In 1969, you could be denied
voter
registration
at
the
Ann Arbor Clerk’s Office if
you
weren’t
“conservatively
dressed.” Or if your answer to
“Where did you spend your last
vacation?” implied any sort of
family connection or financial
dependency. Or if you told the
clerk that you would call your
parents if you were seriously ill or
had some sort of emergency.
For
the
majority
of
the
University of Michigan’s history,
students
who
attempted
to
register to vote in Ann Arbor
faced
arbitrary
obstacles,
like the above, aimed at their
disenfranchisement.
Though
students resided in Ann Arbor
exactly as we do today, Michigan
state law was not keeping up with
the development of the modern
university.
Until
1971,
the
Michigan
Constitution
said
that
“No
elector shall be deemed to have
gained or lost a residence by
reason of his being ... a student at
any institution of learning.” This
meant students were not counted
as residents of their college towns
and therefore were not granted
the right to vote in the cities they
were studying and living in.
The University’s mission went
far beyond vocational skills and
practical training; it was, and
continues to be, an immersive
community aimed at “developing
leaders and citizens who will
challenge the present and enrich
the future.” Yet these future
leaders and citizens had no say,
no formally-observed political
voice, to influence policies that
would directly impact their lives.
Despite the ridiculous hurdles,
students were nevertheless still
determined to cast their vote
here, in this maize-and-blue
territory.
In a 1971 Michigan Daily
article, former news reporter
Chris Parks explained students’
motivations for wanting to vote
in Ann Arbor.
“Many students point out that
they, at present, have no control
over local governments which
make decisions directly affecting
them,” Parks wrote. “Voting
in their hometowns, they say,
is meaningless as what is done
there has little effect on them.”
With the modern ability to
choose between voting in either
your home or college state, these
students’ sentiments can feel
limited. Being able to vote in
your home state, particularly for
students who live in swing states,
like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania,
is just as much a privilege as is
having the option to vote in Ann
Arbor. But it is precisely that
choice — the right to strategically
ensure your voice is heard at the
loudest decibel possible — that
makes college voting such a
powerful opportunity.
Throughout the late 1960s and
early ’70s, students expressed
frustration and continued to
resist prohibitions from the often-
restrictive clerk’s office. For the
1969 city elections, the locally-
based Human Rights-Radical
Independent Party handed out
leaflets
instructing
students
on how to answer the clerk’s
questions to most easily obtain
a ballot. Answering questions
in a way that communicated
independence from one’s parents
and intentions to permanently
stay in Ann Arbor would often
help students’ chances at getting
registered.
But these efforts were not
always successful. A 1969 Student
Government
campaign
to
increase voter turnout “resulted
in more bewildered students
than registered voters,” wrote
former Daily reporter Robert
Kraftowitz.
The
campaign,
which intended to bring students
to City Hall to get registered,
was wholly ineffective due to
the inconsistent and irrelevant
questions posed by city clerks.
These included, but were not
limited to:
Are you self-supporting?
Do you live in private housing?
Where did you spend your last
vacation?
If students were not more than
50% self-supporting, or spent
their vacations outside of their
Ann Arbor residence, they would
be denied registration.
However, students who were
able to register made a substantial
impact: 75% of former Ann Arbor
Mayor Robert Harris’s new
voters were U-M students in the
spring of 1969. Harris’s victory
hinted at the capabilities of a
mobilized student body, fueling
student advocates and bitter
Republican candidates alike.
In the 1970 census, students
were counted as residents of
their college towns for the first
time in National Census history.
These figures were then used
to draw congressional districts
on both the federal and state
levels, informing the amount
of financial aid the city and
state receive from the federal
government.
Essentially,
students
were
being counted as citizens in
conjunction with a law that made
it difficult for them to exercise
their basic constitutional rights.
Until 1971, a student had to
meet the following criteria to
register, in addition to subjective
judgements from the clerk’s
office:
A student must be at least
21 years old by the date of the
election.
A student must have lived in
Michigan for six months and in
Ann Arbor at least 30 days before
election day.
A student must have no
intention of returning home, but
is uncertain of their future place
of residence.
A student must be free from
parental control, regard the
college town as their home and
have no other home to return
to in case of sickness or other
affliction.
In April of 1971, the state of
Michigan
changed
the
first
criterion to ‘at least 18 years old.’
A month later, the Michigan
Supreme Court deemed the other
rules
unconstitutional
under
the 14th Amendment, which
prohibits
governments
from
depriving citizens of “life, liberty,
or property” without fair cause.
This case, Wilkins v. Ann
Arbor City Clerk, asserted what
students had been advocating for
years: Students cannot be denied
the right to vote in their college
towns.
“For
voting
purposes,
there is no rational basis for
distinguishing between students
who reside at a given locality
for nine months of the year
and non-students who reside
in the same locality for nine
months of the year,” the opinion
reads.
