Additionally, 
separating 

Order membership from editing 
responsibility still hurts our ability to 
report on Order, as groups opposed 
to Order will nonetheless decline to 
talk to Daily reporters who are not in 
Order, which The Daily experienced 
as recently as 2019.

Importantly, 
knowing 
that 

journalism aims to “comfort the 
afflicted, afflict the comfortable,” 
Daily membership in Order hurts 
our ability to build trust with 
and amplify the perspectives of 
marginalized communities. This 
is given Order’s history of racism 
and harm, specifically in regards 
to its misuse of Indigenous rituals, 
language and artifacts.

The 
organization, 
previously 

named Michigamua, had exclusive 
access to the tower of the Michigan 
Union, a privilege unlike those 
given to any other student group. 
Since at least the 1970s, some U-M 
students have pushed back against 
Michigamua’s 
appropriation 
of 

Indigenous culture, and in 1989, 
the group agreed to eliminate all 
references to Indigenous culture 
except in its name.

But in 2000, activists in the 

Students 
of 
Color 
Coalition 

occupied 
Michigamua’s 
tower 

space for 37 days, finding that 
Michigamua’s 
meeting 
space 

had a “wigwam-like” design and 
exhibited 
Indigenous 
statues, 

headdresses 
and 
instruments. 

Michigamua also displayed photos 
of members taking part in initiation 
rites based on Indigenous rituals 
and 
gave 
members 
nicknames 

disrespecting Indigenous language. 
Past Michigamua/Order members 
well into 2012 have accused SCC of 
setting them up, despite extensive 
records suggesting the contrary. 
After sustained SCC protest, the 
University’s administration removed 
Michigamua from the Union tower. 

In 2007, Michigamua went 

through a series of reforms: it 
registered as an official student 
organization through the University, 
began to release its list of members 
and renamed itself as Order of 
Angell in honor of former University 
President James Burrill Angell — 
who founded the group in 1902 — 
against the Angell family’s wishes. 
Even today, though Order writes on 
its website that members “no longer 
participate in (Indigenous) rituals 
and actively condemn the practice,” 
the organization partially excuses its 
past as Michigamua by writing that 
“(a Native American theme) was a 
very common theme for many social 
clubs and literally millions of their 
members across the country” at the 
beginning of the 20th century. 

It is also noteworthy that during 

his tenure as University president, 
Angell negotiated the treaty that 
was the predecessor to the Chinese 
Exclusion Act and believed Chinese 
immigrants 
to 
the 
U.S. 
were 

inherently foreign and unassimilable.

In 
2019, 
multiple 
campus 

organizations 
condemned 

participation in Order due to the 
organization’s past appropriation of 
Indigenous culture and its elitism. 
These groups — including the United 
Asian 
American 
Organizations, 

La Casa and the Arab Student 
Association — announced policies 
that bar students who accept 
membership in the society from 
holding leadership positions within 
their organizations.

The Daily’s current leadership 

acknowledges and apologizes for 
our organization’s past involvement 
in Order. Since 1930, at least 58 Daily 
staffers have been a part of Order, 
very often The Daily’s Editor-in-
Chief or other high-ranking leaders. 
And since renaming itself as Order 
of Angell and attempting to distance 
itself from the term “secret society” in 
2007, Order has also used The Daily 
as a platform to publicize its member 
list, as recently as 2017. 

Though unable to make up for 

over 90 years of complicity with 

one letter from the editor or one 
Management Desk vote, The Daily’s 
current leadership wants to begin 
rectifying damage by dissociating 
formally from Order and other 
exclusive senior honor societies on 
campus. We believe The Daily’s 
platform should not be used to 
further the agendas of already-
powerful, historically problematic 
organizations such as Order.

This 
year’s 
leadership 
also 

recognizes that Michigan in Color, a 
section within The Daily by and for 
students of color, was the first entity 
within The Daily to condemn Order 
and “all other secret societies,” doing 
so in 2019. 

