2-News
“
No
exceptions”
punctuates
the testing section of Dr. Ron
Caldwell’s Econ 101 syllabus.
On four separate occasions in the
syllabus, “no exceptions” clearly
informs disabled and chronically
ill students that their experiences
won’t be taken into account and
that they may face discrimination
or
infringement
of
their
civil
rights. While “no exceptions” — a
clear violation of the Americans
with Disabilities Act’s reasonable
accommodations mandate — may
be glossed over by students without
disabilities, this ableist rule can be
the difference between passing and
failing for students with disabilities or
chronic illnesses.
This discriminatory and lazy “no
exception” rule must be eliminated
across campus if the University of
Michigan wants to live up to its mission
of serving “the people of Michigan
and the world through preeminence
in
creating,
communicating,
preserving and applying knowledge,
art, and academic values, and in
developing leaders and citizens who
will challenge the present and enrich
the future.” A blanket denial of both
legal and moral obligations to provide
reasonable accommodations is an
archaic violation of this mission and
unfit to exist at the University or any
academic institution.
For two students I spoke to, Dr.
Caldwell’s “no exception” policy and
the subsequent support of the policy
from the Economics Department
and the University, barred them
from being able to succeed in their
respective situations. A student with
Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type II
who, due to privacy protections, will
be referred to as Peter in this article,
and Cheyanne Killin, LSA senior and
former Services for Students with
Disabilities Student Advisory Board
chair, were both greatly impeded
by this policy. Even when a disabled
student does everything right, these
“no exception” policies create intense
barriers and stresses in order to
simply graduate.
For Peter, Dr. Caldwell’s “no
exception” policy resulted in having
to take an Econ 101 final under
medical duress, as the final exam
period overlapped with prep time for
a necessary and urgent procedure.
Peter
submitted
the
proper
documentation at the beginning of
the semester, including a Services
for Students with Disabilities (SSD),
a medical VISA that outlined the
accommodations
required
for
SMA2, and followed up with the
professor via email, explaining his
circumstances. He further invited
the professor to read about SMA2
and ask any questions he may have
about the condition. Had Dr. Caldwell
done further research, or reached
out to Peter about his disability, he
would have discovered that people
with SMA2 must receive injections
every four months to prevent further
muscular atrophy.
In a letter to University President
Mark Schlissel and the Economics
Department, Kathy Homan, president
of the Washtenaw Association for
Community Advocacy, wrote that
“the injection (Peter) receives is called
SPINRAZA. It’s a lumbar injection
that can and has generated serious
side effects for him, the most common
side effects of SPINRAZA include
lower respiratory infection, fever …
vomiting, back pain, and post-lunar
puncture syndrome … This is the only
medication that has the promise of
halting the progression of (Peter)’s
Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type II.”
As the semester was coming to
a close, Peter discovered that the
window to take the Econ 101 final
overlapped with the prep time
needed for his injection procedure,
rescheduled
due
to
COVID-19.
Within hours he reached out to Dr.
Caldwell, explaining his situation
and asking simply that the professor
open the exam window earlier so that
he could take the exam. Mind you,
Peter wasn’t asking for more study
time, simply asking he be given an
opportunity to take the exam before
his procedure. Instead of providing
this reasonable accommodation, Dr.
Caldwell stated that he hoped Peter
would “understand that providing
alternatives that, as per the syllabus,
are not available to the rest of the class
is a bit unfair to the other students.”
He presented Peter with the option
of taking the final during the prep
time of his procedure, under medical
duress, or a ranked score. Dr. Caldwell
outlined the alternative in a June 23
email, saying “Specifically, we rank
order all students and find where you
fall among the students for the exam
that you completed. I.e. say you are
40 out of 112 (this is just an example).
Then I take the exam you missed
(2nd exam in this case), rank order all
students, and give you the score that
the 40th individual received.” This
arbitrary alternative is unreasonable,
as it failed to provide Peter with an
opportunity to demonstrate or test his
knowledge, which is the entire point
of assessments.