“Requiring
additional
qualifications to vote which
affect different groups unequally,
whether by income, occupation,
or employer, is a denial of equal
protection.”
In the November 1972 election,
student voices were put to the
test for what was truly the first
time. And they delivered.
In heavily-populated student
districts in Ann Arbor, voters
under
21
years
old
sealed
victories for sheriff, circuit court
judge and 22nd district state
representative. The sheriff and
representative
winners
were
Democrats, and the nonpartisan
circuit
court
judge,
Shirley
Burgoyne, was known for her
women’s and LGBTQ+ rights
advocacy. On a campus entangled
with ’60s counterculture, student
voters successfully advocated
for progressive politics in their
college town.
The voters and best had hit the
polls, and from then on, student
electoral action was full steam
ahead.
At the first annual “Hash
Festival” in ’72, the Diag was
filled
with
political
rallies,
guerilla theater, rock and roll
music and political speeches. In
an article from The Daily, former
Arts Editor Paul Travis noted
the shift of students’ political
focus to their newfound voting
abilities.
“This past weekend Ann Arbor
saw a variation on the old theme
— the mixing of youth culture
and traditional, electoral politics
in an attempt to keep voters
keyed up for yesterday’s city
elections,” Travis wrote.
As the ability to act on
political
interest
expanded,
students translated their idealist
worldviews
into
practical
electoral
action.
Former
Daily News Reporter Ralph
Vartabedian examined this shift
in students working with then-
presidential candidate George
McGovern (D-S.D.).
When I was a freshman in high
school, I read some book that I can’t
quite remember the title of, knowing
only that it started with the words
“You’ll never be remembered like
Caesar.”
I hated that thought. Or more
accurately, I hated how accurate it
was.
I’ve never been comfortable with
the idea of being forgotten, in any
capacity, really. To me, it always
seemed that being lost to time was
equivalent to “true death.” And
I saw remembrance as the only
form of immortality that could
be guaranteed. A faux-afterlife
unlike any religious teaching that
can also be crafted through acts
and
deeds.
Most
importantly,
though, the memory of others
seemed equivalent to proof that an
individual meant something when
they were alive and afterward.
It’s funny to me now, because the
author who wrote that book was
right. I’ve completely forgotten his
name, his work and why he wrote it,
but I still know Caesar. I know how
he was born, how he took power and
how he died after a brilliantly short
burst of life. And somehow, 1900
years on, he survives in my memory
while the author (who could still be
physically alive) is lost to time in my
mind. My great-great-grandparents
are also lost to time. And one day,
you and I, and everyone who reads
this will be as well.
When I first encountered the
concept known as the “Right To
Be Forgotten” years later, I think I
was stuck in that ‘Caesar’ mindset
that being remembered could only
be a positive thing. The “Right
To Be Forgotten,” much like the
“Right To Die,” is a term coated in
shocking nature. Both run counter
to what we’re supposed to want.
We’re supposed to want to live,
and we’re supposed to want to be
remembered, so the two come off as
contrarian.
But the right to be forgotten is
not an abstract concept or some
nihilistic ideal. It’s the right to have
data that pertains to you, that you
no longer desire to have stored,
deleted. And in many places like
the European Union and Argentina,
parts of the right to be forgotten
have been codified into law. This
can look like many different things.
By some definitions, it only gives
you the right to demand the deletion
of photos, posts and data about
yourself, even if you’ve forgotten the
passwords to your accounts. That
part is relatively uncontroversial
where it is implemented, but
still is incompatible with the
First Amendment in many cases.
Its definition, however, can be
extended to points that force us to
answer uncomfortable questions
about our conception of truth.
The genesis for the right to be
forgotten, though, is the practical
reality that we’ve gotten too good
at remembering ourselves. And in
many ways, I think that’s scarier
than being forgotten.
The truth is, we don’t have to —
or, rather, we can’t — be forgotten
now, because our devices won’t let
us. The digital landscape has made
it so that every moment of your life
can be remembered, tracked and
acted upon. Every purchase you’ve
made, photo you’ve taken and post
you’ve uploaded is swirling around
in a collection of data that only
people much smarter than most can
comprehend. But it’s there, and it’ll
stay there forever. Because battery
lives are longer than our mortal
ones.
In many respects this is a good
thing: We can remember who we
were and who our friends were and
who our family was. But the flip
side is that when we can remember
exactly who we were and exactly
what we did for nearly every hour of
every day, we often don’t like what
that transparent image reveals, or
more specifically, we don’t like how
narrow the scope of our life’s image
becomes.
