T

oday, 
many 
young 
people, 
especially 
students, want to be 
vocal advocates for the issues 
that they care about. With so 
many issues directly impacting 
this generation, like gun violence, 
climate 
change 
and 
student 
debt, it is difficult to ignore the 
intensifying need for the pursuit 
of activism. The problem, though, 
is that there are so many ways 
to vocalize these goals to the 
broader population. Finding the 
most effective way to express your 
interests is essential to being your 
own sort of “perfect” activist.
Variations of activism such as 
voting, participating in political 
campaigns and protesting are 
important for advocacy. These 
acts 
are 
deemed 
essential 
to making our mark on the 
democratic 
process, 
but 
the 
elementary variable behind each 
of them is oftentimes left out. 
Keeping every political action, 
every campus protest and every 
activist campaign afloat is the 
fundamental value of education. 
Whether it be from the courses we 
take or the campus organizations 
we associate ourselves with, life-
long learning and education are 
essential to becoming the best 
advocates we can be. 
Passion about political issues 
can get you to a successful point of 
activism, but to fuel that passion, 
you need information. Living 
in the digital age, a constant 
stream of political news can be 
overwhelming, 
so 
organizing 
things like workshops, seminars 
and organizations of like-minded 
advocates can assist in making 
this flow much more efficient and 
accessible. 
For 
the 
purpose 
of 
this 
argument, I am going to focus 
on what has generally taught 
me the most about activism — 
the teachings of other students. 
Education 
has 
always 
been 
important in my life, but it has 
been especially key when it comes 
to my personal and political 
development. I’ve learned a lot 
from courses on U.S. government 
and civics that have given me a 
life-long interest in politics, but 
it has been the students I have 
surrounded myself with that 
have heavily influenced my store 
of information on social issues. 
In a world where young people 
are becoming increasingly more 
involved in political issues, it is 
essential that our generation is 
the one to fuel the future of social 

movements and education. 
Public Policy senior Elizabeth 
Peppercorn is the president of the 
campus organization Students 
for Democracy, which prioritizes 
political research and advocacy as 
a means of education. She said that 
“student education is an important 
element 
in 
activism 
because 
education provides students with 
the tools and facts they need 
to make strong arguments and 
educated stances on issues.” Not 
only is it essential to have the 
proper tools for advocacy, but 
it is even more important that 
organizations communicate with 
students in a way that they best 
understand and can respond 
to directly. Being aligned with 
student organizations focused on 
political research, outreach and 
education gives young people 
the chance to learn and grow 
as emerging individuals in the 
democratic process.
But why is it so important that it 
be “student-centered” education? 
The answer is that a platform 
“by” and “for” young people when 
it comes to policy and justice-
oriented movements allows for 
the effective building of advocates 
and advocacy groups.
When 
we 
formulate 
an 
interactive 
and 
dialogue-
based program aimed directly 
at 
students, 
they 
feel 
more 
comfortable 
sharing 
their 
opinions and concerns and can 
better understand issues from a 
more personalized perspective. 
Students may learn primarily 
from their teachers, but it is other 
young people that truly influence 
their actions, understand their 
interests and empathize with 
their hopes and fears for the 
future. This is why activism 
directed by young people is 
essential to solving the central 
political causes of the day — they 
understand and will face their 
effects to the greatest extent, and 
can best reach others in that same 
situation.
This focus on education is 
not to say that we need to lessen 
the pressure to vote and protest 
and petition — it’s actually a call 
to continue these methods and 
make them more effective. We 
see student activists across the 
country using their voices on 
stages and in the streets to put 
pressure on politicians to act, but 
none of this would be possible 
without education. Young people 
everywhere are being motivated 
to become involved because they 
are being surrounded by hopeful 
activists that frequently discuss 
social issues in a way they can 
empathize with. Peppercorn said 

