Opinion

GEO’S 2020-2021 OFFICERS | CONTRIBUTORS

JESSIE MITCHELL | COLUMNIST

SAM WOITESHEK | COLUMNIST 

Wednesday, February 10, 2021 — 12
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

I

n recent weeks, thousands of 
University of Michigan students, 
alumni 
and 
community 

members signed a petition demanding 
University Regent Ronald Weiser (R) 
be removed from his post for failing 
to unequivocally disavow the Capitol 
riot and the chain of events leading up 
to it. Though Weiser condemned the 
violence itself, he failed to account for 
how he, his colleagues in the Michigan 
Republican Party and the politicians 
he funds — one of whom was former 
President Donald Trump — stoked 
the fires of mistrust and faux-populist 
rage that led to this disgraceful event. 

One of Weiser’s connections to the 

riot is his soon-to-be co-chair of the 
Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn 
Maddock, who was at the center of the 
racist and anti-democratic campaign 
to overturn Michigan’s election results 
and who happened to organize the 
busing of protestors to the rally that 
became the insurrection. 

For Weiser to claim that Maddock 

didn’t incite the riot is to pretend 
that there is no connection between 
the movement to undermine the 
legitimacy of the election and the 
riot itself. It is to say Maddock is not 
responsible for a fire, despite pouring 
kerosene and handing out matches. 
It simply defies belief, and it is an 
instance of a U-M Regent excusing 
actions that contributed to a violent 
attack on our nation’s Capitol.

We write this op-ed to call Weiser 

to resign due to his fundamental 
conflicts of interest and immoral 
conduct regarding the Capitol riot. But 
we also write this op-ed to connect 
Weiser’s troubling links to the Capitol 
riot to the problematic nature of his 
relationship to the University, which 
far predates the events at the Capitol. 
We call on all of us, as members of 
the U-M community, to hold Weiser 
accountable. 
In 
particular, 
we 

believe the faculty at the ironically 
named Weiser Center for Emerging 

Democracies should be more vocal 
about the ways Weiser has worked 
to undermine democracy at our 
university and in the state of Michigan.

Professor Dan Slater, the director of 

the WCED, released a statement on the 
events at the Capitol. His statement is 
worth reading — it throws the tensions 
between the values of the Weiser Center 
and its namesake into sharp relief. Slater 
is clear that “to claim that the election 
was fraudulent or stolen is to betray the 
democratic foundations of our Republic.” 
Thus, from Slater’s own perspective, 
Maddock, a close colleague of the man 
who funds the center Slater heads, 
has betrayed American democracy. 
The WCED’s mission is to study “how 
democracies emerge and the conditions 
necessary for assuring and extending 
freedom.” Its namesake, however, is a 
man who actively works to undermine 
democracy, both in our country at large 
and at the University. The Graduate 
Employees’ Organization calls on Slater 
to issue a statement about the tension 
between the source of his funding and 
the admirable mission he undertakes 
through his important work. 

That Weiser would be implicated 

in this reprehensible series of events 
comes as no surprise to us at GEO. It 
has long been our position that it is 
completely inappropriate for Weiser, 
a major landlord in Ann Arbor and 
donor to the University, to sit on the 
Board of Regents. Weiser is the founder 
of McKinley Associates Inc., one of 
Ann Arbor’s biggest landlords. 

As Regent, he has significant 

input over the University’s budget. 
As the University has increased its 
student population over the past 
decade without building new dorm 
space, rental prices in Ann Arbor 
have skyrocketed. Weiser has likely 
profited 
handsomely, 
given 
the 

unfettered increase in the cost of 
living and housing. According to an 
online petition, the company raised 
their monthly rent by up to $200 in 

the summer of 2020, in the thick of the 
pandemic, despite having received $5 
to $10 million in low-interest, federally-
backed loans which may be forgiven. 

Over the summer, when the 

University made the questionable 
decision to bring undergraduates 
back to Ann Arbor for an in-person 
pandemic semester, Weiser’s profits 
from McKinley properties in Ann 
Arbor were potentially on the line 
should the students not return and 
leave his rental units vacant. 

