Campus community members 
gathered 
Monday 
morning 
to 
commence the 2023 University of 
Michigan Reverend Dr. Martin 
Luther 
King 
Jr. 
Symposium 
Memorial Keynote Lecture. Hosted 
in Hill Auditorium, The Symposium 
was co-sponsored by the Office of 
Academic Multicultural Initiatives, 
the Ross School of Business and the 
Stephen M. Ross Athletic Campus, 
and centered around the theme — 
“(R)evolution: from Segregation to 
Elevation.”
The 
event 
began 
with 
an 
introduction from Tabbye Chavous, 
the University’s vice provost for 
equity and inclusion and chief 
diversity officer. Chavous spoke 
on 
University 
President 
Santa 
Ono’s immediate dedication and 
commitment 
to 
social 
justice 
following 
his 
appointment 
in 
October. She added that Ono’s 
support for new initiatives such as 
the Inclusive History Project, which 
documents the University’s history 
around race and racism, and larger 
community issues is exciting for the 
campus as a whole. She said Ono 
planned to give remarks, but was 
unable to attend due to an illness.
“We wish him a speedy recovery,” 
Chavous said. “In his absence, I 
would like to recognize his role in 
the fight for social justice as a higher 
education leader, from his efforts to 
support mental health access and 
eliminate cultural stigmas to his 
reparative and reconciliatory work 
for the University and Indigenous 
communities.”
Chavous’ remarks were followed 
by Laurie McCauley, University 
Provost and executive vice president 
for academic affairs, who filled in for 
Ono. McCauley said she was grateful 
for those who made the symposium 

possible, and that members of the 
University must continue to work 
together to build a more equitable, 
just and inclusive community. 
“We cannot be excellent without 
being diverse in the broadest sense,” 
McCauley said. “That is why I was 
so pleased to see the results of our 
DEI 1.0 strategic plan initiative 
that we announced last week. The 
evaluation made it clear … we’ve 
made much progress, even though 
there’s still more to do.”
After 
McCauley’s 
remarks, 
Dr. Scott Piper and Daniel A. 
Washington, professors of music 
in the School of Music, Theatre & 
Dance, performed “Black Pilgrims,” 
a hip-hop and electronic opera. 
“Black 
Pilgrims,” 
which 
was 
written by Stephen Rush, another 
U-M professor of music, portrays 
a conversation between Martin 
Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. 
“(In composing this piece) I took 
the words of Dr. King and Malcolm 
directly from YouTube interviews, 
not them speaking to each other 
but interviews, and wrote down the 
words very carefully,” Rush said. 
“And what you will hear in this case 
is the actual words of Martin and 
Malcolm.”
Following the performance, the 
three keynote speakers delivered 
their lectures, starting with Dr. 
Aletha Maybank, Chief Health 
Equity Officer and Senior Vice 
President of the American Medical 
Association 
(AMA). 
Maybank 
said Martin Luther King Jr.’s 
organizing helped create significant 
contributions to the health care 
system and overall state of health 
in the U.S. She said King published 
an article in The Nation in response 
to the federal government passing 
legislation to provide funds to build 
segregated hospitals in Southern 
states during John F. Kennedy’s 
presidency.
“(Martin Luther King Jr.) felt 

the President should do much more 
and actually stop grants from going 
to states that were not ensuring 
desegregated healthcare and (were 
not) stopping to deny care to Black 
patients,” Maybank said.
According to Maybank, Black 
physicians were often excluded from 
working in white hospitals during 
Martin Luther King Jr.’s time, in 
large part due to the AMA’s policies.
“(The AMA) was considered, 
and 
really 
still 
is 
the 
most 
powerful healthcare organization 
representing physicians,” Maybank 
said. “And so what happened at that 
time is that, in order to get hospital 
privileges, you actually had to be a 
member of the AMA, but the AMA 

didn’t prevent local affiliates from 
excluding Black physicians.”
Maybank said Title XI of the 
1964 Civil Rights Act was crucial 
in 
addressing 
segregation 
in 
medicine, as it stated that any 
program receiving federal financial 
assistance could not exclude or 
deny benefits to anyone based 
on race, color or national origin. 
Maybank added that the creation 
of Medicaid and Medicare brought 
federal funding into every medical 
institution in the country, leading 
to further desegregation of the 
industry. While, as Maybank said, 
the AMA did not take the necessary 
steps to promote desegregation, 
the advocacy of Martin Luther 

King Jr. and the National Medical 
Association, which consists of Black 
physicians, pushed health equality 
forward.
“(People) typically question why 
I am at the AMA with this racist 
history in their practices and their 
policies,” Maybank said. “So I’d 
be remiss not to talk about that … I 
operate out of a sense of love — love 
for myself, my family, my community 
(and) my ancestors, and I fully 
believe in inside outside strategies, 
covert and overt strategies in 
order to create change for social 
justice … (working for the AMA) 
was an opportunity to leverage the 
(organization’s power) for racial 
justice at a national level.”

Maybank went on to say the 
AMA has made progress through its 
actions, such as by issuing an apology 
in 2008 for excluding Black doctors 
and removing an exhibit celebrating 
the father of the AMA, who played 
a key role in this exclusion. She said 
though there has been a greater 
emphasis on health equity in recent 
years — in part due to the COVID-
19 pandemic and the Black Lives 
Matter Movement — more work is 
needed.
“We’re still in a very segregated 
healthcare system,” Maybank said. 
“It’s illegal, but we’re still in a very 
sad, segregated health system.”

