Q

ueen 
Elizabeth 
II 
passed away in her 
sleep on Sept. 8, 2022, 
following her 70-year reign as 
the United Kingdom’s longest 
serving monarch. Whether this 
development has been perceived 
as a great tragedy, a moment 
of indifference or a chance for 
criticism, it is undeniable that 
the Queen’s death marked the 
end of a relevant and long-lasting 
reign, the impact of which has 
been felt even in America. But 
why exactly do the Queen, 
and the British monarchy she 
represented, take up so much 
space in the American psyche?
From 
“Harry 
Potter” 
and 
Shakespeare, 
to 
red 
telephone 
booths 
and 
the 
ever-romanticized 
British 
accent, the United States has 
wholeheartedly 
accepted 
a 
number of iconic symbols of 
British culture. While escapism 
and 
romanticization 
play 
a 
part in the American public’s 
devouring 
of 
royal 
drama, 
could there be an aspect of the 
British monarchy that parallels 
a greater American desire? 
The monarch is an apolitical 
figure 
who 
must 
“remain 
strictly neutral with respect to 
political matters” during their 
reign. Consequently, most of 
the monarch’s duties are merely 

ceremonial, and the monarchy 
functions as a unifier during 
divisive periods representing a 
common entity British citizens 
can rally around. The United 
Kingdom’s very identity is tied 
to its monarchy and historical 
image. The American equivalent 
of this kind of unifying factor 
could be the democratic ideals 
this country was founded on, 
but even that bedrock value 
is widely debated in today’s 
polarized political sphere.
The United States and its 
citizens — without a monarchy to 
rally around — crave stability and 
cooperation on a national scale. 
This could explain the American 
obsession with the monarchy, 
but reactions to the queen’s 
death have been notably mixed. 
While some Americans have 
openly expressed their sadness 
at the Queen’s death, some have 
rejoiced at her death due to 
her complicity in colonization. 
With this sentiment in mind, 
it is important to remember 
that while Queen Elizabeth II 
did represent the U.K. during 
her reign, she is not solely 
responsible for the country’s 
actions and her death does not 
spell the end of the country’s 
colonial history.
When looking at her reign 
in its totality, the Queen’s 
death represents the end of a 
historically significant reign, 
67% 
of 
Americans 
oppose 
America having a monarchy. 

From 
the 
highly 
divisive 
American 
reactions 
to 
the 
queen’s passing, it is clear that 
Americans on the whole view 
the Queen and her Royal Family 
more as cultural icons than 
political ones.
In the United Kingdom, it is 
considered highly inappropriate 
for members of the Royal Family 
to express political opinions. 
Despite 
the 
British 
public 
viewing a partisan monarch 
as improper, over one-third of 
polled Americans believe that 
British 
royals 
should 
make 
public political statements.
The disparity between how 
Americans 
and 
citizens 
of 
the U.K. perceive their public 
figures’ politics highlights an 
important distinction between 
the two nations. In America, 
it is difficult to conjure a 
figure akin to the queen in 
sociocultural 
influence 
and 
historical 
precedence. 
Even 
nominally 
apolitical 
figures 
are politicized in the U.S., as 
seen with Dr. Anthony Fauci in 
2020. Although Fauci’s role as 
chief medical officer throughout 
the COVID-19 pandemic was 
intended 
to 
offer 
universal 
advice, his opinions quickly 
became politically polarizing. 
In December 2021, Dr. Fauci’s 
approval 
rating 
among 
Democrats was 85% and just 
19% among Republicans.

T

hough they both attempt to 
explain the world, religion 
and science are essentially 
opposites. 
Science 
relies 
on 
testable empirical evidence, while 
religion is subjective, meaning any 
“evidence” exists in our own minds 
and the writings of our ancestors 
— so is it truly possible for the 
two concepts to coexist? Coming 
from someone who has come to a 
crossroads with their faith due to a 
greater understanding of science, I 
believe the answer to this question 
is yes. 
I have always identified as a 
religious person. In fact, praying 
every night is the thing that keeps 
me most in touch with myself, 
my hopes, fears and feelings. As 
a pharmaceutical sciences major, 
however, I have found myself 
questioning my faith. With my 
expanding knowledge of science 
and its dependence on proof and 
physical evidence, having faith 
in something that is completely 
intangible has its challenges. 
Many stories in religious script are 
physically impossible; the idea of 
resurrection, for example.
Interestingly enough, science 
and 
religion 
were 
actually 
unified in our country’s early 
history. 
Many 
writers 
from 
ancient times were considering 
religious and scientific questions 
at the same time, and did not 
necessarily think of them as 
different topics and certainly not 
conflicting ones. Steven Clark, 
professor of molecular, cellular 
and developmental biology at the 
University of Michigan, reminds 
us that “the modern notion of a 
scientific method arose among 

