The Dissenting (Though Slightly Less So) Campus in a Sanctuary City (Part 3)

In the last couple of weeks, my blog posts have explored the discrepancies between the city of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan's policies on undocumented immigrants and cooperation with ICE officers. I discussed the potential democratic injustices these discrepancies posed to the citizens of Ann Arbor by the actions taken on by the University and its various legislative bodies. I had suggested that specifically the actions of the CSG in turning down a resolution that would have required CSG to support the city's sanctuary status, reflected an active action taken on by the legislative body to differ from the city's policy.

I had previously suggested that looking closely at the CSG could point to the potential root cause, or the democratic failure, behind the choices that led to the discrepancies between the city and the University. In response to my second my blog post, a classmate directed me to another series of blog posts thatexplores the democratic failures of CSG itself. In his series, John Hickey discusses whether or not CSG accurately and effectively reflects the student body they are intended to represent and the democratic consequences this could have. His series offers an insightful look into what I also considered to be a potential source of the democratic failure I identified within the University's legislative bodies by looking at the ongoing sanctuary status situation.

The Michigan Union- where the CSG passed the resolution a few weeks ago

However, in a huge and exciting development to my series, the current CSG held their last general assembly in which they voted on a new resolution (once again introduced by BAMN) that attempted to once more to reconcile the discrepancies between the city's sanctuary status and the University's policies. This time- the resolution passed!

In this series, I won't be evaluating why it passed this second time around and what this says about the nature of CSG and its representative capabilities. Instead, I will focus on what the passing of this resolution means in terms of the sanctuary status of the city and what this shows us.

This resolution appears to have a duality in the way it address the problem I've outlined in my blog series. It shows us that the CSG, in passing this resolution, is no longer actively making the choice (whether knowingly or unknowingly) to enact an injustice onto the citizens of Ann Arbor. In fact, the CSG, in passing this resolution, has shown solidarity with the city's choice to maintain sanctuary status. In doing that, the University's CSG not only aligned itself with the citizens' of Ann Arbor's democratic choices, but also established the resolution as an interest of its own constituency- the students on campus who elected them.

However, what this resolution fails to do is to actually effectively change the University's policy towards immigrant students. Anushka Sarkar, the CSG's CPO and a co-sponsor of the resolution, said, the resolution required the CSG to stand in solidarity with Ann Arbor's sanctuary city policy and defend sanctuary cities. As Sarkar explained, “the resolution really only amounts to CSG issuing a statement, since we don't actually have the authority to change the University's policies.”

This is where the duality I'd mentioned earlier comes in, because although the resolution shows that the CSG no longer plays a role in the problem (in enacting an injustice onto the city's citizens), it points to a much larger problem, and a different source.

Now, both the representatives voted in by Ann Arbor's citizens and those voted in by the city's student residents have voted in resolutions that defend the city's sanctuary status, but the University's policy on undocumented immigrants and cooperation with ICE officers continues to contradict these resolutions. not only are the citizens of Ann Arbor now facing an injustice- so are the students!

President Mark Schlissel with the Board of Regents

What this shows is that the University and its various governing bodies (most notably perhaps the Board of Regents, discussed in my first blog post, who hold most of the legislative authority within the University) are now effectively causing the democratic injustice suffered by both groups of constituencies.

This shows a clear democratic failure in the way power structures were designed in the city- although representative democracy seems to be incorporated into every level of the legislative process, neither the students, nor the citizens of Ann Arbor are getting what they voted for.

Now in his blog post on a potential solution to the failures within CSG, Hickey turns to deliberative democracy and Habermas as a solution and an alternative for CSG. Hickey proposes abolishing CSG in favor of a deliberative democracy that could model Habermas' “public sphere.” I agree with his reasoning, particularly that a deliberative democracy would allow for a wider variety of voices to be represented and heard, and as Habermas argued, would better subject the government to both reason and the will of the people. However, since I see the failure to be something that now both affects the students and the citizens of Ann Arbor, I believe that that the deliberative democracy established as a solution should allow for both sets of voices to be heard. I believe that creating a forum within which both citizens of Ann Arbor and students at the University could inform the University's policy-making choices would lead to more democratic outcomes- certainly in the case of the discrepancies in sanctuary status policies, but in others as well.

