7-Opinion
Opinion
Wednesday, March 31, 2021 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
BRITTANY BOWMAN
Managing Editor
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
CLAIRE HAO
Editor in Chief
ELIZABETH COOK
AND JOEL WEINER
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Julian Barnard
Zack Blumberg
Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Elizabeth Cook
Brandon Cowit
Jess D’Agostino
Andrew Gerace
Krystal Hur
Min Soo Kim
Jessie Mitchell
Zoe Phillips
Mary Rolfes
Gabrijela Skoko
Elayna Swift
Jack Tumpowsky
Joel Weiner
Erin White
KATHERINE KIESSLING | COLUMNIST
A
round 9 p.m. on March 3,
33-year-old Sarah Everard
left her friend’s house in
London to walk home. She wore
bright clothes, walked on well-lit
streets and called her boyfriend
along the way. In other words, she did
everything right.
Yet, on March 12, it was confirmed
that her remains had been found in a
wooded area of Kent, England, over
fifty miles away from her home. Sarah
had been abducted and murdered by a
police officer. A man whose profession
is fundamentally based on keeping the
public safe had used his position to
attack a vulnerable woman.
Following the horrific murder
of
Sarah
Everard,
numerous
hashtags began trending, including
#TextMeWhenYouGetHome. These
hashtags depict the demoralizing and
frustrating reality women must face
when alone. Like me, many women
in college can understand what Sarah
Everard was thinking while walking
home. The anxiety when someone is
walking a little too quickly from behind
or when a car begins to slow beside
you. We are taught to leave before
dark, never wear both headphones,
share our live location, know who is
behind us, have keys in hand, an alarm
within reach — the list continues.
However, these are all reactionary and
do not guarantee safety in a disgusting
game of luck. It is the reason fathers
fear for their daughters. They know
what other men can do when given
the opportunity.
On March 16, a gunman traveled
to several spas in Atlanta and
murdered eight women, six of
whom were of Asian descent. When
questioned, the gunman claimed
the attack was to combat his sex
addiction by ridding himself of
temptation, further encouraging
the ignorant belief that racism and
sexism are fundamentally separate
issues. During a press conference,
Captain
Jay
Baker,
Cherokee
County Sheriff’s Office spokesman,
said the gunman was having a “bad
day.” How insensitive does one
have to be to try to invoke pity for
a misogynistic murderer? Eight
women had suddenly lost their
lives, and Baker thought it would be
appropriate to defend the man that
had caused this immense tragedy
and pain.
Excuses are consistently made
for perpetrators, while victims are
questioned for their behavior and
clothing. It is a phenomenon that
has seen little evolution over the last
century. Men, inspired by the actions
of other men, feel empowered to
order women around. In the 1970s,
“The Ripper” was causing chaos
across Britain that led to women
being instructed to always have a
male companion or risk being blamed
for their own death. The ideology that
women should be the ones to alter
their behavior ignores the fact that
women are in no manner responsible
for the actions of sexual predators
and, therefore, should not be forced
to change their conduct.
In early March, the release of a
report by the All Party Parliamentary
Group for UN Women revealed that
86% of British women between the
ages of 18 and 24 have experienced
sexual harassment in public spaces.
Due to the timing of its release,
the report has been discussed in
conjunction with Sarah Everard’s
death to demonstrate how frequent
sexual harassment and assault are in
daily life for women. However, the
subsequent “#97percent” that began
trending on Twitter and TikTok has
faced retaliation with the assertion
that “not all men” are predators.
The “not all men” movement is
an inherently selfish act intended
to redirect the conversation and
dismiss the experiences of women.
When a woman has the courage to
talk about what happened to her, you
listen and support her.
There are a range of behaviors that
can be classified as sexual harassment
and all of them can have an emotional
toll. “If you immediately respond
with ‘not all men’ rather than digest
the facts and information or actively
think about how to be part of the
solution, then you are in fact part of
the problem…” is how Twitter user
@casiahcagan responded to the
revitalized “not all men” movement.
Casiah Cagan’s post reflects the
mentality of many women across the
internet toward #NotAllMen because
it is simply unhelpful to talk about how
you’re a nice guy in this situation.
For a woman walking on the
street, there is no time to distinguish
between the good men and the bad
because there is no way to know, so
being wary of all men is yet another
security measure women use to
protect themselves. Obviously, women
know not all men are predators, but it
is impossible to know which men are
for sure problematic or not until it is
too late. Dismissing the commonplace
experiences of women because of what
you perceive your own character to be
shifts the focus toward you instead of
continuing a necessary conversation.