very religious people whose very 
religion was part of their drive to 
understand the natural world.”
The fact of the matter is, religion 
and science should be appreciated 
both as separate entities and as 
interrelated concepts. There are 
certain questions we can answer 
with science, such as how viruses 
and diseases spread, and others 
we can gain insight into through 
religion, such as the reason why 
we must suffer from said viruses 
and diseases. In other words, the 
reason science exists is to help 
people, whereas religion exists to 
teach us to have the compassion 
to want to help people. In this way, 
the two concepts come together. 
In fact, there is an entire subject 
matter, bioethics, that essentially 
combines science with the moral 
frameworks that religion offers. 
On top of that, the idea of science 
itself is more indeterminate than 
we think, because our current 
knowledge of the universe is 
constantly changing. For example, 
Clark points out that recent 
discoveries from the James Webb 
Space Telescope are overturning 
decades of research about our 
galaxy structure. He elaborates 
on this idea: “I never say, ‘I believe 
in evolution,’ because saying that 
would not be in accordance with 
the scientific method. I would 
rather say, ‘there is a tremendous 
amount of experimental evidence 
that 
is 
consistent 
with 
our 
theory of evolution and no other 
competing theory explains this 
evidence as well.’”
This reminds us that the 
scientific method is not necessarily 
claiming that it is the truth (though 
it could be), but rather helping us 
discover the truth. Clark drives 
this point home in pointing out that 
“inherent in the scientific method 

is that we are never describing the 
truth. We are simply describing 
our current best understanding 
of the natural world. There are no 
‘truths’ in science, only our best 
current understanding.” 
Many 
of 
religion’s 
idiosyncrasies can be written off 
when we remind ourselves that 
religion is based in storytelling. 
We must acknowledge that many 
of the stories in scripture are 
from thousands of years ago. 
Many scholars take note of the 
contradictions and inconsistencies 
in the Bible and attribute these 
flaws to the idea that the Bible was 
likely passed down orally before 
being written. Word-of-mouth 
can be very unreliable — as we 
all learned as children playing 
the game of telephone where the 
statement at the end is completely 
different from the original one. 
Perhaps some of the stories 
we read are exaggerations of the 
original occurrence. This does 
not invalidate their significance, 
but simply reminds us that 
storytelling 
and 
framing 
are 
important. 
Sometimes 
stories 
are even modified as beliefs 
and perspectives change, much 
like science changes as what we 
discover expands. For example, 
the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-Day Saints was at odds 
with the United States Congress 
for about 40 years regarding their 
practice of polygamy. When the 
government went to seize all of the 
church’s assets in 1890, suddenly a 
vision came to then-LDS President 
Wilford Woodruff showing that 
polygamy must be stopped, or the 
church would perish. This spurred 
Woodruff to release a manifesto 
that banned polygamy. 

T

his October, the Supreme 
Court is set to hear 
arguments 
against 
race-based admissions policies 
that could upend affirmative 
action. Broadly defined as a 
set of procedures to remedy 
discrimination 
and 
promote 
diversity, affirmative action is 
credited with improving access 
to education and employment 
for women and minority groups. 
The plaintiffs in the Supreme 
Court case, Students for Fair 
Admissions, 
have 
brought 
lawsuits against both Harvard 
University and the University 
of North Carolina for what they 
claim are admissions practices 
that discriminate against Asian 
American and white applicants. 
Such 
cases 
have 
become 
commonplace in the American 
judiciary, 
appearing 
before 
federal courts dozens of times. 
Cases against affirmative action 
have 
also 
come 
before 
the 
Supreme Court, which has largely 
upheld the practice. However, 
there is reason to believe that 
given 
the 
Supreme 
Court’s 
conservative makeup, affirmative 
action will be the latest of 
progressive policies to be struck 
down. 
While many universities and 
employers have been litigated 
in relation to affirmative action, 
the University of Michigan has 
arguably occupied the greatest 
spotlight. In 2003, U-M was 
sued for its affirmative action 
policies resulting in two cases 
being brought before the Supreme 
Court. The University won one 
while losing the other. Soon after 
in 2006, the State of Michigan 
voted in a referendum to uphold 
Proposal 2 banning affirmative 
action statewide and ending the 
University of Michigan’s policy. 
Eight years later, the Supreme 
Court again heard arguments 
regarding the State of Michigan’s 
ban on affirmative action and 