“I really felt like I should’ve had the
opportunity to show my growth in the
course,” Peter expressed. “Letting me
take the test just a few hours earlier
would’ve made that difference. The
window encompassed my procedure
so there was nothing I could do
about it. It’s not like I was asking for
anything extraneous, it’s not like
people were taking it at the same time
of day, it was an exam window. I don’t
understand why I couldn’t have had
an earlier exam window.”
Naturally, after this disappointing
and
disheartening
experience,
Peter filed a grade grievance appeal
through the Economics Department.
As Peter arrived, via Zoom, at the
grievance committee hearing, he was
shocked to find the panel was solely
made up of colleagues of Dr. Caldwell.
“There was no specialist, the ADA
coordinator wasn’t there, no one from
OIE (Office of Institutional Equity)
was there, no one from SSD was there,
no one versed in the ADA was there …
the professors were referring to Dr.
Caldwell by nicknames, it all felt very
out of place,” Peter reflected.
Cheyanne Killin said that she
deeply agrees “that this situation
not only exemplifies the rampant
ableism present in the University but
is one of many examples that expose
the need for major departmental
and institutional change. Disabled
students are viewed here as an
afterthought
or
an
additional
difficulty, leading to our needs
not being met and our needing to
surmount
intense
barriers
and
stressors, seemingly alone, in order
to simply graduate. For a University
that overly prides itself on Diversity,
Equity,
and
Inclusion,
disabled
and chronically ill students are,
most certainly, not receiving those
sentiments.”
The appeal committee’s lack of
SSD representation, ADA specialist,
or medical advocate underscores the
systemic problems that exist in the
economics department and beyond.
“The University should make it
mandatory,” Homan wrote of the
situation. “That a certain ratio of
any committee members making
decisions related to the disability
community
and
Americans
with Disabilities Act have expert
knowledge on both …” Ultimately,
and surprisingly to Homan, while
the committee was not in unanimous
agreement, they “sided with the
University over (Peter).”
Peter did everything right. He
went out of his way to communicate
and provide the right documentation
to explain his situation to Dr. Caldwell
prior to the exam, he enlisted the
support of community advocates like
Homan to help him following his
unfair treatment and went through
the department’s procedure that was
supposed to remedy these situations.
The University failed him at every
step.
While the evidence of one student
being crushed by the system should be
evidence enough to change it, it is also
important to highlight that Peter is
not alone. Killin reflected on her past
with Dr. Caldwell, saying “I actually
failed a course under the same
instructor due to an ableist situation.”
Just like Peter, the “no exception” rule
in Dr. Caldwell’s class prevented her
from having the same opportunity
for success as her non-disabled peers.
Killin was in the middle of having her
disability diagnosed when she took
Econ 101 in 2017.
As her illness progressed and she
became too ill to attend classes, she
was given permission by University
Health Service for medical absences;
even with this permission Killin still
went to her Econ 101 section to turn
in her bi-weekly quizzes, required to
be turned in in-person under the “no
exception” rule.
“However,
as
my
illness
progressed, I stopped being able to
go to the classroom to turn in my
exams,” Killin noted. “I emailed both
Professor Caldwell and my GSI about
this and asked if I could scan in the
exams to them, even offering to take
pictures of myself with the completed
exam to assure my identity. Under the
‘no exception’ rule, this was denied,
and I received a full zero for the last
two quizzes, which caused me to fail
the course. I retook (the class) the
next semester, under similar medical
circumstances, with the only change
being an accommodating professor,
and got a B+.”
Situations like this should not
exist; disabled and chronically ill
students should not have to play
academic
roulette,
wondering
whether the professor teaching
their course will be accommodating
or lean on discriminatory “no
exception” rules like Dr. Caldwell.
The University can and must remedy
these infringements on civil rights
if it wishes to live up to its mission
statement and Diversity, Equity &
Inclusion goals.
When The Daily reached out to
Dr. Caldwell via multiple emails
for a response on the use of his
stringent “no exception” policy and its
relationship to ADA non-compliance,
he did not respond.
I
t’s a pretty simple question:
“Do you condemn white
supremacy?” But even after
three public statements, University
Regent Ron Weiser (R) still has not
answered it.
Weiser is an elected member of
the University of Michigan Board
of Regents and the incoming chair
of the Michigan Republican Party.