that “activism is an important 
element of student life in general 
because students and youth today 
want to make a better world 
for themselves and for future 
generations.” When we listen 
to other students and hear their 
opinions, we are prompted to 
educate ourselves and continue 
the cycle for generations to come.
Activism is only successful 
when there is a strategy behind 
it. This strategy can vary from 
organization to organization but 
each one is primarily built around 
structural 
foundations 
and 
methodology, all of which depend 
on a sound educational platform. 
Advocacy can’t get off the ground 
without proper technique and 
facts to support it, so we need 
to take the time to develop the 
relevant skills to conjure the 
most effective and inspirational 
activism possible.
The way that we can do such a 
thing is with proper motivational 
political 
education, 
which 
is 
especially 
powerful 
when 
it 
is expressed by young people. 
Student organizations focused 
on political involvement at the 
University of Michigan should be 
put on a pedestal, involving the 
campus community with hands-
on educational workshops catered 
not 
only 
toward 
politically-
inclined students, but those new 
to the scene as well; everyone 
should be welcome.
Older generations constantly 
say that young people have the 
“power to change the world.” 
This phrase is true, but we can 
only use this power if we take the 
appropriate steps to becoming the 
best activists we can be. We can’t 
go blind into our advocacy — we 
need to avoid being “performative” 
and misguided, which means 
that political education needs 
to take precedence if we desire 
effective change. We can’t rely 
on the formulaic teachings from 
our introductory politics courses 
for this. Learning by doing and 
participating in dialogue with 
other passionate and like-minded 
young people is the key. 
Whether you’re a political 
science major or a student in the 
College of Engineering, there is 
a campus organization out there 
for you to get involved in. Get out 
there, join a student organization 
with passionate people and start 
the dialogue in your own life. If 
you want to be the best activist you 
can be, this is the place to start. 
Spaces where young people teach 
other young people are where the 
best advocates of the twenty-first 
century find themselves — you 
can do the same.

E

very 
November, 
the 
University of Michigan 
hosts an annual Blood 
Battle against The Ohio State 
University in a joint effort to 
increase 
the 
national 
supply 
of blood and bone marrow. Dr. 
Martino Harmon, the University’s 
vice president for student life, 
directs this initiative through 
day-long blood drives at various 
locations 
on 
campus 
nearly 
every single day in November. 
This year’s battle, the 40th of 
its kind, was kicked off in the 
Diag — accompanied of course by 
plenty of food, merchandise and 
sign-up information. Harmon’s 
promotional emails are filled 
with the necessary jargon to get 
students in the spirit of giving — 
“keep bleeding Maize and Blue,” 
“eat lots of iron-rich food” and 
“be a part of the fight to save lives 
across the state and country!” 
Oddly, 
the 
battle 
cry 
to 
replenish 
America’s 
blood 
stores, which are at a record 
low, is not targeted at all viable 
donors. The U.S. Food and Drug 
Administration (FDA), the agency 
responsible for regulating blood 
donations, bans all men from 
giving blood within three months 
of having sexual intercourse 
with another man. This policy is 
the result of a 2020 change that 
reduced the donation deferral 
period from a year to three 
months. The FDA notes in this 
policy that given the advances 
in HIV detecting technology, 
this change is supported. But as 
recently as 2015, just a few years 
before this improvement, all men 
who have sex with a men were 
subjected to a lifetime ban on 
giving their blood. 
In their guidance document, 
the FDA claims that up to 90% 
of potential donors that may be 
harboring blood diseases are 
ultimately deemed ineligible by 
their responses to a questionnaire 
about health history. However, 
deferring a man from donating 
just because he has had sex with 
another man is a gross reflection 
of the limited, under-researched 
and 
surface-level 
knowledge 
that the FDA had in their toolkit 