On Feb. 7, 2021, The Daily’s 

Management Desk approved the 
following provisional amendment to 
The Daily’s bylaws:

Because The Michigan Daily is 

committed to accountability and 
transparency, 
MDesk 
members 

will not join Order of Angell or 
any other exclusive senior honor 
society on campus or participate 
in programming run by these 
societies (i.e. Leaders for Life). A 
leader within The Daily partaking 
in a secretive group with a history 
of harm, including in any of their 
programming, 
does 
not 
align 

with our mission and core values. 
Participation in these societies, 
which value non-transparency over 
open engagement, directly goes 
against The Daily’s goal of being 
an organization that holds power 
responsible and elevates diverse 
narratives.

A staff-wide vote to confirm the 

provisional amendment will be held 
at the next all-staff assembly in April, 
per bylaw procedure.

Claire Hao is the 2021 Editor-in-

Chief and can be reached at cmhao@
michigandaily.com. John Grieve is the 
2021 Digital Managing Editor and can 
be reached at jgrieve@michigandaily.
com. Brittany Bowman is the 2021 
Managing Editor and can be reached 
at babowm@michigandaily.com.

Speaker 
Nancy 
Pelosi, 

D-Calif., announced Feb. 11 that 
a raise in the federal minimum 
wage to $15 would be included 
in the $1.9 trillion coronavirus 
relief bill. The bill, if passed by 
the House of Representatives, 
would be able to bypass the 
60-vote filibuster in the Senate 
through budget reconciliation 
and only requires a simple 
majority to be voted into law. 

However, 
the 
bill 
faces 

significant roadblocks in the 
Senate. With a 50-50 divided 
Senate, all 50 Senate Democrats 
and 
Vice 
President 
Kamala 

Harris would have to vote to 
enact the bill through budget 
reconciliation. 

The potential increase to the 

minimum wage, which would 
include gradual increases over a 
period of four years, would be the 
first time Congress has raised 
the minimum wage since 2009, 
where it was set to $7.25 per 
hour. In Michigan, the minimum 
wage is currently set at $9.65 per 
hour. A $15 per hour hike would 
represent a nearly 107% increase 
in the minimum wage on the 
federal level and a 55% increase 
for the state of Michigan.

Dr. Wally Hopp, University 

of 
Michigan 
Business 
and 

Engineering 
professor, 
said 

he has reservations about the 
unprecedented wage increase, 
especially during a pandemic. 
Hopp said he thinks Congress 
should wait until the economy 
has 
recovered 
to 
raise 
the 

minimum wage and to do so in a 
more phased approach than the 
current plan.

“If 
we 
go 
too 
suddenly 

absolutely, (there’s risks),” Hopp 
said. “Using a phased approach 
… we’re going to aim to get to 
$15 an hour, but we’re going 
to go on a pace that takes into 
account inflationary effects and 
unemployment.”

Engineering sophomore Nick 

Tran said he believes that the 
federal minimum wage should be 
higher than $15 per hour. Tran 
is from Seattle, a city that has 
already implemented a $15-per-
hour minimum wage, and said 
that the increased wages allowed 

him to save up money for college 
and put more money into the 
economy. 

“(The wage) allows me to 

support myself based on that 
salary,” Tran said. “If I was paid 
a lot less than that it would be 
somewhat more of a problem.”

It costs almost 32% less to 

live in Ann Arbor than it does to 
live in Seattle. Hopp said that he 
believed the role of the federal 
government is to set a bare 
minimum wage that could be 
increased gradually, but that the 
real increases should come at the 
state and local levels. 

“The minimum wage should 

be different for different parts 
of the country, and it is,” Hopp 
said. “I think there is a role 
for setting a bottom for the 
federal minimum wage … if we 
sort of push on the bottom of 
the wage scale a little bit, then 
it forces people like myself to 
make decisions to accommodate 
(employees).”

Hopp is also the owner of Great 

Harvest Bread Company in Lake 
Orion, Mich., and noted business 
owners have options other than 
layoffs when it came to balancing 
their budgets in the face of 
an increased minimum wage. 
These options, such as reduced 
hours and underemployment, 
are not counted in current 
unemployment metrics. 

