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 Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. PAIGE HODDER Editor in Chief JULIAN BARNARD AND SHUBHUM GIROTI Editorial Page Editors 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. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Ammar Ahmad Julian Barnard Brandon Cowit Jess D’Agostino Ben Davis Shubhum Giroti Devon Hesano Sophia Lehrbaum Olivia Mouradian Siddharth Parmar Rushabh Shah Nikhil Sharma Lindsey Spencer Evan Stern Anna Trupiano Jack Tumpowsky Alex Yee Quin Zapoli VANESSA KIEFER AND KATE WEILAND Managing Editors ANNA FUDER/Daily