during 
the 
1980s 
HIV/AIDS 
pandemic. It is 
now understood 
that there doesn’t exist, and never 
had existed, an exclusively “gay-
related immunodeficiency,” and 
any eligibility question that uses 
sexuality as a way to preclude all 
gay men from donating blood for a 
given period time is simply based 
in prejudice and non-science. 
As it stands, a gay man 
in 
a 
40-year 
monogamous 
relationship with another man is 
labeled as a higher risk for blood-
borne diseases than a woman 
who has recently had unprotected 
sex 
with 
several 
partners. 
This juxtaposition of risk is 
substantiated, in part, by a nearly 
decade-old 
research 
finding 
from the National Heart, Lung 
and Blood Institute (NHLBI) 
stating that a history of male-to-
male sex was associated with a 
62-fold risk increase whereas a 
history of multiple partners of the 
opposite sex was associated with 
2.3-fold increase. But given that 
other activities such as routine 
drug injection, prostitution and 
travel to malaria-prone countries 
are associated with both large 
multiplicities of risk and deferral 
periods of their own, it makes 
more sense to use individual risk 
assessments, not blanket deferral 
periods, as a way to determine 
blood donation eligibility. In 
this way, a gay man who is also 
a routine drug user and travels 
to malaria-prone countries has a 
higher risk score — and ultimately 
receives an individual ineligibility 
penalty that reflects engagement 
with these activities — than a gay 
man who does not partake in any 
other activities of high blood-
borne disease contraction. 
The key to rectifying this 
injustice is cold, hard data. Most 
available information shows that 
individual risk assessments, not 
time-based deferral strategies, 
are the right ways to counteract 
the spread of disease in the blood 
donation process. 
It is clear that the artificial 
dichotomy between gay blood 
and healthy blood, a perception 
hand-crafted and unmoved by the 
FDA, only serves to stigmatize 
the LGBTQ+ community further. 
Moreover, giving heterosexual 
individuals the green light to 
engage in multiple forms of 

unsafe sex (which is a risk factor 
in itself) and donate blood in the 
same breath is a double standard, 
and one that people are not 
addressing in the correct manner. 
Half-hearted responses are a 
large reason why the policy still 
stands in 2022.
The U-M Blood Battle emails 
state 
that 
“Blood 
donation 
eligibility 
should 
not 
be 
determined 
based 
on 
sexual 
orientation and policy change 
is needed in order to achieve 
this goal. At the University of 
Michigan, we strive for our 
drives to provide as inclusive an 
atmosphere as possible.” These 
emails link to the Red Cross — an 
organization that actively opposes 
the FDA policy — for information 
about how LGBTQ+ men can 
contribute to the cause. The 
primary method through which 
these men are able to participate, 
though, is manning blood drive 
booths, recruiting donors and 
other administrative tasks.
Frankly, deferring to the Red 
Cross and vague DEI statements 
about inclusive atmospheres is a 
mismanagement of our resources 
here at the University of Michigan. 
As a research-heavy institution, 
we have the labs, researchers 
and money to get projects off 
the ground that would give the 
FDA’s Blood Products Advisory 
Committee indisputable evidence 
that our current understanding of 
risk assessment is wrong. Instead 
of cutting whole segments of the 
populace off from their ability 
to donate to blood, we should 
be focusing on data-intensive 
individual risk assessments that 
actually help in determining risk 
of disease.
While the FDA is researching 
alternative methods other than 
time-deferral, the University of 
Michigan has the finances to make 
these same investigations, as well 
as other kinds of advancements 
in blood testing, risk assessment 
accuracy and false-negative donor 
origins. Furthermore, we must do 
our due diligence by conducting 
research that supports exclusion 
criteria for heterosexual activities 
in 
which 
a 
similar 
causal 
relationship between the type of 
sex and infectivity exists. 

D

ear President Ono,
Welcome 
to 
the 
University of Michigan! 
My friends at the University of 
British Columbia tell me great 
things about your tenure there. 
I hope your approach embodies 
this university’s mission “to 
serve the people of Michigan and 
the world through preeminence 
in 
creating, 
communicating, 
preserving 
and 
applying 
knowledge, art, and academic 
values, and in developing leaders 
and citizens who will challenge 
the present and enrich the 
future.”
As you begin your term, I feel 
it is important to bring to your 
attention the growing number of 
emails from the U-M leadership 
— including your predecessor 
— that take a specific stance 
not only on sensitive political 
and social issues of the day, but 
on issues for which there is no 
consensus among the diverse 
members of the U-M community 
of students, faculty and staff. 
On 
behalf 
of 
community 
members, 
including 
myself, 
that feel marginalized because 
our personal beliefs do not 
align with those of the U-M 
leadership, I respectfully ask 
that you enact communication 
policies that either abstain from 
sending such partisan emails 
or at least include all sides and 
opinions on controversial topics. 
As a Chaldean-American and a 
first-generation college student, 
I believe that such actions will 
foster a diverse and inclusive 
environment at the University, 
which I feel has been noticeably 
absent during the past four 
years. 
You, and other members of 
your administration, function 
as stewards for the University, 
which is, at the end of the day, 
a public institution. I humbly 
ask how partisan emails from 