“In order to stay in business at 

all, I really only have two levers: 
one is to increase prices and the 
other is to decrease hours,” Hopp 
said. “If I can’t be viable with 
adjustments to those two, then I 
go out of business.” 

James Wilhelm, the General 

Manager of Black Pearl on Main 
Street, spoke to the challenges 
his restaurant would encounter 
in the face of an increased 
minimum wage. Wilhelm said his 
business has thirteen employees 
making less than $15 per hour 
with approximately half of them 
as high school or college students. 

He said business has changed 

drastically over the course of 
the pandemic, and he had to 
temporarily consolidate positions 
to ensure safety and to cut costs. 
If the minimum wage were to 
be raised, those changes could 
become 
permanent, 
Wilhelm 

said. 

“Currently my servers are 

running their own food and 
bussing their own tables which 
is something pre-pandemic … we 
were paying (other) people to do,” 
Wilhelm said. “If the minimum 
wage goes up, there’s no way I 
could afford to pay the servers 
(that wage), plus pay a food 
runner, plus pay a busser.” 

If he were to give raises to 

employees to get them to the new 
minimum wage, Wilhelm said 
he would have to give equivalent 
raises to the rest of his staff to 
maintain the same hierarchy as 
before the wage increase. This 
increase would likely lead to him 
having to further consolidate 
employees or raise his prices. 

Wilhelm 
said 
he 
feels 

fortunate that his restaurant has 
larger ticket prices than other 
restaurants. 
Smaller, 
lower-

priced restaurants, he feared, 
wouldn’t be able to handle the 

increase nearly as well. 

“I hope (government officials) 

talk to real restaurant owners 
and actually get the opinions of 
people who have been doing this,” 
Wilhelm said. “My restaurant 
may 
survive, 
but 
it 
doesn’t 

mean all restaurants are going 
to survive … I worry about the 
smaller restaurants that aren’t as 
busy (as Black Pearl).” 

In contrast, Lauren Bloom, 

owner 
of 
Bløm 
Meadworks 

on 4th Avenue, said all of her 
employees currently make more 
than $15 per hour and that it was 
important for all of her employees 
to make a livable wage. Bloom 
said while owners of businesses 
and restaurants specifically are 
hurting right now, their servers 
and employees are hurting just as 
much. 

“I do understand that this is a 

challenging time for restaurant 
and service industry owners right 
now,” Bloom said. “But there’s 
never going to be a time that’s 
easy for business owners to make 
an increase in wages … but just as 
business owners are struggling, 
I think service employees are 
struggling too.” 

The federal bill also seeks to 

eliminate tip credit, which allows 
businesses to pay employees less 
than minimum wage if their 
income is subsidized through 
consumer tips. Phillis Engelbert 
owns The Lunch Room and 
Detroit Filling Station and said 
she is a staunch supporter of 
an increased minimum wage. 
Engelbert estimated that her 
employees make $17 per hour with 
tips, and if the tip credit were to 
be abolished, she would raise the 
price of products and reform the tip 

process. 

“Restaurants would have to 

figure out how to pass that price 
increase on to the consumers, 
there would be no other way to do 
it,” Engelbert said. “I think that 
would have to alter the way tipping 
happens … maybe tipping would 
go away altogether and customers 
would get charged the true cost of 
the product, including the true cost 
of the labor.” 

In 
early 
February, 
the 

nonpartisan 
Congressional 

Budget Office found that a $15 
minimum wage would increase 
unemployment 
by 
1.4 
million 

workers by 2025, but it also has the 
potential to lift 900,000 people out 
of poverty. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Wednesday, February 24, 2021 — 3

U-M students detail experiences 
living through snowstorms 

across the country

Some lost power, struggled to complete assignments due to extreme weather

CAMPUS LIFE

Local businesses in Ann Arbor discuss impact of a 

potential federal $15 minimum wage policy

BUSINESS

Restaurant owners, U-M professor talk pros and cons of raising workers’ salaries amid pandemic, financial uncertainty

CARA JHANG/Daily

Ann Arbor restaurant owners and a U-M Business professor weighed in on how a potential federal $15 minimum wage policy would affect the local area.

