undergraduate Library. But in the
moment, my frustration with the admin-
istration overshadows everything else. I
don’t want to talk about how fun it was
to go to football games two years ago. I
want to talk about what the administra-
tion is doing now, and why it makes me
so pissed off.
An obvious response to this is that
perhaps I shouldn’t let the actions of a
select few administrators taint my view
of something as broad as my experience
in college. To say I’m ashamed of my
college administration doesn’t neces-
sarily mean I need to be ashamed of my
college: The student body is, after all,
not the administration. I didn’t choose
the administration’s actions, so they’re
not my responsibility.
But I think it’s an oversimplifica-
tion to say we can so easily draw a line
between the student body and college
administration. In conversation, we
constantly identify ourselves with the
faculty and administration of our col-
lege. When our school is ranked one of
the top public universities in the Unit-
ed States, we tend to feel proud of that,
even though we had no part in creating
that ranking; when we win at football,
we gloat to all our friends that Wolver-
ines are simply a superior bunch, and
when we lose, we feel embarrassed and
make excuses for why our team is still
the best, really, but just having an off
week. We use phrases like “we won” be-
cause it feels like a collective achieve-
ment: It is a thing we are told to feel a
part of. The University of Michigan, like
many other colleges, champions a nar-
rative of community among its students
— that we are the Leaders and Best to-
gether. We are all a part of the Universi-
ty, the story goes, and so we do identify
ourselves with the actions of the insti-
tution, whether we actively participated
in them or not.
It reminds me of 2017: Shortly after
I graduated from high school, I went
backpacking in Europe. I met a lot of
people on my trip, people from all over
the world, and they all asked me the
same question: “So, you’re American?
Do you like Donald Trump?”
I was always quick to assure them
that, no, I didn’t support Trump; and in
fact, there were many Americans who
didn’t. “I promise,” I said, “We’re not
all nuts.” That I had to say that — and
that they had to ask the question — em-
barrassed me. Electing Trump felt like
the most irresponsible collective ac-
tion our country could have taken. I was
ashamed to be an American then in the
same way I’m ashamed to be a Wolver-
ine now.
Maybe we shouldn’t define ourselves
by the institutions that lead us, but to
me, that feels like the path to compla-
cency. If the institutions that lead us
don’t represent us, we have no obliga-
tion to make sure they do good. In that
sense, maybe feeling ashamed when an
institution messes up is a good thing be-
cause it keeps us accountable. It might
be why Trump is on his way out of of-
fice. Maybe, in a few months, it’ll be
why U-M administrators finally apolo-
gize for the mistakes they’ve made. Af-
ter all, student outrage is what cata-
lyzed the few changes that have arisen
so far, including the concessions made
to GEO and RAs — student and alumni
outrage might be all that can continue
to cause change moving forward. For my
part, I know I won’t forget the missteps
of this administration quickly. Though
I may not be in Ann Arbor moving for-
ward, you can bet I’ll be watching the
University from a distance, ready to
step in with a pointed email or passive-
aggressive Twitter reply when the situa-
tion calls for it. Accountability may look
different for alumni than it does for stu-
dents, but it does still exist.
BY WILLA HART, STATEMENT COLUMNIST