Weiser’s assault on American 

democracy goes beyond his support 
of the far-right and financial interests 
as a landlord. As any scholar at the 
WCED would tell you, democracy 
means much more than simply voting. 
GEO sees ourselves as working at the 
intersection of two important sites of 
democracy: the University as a public 
institution and the labor movement 
as an expression of workers’ self-
determination. Weiser has insidiously 
worked to undermine both, and we 
believe it is incumbent on Slater and 
others at the WCED — if they are 
serious about “Reviving Democracy, 
Globally and Locally” — to comment 

on his role therein. 

The University’s standing as a 

democratic institution is seriously 
undermined by the unaccountable 
power Weiser wields as a donor. 
In our view, Weiser only has many 
millions of dollars to donate to the 
University since the top 1% have been 
undertaxed for decades. 

As tenants, many of whom line 

Weiser’s pockets with rents equalling 
half our salaries, we believe this money 
is not his to give away. That money 
belongs to the people of Michigan and 
should go to the University without 
Weiser getting to put his name on 
buildings or direct how it is spent. A 
university is not truly a public entity, 
and will not be directed to work in the 
public interest especially if it receives 
an ever-dwindling share of its funding 
from the state. Relying on private 
donations mans that the University is 
perversely incentivized to prioritize 
projects that would attract donations 
over those that are in the public 
interest. This shift to relying on private 
donations goes far beyond Weiser and 
ultimately undermines the University’s 
mission as a public institution. Weiser, 

in his triple role as Regent, mega-donor 
and landlord, exemplifies a troubling 
broader trend while at the same time 
existing uniquely beyond the pale of 
anything even resembling democratic 
accountability. This is fundamentally 
at odds with the mission of the WCED 
and, indeed, the University itself.

Weiser 
has 
also 
worked 
to 

undermine 
Michigan’s 
labor 

movement and, with it, workplace 
democracy. 
University 
professor 

Elizabeth Anderson has argued in 
her book “Private Government” that 
workplaces, where employees have 
no say in their management, are akin 
to dictatorships. Trade unions are 
one of the few bulwarks against such 
dictatorships and give workers a say 
in the decisions that govern their lives. 
Robust trade unions are a critical 
feature of any society that would claim 
the mantle of democracy.

Weiser, together with the DeVos 

family, worked for the campaign 
to pass so-called “Right-to-Work” 
legislation in Michigan, which has 
hamstrung the labor movement here 
and across the country. This was 
nothing less than a full-scale assault 

on democracy in Michigan. When 
the Editorial Page Editors reached 
out to Weiser for comment, he did 
not respond. In the conclusion of his 
statement on the Capitol riot, Slater 
eloquently 
and 
wisely 
asserted, 

“Democracy never finishes emerging. 
It is a set of actions, not a finished state 
of being. American democracy has 
always been incomplete. It has never 
worked for all of us. This week’s violent 
events show just how fragile and faulty 
our incomplete democracy is as well.” 

GEO could not agree more. 

Weiser’s place in the University is an 
affront to the principles that Slater 
and his colleagues at the WCED work 
to defend. We call on Slater and all 
those at the University whose work 
seeks to further the righteous cause 
of democracy to speak out against 
Weiser and join GEO in the fight for a 
truly democratic university — one that 
would serve the public interest and 
respect the rights of its employees to 
have a say in the management of their 
workplace.

M

ore than 1,100 students 
at Columbia University 
in New York City are 

refusing to pay tuition until the 
university lowers the cost by at least 
10% as students face another semester 
of mainly-online classes. Tuition for 
undergraduates this academic year 
is $29,460 per semester. In the fall, 
Columbia allowed fewer than 1,000 of 
its over 6,000 undergraduates to return 
to campus. This spring, roughly 1,800 
undergraduates will be on campus. 