GEORGE WEYKAMP

Daily Staff Reporter

With 
snowstorms 
raging 

across the country, University 
of 
Michigan 
students 
are 

grappling with bad weather 
conditions while taking virtual 
classes from across the country.

LSA junior Emery Hakim 

has been living with friends in 
an apartment on the University 
of Texas at Austin’s campus 
for the Winter 2021 semester. 
Texas has been particularly 
hard-hit 
by 
the 
weather, 

and Hakim said she and her 
roommates have not had water 
supply for the last few days. 
All classes and activities at 
UT-Austin, including virtual 
activities, were canceled due 
to the snowstorm. She said the 
grocery stores are not open and 
the roads are not clear, forcing 
Hakim and her roommates to 
conserve their food until the 
situation resolves. 

“We really did not expect for 

it to get this bad,” Hakim said. 
“Like we knew it was going to 
snow, and it snows all the time 
in Michigan, but now the entire 
city is shut down and classes 
(at 
UT-Austin) 
have 
been 

canceled.”

Engineering freshman Tom 

Sherman, on campus in Ann 
Arbor, was trying to get to 
his 8:30 a.m. class on North 
Campus on Tuesday and had to 
decide between taking the bus 
and riding his bike 2.6 miles. 

Sherman said the bus is cold 
anyway since the windows are 
kept open to reduce the spread 
of COVID-19, so he chose to 
bike. 

“That was a mistake because 

the sidewalks weren’t clear, 
and I fell off my bike,” Sherman 
said. “I guess in a normal year it 
would be nice to ride in a nice, 
warm bus and have the bus drop 
you right outside your building. 
I guess those aren’t luxuries we 
have this year.”

LSA 
sophomore 
Maryam 

Haltam is taking classes from 
her home in Plano, Texas. She 
said her house lost power for 
a couple of hours, causing her 
to join the widespread panic 
across the state.

“When we lost power, we 

started panicking and my dad 
started looking for hotels but 
they were all full,” Haltam said. 

Luckily, the power came 

back shortly after. Haltam also 
said she got to help some of her 
neighbors who had lost power 
and water.

“Our neighbors came over to 

have dinner with us since they 
had lost power for two days,” 
Haltam said. “I know a ton of 
people right now who do not 
have internet, cell service and 
are literally shivering in their 
houses trying to stay warm.”

Haltam said she is concerned 

about the state’s response to 
the snowstorm and how state 
leadership is navigating the 
crisis. 

“(Texas Gov.) Greg Abbott 

went live, and he was like, 
‘Guys it’s because we actually 
do need fossil fuels because 
renewable energy isn’t reliable,’ 
which isn’t true,” Haltam said. 
“Because the actual problem 
wasn’t that. It was the outdated 
power 
plants 
that 
cannot 

withstand the cold.”

Gov. 
Abbott 
and 
other 

Republican politicians falsely 
blamed frozen wind turbines as 
the root cause of the widespread 
power outages in Texas that left 
almost 3 million homes without 
power. Renewable energy only 
accounted for 13% of the power 
outages. Coal and gas energy 
sources accounted for double 
the amount of energy lost.

According 
to 
the 
Texas 

Tribune, the state also decided 
to not update their equipment 
to 
withstand 
harsh 
winter 

weather conditions per energy 
and policy experts. Many Texan 
politicians also chose to ignore 
warnings for extreme weather, 
citing they “prioritized the free 
market.”

Hakim said she lost power 

Wednesday afternoon and is 
concerned that she might not 
be able to submit a paper due on 
Friday without access to WiFi. 

“I’m pretty sure my professor 

will understand,” Hakim said. 
“But there’s a lot of chaotic 
energy here in this apartment 
right now.”

Daily Staff Reporter Varsha 

Vedapudi can be reached at 
varshakv@umich.edu. 

VARSHA VEDAPUDI

Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

SOCIETIES
From Page 1