To any male reader that adopts
this approach: in Women’s History
Month alone there have been
numerous
targeted
attacks
on
women, and you have the arrogance
to tell me not to worry because you’re
a “good” guy? This isn’t about you. I
don’t care how nice you are because
if you are not actively combating
violence against women, you are
perpetuating its normalcy.
Instead, listen to what women have
to say. Don’t become defensive or shift
the discussion away from its main
topic, make excuses for the behavior
of other men or claim a woman is
overreacting. Not being a perpetrator
or a victim does not justify writing
the issue off as something that has
no impact on your life. Far too often,
unacceptable behavior is brushed
aside and allowed to spread rampantly
across society. We all need to learn to
have empathy so that more women
can come forward without fear of
cross-examination or victim-blaming.
While some women may have
not experienced sexual harassment
firsthand, the fear of it is instilled
at an early age. Sexual assault and
harassment can happen to anyone at
any time and the best a woman can do
is follow the same unwritten rulebook
as Sarah Everard. In order for sexual
assault and harassment to be addressed,
there has to be an understanding that
there are many opportunities men
take for granted, because they are
typically not the victims of gender-
based violence. It may not be all men,
but sexual harassment and assault
certainly impacts every woman.
I do not care how “nice” you are.
Katherine Kiessling can be reached
at katkiess@umich.edu.
NATASHA VATALARO, VIVIAN KIM, AMELIA FRANCISCO, RINNY SINGH, LUNIA ORIOL | CONTRIBUTORS
** Editor’s Note: This op-ed was
published three hours before the
University announced their plan to
fully disinvest from holdings related to
fossil fuels by 2050.
T
he final report from the
President’s
Commission
on
Carbon
Neutrality,
released March 18, states that the
University of Michigan’s plans to
become entirely carbon neutral
across all three campuses by 2025
for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions,
which would include all power
purchased by the University and
produced on sites like the Central
Campus Power Plant. Slightly over
a year ago, the University froze all
future investments in the fossil fuel
industry in order to reconsider its
own contribution to climate change.
Despite these commitments, the
University’s reliance on fossil fuels
trounces through investments and
how energy is consumed on campus.
As our organizations waited for
the final recommendations by the
PCCN, we saw how other student
and faculty groups have responded in
strength. Climate Action Movement
at the University calls for a five-
year divestment from the fossil fuel
industry. Voices for Carbon Neutrality
urges revising of investment policies
to align more closely with carbon
neutrality goals. The Michigan Ross
Energy Club supports implementing
carbon pricing before 2025 and
environmental, social and corporate
governance metrics for endowment
investment decisions.
As members of two sustainability-
oriented
clubs,
we
resonate
with these requests. The ESG
Sustainability Committee adopts
and creates awareness of sustainable
practices across the College of
Engineering, and Citizens’ Climate
Lobby at the University of Michigan
seeks to create the political will for
a national carbon fee and dividend.
Coupling two of the many emerging
strategies — divestment and internal
carbon pricing — is an especially
promising way to guide the transition
and propel the University to the
forefront of national leadership and
commitment to carbon neutrality.
Despite the rapidly-increasing
market
for
renewables,
many
institutions like ours are still stuck
in the past. In 2019, the University’s
investments in “natural resources”
totaled roughly $1.3 billion, or about
9% of their total investments. Most of
this investment is in fossil fuels, such
as oil and gas.
We are all aware of the
detrimental effects the burning of
fossil fuels poses on the environment,
public health, agriculture, national
security and more. Although we
hope the Board of Regents listens to
the ethical arguments, divestment
is often weighed more by today’s
economic factors.
We couldn’t agree more with
Regent Ron Weiser (R) when he
acknowledged that “the long-term
risk of investing in fossil fuels is
substantial.” The University’s split
from the industry would remove itself
from the growing negative stigma
surrounding fossil fuels, sending a
signal to other universities that the
industry is becoming a thing of the past.
Widespread public stigmatization
might change the behavior of our
markets and governments. Fund
managers and investors could start
“negative
screening”
fossil
fuel
companies, and banks may even
stop lending to fossil fuel companies.
Moreover, the government may be
pressured to place legislation on fossil
fuel companies such as a carbon tax or
outright ban. This, in itself, would have
a more significant effect on fossil fuel
companies than any other method.
If creating a stigma around
the use of fossil fuels isn’t a good
enough incentive, then consider the
continuously decreasing price of
solar and wind power. Renewables
accounted for the newest United
States electricity-generating capacity
so far this year, and they’re only
expected to grow. The University of
California fully divested from fossil
fuels in 2020 and is reinvesting in
renewable energy over a five-year
time span. It is absolutely possible for
the University to divest from fossil
fuels as well as continue this positive
change in market norms.