voted 6-2 in favor of upholding 
the ban. 
Since then, the University 
of Michigan has struggled to 
enroll minorities. Its student 
body in 2020 consisted of 4.3% of 
students identifying as Black and 
6.8% identifying as Latino, largely 
unchanged from 2012. Despite 
concerted efforts to recruit Black 
students through outreach, such 
as from its special admissions 
office in Detroit and extensive 
investments numbering in the 
hundreds of millions of dollars, 
the University of Michigan has 
come up short. 
While 
the 
banning 
of 
affirmative action has certainly 
contributed to the University’s 
lack of diversity, other policies, 
specifically legacy admissions, 
have 
also 
hindered 
the 
University’s 
efforts. 
Formally 
established in the early 20th 
century, 
legacy 
admissions 
policies were created to protect 
universities’ white, wealthy and 
Protestant student bodies from 
competing with recent European 
and Jewish immigrants.
Today, they function in much 
the same way, favoring the 
admission 
of 
white, 
wealthy 
applicants 
over 
immigrants, 
people of color and individuals 
of lower socioeconomic status. 
Maintaining 
this 
admissions 
policy 
thus 
presents 
two 
obstacles for the university. The 
first: continuing a practice that 
runs contrary to the University’s 
commitment to anti-racism. The 
second: hindering their stated 
goal of creating a diverse student 
body.
Although 
some 
may 
be 
skeptical that legacy admissions 
could have a sizable effect on the 
composition of U-M’s student 
body, an important case study 
sheds light on this phenomenon. 
In 
2014, 
Johns 
Hopkins 
University quietly phased out 
legacy admissions, citing its anti-
meritocratic bias and its struggle 
to recruit diverse classes of 
students. After evaluating data 
from 2009 to 2019 Hopkins found 

that Pell Grant eligible students 
increased by 10%, students on 
financial aid increased by 20% and 
racial minority representation 
increased by 10%. 
For those that claim legacy 
admissions are integral to a 
university’s ability to fundraise, 
evidence points to the contrary. 
For example, during the 10-year 
period over which Johns Hopkins 
eliminated 
legacy 
admissions, 
its endowment actually tripled. 
Further concrete evidence is given 
by one statistical analysis that 
showed no causal relationship 
between legacy admissions and 
alumni donations. Another, out 
of the University of Michigan 
Law School showed that legacy 
admissions did not positively 
impact university fundraising. 
As an alumnus and a former 
legacy student, I’m proud to be a 
Michigan Wolverine and grateful 
of the education that I received at 
U-M. It’s the same education that 
I wish millions of students could 
access, including my own future 
offspring. However, my conviction 
is that children of alumni should 
be judged by their merit, not by 
their educational pedigree. It is 
time for the University and for 
all of us to push for this smallest 
of changes in order to temper the 
accumulation of wealth by the 
elite few and to promote racial 
and socioeconomic inclusion. 
As the Supreme Court prepares 
to hear a case that could reshape 
the 
landscape 
of 
university 
admissions, the University of 
Michigan should take a stand 
and eliminate its legacy policy. 
Joining the ranks of Johns 
Hopkins, Amherst, MIT and the 
State of Colorado would not only 
be an honor but would also be a 
continuation of the University’s 
work to defend affirmative action 
and improve the diversity of its 
student body. For if we’re honest, 
legacy admissions are affirmative 
action for the rich, and if 
affirmative action should end for 
the marginalized, as is likely this 
fall, it should certainly not exist 
for the privileged. 

Opinion

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Rushabh Shah
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Lindsey Spencer
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Anna Trupiano
Jack Tumpowsky
Alex Yee
Quin Zapoli

I’m an alum and a legacy. End legacy 
admissions now

Wednesday, September 21, 2022 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

From The Daily: The significance and 
harm of Queen Elizabeth II and the 
British Monarchy

Can science and religion coexist?

THE MICHIGAN DAILY 
EDITORIAL BOARD

A

merican 
democracy 
is 
in trouble. Trust in the 
federal 
government 
is 
near an all-time low, as only 
19% of people trust the federal 
government to do the right thing 
most of the time, according to 
polling from the Pew Research 
Center. 
This 
concern 
is 
compounded by recent news that 
the Supreme Court will hear a 
case about the legitimacy of the 
independent 
state 
legislature 
theory — the idea that state 
legislatures 
have 
complete 
control over federal election 
procedures, even if state supreme 
courts say otherwise. This could 
mean state legislatures assigning 
electoral college votes, with no 
mind to what their own laws or 
state courts have to say on the 
matter.
As liberals venture into a 
federal landscape that seems to 
be opposed to their interests in 
every way imaginable, it may be 
time for progressives to do what 
conservatives have been doing 
for decades: focus on winning 
statehouses. 
The 
Electoral 
College, a Supreme Court that 
has made enforcing the Voting 
Rights Act nearly impossible and 
the filibuster are all structural 
advantages 
that 
Republicans 
hold in our political system.
In the days following Politico’s 
bombshell release of a draft 
Supreme Court opinion that was 
poised to overturn Roe v. Wade — 
the precedent that has protected 
the right to abortion for nearly 50 
years — many Democrats were 
left scrambling.
“Where the hell is my party?” 
asked California Gov. Gavin 
Newsom, a Democrat, at a May 
5 press conference. “This a 
concerted, coordinated effort. 
And yes, they’re winning. … Let’s 
acknowledge that. … Where’s the 
counter-offensive?”
These comments are even 
more prescient in the wake of 
the official Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women’s Health Organization 
decision 
overturning 
Roe 
v. 
Wade.
Newsom’s criticisms, though 