The Failure of Central Student Government: Part III

The Diag (via CCI)

In this third and final installment in my series “The Failure of Central Student Government,” I will raise counterpoints to the solution I proposed in my second post, which was that CSG be removed and replaced with a deliberative direct democracy system. This solution was a response to the democratic failure of misrepresentation by CSG, which I outlined in my initial post. I will then attempt to rebut these counterpoints. I will also examine what I think the short-term and long-term effects of my solutions will be. I will finish with a brief summary of my series, “The Failure of Central Student Government.”

Abandoned by The State pt. 3: DPS takes legal action

In the six weeks six this blog's first post, current events have continued to alter the landscape of what could be called the state of the Detroit Public School District.

First, the Michigan Senate sent wide-sweeping DPS reform bill to the house of representatives.

The bill represents the latest attempts by state government to  tackle the long-entrenched troubles of DPS. The Districts debt directly contributes to the poor state of DPS buildings and a general lack of resources, including staff members and faculty.

But this bill primarily serves to add to the confusion surrounding the future of DPS, and the state's role in defining that future. The aforementioned Detroit Free Press story by Lori Higgins documents definite opposition against this senate bill in the house, who has been developing a reform bill of their own.

Michigan's legislature seems to still be a long way from developing a plan of action to deal with DPS. In the story, Higgins quotes Sen. Geoff Hanson (R-Hart).

"Today, we have the opportunity to change the lives of 47,000 children," Hansen, the primary sponsor of the legislation, said. "The time for blame is well past. Now is the time for solutions," (Higgins, 1) .

While solutions are still being searched for, the DPS schoolboard does not seem to agree that "the time for blame is past". On April 6, DPS filed a lawsuit against more than 20  plaintiffs including Michigan Governor  Rick Snyder.

I was able to speak with Lori Higgins, who covered the lawsuit for the Detroit Free Press.

"(DPS's)  perspective is that the state has been in control of the school district, at least since 1999 except for about three years, when the school board had control of  the district.

DPS is a peculiar case in Michigan. It is the only district run by un-elected officials (read Emergency Managers) as opposed to the democratically elected school board.

The lawsuit, filed by Thomas  Bleakly of St. Clair Shores, alleges 14th amendment violations as well. This echoes the call of previous lawsuits filed against Governor Snyder by DPS.

In an Detroit News article by Shawn D. Lewis, Bleakly describes the situation with DPS as, "The Flint water crisis on steroids." Bleakly is working the case pro-bono.

“As I was drafting the 103-page case, I felt tears well up in my eyes on a half-dozen instances,” Bleakly told the Detroit News. “I want to set the record straight on just who is responsible for this mess.”

Higgins confirms that the lawsuit, bleakly and DPS were clear when they stated at a press conference that they would not specify how much, if any, they are seeking.

"They said that the priority is trying to have the lawsuit address who is really responsible for the district's financial problems," Higgins said.

The contemporary issue of the lawsuit perfectly frames the larger failures of democracy that I have outlined with the philosophies of Jean Jacques Rousseau and James Madison.

The DPS schoolboard wants the state to assume responsibility for their actions while in control of the district, and not leave the district to cope with the negative consequences of The State's and Emergency Manager's financial decisions.

The lawsuit explicitly claims that Michigan's controversial emergency manager law and "related practices," have been used to, "compromise and damage the equality of education received by all DPS students with life-long consequences in the name of financial urgency."

The Lawsuit brings its claim under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment, as well as the Rehabilitation act of 1973 and the Civil Rights act of 1964.

I propose that we should see that amendment and those acts each as individual agreements made, in the fashion of Rousseau, between all the people in the United States as represented by elected officials and determined by democratic vote.

In the previous two posts, we have used Rousseau's ideals of social contract and the Madison's theory that the "vigour (sic) of government is essential to the security of liberty," to illustrate how failures in democracy have painted a devastating educational reality for the roughly 50,000 students of Detroit Public Schools.