Even if the University cannot
fully divest within five years, there
are many policy tools at our disposal
to accelerate the transition. What
especially caught our eye in the
PCCN report was the mention of
an internal carbon pricing system.
This bipartisan, globally-supported
policy has proven to be effective and
scalable at many other universities,
including
Yale,
Arizona
State,
Princeton and the University of
California, Los Angeles. An internal
carbon pricing system at the
University, functioning in tandem
with a Revolving Energy Fund
(synonymous to a Revolving Loan
Fund), could reduce utility expenses,
raise revenue for sustainability
projects and build the momentum
for state and national carbon pricing.
Investing in the fossil fuel industry
no longer corresponds to long-
term growth. Oil and gas stocks
have underperformed and are only
expected to become increasingly
volatile. By integrating internal
carbon pricing with investment
decisions, the University can avoid
future losses from the fossil fuel
industry and stay in line with the
Paris Agreement while emerging as a
climate leader.
Regent
Mark
Bernstein
(D)
stated so himself in the Wall Street
Journal: “We have to do everything
we possibly can to disrupt the flow of
carbon into the atmosphere, and that
includes disrupting the flow of capital
to the fossil-fuel industry.”
We can leverage divestment to
inspire new research across campus,
increase
shareholder
power
in
up-and-coming
technology
and
eliminate our dependence on and
support for the fossil fuel industry.
With the support of an internal
carbon
pricing
initiative,
the
University can harness the power
of market-based solutions to meet
decarbonization goals and address
climate change head-on. It’s time to
prove that we are the high-caliber
institute we claim to be.
***
As we wait for the Regents to share
“concrete next steps” in the planned
transition to a low-carbon economy,
let’s not slow our momentum. Until
then, here are links to the CAM Petition,
to the CCL Nationals and to ESG.
Call for divestment and carbon pricing in
the University’s lacking climate plans
The authors are all members of ESG
Sustainability or the Citizens’ Climate
Lobby. Amelia Francisco is a junior in the
College of Engineering and can be reached
at framelia@umich.edu. Vivian Kim is a
freshman in the College of Engineering
and can be reached at vivkim@umich.edu.
Lunia Oriol is a senior in the College of
Engineering and can be reached at leorio@
umich.edu. Rinny Singh is a sophomore
in the College of Engineering and can be
reached at rinnysi@umich.edu. Natasha
Vatalaro is a junior in LSA and can be
reached at vnatasha@umich.edu.
PHILIP EIL | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
I
didn’t know much about the Freedom
of Information Act when I was
an undergrad at the University of
Michigan. I was too busy drinking beer,
screaming myself hoarse on Saturdays at the
Big House and trying (in vain) to keep up with
the readings for my English major classes on
the American novel and Jane Austen. But not
long after graduating and pursuing a career
in journalism, I became entangled in a years-
long battle over public records that stemmed
from a true crime book I was — and still
am — trying to write about a medical school
classmate of my dad who was sentenced to life
in prison for prescription drug-dealing. Once
the trial ended in that case, my seemingly-
straightforward requests to see the evidence
were met with denials, delays, arbitrary fees
and excessive redactions. All told, it took me
more than five years and the help of two pro
bono attorneys to wrestle those exhibits free.
This years-long battle for access to evidence
from a high profile trial — which I once called
“the single most disillusioning experience
of my life” — turned me into a FOIA Guy:
someone who writes, talks and tweets about
government transparency, and, in one case,
flew to Brazil to appear on a panel about access
to public records.
So I was disturbed by a story from earlier
this month, first reported in the Washington
Post and then in The Michigan Daily, about
University President Mark Schlissel and other
Big Ten school administrators’ attempts to
shield their deliberations about how to handle
last year’s mid-pandemic football season from
public view. As the Post reported, Schlissel
suggested moving the conversation to a private
Big Ten-affiliated communication system that
isn’t subject to transparency laws, and at one
point asked University of Wisconsin Chancellor
Rebecca Blank, “If you simply delete emails
after sending, does that relieve you of FOIA
obligations?” When she explained that deleting
emails would be a breach of records laws,
Schlissel responded, “That’s really interesting
and difficult. Thanks for explaining.”
By now, other transparency advocates have
weighed in on this story. Adam Marshall, an
attorney for the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press interviewed by the Post,
called the behavior from top administrators
“shocking” and “troubling.” On Twitter,
Ted Bridis, a former Associated Press
investigative reporter who teaches journalism
at the University of Florida, described it as
“outrageous.” But, in my capacity as a lifelong
Wolverine and a public records nerd, I wanted
to weigh in on why I was bothered by it — and
why you should be, too.
