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Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Ann Arbor, Michigan
ACADEMICS
CSG hosts annual executive debate prior to 2024-25 elections The March 27-28 elections will decide the president, vice president and 45 Assembly members MADDYN SHAPIRO Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government held its annual executive debate Friday afternoon leading up to the 2024-25 school year election. The elections, which will be held on March 27-28, will elect the president and vice president as well as 45 Assembly members across all U-M schools and colleges. The debate gave members of the community an opportunity to hear from the candidates and about their goals for the position before the actual election. A representative of The Michigan Daily moderated the debate, asking candidates about four main topics: administration, University affairs, student organizations and student engagement. The presidential candidates spoke first, answering questions and explaining their campaign goals. The candidates running for president are LSA sophomore Liam Reaser, a member of the United for Michigan party; LSA sophomore Tony Liu, an independent; LSA junior Terra Lafreniere, a member of the Moment UM party and LSA senior Gabriel Ervin, a member of the Workers’ and Tenants’ Party. All candidates emphasized the need for increased financial support for student organizations, and want to work toward addressing the area’s housing crisis as well as the lack of affordability on campus. They
also commented on their plans for CSG fund distributions and ways to get students more involved in voting in CSG elections. Reaser said working to improve the process for finding off-campus housing is one of the primary issues of their platform, and that he has strong confidence in their proposed system. “Our platform talks about having a student-directed coordinator who will work through CSG to ensure that when landlords are acting unfairly towards tenants, that it is recorded somewhere,” Reaser said. “And
that future tenants have the ability to look at information on a database and figure out if the person is right to house with. I think there is a really strong potential for us to work with the University administration on accomplishing this.” Reaser explained that past CSG initiatives — specifically Beyond the Diag, the University’s offcampus housing program — can help support the plan. “Beyond the Diag was an initiative started by CSG, so we have (had) areas for partnership with this in the past,” Reaser
ANN ARBOR
Ann Arbor Tenants Union sees revival after decades-long hiatus The revived organization held its first meeting March 3
AMANDA VENCLOVAITE-PIRANI Daily Staff Reporter
After a decades-long pause in organizing efforts, the Ann Arbor Tenants Union is resuming its operations. The AATU was active for nearly four decades in Ann Arbor, before going dormant in 2004. The newly revived organization held its first meeting on March 3 in the InterCooperative Council Education Center. The AATU was formed in 1969 after more than a thousand renters led a strike which lasted over two years. For decades after, members and volunteers continued striking against landlords over building code violations, established a tenants’ rights hotline and set up an office in the Michigan Union. The AATU received a majority of its funding at the time from the University of Michigan Student Assembly. In 2003, however, the Assembly did not implement a $1 student fee increase approved by the student body that would have continued to fund the AATU. Without a funding source, the organization lost traction in 2004. Ann Arbor resident Julia Goode worked with the AATU in the 1980s, and after her recent return to Ann Arbor, started to work with the revived AATU. Goode said she has been disappointed by the lack of progress in policy since her work with the AATU in the 1980s. “Ann Arbor used to be a leader in having tenants’ rights legislation,” said Goode. “But there really hasn’t been any new legislation besides the early
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ARUSHI SANGHI/Daily
LSA junior Terra Lafreniere at the CSG debate in Vandenburg Room in the Michigan League Friday afternoon.
leasing ordinance, which to the rest of the country looks like a regressive law.” U-M alum Zackariah Farah participated in the initial push to revive the AATU. Farah said he became inspired to recreate a tenants’ union after coming across a 2018 op-ed calling for its return. “I agreed with all the points in it and I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to start suggesting this to people,’ then I realized nobody’s doing anything,” Farah said. “So unless somebody just calls a meeting and gets this thing going, it’s not going to happen. I ended up sending out an invitation to lots of people I knew, a lot of student tenants, local activists and just asked them to come together.” Farah’s attempts to gather interested community members eventually led to the formation of the AATU Reboot Task Force in 2023. Members of the task force worked to learn more about local renting issues, research AATU history and understand potential solutions. Now, Farah says they feel ready to start engaging with the community to take action. “When tenants are told your rent is going up by 20% next year or sometimes even more, there’s almost no pushback,” Farah said. “They don’t even attempt to negotiate and that’s understandable because a oneon-one negotiation rarely ends in the tenants favor. … The conditions where tenants win are when they work together and they organize together and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.” Rackham student and AATU task force member Nathan Kim said he felt inspired by the first meeting’s turnout and energy. “I was blown away by the kind of energy, the attendance and the
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variety of people that were able to be there,” Kim said. “I think there were maybe 20 to 25 people there in total. It was much more than just students that were there.” According to Farah, the organization has many short and long-term policy goals, including passing a renter’s bill of rights on the city or state level, which advocates are also calling for nationally. Farah said visions for this policy vary, but he would like to see protections against rent increases, greater regulation of landlord contracts and a ban on junk fees. Housing companies in Ann Arbor have long been criticized for the cost of waitlist fees and other fees imposed on renters. Farah said that eliminating junk fees is a top priority for the union’s local policy efforts. “Landlords have a lot of names for (them),” Farah said. “They call them holding fees, option fees, reservation fees … but essentially all they are is a fee to join a waitlist to maybe get a lease for a particular unit. That’s a junk fee. For some reason in Ann Arbor, landlords feel that they can charge $7,000 for one of these waitlist fees. That’s absurd.” The AATU posted scans of an option agreement from Prime Student Housing Inc. on X, which shows a waitlist fee of $6,887.50. A document from Campus Management Inc. also contained a similar waitlist fee of $6,745. LSA junior Terra Lafreniere, Central Student Government presidential candidate, said she is optimistic about the impact the AATU can have on the student body.
