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