Thus, the principal consequence
of the digital age is that we no
longer completely control our self-
image, and that singular moments
don’t get lost to time. People have
their lives ruined by images they’ve
taken at inopportune times or posts
they made 12 years ago, and most
worryingly, by articles written about
the lowest moment in a person’s
life. Because now these moments
don’t go away. Pictures don’t fade
and digital archives don’t wither,
and this causes people’s futures to
get trapped by moments from their
past. Moments that 50 years ago
would have been a blip; Moments
that “The Right to Be Forgotten”
offers a solution to.
But where the right gets intriguing
is when it’s expanded. By some
definitions, the right to be forgotten
demands that your image and data
be removed when you remove your
consent from its broadcast, even
if it’s in the hands of others. This
is the law in the European Union,
and it runs through search engines.
In the EU, sites like Google now
must offset a request form where
people can ask that a search for an
individual’s name does not yield
the photos or websites that they
wish to be forgotten. The pages and
photos still exist, but aside from
some exceptions, they no longer will
be associated with the name; they
will be exterminated from “Search
Results” pages.
The
final
iteration
of
the
right extends these practices of
alteration to the media. It requires
publications and media companies
to acknowledge the right to be
forgotten, removing names and
specific
requested
references
to individuals that are either
embarrassing or detrimental to
their image if there is practical
purpose for that information to be
stored.
Originally, in the EU, media
outlets were exempt from the “Right
to Be Forgotten” and didn’t have to
offer any removal options. But in
Hurbain v. Belgium (2021), a case
in the European Court of Human
Rights, this understanding changed.
The court found that a Belgian
paper had to remove the name of a
man who was both responsible for
and convicted of killing another in
a car crash. More or less, it found
that the right to be forgotten could
trump the media’s right to report on
objective truth.
And
while
that
sounds
reprehensible, there is practical
value in giving people the right to
escape shame. In the case of that
man who killed another in a car
crash, it could have been purely
accidental, and he’d already been
punished by the courts. He served
whatever social punishment the
courts deemed to be fair retribution.
But it’s likely that the punishment
extended far past any jail time.
Because for decades, every new
person he met and every job he
applied for that looked him up saw
him as defined by one singular
moment. His lowest moment.
Thus, we arrive at a tug-of-water
between the ethics of objectivity
and the ethics of forgetting for the
sake of preserving one’s integrity. Is
having your entire existence defined
for eternity by the one horrible
thing more true than simply letting
yourself be forgotten?
The right to be forgotten has often
been referred to as “the right to be
forgiven,” and I think that’s a more
accurate name. There is immense
benefit to a faithful recollection of
the past. I believe that truth must
be objective and stored. But by not
letting people’s image change, by
holding it hostage in one moment
and freezing it there, the truth gets
diluted. Because people do change
despite it being hard to see.
When I was younger, I used to
play this game in the shower where
I would close my eyes and imagine
the person I had been just a few
years earlier. And inevitably, I’d get
embarrassed. I’d remember all the
shortcomings, idiosyncrasies and
moronic attempts to be cool, and I’d
be mortified. But then I’d imagine
myself at present and try to guess
what the things I’d be embarrassed
of in the future were. I’d think about
the popular phrases I’d parrot and
fashions I touted and recognize that
I’d strongly dislike those aspects of
who I presently was in the future.
But the thing is, only I have
to remember those things about
myself. The version of me that
I’d look back at with shame and
disappointment was given the
ability to sunset and fade away. I
couldn’t imagine what it’d be like
to have that past version of myself
be the one that defined my image
for the rest of my future, but I
know it’d be awful. I’d feel trapped,
because if every improvement I
made to myself was erased by a
now inaccurate image of who I was,
why would I have incentive to try to
become better?
I think the “Right to Be
Forgotten”
raises
the
genuine
question of why we desire the truth.
Do we value objectivity because it
leads us to better understanding our
human condition? Or do we desire
the truth because we feel we need
to record shame? I honestly don’t
know.
I don’t think that the right to
be forgotten can — or should — be
legal precedent in the United States,
as it is in the EU. But I think there
needs to be honest and thoughtful
conversation on how we use and
preserve media.
Since 2018, Cleveland.com, a
northeastern Ohio journal, has
been
experimenting
with
the
right to be forgotten because they
believe it’s an ethical practice.
They’re no longer posting mugshots
with stories and they’re allowing
individuals to request their names
be removed from stories about
minor offenses or those that have
since been expunged. And with it,
people are being freed from their
pasts. Former addicts, vandals
and petty criminals are no longer
defined by their mugshot. They can
get jobs again. They can move on.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
6 — Wednesday, October 12, 2022
S T A T E M E N T
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
EMILY BLUMBERG
Statement Correspondent
It’s great to be a Michigan voter; students’ path to the polls
On the right to be forgotten
CHARLIE PAPPALARDO
Statement Columnist
Design by Emily Schwartz
Photo courtesy of Bentley Historical Library
Read more at MichiganDaily.com