The tuition strike, organized 

by Columbia’s chapter of Young 
Democratic Socialists of America via 
their Twitter account, also includes 
demands for increased financial 
aid, for the university to engage in 
good faith bargaining with campus 
unions, for defunding the university’s 
Public Safety and for providing 
increased economic opportunities 
and outreach to the neighborhood 
surrounding Columbia. Though not 
all students are able to participate in 

the tuition strike due to their financial 
aid situation, Willem Morris, a senior 
and organizer for Columbia’s YDSA 
chapter, told The Daily that there 
are thousands of students who are 
supporting the strike in other ways. 
Organizing, emailing administrators 
and pledging to withhold donations 
are some of the ways students on 
campus have gotten involved. 

On Jan. 29, Columbia’s YDSA 

chapter called for a national tuition 
strike. Howard University’s YDSA 
chapter 
announced 
they 
were 

similarly planning a tuition strike for 
the fall semester. The Columbia strike 
was inspired in part by the University 
of Manchester’s rent strike that 
resulted in a 30% reduction in rent. 

The demand for a 10% reduction 

in tuition is in line with the tuition 
discount given by many comparable 
institutions 
for 
the 
2020-2021 

academic year. American University, 
Georgetown University and Princeton 
University offered 10% off tuition while 

Williams College cut tuition by 15%. 

Already, the strikers have won 

some concessions, including increased 
financial 
aid 
payments. 
Billing 

statements issued by the university in 
December said that late fees would be 
suspended “to minimize the financial 
hardship” caused or exacerbated by 
the pandemic. However, some students 
who did not pay tuition in January 
were still assessed the $150 fee. 

The question of whether tuition 

rates should reflect the ongoing 
pandemic is not unique to Columbia. 
This past spring, some University of 
Chicago students also held a tuition 
strike, calling for a 50% reduction in 
tuition. The University of Illinois was 
set to increase tuition after an in-state 
tuition freeze between 2015-2019, but 
decided to hold off on the increase 
until the 2021-2022 academic year due 
to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Students at the University of 

Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus will 
recall the 1.9% tuition increase for the 

2020-2021 school year passed back 
in June despite student advocacy. At 
the time, University Regents told The 
Daily that the increase would only be 
felt by those who could afford to pay it. 

At 
both 
Columbia 
and 
the 

University of Michigan, discussions 
about lowering tuition during a 
pandemic seem to circle the same main 
points. Students point out massive 
endowments that could be used to 
help them out during a financially 
precarious time. Administrators sigh 
and tell students that endowments 
aren’t just unrestricted rainy-day 
funds. On and on.

Really though, the pandemic 

has made it clear that we’re paying 
too much, always. As Morris said, 
the “price of higher education is 

completely detached from the 

quality of the education.” 

That’s not to say that both 

schools don’t offer high-quality 
education, but it is to point out 
that tuition rates are far outpacing 

inflation. If we were paying the 
inflation-adjusted tuition rate that 
a student paid in 2002, an out-of-
state student with fewer than 55 
credits would be paying $16,617 
per semester instead of $25,919. An 
in-state student would be paying 
$5,196, instead of $7,760. Is our 
education worth more now than it 
was in 2002? All signs point to no. 

Wages for new college graduates 

are barely rising. CBS reported that 
between 1989 and 2019, average wages 
for recent graduates rose less than half 
of one percent every year. That’s tough 
to chew on when staring down a 1.9% 
tuition increase. 

The University of Michigan, no 

doubt, attracts students based on its 
excellent reputation. But it also recruits 
students 
marketing 
the 
“college 

experience” — who among us doesn’t 
remember being told how many clubs 
the University offered during admitted 
student days? Without clubs and game 
days, it becomes clear that the “college 

experience” was a way to conceal 
the bloated tuition. If the college 
experience was more than that — 
more than just a shiny object to attract 
undergraduates — wouldn’t college 
cost less without it? 

This column is not about why and 

how college is so expensive. There are 
already plenty of articles about that, 
such as this piece in The Atlantic. 

This column is about one thing that 

might be done about college tuition, the 
burden of which is falling on students 
and on their families. What seems 
inevitable is that, as long as students 
will keep paying, tuition will keep 
rising. It is in that context that a tuition 
strike seems not only reasonable, but 
necessary. I’ll be watching closely 
as Columbia students fight for a fair 
tuition amount that is one tiny step 
closer to what their degree is worth 
and taking notes for the fall.