the administration that opine 
on social issues — ranging from 
the Dobbs v. Jackson case to 
overturning Roe v. Wade to 
the 
Russian-Ukrainian 
and 
Palestinian-Israeli 
conflicts 
abroad — represent the diverse 
perspectives 
of 
the 
entire 
community. It is also not clear 
how such emails expressing 
the personal beliefs of U-M 
stewards 
differ 
from 
other 
university 
employees 
who 
misuse funds and resources for 
their own benefit while harming 
the institution’s stakeholders.
I 
appreciate 
the 
difficult 
nature of navigating hot-button 
topics, and I do not envy your job 
in that regard. While partisan 
emails to U-M stakeholders 
may temporarily appease some 
groups, I fear that appeasing 
a subset of our community 
is 
detrimental 
to 
long-term 
community value because it 
widens the divide between those 
on both sides of each issue.
For example, on June 24, 2022, 
Interim President Mary Sue 
Coleman sent an email weighing 
in on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 
recent ruling overturning Roe 
v. Wade, which sent decisions 
over abortion rights back to the 
states. Her electronic missive 
(emphasis added) stated: “I 
strongly 
support 
access 
to 
abortion services, and I will 
do everything in my power as 
president to ensure we continue 
to 
provide 
this 
critically 
important care. Our campus is 
more than half women; we care 
about our own communities as 
well as those we serve through 
clinical care and education. 
I am deeply concerned about 
how prohibiting abortion would 
affect U-M’s medical teaching, 
our research, and our service to 
communities in need.”
That email was written from 
a 
first-person 
perspective, 
which clearly represents her 
personal beliefs rather than 
those of a steward of the 
University’s general education 

mission. A mission that serves 
the 
University’s 
diverse 
stakeholders, including those 
that may take exception — 
which may include a portion 
of the “more than half of 
women” that Coleman cites 
— with the statement that 
abortions “provide this critically 
important care” to all members 
of our community, including 
future U-M stakeholders. For 
instance, how should devout 
Catholic students or pro-life 
members of our community 
feel when reading an email that 
sets the tone for the campus 
environment? 
The University of Michigan’s 
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 
plan 
includes 
strategies 
for 
creating 
an 
inclusive 
and 
equitable campus climate. It 
states that the University has 
designed campus-wide action 
items to “encourage a culture 
of belonging in which every 
member of our community can 
grow and thrive.” How does 
espousing personal views from 
the sacred platform upon which 
you and others lead convey 
a sense of inclusion? How 
does it encourage diversity of 
thought when the views of the 
disaffected group are ignored or 
implicitly demonized?
In addition to sending partisan 
emails, the failure to send emails 
addressing other partisan issues 
also reduces a sense of inclusion 
to 
many 
on 
campus. 
The 
selective absence of emails on 
some topics provides a signal to 
our community that such issues 
are not noteworthy — especially 
when juxtaposed with emails on 
topics that the administration 
clearly believes are noteworthy. 
For example, our country lost 13 
brave military service members 
on Aug. 26, 2021, when a Taliban 
suicide bomber detonated an 
explosive 
device 
at 
Hamid 
Karzai International Airport in 
Kabul, Afghanistan. 

Opinion

Dear President Ono: No more activist 
administrators

Wednesday, November 16, 2022 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Young people are the best teachers 
when it comes to activism

Gay blood doesn’t exist 

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

PAUL SESI
Opinion Contributor

LINDSEY SPENCER
Opinion Columnist

NAMRATHA NELAPUDI
Opinion Columnist

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

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