Thursday, July June16, 11, 2020
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
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Government rescinds DHS and ICE policy
NEWS
What is the endowment? The Daily explains the endowment and how it can be used. >> SEE PAGE 2
Rule restricting international students from taking full online courses now barred
OPINION
Don’t stop talking about ICE
FRANCESCA DUONG AND KRISTINA ZHENG
International students should be valued for being students.
Summer Managing News Editor and Summer News Editor
>> SEE PAGE 5
‘U’ community debates whether the N-word has a place in the classroom
Design by Hibah Chughtai
ARTS
“Letter To My Younger Self” Quinn XCII’s new album is more reflective than his previous work >> SEE PAGE 6
MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Dual-faithful
A glimpse into the beautiful reality of growing up practicing two faiths. >> SEE PAGE 9
SPORTS
Schedule changes
The fallout surrounding the Big Ten’s decision to play a completely in-conference season for fall sports. >> SEE PAGE 10
INDEX Vol. CXXIX, No. 122 © 2020 The Michigan Daily
NEWS .................................... 2 OPINION ............................... 4 ARTS/NEWS..........................6 MiC......................................... 8 SPORTS................................ 10
KRISTINA ZHENG Summer News Editor
LSA senior Dylan Gilbert was sitting in a class discussion with the other 20-or-so members of her class, when her English professor Scott Lyons read out loud the N-word from a short story by American writer William Faulkner. Gilbert, uncomfortable with the situation, left the discussion that day. Though the class carried on, the professor’s choice to read the racial slur and the student’s protest ultimately raised an ongoing academic debate: whether or not the use of racial slurs from academic text is appropriate in the classroom. In June 2020, around a year later, Gilbert told her story on Twitter, where she received an outpouring of support from fellow University of Michigan students, alumni, faculty and staff, many condemning the professor and the University for tolerating the behavior. “I was just kind of exhausted,” Gilbert told The Daily. “I don’t feel like I should have to sit in a room and have a non-Black person keep saying the N-word in front of me. So I just quietly packed up my stuff
into my bag, walked out of class and did not say anything.” Details of the incident surfaced amid a renewed national commitment against systemic racism, thereby calling into question the impact classrooms have on perpetuating racial injustice. “The environment wasn’t comfortable anymore,” Gilbert said. “I felt targeted in the environment, and I felt unsafe in the environment, and I didn’t feel like I was learning the way I needed to learn. So when you use racial slurs in the classroom, you’re taking away some sense of equality in the classroom because now a group of your students aren’t feeling the way they should be feeling to properly learn.” Gilbert’s tweets also included screenshots of email exchanges between her and Lyons after the class, in which Lyons did not offer an apology but committed to “avoid uttering the word for the rest of the term.” For the next class period, according to Gilbert, Lyons assigned an article defending the use of the word. “I’m not sure I understand the distinction between assigning a work with the n-word (written by a non-black writer and read by mostly non-black readers) and
reading it out loud -- imagination versus exhaulation? -- but I do take your point,” Lyons wrote in the email exchanges. The Daily reached out to Lyons multiple times for a comment, but was referred to University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald. “Students have a variety of ways to raise concerns about their classroom experiences,” Fitzgerald wrote in an email to The Daily. “In this case, these concerns are being addressed through the appropriate channels.” This incident does not appear to be an isolated one, either. Universities across the country have struggled to address how professors should approach teaching racial slurs. Some institutions have taken to suspending professors for using racial slurs in an academic environment, while others have defended their use based on academic freedom. English professor Susan Parrish often teaches texts from Southern literature, which can include epithets against various groups. She explained how voicing these slurs can harm the ability for students to learn
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Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agreed to repeal regulations that restrict international students from taking a full online course load while residing in the U.S. The rescinded regulations were announced by federal Judge Allison Burroughs during a lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to the Associated Press. The decision comes after the July 6 federal guidelines that stated F-1 and M-1 visa students will not be allowed to enter or remain in the United States if all university classes were moved online. The announcement sparked an uproar of opposition from institutions across the country, including Harvard and MIT, who led the lawsuit against the federal government. The University of Michigan, along with several other universities and colleges, have since joined the lawsuit as a friend of the court. Rackham Student Government also filed an amicus brief in the Massachusetts District Court in the lawsuit against the ICE restrictions on Monday morning along with 15 other student government bodies. Since the federal government announced the new policies, international students were faced with difficult and unprecedented challenges amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The
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