His incoming co-chair, Meshawn
Maddock, is a prominent voice in
the “stop the steal” movement that
alleges Donald Trump won the
election, and she helped organize
busloads of Michiganders to attend
what became a domestic terrorist
attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan.
6, an attack that was orchestrated
in part by well-known white
supremacists carrying Confederate
flags and covered in neo-Nazi
tattoos.
The events of that day were the
culmination of long-term planning
from white nationalist groups,
including the Proud Boys, that
organized online to take over the
Capitol not just in opposition to
the certification of the Electoral
College vote, but expressly in the
name of white supremacy. The day
of the attack, Maddock shared a
since-removed video of the crowd
on Instagram, calling the group a
“sea of Patriots.”
In the video she shared, a man
off-camera can be heard yelling,
“We need to march on the Capitol
when we’re done here and drag
these people out of power.” Later
in the day, members of this crowd
came within minutes of killing
members of the U.S. Congress and
Vice President Mike Pence.
The day after the insurrection,
when directly asked by Bridge
Magazine about who incited the
riot and his views about what had
occurred, Weiser, who has been
a major donor to the outgoing
president and even landed on his
2016 inaugural committee, failed
to condemn his co-chair Maddock
or white supremacy. Instead, he
said that he had not watched the
attacks or news surrounding it:
“I watched Michigan destroy
Minnesota in basketball, and that
kind of contest is something that I
strongly support.” He later blamed
this response on oral surgery he
received the day of the riots.
Weiser cleaned up his original
response with a second statement
saying
he
condemned
“those
people who turned (a protest) into
a mob” and that his heart went out
to those “unnecessarily” harmed.
Later, in light of a growing number
of signatories to a Change.org
petition and an open letter signed
by faculty, staff and alumni calling
for his resignation, Weiser offered
an additional statement that was
substantively the same as his
previous one, calling the events
“incredibly tragic and wrong,”
without referring to them as a
terrorist attack or insurrection. At
each turn, even without the haze
of oral surgery, he still managed to
miss the words “I condemn white
supremacy.”
Apart from Weiser’s shocking
disregard for the severity of the
Jan. 6 insurrection, his statements
are a matter of safety for anyone
affiliated with the University. Let
me put it in a broader context:
Just months after I graduated
from the University of Virginia as
an undergraduate student, white
supremacists descended on my
former home, terrorizing students
and, the next day in downtown
Charlottesville, killing a young
woman. If, in the immediate
aftermath of this attack, any
member of the UVa Board of
Visitors had equivocated in their
condemnation of these neo-Nazis,
they would have been promptly
shunned by the UVa community
and rightly stripped of any titles
or standing. Anything less, and
the neo-Nazis who had already
terrorized UVa would have felt
empowered to come back for more.
That same danger in Michigan
is very real. According to the
FBI, armed insurrectionists are
currently
planning
to
attack
Michigan’s Capitol, which, as we
are all too painfully aware, was
already attacked in April, followed
by an attempt to kidnap Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer. In fact, one of
the men who attacked Michigan’s
Capitol last spring participated
in the Jan. 6 insurrection in
Washington, D.C.
And yet, here at the University,
even
after
three
separate
statements, the fact remains that
Weiser has at no point condemned
his co-chair, who was complicit
in a terrorist attack on the U.S.,
or white supremacy itself, an
abhorrent phenomenon and the
avowed cause of the terrorists. As
a result — and at a minimum — he
must resign.
The stakes here cannot be
understated. Failing to condemn the
driving force of this riot will only
let that force grow stronger. White
supremacist activity on university
campuses hit a record high in 2019,
the most recent year for which
data is available. Well before white
supremacists successfully invaded
the U.S. Capitol, they marched on
UVa’s grounds carrying torches and
chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
In these moments, language
matters. It is not enough to
denounce violence by itself and in
a passive voice. Our regents must
loudly, explicitly and unequivocally
stand against white supremacist
ideology and the terrorist attack it
wrought. There is simply no room
to believe that what’s happened on
other campuses can’t happen on
ours.
We cannot give officials three
or more chances to get their
condemnations right. The issue
here is not just a matter of delay
— it’s the reluctance to denounce
something as odious as white
nationalism or domestic terrorism
at all. Any hedging is disqualifying.