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said. “This is something we can continue by having CSG jumpstart this initiative … so the University and CSG can work together to make sure that all students have access to reliable information about where to live off-campus (and) who the good landlords are.” Lafreniere agreed with Reaser, and pointed out that the lack of affordability on campus extends beyond housing. “We want to tackle affordability and accessibility on campus,” Lafreniere said. “Our platform talks about partnering
with the Ann Arbor Tenants’ Union to work on off-campus rent control and on-campus affordable housing. One of our broader points is a second-year guarantee of on-campus housing that is optional. … There is also a big food accessibility issue and we are going to counter that with actionable items as well.” Candidates were asked about the cancellation of voting on resolutions AR 13-025 and AR 13-026 during the Fall 2023 CSG midterm elections, and what they would do if a similar situation were to occur under their leadership.
Candidates emphasized the importance of voting and increasing communication across the student body. Ervin said if he was in power, there would not have been a vote to begin with. “If I were president, there wouldn’t have been a referendum because I wouldn’t have focused on trying to inflame tensions on either side,” Ervin said. “I would have sat down with leaders on both sides. We all abhor human suffering and children dying — we need to start focusing on humanitarian efforts first.” Reaser agreed that the cancellation of the vote could have been avoided with more communication between students and the administration. “Canceling a vote is not an effective way to stop tensions from being inflamed,” Reaser said. “How you address a problem is you get to the root causes. We need to ask ourselves why the petitions happened, how they got to the state of being on the ballot and why the University canceled those ballots. The answer, in my view, is a failure of leadership. It never should have gotten to the step where people’s voices were not being heard. CSG’s role on campus should be to facilitate discussion to ensure they would not feel so unheard.” The candidates then commented on new diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the University. Liu said his personal experiences as a Chinese man on campus influenced his views and goals for DEI at the University.
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CAMPUS LIFE
UMMA hosts third annual Queer Night for Feel Good Friday “Queer Cabaret” was a celebration for a new UMMA exhibit inspired by the ancient symbol of ouroboros
MIKAELA LEWIS Daily Staff Reporter
The University of Michigan Museum of Art hosted a “Queer Cabaret” Friday for their annual Queer Night. The cabaret was a celebration for the opening of the latest exhibit: “Machine Dazzle: Ouroboros,” a three-part exhibit inspired by the ancient symbol of ouroboros. The maximalist theme of the exhibit represents the eccentric designs of American costume designer Machine Dazzle. Friday night featured eight performances, from DJs to drag performers, which showcased many talents. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, UMMA Program Coordinator Mahalina Dimacali said they believe it is important to host events celebrating Queer identities. Dimacali said they cannot think of a better way to uplift marginalized communities than through an exuberant display of art and music. “Right now, more than ever, we deserve to see that love on a grand scale,” Dimacali said. “We deserve that always, but I think that … now, more than ever we need these spaces where we have stages, we have dance floors, we have walls and everything dedicated to the Queer community because they deserve that love and they deserve to know that.” To ensure attendees dressed in the theme of Queer maximalism, the Student Advisory Board for UMMA hosted a Queer maximalist clothing drive leading up to the event. The drive collected clothing and accessories
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INDEX
ELLIE VICE/Daily Martin Contreras, former Aut Bar owner, poses for a photo to show his outfit at UMMA Queer Night on Friday.
to distribute to the public to wear at the event. The clothes from the drive were on display, and attendees were allowed to take any of the items available. . One of the performers Friday evening was Weaver Levon Kafafian and artist Helana Georgis and Lavender Morin, a theatre artist and playwright, included puppetry in their performance. Darryl DeAngelo Terrell, also known as BLKshine, played a set featuring folk, R&B and pop music. In an interview with The Daily, Terrell explained why events like Friday’s are important to the Queer community. “Events like this, where the performers are diverse, provide a space for all Queer people at the same university,” Terrell said. “All of these Queer people who may feel invisible on campus based on their presentation or their racial identity or their socioeconomic background have the space to feel seen.” Performance artist Jay
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Orellana, known under the stage name Jezebel, strives to preserve Queer storytelling for future generations. They were the last act to take the stage Friday night for a drag performance. Orellana told The Daily that their love for drag began about a decade ago, before labels such as nonbinary were well-defined and widely understood. “I remember back in the day before the term nonbinary was more widely used, I didn’t really have a way of describing how I felt,” Orellana said. “I think it’s wonderful to have people be able to witness this kind of radical, celebratory, honest Queerness and various displays of Queer performance.” Art & Design sophomore Marie Hayward told The Daily she found out about the event through the Penny Stamps Speaker Series and felt it was a good opportunity to hear from diverse voices among the Queer community.
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