It is fitting that the final post of this blog should be recording this recent lawsuit, which is alleging the same types of governmental deficiencies that a rousseauian or federalist analysis of Michigan's relationship with DPS, via stripping the school board of autonomous power enjoyed by all other districts in the state and failing to provide the Citizens of Detroit with their agreed upon civil rights.

Who Is Really to Blame?

So far in my blog, I’ve spoke about what is the problem in Flint, who is to blame for the failure in democracy, and also compared the EM law to a dictatorship. In this post I will give my best idea for a solution, and also use an interview to help show how some of the people from Flint are feeling.

Picture obtained from:Here

What is the ultimate solution for the EM law? I propose to the citizens to keep voicing the concerns, and protesting, because ultimately what really can we really do? All we can do is protest and hope to make a big enough impact for the government to remove this horrible law. We have to take the ideas directly to government officials, and gain enough supporters so we can get rid of their dictator law. While I can see this laws usefulness if it wasn’t mismanaged, but I would still believe the law to be a failure in democracy. Wrong is wrong, and this law is wrong no matter the outcome of what came to be. There should never be a small group taking total power from the hand of the majority.

Looking at a comment made on my first blog post, I decided for my second interview to ask a question directly related to the comment. I interviewed my old scout master from boy scouts. His name is Josh. He has gone to Flint and volunteered multiple times, and he oversaw multiple service projects related to donating water bottles to Flint.

Picture obtained from: Here

The series of questions were as follows:

Me: Do you think the common person of Flint knows that the same man who became the EM for Flint became the EM for Detroit Public Schools months later?

Josh: To be honest, I don’t think a lot of the common people know too much of what’s really going on in the government that allows for this to happen, so I don’t really think they would know that. I didn’t know that and I thought I paid a lot of attention to this.

ME: What do you think would be the solution to the EM law?

Josh: What we can we really do besides protest?

Me: That’s a good question, but do you think enough people would get behind it to really make a change?

Josh: Sadly, No I don’t think so.  I think people’s minds are too distracted in day to day life to really get behind it, especially since Flint has gotten so much help, I feel like people are more focused on helping the people, which they should, then worrying about removing a law.

Me: When you were in Flint near the beginning, what were people attitudes? Like what was the feeling like being there.

Josh: I expected everyone to be so depressed almost, but when I got there I did not get that feeling. The people seemed happy, and thankful to be receiving help. They weren’t as down as I actually expected. I’m glad I had the opportunity to take my troop there and help. It was a wonderful life experience and I’m glad I could take a little part in helping their community.

This was a very fun interview to conduct. I was happy to know that my old troop made an impact in the Flint community. It was nice to hear all of the stories I was told about the service project.

As a result of the interview, I really found myself wondering how? How did this happen. I realized it was just a mismanagement of this law, but the law was still undemocratic. I looked back at my old posts and realized I out too much blame on Governor Snyder, and his small group, other than where the real problem is. I blamed him rather then pointing all blame at the law. So, I believe that the real solution to prevent this problem is to get rid of the EM law. While I know the law could be good if used properly, I believe it is just too un-democratic to have a place in our government.

Thanks for reading my blog series. I had a good time learning more about what really happened in this failure of democracy.

Best Wishes,

-Michael Brooks

Democracy: The government where its most praised practice is also the most dangerous one (Part 3)

In my last post I briefly mentioned two ways that we could fix the voter turnout problem in Genesee County. Before we get too far into that I would like to throw in another perspective on the issue which comes from someone who is well versed in the county political system. County Commissioner John Gleason agreed to answer a few questions for me and his answers were interesting.  If we were to go back and look at the data from my first post we would see that there was an exceptionally high turnout for this part primary election; when I asked Mr. Gleason why he thought there was such a high turnout he gave this response, “Both parties had multiple candidates on the ballot.  Sanders and Trump engaged the non-voter to take part in the election process.” This was an interesting thought and I figured I should share it with you all.

Genesee County Clerk John Gleason

Now to get down to it. How do we solve this issue? Well there are two ways that I think we could solve it. The first is getting rid of representative democracy as a whole. By this I mean that we would shift to some form of democracy in which each individual (yes all 300 million of us) would vote on every aspect of our lives. 