The day Weiser made his
first statement — deflecting to
basketball — I, along with many
others, emailed him demanding
his resignation. After a handful
of tense exchanges, I asked him
point-blank in my latest email, “Do
you condemn white supremacy?”
He responded that he is
less powerful than I think —
despite
being
the
incoming
chair of a state political party,
an ambassador under former
President George W. Bush, a
significant donor to the current
president and a member of the
Board of Regents. He said that
he has no influence over white
supremacists, which ignores his
leverage and responsibility as
a public figure to prevent their
normalization. He also said that
as a Jewish person, he fears white
supremacists himself.
When The Daily’s Editorial Page
Editors reached out separately for
a comment from Weiser, he did not
respond.
U-M students also feel fear —
only none of us have the power to
do anything about it. Any official
who refuses to readily identify
and publicly condemn the danger
of white supremacy only amplifies
its danger for the rest of us.
T
here is a riot at the United
States Capitol, but you happen
to be in Miami, Florida on
vacation. When choosing to post
either a beach picture or an educative
update of the insurrection, is it not
obvious what is more important to
share with your followers on social
media?
To “be political” has recently
become a certain personality type.
When some people choose to be
apolitical, however, they choose
to not involve themselves in the
dialogues that occur on online
platforms. There are two types of
people who choose not to engage
in those discussions on social
media. The first know they are not
invested in social media and don’t
feel that posting anything will make
a change in the world, but they may
know they made a more important
change at the polls earlier this year.
These people are not truly apolitical,
they are just nonexpressive.
The issue is the second type of
people, those who choose to not
be political, and instead, show off
their unaltered lives in this political
climate. Being apolitical is a privilege
— being able to ignore current events
or how the decisions politicians make
affect your daily life is an example
of privilege. These people are not
only demonstrating that they do not
need to concern themselves with the
changes in our country that impact
tens of millions of others, but they
are willing to actively steer societal
conversations away from those
changes.
On Jan. 6, Trump supporters
charged the U.S. Capitol in a white
supremacist attempt to stop the
confirmation
of
President-elect
Joe Biden. The response by the
police to this event highlighted the
stark contrast between the Black
community’s
experiences
with
the police and that of the white
community. Namely, law enforcement
was far more violent toward Black
Lives Matter protesters this summer
than toward the predominantly white
rioters storming the Capitol building.
On
the
Thursday
following
the event on Jan. 6, Facebook
CEO
Mark
Zuckerberg
chose
to
suspend
President
Donald
Trump’s Facebook account after
being flagged several times on the
platform for misinformation. This
series of events established plenty
of opportunities to get political on
social media, and many college
students did.
While many people chose to use
social media to show solidarity and
spread information, plenty of people
were posting anything other than
the content that mattered for the day. I
was disturbed by a picture of a Spotify
song recommendation or dinner
array at a hotel restaurant in Florida
amid the postings of rioters sitting
at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s,
D-Calif., desk and scaling the walls of
our nation’s Capitol building.
With the heightened political
atmosphere this past year with the
election, the Black Lives Matter
movement and the pandemic, most
people can agree that 2020 was hard
on our mental well-being. It is easy to
see how people would need a break
from social media and the constant
flood of news. It is also easy to feel
suffocated by all of the Instagram
stories and Tweets that may begin
to lose educational value over time.
I cannot emphasize enough that
choosing to not participate in social
media politics is OK, but choosing
ignorance in a tumultuous time by
sharing examples of an unharmed,
privileged life is not.
8 — Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Stop discriminating against disabled students. No exceptions.
ANDREW GERACE | SENIOR OPINION EDITOR
Op-Ed: Weiser must resign
DANI BERNSTEIN | CONTRIBUTOR
Dani Bernstein is a third-year law
student at the University of Michigan
and can be reached at
dbern@umich.edu.
Dimitra Colovos can be reached at
dimitrac@umich.edu.
What it means to “be political”
DIMITRA COLOVOS | COLUMNIST
MAGGIE WIEBE/DAILY
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Andrew Gerace is an Opinion
Senior Editor and can be reached at
agerace@umich.edu.
Read more at MichiganDaily.com