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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