There are two main issues with this. One, the general person would be opposed to this idea mainly 

because the system we have now has worked the past 200+ years and even though there are aspects to it that are not in the best shape currently it still works. The other issue (the bigger one in my opinion) is that people would be less engaged in this form of democracy than the one we have now. Imagine this, instead of people having to vote 4 times a year on average (assuming they vote during elections that are only state and local levels) they would have to vote almost every day on decisions that most of the time might not affect them. Because of this people would just not do their civic duty and I feel we would be in a worse off place than we are now.

The other option that I think we have to consider is the idea of incentivizing people to vote. The term incentivize here means a few things. One, it means that we give people more ways to vote so the excuses of “I cant make it to vote because I am busy” are gone. Two, we make it so people feel obligated and/or proud to vote we could do this by making voting mandatory (although not the most democratic thing to do). Three, give people a bonus for voting (besides the sticker). Lets go into a little more detail. 

In what ways could we incentivize people to begin voting in Genesee County. First, we expand the number of ways people can vote. Former Mayor Dayne Walling in my interview with him mentioned things such as adding the ability to vote online, vote by mail, and hold early election days for people that can’t make it to vote on the normal election days. These options would increase the turnout because of how flexible and available it makes voting to everyone. The second incentive could be to make voting mandatory in the County and if someone doesn’t vote there would be a punishment such as a fine. This would increase voter turnout, however, it would probably be met with a large amount of resistance. The last idea would be to give people who vote something in return for their participation. Such as if a person votes 75% of the time over a 4 year cycle then they get some form of benefit like a small tax refund or something of the sorts.

One of the Flint Arches that are iconic to the city and the County.
Since the series dealt with the county and used Flint as an example I
thought this was an appropriate tribute. 

Overall we need to fix this issue, however, it is going to take a collective attempt by the citizens and the elected officials to get this issue resolved. Thank you for reading the series and I hope you enjoyed. 

Losses Upon Losses, Failures Upon Failures

This is the third and final post regarding the grand failure of democracy caused by Michigan's Emergency Manager Law. If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading my first and second posts before proceeding.

Michigan State Senator David Knezek

Mr. Herman Davis, DPS President

So far, we've barely touched on one of the worst crises caused by the state overruling locally elected officials: the sabotage of the Detroit Public School System (DPS). A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with Mr. Herman Davis, the President of the Detroit Public School Board of Education, to discuss the history and future of DPS, its students and families, and its relationship with the State. I also connected with State Senator David Knezek to discuss DPS' options moving forward.

In 1999 DPS' student enrollment was still on the rise, it had maintained a $93 million budget surplus, and $1.2 billion in a 1994 voter-approved bond. Then Governor John Engler instituted a state-takeover of the district, citing financial mismanagement as the reason. That takeover resulted in a state-appointed reform board that did not answer to the voters. The Governor and State Legislature took a step that created conflict between the democratic will of the people and the will of their representatives, highlighting that democracy and representation don't always walk hand-in-hand with one another. This is a point discussed heavily in Hanna Pitkin's article Representation and Democracy: An Uneasy Alliance, though our State complicated things further by having democratically elected representatives take away the power of other democratically elected Representatives.

In November of 2004, by a margin of 2-1, Detroiters voted to have the reform board disbanded and an elected board installed. A year later, the voters chose their new board members during the 2005 general election. As the board took office in January of 2006, "one of the first orders of business was figuring out how to recover from the actions of the reform board, which had taken a $100 million surplus and turned it into a $200 million deficit." (Detroit Metro Times)

EM Robert Bobb

Within three years, with revenues and enrollment declining, the state would intervene again. This time, Governor Jennifer Granholm, invoked Public Act 72 (1990) to declare a financial emergency in the district and install Robert Bobb as Emergency Manager. Bobb was an interesting choice, given that he was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Broad Foundation, a leading promoter of school privatization nationwide, throughout his term. Bobb retained his job through early 2011, despite successfully being sue
d by the elected board over his unilateral changes to school curricula.