directly 
focusing 
on 
abortion, are widely applicable 
to 
the 
Democratic 
strategy 
in 2022, 2024 and beyond. 
Adam Jentleson, former staffer 
to the late Senate Majority 
Leader 
Harry 
Reid, 
D-Nev., 
posited that Newsom’s speech 
“reflects a growing sense among 
Democratic pros that there is 
a leadership vacuum and no 
plan — short-term, long-term 
or otherwise — to deal with the 
threats we face.”
President Joe Biden’s strategy 
for 
keeping 
Democrats 
in 
power seems to have been to 
pass 
popular, 
common-sense 
policies focused on material 
change in people’s lives. The 
Inflation Reduction Act, the 
American 
Rescue 
Plan 
and 
the Infrastructure Investment 
and Jobs Act are some notable 
examples of this.
Moderate Senate Democrats 
— namely Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, 
D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.
Va. — have consistently opposed 
the attempts to abolish or change 
the Senate filibuster to enable 
this transformational agenda. As 
of yet, Senate Majority Leader 
Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has 
been unable or unwilling to 
offer 
appropriate 
concessions 
or threats to these two red state 
renegades. 
With Congress’s failure to 
pass substantial voting rights and 
anti-gerrymandering legislation, 
Democrats are looking at being 
locked out of federal government 
for a decade. The first years of the 
Biden administration have seen 
an outright failure to correct 
the 
structural 
advantages 
Republicans have attained and 
maintained through the decades.
So what is the solution for 
a Democrat frustrated by an 
unwillingness or inability of 
Democratic leadership to corral 
their own senators? Retreat to 
the statehouse.
For decades, Democrats have 
been outspent and outgunned 
at the state legislative level. 
This reached its peak in 2016, 
when Republicans controlled 32 
statehouses. Today, Republicans 
have unified control of 30 state 
legislatures, 
and 
Democrats 
control only 17. Haley Barbour, 

past 
Republican 
National 
Committee Chairman, described 
the goal as making “self-reliant 
state parties.” A similar guiding 
sentiment does not exist on the 
Democratic side, due in part to 
fundamentally different goals.
There are several reasons 
that 
Democrats 
are 
less 
interested in state government 
than 
Republicans. 
Principal 
among those is that the GOP 
can accomplish many of its 
important priorities, such as 
tax cuts, gun rights, abortion 
restrictions, school choice, from 
the statehouse.
Democrats, on the other hand, 
would have little luck enacting 
comprehensive 
immigration 
reform, 
combating 
climate 
change or passing universal 
health care at the state level. 
It’s not that these issues are too 
complex to be dealt with on a state 
level, but instead that individual 
states have constructed political 
systems that make this sort of 
policy-making nearly impossible.
The 
states, 
once 
referred 
to by Supreme Court Justice 
Louis Brandeis as “laboratories 
of 
democracy,” 
are 
proving 
ineffective 
at 
actually 
experimenting. 
This 
isn’t 
because state legislators are so 
much more small-minded than 
their federal counterparts, but 
because most state governments 
are severely restricted.
Take New Mexico for instance. 
Joe Biden won the “Land of 
Enchantment” by almost 11%. 
With a Democratic trifecta in the 
statehouse, an outside observer 
might expect New Mexico to 
pass policies combating poverty, 
drug addiction and child neglect. 
The 
reality 
is 
much 
more 
restrained. New Mexico, with a 
“citizen’s legislature,” wherein 
legislators are given a paltry per 
diem for lodging and have only 
90 days of legislative sessions 
every two years, is ill-equipped 
to pass substantial legislation. 
These extremely short legislative 
periods don’t give lawmakers a 
lot of time to execute good policy; 
they don’t have time to take full 
advantage of their laboratory of 
democracy.

JULIAN BARNARD
Editorial Page Editor

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

CHRISTOPH BAKER
Opinion Contributor 

VANESSA KIEFER 
AND KATE WEILAND 
Managing Editors

Federalism is failing

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

ANNA TRUPIANO
Opinion Columnist