Political signage around Ann 
Arbor, though often a year-round 
affair for many students, protestors 
and 
organizations, 
has 
been 
amplified by the midterm elections, 
from splashes of “Vote Yes on Prop 
3” signs across the Diag to yard signs 
promoting local candidates.
I was not accustomed to this 
politically 
charged 
environment 
until coming to college, nor did 
I realize its prominence until a 
recent controversy occurred in my 
hometown.
Grosse Pointe’s St. Paul on the Lake 
Church garnered media attention 
last month after displaying a large 
“VOTE NO ON PROP 3” sign on its 
front lawn, accompanied by dozens 
of small white crosses. Driving past 
the church with my mom, I saw the 
sign and felt a knot tighten within 
me — a visceral response triggered 
by not only frustration toward a 
message I don’t agree with, but its 
size, lettering and language.
It was eventually taken down 
for violating city code regarding 
the size of signs, but its message 
continued to reverberate within me 
when I returned to Ann Arbor for 
the start of the school year. It struck 
me in the physical context of my 
hometown, where such signs are a 
rarity. Looking around Ann Arbor, I 
thought: Were there any signs here 
that I was missing?
Kerrytown’s sister funhouses: 
MichMinnies Cooperative
I hurried over to MichMinnies 
Cooperative on Halloweekend, my 
Princess Peach costume hidden 
beneath a U-M hoodie. Though 
it was dark outside, I could still 
admire the exterior of the houses as 
I approached: the blue “Michigan 
House” and, sitting just next to it, 

a large purple townhouse named 
“Minnies.” Together, they make 
“MichMinnies,” one of 16 co-ops 
in Ann Arbor’s Inter-Cooperative 
Council.
The 
brightly 
colored 
co-op 
stands out among the other houses 
on North State Street. A variety of 
signs, flags and other objects dotted 
the wrap-around porch of Michigan 
House, making it an anomaly among 
its plain surroundings. Signs on the 
front of the blue building advertised 
carbon neutrality, LGBTQ+ pride, 
Bernie Sanders and perhaps most 
infamously, 
a 
cardboard 
sign 
that reads RONALD REAGAN’S 
GRAVE IS A GENDER NEUTRAL 
BATHROOM.
The inside of the building held 
the same chaos of posters. The walls 
were clustered with a variety of 
artwork and pictures of friends, as 
well as a large swordfish sculpture, 
a presumably stolen bus route 
sign, caution tape and DIY wanted 
posters, 
among 
other 
aesthetic 
curiosities.
I 
would 
later 
learn 
from 
MichMinnies’s 
president, 
LSA 
senior Mack Kroll, that the co-op 
was originally named the Michigan 
Socialist House, established to serve 
students seeking affordable housing 

during the Great Depression.
Because of the houses’ consistent 
political 
and 
cultural 
leanings 
inherent to the community of 
housemates, 
the 
signage 
isn’t 
reflective of just one member of 
the co-op, but is rather a shared 
representation of the intertwined 
values 
and 
personalities 
of 
MichMinnies.
The occupants of the co-op are 
not the only ones that enjoy the 
inclusive environment MichMinnies 
offers. Kroll recalled a time when a 
mother walking with her son noted 
his interest in the house. The mother 
relayed to Kroll that they had always 
passed it on their way to the son’s 
preschool, and that the son would 
tell his mom how much he liked the 
decorations. After taking down their 
former trans flag due to wear and 
tear, the mother gifted MichMinnies 
a new one.
With all these signs, these 
physical 
manifestations 
of 
the 
houses’ cooperative identities, the 
most important thing for Kroll is 
that people living in and visiting 
MichMinnies feel like they can 
express 
themselves 
without 
hesitation.

Standing in the late afternoon 
sunlight amid a crowd of university 
students, I observed the scene 
before me. Music blared from a DJ 
stand I couldn’t see, swallowed in a 
mass of bodies decked out in maize 
and blue. A friend of mine from 
high school was in town, and an 
old soccer teammate of his invited 
us to visit his frat before we headed 
off to watch the Wolverines take on 
Michigan State. 
The first thing I noticed was 
the blue tarp surrounding the frat 
house’s backyard, which served to 
both maintain the frat’s privacy and 
give the backyard an atmosphere 
of exclusivity, like an improvised 
club for the University of Michigan 
“a-listers.”
The second thing I noticed was 
that, as I pushed through the crowd, 
the faces I passed had the same skin 
tone as me. Despite not knowing 
any of the fraternity members or 
“brothers” there, I was well aware 
of the reason I could waltz in as if 
I belonged. Being a white person 
myself, I was all too comfortable 
in the company of a group that I 
blended right into. 
When you’re in the moment — 
EDM tunes blaring in your ears, 
solo cup in hand — it’s easy to see 
how the privilege of being a part of 
“the brotherhood” is appealing to 
so many university students across 
the country — a privilege that has 
historically created homogenous 
groups of campus “cool kids,” a 
privilege 
deeply 
embedded 
in 
systems of racism, homophobia, 
classism — the list goes on.
Greek life gives students the 
opportunity 
to 
choose 
their 
social circle, but it’s not unique 
in that sense. Social hierarchy is 

