The 
University 
of 
Michigan’s 

Central Student Government (CSG) 
hosted a “Community Concerns” 
panel during the sixth meeting of the 
11th CSG assembly. Students, alumni 
and staff voiced their concerns or 
support for CSG leadership’s recent 
statement of solidarity with the 
Palestinian community, which was 
released last Tuesday. 

In the statement, executive team 

members of CSG wrote that they 
recognize anti-Palestinian sentiment 
on campus, the University’s refusal 
to divest from Israeli companies 
that they say contributes to the 
violence, and CSG’s past complicity 
in participating in annual trips that 
support the Israeli government. The 
CSG leaders closed their statement 
by promoting H.R.2590, a bill that 
urges U.S President Joe Biden and his 
administration to withdraw taxpayer 
money from funding the Israeli 
military. 

“Palestinians have been pushed 

out of the political discourse and have 
been censored,” the statement said. 
“Our solidarity with Palestinians is 
late but necessary and we aim to do 
whatever is in our power to ensure that 
we remain in lockstep with them and 
their fight against oppression.”

Solidarity with Palestinians
The panel opened with rising 

Public Policy junior Mahnoor Imran, 
who said she supported the CSG 
statement. Imran said as an incoming 
Ford student, she was particularly 
disappointed by the separate statement 
released 
by 
CSG 
Representative 

Emma Sandberg, who wrote she held 
a neutral stance in regards to Palestine 
and Israel.

“Let me be very clear: neutrality 

entrenches oppression,” Imran said. 
“The CSG statement in support of 
Palestinian liberation is one step. I 
urge us and challenge us to take more 
(steps) on this campus.” 

Another speaker, rising LSA junior 

Salma Ammar Hamamy, said what 
Palestinians are experiencing is more 
than a two-sided conflict, but is instead 
an imbalance of power that is rarely 
acknowledged by the media.

“I’m not here to make the colonizers 

feel comfortable when the mainstream 
media decides to broadcast broken 
windows of an Israeli building 
rather than thousands of innocent 

Palestinians killed,” Hamamy said. “If 
you only like to talk about the reaction 
of the oppressed, rather than the cause 
of the oppression, congratulations 
—you play a vital role in keeping 
colonialism and genocide.” 

Due to a high volume of petitioners, 

CSG hosted another virtual session on 
Wednesday to give more students the 
opportunity to voice their concerns 
and opinions on the crisis in Israel. 
LSA rising senior Hadeel Abulenin, 
one of the student callers, expressed 
disbelief regarding the poor treatment 
of Palestinians. 

“Even animals are treated better 

than the people who live in Gaza, 
which is unbelievable,” Abulenin said. 
“How can you with any conscience 
look at what’s happening there and say 
yes, this is a government that I fully 
support.” 

Students Allied for Freedom and 

Equality (SAFE) members — rising 
Engineering senior Nadine Samaha, 
rising LSA senior Jacob Sirhan and 
rising Public Policy senior Jinan 
Abufarha — also pledged their support 
for the CSG statement. Sirhan, the 
co-president of SAFE, said Palestinian 
students and activists on the U-M 
campus have been targeted and 
doxxed on websites for advocating on 
behalf of the Palestinian people. Sirhan 
said the CSG statement was a positive 
step towards making the University 
community feel more inclusive for 
Palestinian students.

“Year 
after 
year, 
Palestinians 

have come to CSG, as well as (to) 
administrators, to beg for their 
humanity,” 
Sirhan 
said. 
“This 

victimization means that Palestinians 
are only read through loss and need, 
and in many ways, that has been self 
internalized. Truth is a precursor to 
recovery and deliberation — the CSG 
statement took these steps.”

Abufarha said she feels like the 

CSG statement amplified her voice 
along with the voices of blacklisted 
Palestinian activists who have been 
made fearful to speak up for decades. 

“From an extremely young age, my 

mother taught me that the condition 
of being Palestinian in this country is 
to wrap yourself in your silences and 
swallow a baseline level of violence 
against your existence,” Abufarha said.

Abufarha said it was tiresome to 

constantly share trauma and have her 
concerns reduced to being too political 
for powerful institutions to confront.

2

Thursday, May 27, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

Students across campus 

respond to CSG Palestinian 

Solidarity Statement

University 
of 
Michigan 

President 
Mark 
Schlissel 

announced a commitment to a 
new plan that will achieve carbon 
neutrality by 2040 across all three 
U-M campuses at Thursday’s 
Board of Regents meeting.

The plan’s release comes after 

the completion of the President’s 
Commission 
on 
Carbon 

Neutrality’s (PCCN) final report in 
March 2021. The report outlined 
strategies and recommendations 
for the University to achieve 
specific carbon neutrality goals 
and benchmarks, many of which 
appear in the plan announced at 
the meeting.

The plan aims to eliminate 

scope 1 emissions, which derive 
directly from the University’s 
operations, by 2040. The PCCN’s 
recommendation 
of 
carbon 

neutrality, inclusive of carbon 
offsets, for this scope’s emissions 
by 2025 was not addressed in 
the plan. Schlissel said he would 
evaluate carbon offsets — the 
practice 
of 
counting 
carbon 

sequestrations that the University 
contributes 
to 
financially 

elsewhere towards neutrality — in 
the future.

The University plan aims to 

achieve carbon neutrality for 
scope 2 emissions, which come 
from the purchase of power off 
campus, by 2025. Defined goals 
for achieving carbon neutrality for 
scope 3 emissions, which are any 
emissions indirectly related to the 
University, will also be laid out by 
2025, according to the plan. The 
latter two goals are in alignment 
with those of the PCCN.

To achieve the elimination 

of these scopes, the University 
outlined multiple steps. Some 
of 
these 
include 
committing 

to 
geothermal 
heating 
and 

cooling 
projects, 
electrifying 

Ann Arbor and Dearborn’s bus 
fleets, requesting that off campus 
electricity purchases come from 
renewable sources and creating an 
executive-level leadership position 
that will monitor the progress of 
these carbon neutrality initiatives. 
The University also plans to create 
a dashboard that will track the 
progress of these goals.

Schlissel expressed excitement 

about taking charge towards a 
more carbon neutral future at the 
University.

“To fulfill our mission as a 

public research university, we 
must address the climate crisis by 
leading the way on our campuses 
and 
beyond, 
creating, 
testing 

and teaching the knowledge and 
technologies that will transfer 
to other large institutions, and 
inspiring and empowering others 
to solve the defining scientific 
and social challenge of our time,” 
Schlissel said.

The University also hopes to 

uphold 
a 
community 
culture 

which values sustainability. The 
plan outlines steps to achieve 
this goal, such as incorporating 
environmental justice principles 
into the University’s decision-
making process, engaging with 
the communities around the three 
campuses about climate equity 
and investing in carbon neutrality 
research efforts.

Schlissel 
emphasized 
how 

important community involvement 
will be in the implementation of 
the new climate neutrality plan.

Regents, Schlissel commit to plan for 
U-M-wide carbon neutrality by 2040

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