T

he other day I received an 
email. One of my friends 
from back home is a student 

at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, 
Calif., and he wanted me to watch a 
lecture from his professor, Dr. Courtney 
W. Davis. I had no true indication as to 
why he wanted me to watch that video, 
specifically. I hit “play” and settled in 
for 20-plus minutes. 

Davis, who teaches communication 

management, claimed to be “skeptical 
of things that other people think 
are cool and amazing.” She states 
that she never had crushes on boy 
bands, dresses anti-trendy and rarely 
downloads the latest iOS update 
upon its release. Davis, in summary, is 
someone who is anti-hype.

As I listened to this way of 

thinking, I could not help but applaud 
the professor for her unwavering 
originality. Throughout life, there 
will always be a strong contingent 
of people that latch on to the latest 
trends, unconsciously submitting to 
the laws of groupthink. Moreover, 
these people sometimes base their 
happiness in the behaviors of others, 
surely an unhealthy action.

However, I reject Davis’s notion of 

rejecting “hype.” While it may be true 
that, yes, sometimes experiences do 
not live up to expectation, if it were 
not for such precursory anticipation 
and energy, how would anyone be 
motivated to do anything? We, as 
humans, love the build-up to a strong 
rush of adrenaline. Psychologically, 
this hormone rush is similar to the 

release of dopamine; physically, we 
feel as though we are superhuman 
because of the increased blood flow 
to our muscles. 

In the 1970s, psychologist Marvin 

Zuckerman, a professor at the 
University of Delaware, created 
a personality questionnaire that 
identified four types of sensation-
seekers. An article from The Atlantic 
describes the first three of them 
as people who look for adventure, 
people who seek new experiences 
and people looking for ways to lose 
their inhibitions. There are some 
easy actions that fulfill the last one, 
but the other two can go hand-
in-hand. Yet, what do these three 
behaviors have in common? Before 
they occur, they are preceded by 
“hype.” 

Davis, however, seems like the 

fourth type of individual: people who 
are susceptible to boredom. Did she 
never wait in line for concert tickets? 
Refuse to go to the movie on opening 
night because Rotten Tomatoes said 
it was bad? Decide to go to class on 
senior skip day? 

These are often labeled as essential 

human 
experiences 
by 
society, 

but not for the events themselves. 
They are sensational because of 
their respective buzz — the eager 
anticipation of personal enjoyment. 

For this reason, I must express 

my sympathy for Davis. Perhaps, as 
Zuckerman concludes, she craves 
individual novelty. To her credit, 
Zuckerman notes that the payoffs of 

these four sensations are the same. 
While her character is undoubtedly 
authentic and she appears to be a kind 
individual — the two traits that are 
perhaps most important in this world 
— I wish she would buy into the hype, 
if only a little bit. 

In fairness to Davis, I had similar 

tendencies early on. I would scoff 
at those who went to the beach 
every summer afternoon or dressed 
identically in Nike or Patagonia, 
the two apparel lines that basically 
sponsor my hometown. I didn’t 
even try Chick-Fil-A until a year 
after a location opened twenty-five 
minutes from my house — a mistake 
I gravely regret.

Yet, at a certain point, I grew tired of 

watching on the sidelines — I wanted 
to try new things. When I think about 
how my life would’ve been different if 
I had never embraced the anticipatory 
excitement of my experiences, I 
probably wouldn’t have experienced 
them in the first place. I wouldn’t have 
immersed myself in homecoming 
week, sports seasons or the limited 
senior festivities I partook in. If I 
wasn’t enthusiastic about spending 
fall Saturdays in Ann Arbor growing 
up, I probably would not have been as 
motivated to come here. I wouldn’t be 
writing this column. 

GEO ‘s 2020-2021 Officers can be 

reached at umgeo@geo3550.org.

Jessie Mitchell can be reached at 

jessiemi@umich.edu.

The virtues of buying into the hype

Ron Weiser, Democracy and the University

Take notes: Columbia’s tuition strike offers a lesson for the future

Sam Woiteshek can be reach at 

swoitesh@umich.edu.

MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU.

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