First, a bit of background. The Freedom
of Information Act is far more than just a
punchline from the movie Dodgeball. Since
the law’s passage in 1966, it has helped perform
the invaluable democratic service of revealing
uncomfortable truths about our society. The
FOIA has helped inform us about the FBI’s
campaign to surveil and subvert Martin
Luther King Jr., the force-feeding of detainees
at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon’s arming of
local police departments with military-grade
weaponry and sillier things like complaints
about Amtrak’s cafeteria cars.
As I recently reported for Columbia
Journalism Review, over the last four years,
the FOIA helped expose some of the worst
corruption and dishonesty of the Trump era.
In 1985, the late New York Times columnist
William Safire wrote that the law “has done
more to inhibit the abuse of Government
power and to protect the citizen from
unlawful snooping and arrogant harassment
than any legislation in our lifetime.”
One of the FOIA’s most important legacies
is the fact that it inspired 50 similar state-
level laws in the decades after its passage.
In 2015, freelance journalist Brandon Smith
used the Illinois Freedom of Information Act
to pry free a previously-withheld dashcam
video of Chicago police fatally shooting a
black teenager, Laquan McDonald, which
led to a series of reforms, resignations and
criminal charges. More recently, state-level
records laws helped high school students in
Kentucky publish a police-training slideshow
that favorably quoted Adolf Hitler; there, too, a
high-profile resignation followed.
Michigan’s Freedom of
Information
law
was passed in 1976, and because the University
of Michigan is a public institution, the school
is subject to requests. (You can read more
about this via this page from the provost’s
office.) This has led to the publication of
the contracts for Jim Harbaugh and former
men’s basketball coach John Beilein, and
valuable reporting by The Daily on pricey non-
disclosure agreements offered by the school to
former employees and hefty fees charged for
the fulfillment of records requests.
And this is the kind of transparency that
Schlissel was trying to evade.
While Schlissel’s words are bad enough
on their own, there are two additional things
worth highlighting. First is that Schlissel
occupies a position of enormous power: As
of 2018, he took home a salary of more than
$850,000 and he leads an institution with tens
of thousands of students and employees, a $9
billion operating budget and its own police
force. He is, functionally speaking, a politician.
(He’s also a trained physician and medical
researcher, which adds an interesting layer to
his COVID-19 response.)
Moreover, the Big Ten’s move to cancel the
football season, and then reverse course, was a
decision that affected the lives of players, fans,
coaches and countless others, and involved
tens of millions of dollars in potential revenue.
Additionally, it even included America’s
demagogic president, Donald Trump, who
had turned the season’s un-cancellation into a
talking point. It was, in other words, the perfect
example of why freedom of information laws
exist: to provide a check on powerful people
making decisions of great public importance.
For Schlissel to try to evade those laws not only
reveals a disturbing ignorance of, or antipathy
toward, laws that protect the public’s right to
know, but it also raises the question of what
other conversations and decisions he might be
trying to shield from legal public oversight.
Though we’re only a few months into
2021, these actions make Schlissel a leading
candidate for one of this year’s “awards”
from transparency-focused organizations
for FOIA failures. (In 2019, Michigan State
University received a “Golden Padlock”
from Investigative Reporters and Editors for
its “unrelenting commitment to ensuring
transparency was avoided” with regard to
the serial sex offender and disgraced USA
Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.)
Embarrassing as this episode is, though,
Schlissel’s FOIA flub can be turned into a
teachable moment if it inspires folks to educate
themselves on national and state-level freedom
of information laws. As a starting point, I
recommend one of MuckRock’s anthologies
of FOIA-produced documents, historian Jon
Wiener’s book about his decades-long fight
for the release of John Lennon’s FBI file, the
Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Twitter
“FOIA Feed” or Article 19’s FOI-law training
manual for public officials. Perhaps this
incident will even inspire you to file a request
of your own, or write to Schlissel to express
your disappointment.
More than anything else, this moment is
a reminder of something I didn’t grasp until
years after leaving the University: Public access
to records is as vital a democratic principle
as anything enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
Any attempt to evade such laws is behavior
unbecoming of the president of a school that
calls itself the “Leaders and the Best.”
Schlissel’s shameful attempt to skirt FOIA laws
Philip Eil is an alumni of the University of
Michigan, class of 2007. He is now a freelance
journalist and an adjuct college instructor in Rhode
Island. He can be reached at philip.edward.eil@gmail.
MARIA DECKMANN/Daily