synonymous with Greek life, but 
beyond the explicit measures of 
social standing, like the ranking 
systems that determine the “top” 
frats and sororities, many student 
organizations on campus operate 
in 
a 
similar 
way, 
positioning 
themselves in relation to their peers.
Involvement 
in 
student 
organizations is a means for students 
to tout their status, whether it be a 
sorority or the ski and snowboard 
club. 
To investigate this, I spoke with 
LSA sophomore Alina Malin, a 
member of the a cappella group 
The Compulsive Lyres, one of over a 
dozen a cappella groups on campus.
Malin explained that when it 
comes to a cappella at the University 
of Michigan, an organization that 
features “rushing” loosely similar to 
that of Greek Life, “Certain groups 
are very driven by competition ... 
and certain groups are all about the 
social aspect.”
“There are certain groups that 
tend to compete more, have more 
funding and have worked toward 
performance quality over other 
things,” Malin continued. “There is 
a hierarchy in terms of performance 
ability because that’s measurable.” 
However, while a cappella and 
Greek life both have hierarchies, 
for Malin, the similarities end there. 
“People don’t really join a cappella to 
get social standing,” Malin said.
So, competition among different 
a cappella groups may not be the 
popularity contest that is Greek life, 
but you’re still going to end up with 
people rushing what they perceive 
as the “best” a cappella group. 
To be certain of social hierarchy’s 
heightened relevance to Greek life, I 
spoke with an anonymous member 
of the business fraternity Phi 
Gamma Nu about their experience. 
The interviewee chose to remain 
anonymous out of a concern for 

the potential social ostracism they 
might face for speaking up about 
social dynamics among the business 
fraternities.
Explaining 
their 
fraternity’s 
position in comparison to the other 
business frats, they said, “We would 
be considered kind of lower than 
everyone else.” 
“Within 
the 
business 
frats, 
they’re called the tri-frat ... It’s DSP 
(Delta Sigma Pi), PCT (Phi Chi 
Theta) and AKPsi (Alpha Kappa 
Psi), and they were the first three 
established 
at 
Michigan,” 
the 
interviewee said. 
Hence, Phi Gamma Nu hasn’t 
been around for as long as these 
“top” frats and is not afforded the 
same prestige. 
Getting into one of the top frats 
can mean a lot to prospective 
members. “That’s a big mentality 
people have when rushing,” the 
interviewee explained. The rushing 
process involves interviews, in 
which, according to a Reddit 
post on r/uofm, those rushing get 
“grilled pretty hard.”
Being in a business frat is 
an 
opportunity 
to 
establish 
connections that will last into 
post-college life in the workforce. 
In other words, “They all do the 
same thing, it’s just different social 
cultures, but people still perceive a 
ranking even though it’s just there 
for the sake of having a hierarchy,” 
the interviewee said.
Whether 
that 
hierarchy 
truly matters or not is up to the 
individual. As this person told 
me, “I view them kind of as friend 
groups, and when you’re rushing, 
you should see which friend group 
you want to fit into best.” 
Lucy Brock, an LSA junior and 
member of the sorority Sigma 
Kappa, echoed this sentiment. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2022 — 7
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
S T A T E M E N T

ELIZABETH WOLFE
Statement Columnist 

Give me a sign: Touring Ann 
Arbor’s Signage Landscape
Social hierarchies on campus: 
Why Greek life isn’t unique

CONNOR HERRERAS
Statement Columnist

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Michigan Theater

 WALLACE HOUSE PRESENTS

On October 5, 2017, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey of The New York 

Times broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual abuse 

allegations and changed the world. Watch the feature film, “She Said,” 

based on their book of the same name, and meet the reporters behind 

the groundbreaking expose at an in-person conversation immediately 

following the movie screening.

Purchase tickets: michtheater.org

Free tickets for U-M students: michtheater.org

More information at wallacehouse.umich.edu/events

FEATURE FILM
“SHE SAID”
with reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Co-sponsors:

College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Michigan Engineering

Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28 | 5:30 PM

SPECIAL SCREENING OF

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Design by Emma Sortor