The University of Michigan 
hosted Vice President Kamala 
Harris 
at 
the 
Rackham 
Auditorium last Thursday for a 
conversation on climate policy and 
action. Despite the welcome from 
U-M leadership, members of the 
campus community were divided 
on the implications of Harris’s 
visit, as well as whether or not the 
University and the White House 
could have been more conscious 
of the visit’s logistical impact on 
the city. 
Outside 
of 
the 
auditorium 
and throughout the streets of 
Ann Arbor, Students Allied for 
Freedom and Equality — a U-M 
student 
organization 
focused 
on advocating for Palestinian 
identities — protested Harris’s 
visit. 
Engineering 
senior 
Zaynab 
Elkolaly, co-director of activism 
for SAFE, said the organization 
was motivated to host a protest 
by Israel’s recent decision to 
ban the public flying of the 

Palestinian flag and the Biden-
Harris administration’s policies 
on relations with Israel. The 
administration 
has 
continued 
the United States’s history of 
providing military support for 
Israel even while calling for a two-
state solution between Israel and 
Palestine. Harris has personally 
confirmed her support for Israeli 
security and U.S.-Israel relations.
“There 
were 
policies 
in 
occupied Palestine, including the 
banning of the Palestinian flag, 
which prompted us to want to act, 
and then Kamala Harris coming 
to join us was just the icing on the 
cake,” Elkolaly said.
Elkolaly said while she and 
other SAFE members believe 
many of the topics she addressed 
are 
important, 
they 
were 
disappointed to see Harris calling 
out 
environmental 
injustices 
while still supporting harmful 
policies in Israel and Palestine. 
“(Harris) was addressing some 
very valid points, including how 
disadvantaged zip codes are often 
the ones most disproportionately 
harmed by (climate change),” 
Elkolaly said. “She was talking 

about a lot of things that we as 
individuals and as SAFE agree 
with. But if you just look at the 
actual policies that she and 
her 
administration 
support, 
it’s 
completely 
contradictory. 
You cannot be supporting this 
‘woke agenda’ while facilitating 
the death of innocent people 
overseas.” 
LSA junior Jacob Sendra, vice 
president of the U-M chapter 
of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, was 
invited to hear Harris speak. 
He said while he and other 
CCL members appreciate the 
Biden-Harris 
administration’s 
achievements in climate policy, 
their organization was hoping to 
hear Harris discuss more concrete 
commitments for the future as 
well. 
“Although we were really happy 
that she came to campus and was 
able to speak about the climate 
crisis and the administration’s 
accomplishments in that area, we 
feel like there’s a lot more that 
needs to be done to adequately 
address the crisis,” Sendra said. 

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INDEX
Vol. CXXXII, No. 102
©2023 The Michigan Daily

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A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

S TAT E M E N T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

M I C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

O P I N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, January 25, 2023

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

University hosts 2023 Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium
UMich commemorated King’s legacy by discussing “(R)evolution: from Segregation to Elevation”

CAMPUS LIFE

 SAMANTHA RICH
Daily News Editor

Campus reacts to VP 
Kamala Harris visit to Ann Arbor
The campus community remains divided over 
implications of Harris’s recent trip to Ann Arbor

GOVERNMENT

The Ann Arbor Fire Department 
(AAFD) responded to an early-
morning fire on Maynard Street on 
Friday. Jeffrey Shafer, Ann Arbor 
Police Department sergeant, told 
The Michigan Daily, the department 
received the 911 call at 6:48 a.m., 
triggering an emergency response. 
The fire occurred on commercial 

property a block from the University 
of Michigan’s Central Campus. The 
building, which was completely 
destroyed by the blaze, housed two 
local businesses — Madras Masala 
Indian restaurant and Vape City 
smoke shop. 
AAFD 
chief 
Mike 
Kennedy 
was responding to the fire Friday 
afternoon. He told The Daily the 
fire was noticed by a passerby and 
no one was inside the building at the 
time the fire started. Kennedy said 

there were no casualties or injuries 
to either civilians or first responders. 
He said the fire department still 
does not know exactly where or how 
the fire started, though he said the 
extent of the damage would likely 
result in the entire property being 
demolished. 
“We’ve been here since 7 (a.m.) 
— the roof has collapsed and so 
that’s what we’re dealing with now,” 
Kennedy said. “We’re tearing up the 
street to shut off the gas lines and 
then once the gas line shuts off we’re 
going to bring in an excavator and 
start tearing the building apart for 
hotspots.” 
Kennedy said the fire department 
initially 
had 
to 
delay 
their 
investigation of the fire because 
the department was concerned 
about flammable materials, such as 
e-cigarette batteries, inside Vape 
City. 
“The vape shop has a lot of highly 
combustible material in it,” Kennedy 
said. “There was an incident in L.A. 
two years ago where six firefighters 
were critically injured, so we backed 
out and went on the defensive.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Ann Arbor Fire Department 
responds to fire on Maynard Street
AAFD responded to an early-morning fire in a 
commercial building on Maynard Street Friday

NEWS BRIEFS

Read more at MichiganDaily.com
JULIANNE YOON/Daily

 LEVI HERRON
 Daily News Reporter

NADIA TAECKENS
 Daily News Reporter

JENNA HICKEY/Daily