2017-11-14 by The Michigan Daily

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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MAZIE HYAMS/Daily

University students protest during CSG on the Diag in favor of divestment November 8.

The question of divestment: recounting a tense history at U-M

CSG votes today on resolution concerning alleged rights violations against Palestinians JORDYN BAKER & DYLAN LACROIX Daily Staff Reporters

On Tuesday, University of Michigan Central Student Government will vote on its divestment resolution. Tensions have been ramping up, as it has in mid-Novembers over the past decade. The resolution aims to gain support from CSG on divestment from companies operating in Israel due to

possible human rights violations undisclosed member of CSG’s of Palestinians. executive committee sent an email to a recipient outlining This year’s iteration of CSG’s supposed opposal to the resolution has not been the movement. According to without conflict. Last week, allegations, the member then an investigative committee had a conversation with another within CSG was convened to student stating CSG’s opposition review “improper use of CSG to divestment. A Facebook post materials” by a member of the also discussed anti-divestment executive team stating CSG did sentiment in the body, this time not support the #UMDivest in relation to the assembly’s movement. diversity. The post claimed According to the ethics the individual stated there committee’s reports, the are “not enough white men”

and “Jewish people” on the assembly; however, a self-survey distributed within CSG last year found a member of the body was most likely to be a wealthy, white heterosexual male. History of the resolution Students Allied for Freedom and Equality — a group of “student activists organized to promote social justice, human rights, liberation, equality, and self-determination for the Palestinian people” — brought the resolution in its current form

in 2014, in what remains the high-water mark for the campus movement. After first reads in mid-March, the assembly voted to indefinitely postpone a decision on the resolution. AFE members and allies held a weeklong sit-in in CSG’s Union chambers to force a vote — but the resolution ended up failing in a secret ballot vote 25-9. SAFE’s arguments center around alleged human rights violations by companies supporting Israeli military activities and operations. This year’s resolution names Boeing, Hewlett Packard and United Technologies as “companies that supply weapons and equipment to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of international human rights law” through actions such as checkpoints and civilian casualties. Divestment is rare. Since 1817, the University has divested just twice — first in 1978 from apartheid in South Africa and later in 2000 from the tobacco industry. Yet before any resolution even reached the floor of any student government on any of the University’s campuses, former University president Mary Sue Coleman expressed in 2002 the University would not be divesting from Israel. In a 2005 statement describing the University’s investment portfolio, thenChief Financial Officer Timothy Slottow remarked the University’s endowment is profit-driven, veering away from political persuasions. SAFE draws upon the precedent of South Africa, tobacco in its resolutions, arguing human rights violations are antithetical to the University’s commitment to “invest in socially responsible companies.” Institutions like Columbia and Harvard had already established endowment ethical advisory review committees. In the last decade, Northwestern

SACUA talks changes to Statement of Professor discusses Student Rights and Responsibilities

University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Minnesota and the University of CaliforniaBerkeley have passed resolutions calling for divestment. Student governing bodies at the Ohio State University, meanwhile, spoke out against divestment where the resolutions failed to pass. On this campus, the resolution’s proponents and critics seem to reach an annual impasse on core issues such as identity, inclusion and the role of dialogue. Students on both sides wonder if this year will be any different. The divide between sides Historically, the divestment movement has been characterized as divisive; critics argue SAFE seeks to break apart the student body rather than bring it together. In an interview with The Daily, two SAFE members — who wish to remain anonymous due to targeting of pro-Palestinian activists online — decried the “divisive” argument as one used to quell Palestinians’ concerns. “This argument has historically been used silence marginalized voices, historically in the country and not just on campuses,” one of the students said. “Voicing someone’s concerns about literal human rights violations should not be a divisive point.” During last year’s resolution, one SAFE member asked, “How is helping Palestinians on your campus hurting Jewish students?” Earlier this month, SAFE released a “Statement of Solidarity to Support Divestment” in 2017. More than 30 student organizations — many of which are social justice-oriented — signed the statement, including the Black Student Union, Jewish Voice for Peace, the executive board of United Asian American See DIVEST, Page 3

CAMPUS LIFE

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

being trans in college

Faculty members discuss graduate student tuition, DEI bias reporting

CSG body, SAPAC to incentivize trainings

Transgender Awareness Week to explore identity, gender norms, narratives

The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs convened Monday afternoon to discuss amending the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities — a University of Michigan document written by and for students that outlines University standards and norms of behavior — making tuition more affordable for students and increasing the faculty’s role in diversity, equity and inclusion. LSA senior Anushka Sarkar, Central Student Government president, served as a guest speaker and discussed amending the statement to include biased motivated misconduct as a violation of University behavior. The section regarding bullying and harassment violations does not explicitly state that biased and prejudice motivation against another student results in heightened sanctions, according to Sarkar. “Under the statement, there’s no codification that says that if a student stalks another person or hazes another person and it’s bias-motivated — you hazed a person because they were Black, you hazed a person because they were gay — that you would receive heightened sanctions for that,” Sarkar said. “Myself and a lot of students find that to be wrong and that is something that should be codified in documents.” Sarkar proposed amending the

JENNIFER MEER Daily Staff Writer

Z Nicolazzo addressed a crowd of approximately 100 Monday night at the School of Social Work as part of Transgender Awareness Week. Nicolazzo, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns ze and hir, is an assistant professor in the Adult and Higher Education program, and a faculty associate in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Northern Illinois University. Nicolazzo’s dissertation consisted of an ethnographic study in which ze worked with transgender students to understand their college experience; hir work was published as a book — “Trans* in College: Transgender Students’ Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion” — which served as the primary focus of the talk. Speaking of hir own experience, Nicolazzo explained hir coming out narrative is different from what is often considered as the normative narrative for transpeople. “Oftentimes, we think See AWARENESS, Page 3

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ALEX COTT

Daily Staff Writer

document to add “Violation V,” which clarifies bias-motivated misconduct language. “Bias-motivated misconduct is a violation of community behaviors, including but not limited to characteristics such as race, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression,” Sarkar said. Sarkar also announced a second amendment that will outline the measures that will be taken if a student is in violation of

bias-motivated misconduct. “Should a student be found of having committed an act against another person with bias or prejudice motivation that their sanctions be heightened automatically,” she said. The purpose of these amendments is to deter students from committing bias-motivated acts, as they will know there will be heightened sanctions as a consequence. The level to which

sanctions will be heightened will be treated on a case-by-case basis up to the discretion of the Office of Student Conflict Resolution, and each of these cases will result in two separate charges, according to Sarkar. “The goal here is to set the precedence in our governing documents that action that is taken against another person in a malevolent way with biased or See STATEMENT, Page 3

Efforts encourage student participation in Bystander Intervention initiative MAYA GOLDMAN Daily Staff Writer

In an email sent to all students Monday afternoon, Central Student Government announced it will continue a program from the previous administration to encourage students to participate in Bystander Intervention training. This initiative, a program CSG piloted under past-President David Schafer last year, will require any student organization wishing to claim more than $1,000 a semester in funding from the CSG Student Organization Funding Commission to have at least two of their authorized signers complete a Bystander Intervention course. The trainings, facilitated by Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center’s Bystander Intervention and Community Engagement program and Wolverine Wellness, aim to bring issues of sexual abuse, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, into the open. They are focused on empowering people who might witness incidences of misconduct to intervene and change campus culture surrounding these issues. ALICE LIU/Daily

The Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs discusses campus issues in the Fleming Administration Building Monday afternoon.

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INDEX

NEWS.........................2 OPINION.....................4 ARTS......................6