A month before Bobb's departure, Public Act 4 (2011) comes into force, granting him expanded powers as EM, which he uses to issue every one of the 5,466 teachers in the district a layoff notice in order to shuffle positions without seniority considerations. During his time in office, DPS shuts down over 80 schools, and the annual budget deficit grows to $686.5 million. According to Davis, the new law "reduced community control, eliminated democracy, and destroyed our public education in Detroit. The EM removed wraparound programs that enriched a child's performance and allowed them to compete in the arts, music, athletics, and sports." He continued, saying that the expanded powers under PA 4 (2011) made the EM "the dictator, allowing him to do the same things he did in Flint. The community had no voice, we had no voice. That is dictatorship, and we can't have that in America." As a "dictator" the EM would fall into the category of a "veto player" according to Stepan and Linz, who argue that majority-constraining aspects like veto players in a democracy perpetuate inequality in their article Comparative Perspectives on Inequality and Quality of Democracy in the United States.

Without missing a step, Governor Snyder appoints DPS' second EM, Former General Motors Executive Roy Roberts, under the reconstituted Emergency Manager law- Public Act 436 (2012). In the year Roberts is in office, the net deficit hits $700 million despite exceptional budget cuts throughout the district. His successor, Jack Martin also fails to control the rising deficit, with the number ballooning to $763.7 million by his departure. Combined, both Roberts and Martin shut down over 25 schools, charterize six others, and place fifteen in Governor Snyder's Education Achievement Authority (EAA). The remaining schools have their renovation and infrastructure upkeep budgets slashed in order to attempt maintaining financial solvency for the district.

The purpose of the EAA is to provide for the turnaround of failing schools, though it has failed to do so to this day. Davis believes that the EAA was a terrible mistake that "should've never happened", and maintained that EAA has not done its job. Under the Authority's control, schools were "a nightmare", Davis said. "Kids are not learning, and the Teach For America teachers with no classroom or regional experience made it worse." 

Senator Knezek concurred with Davis, saying "The EAA, which I believe was an unproven experiment on Detroit's children, needs to go away. We need to provide a pathway for these schools, students, and teachers to return to DPS. It's unconscionable to suggest that students would be better off without local schools and local control. It's frustrating to know that despite the numerous documented cases of failed emergency management, the State of Michigan has yet to return DPS to local control"

Soon after his departure as the Emergency Manager of the City of Flint, Darnell Earley is appointed as DPS' fourth and supposedly final Emergency Manager. Davis described his professional interactions with EM Earley as less than pleasant, saying, "working with Mr. Earley was not productive, because he shared Governor Snyder's opinion on destroying the education system in Detroit. He didn't care about parents, kids were harmed and he didn't care, just like in Flint. People were harmed, kids were killed, and he didn't care." Under Earley's leadership, DPS faces a series of "sick outs", with teachers calling in sick all at once to shut buildings down. The teacher protest is centered on "deteriorating conditions inside the schools, health concerns like black mold, and giant ceiling leaks," Davis said.

A concise history of DPS and State control

By Earley's resignation on February 29th, 2016, the deficit had risen to $782.1 million, with long term debt estimated at $3.5 billion. Senator Knezek makes the point that he believes "the State of Michigan is responsible for the debt accrued by DPS while under emergency management. Finding a sustainable funding source that doesn't adversely affect the School Aid Fund is critical because we should not pay off the debt on the backs of other students across the state."

Late last week, with the DPS Board of Education's frustration at a height, the district filed two lawsuits in federal court against the State of Michigan, the Governor, and EM Earley, challenging the Emergency Manager law. Davis said his hope is that "the court steps to its duty and declares the law unconstitutional. The harm has been done by these foundations, like Broad, using state governments to privatize education across the country. The voices of the people have been stolen, and we've got to stop it. We've seen it in New Jersey, Highland Park, and minority districts here in Michigan. Enough is enough. They do it to the districts who don't have the money to fight them in court." John Stuart Mill would likely agree with Mr. Davis, mainly because he argues that "it is important that every one of the governed should have a voice in the government" (Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform), and since the voices of the governed have been stolen, the government should return them.

In my first two posts, we drew out the first two steps necessary to restore democracy to our State, and prevent such a failure from ever occurring again. Firstly, Public Act 436 (2012) must be repealed (or struck down as unconstitutional), and veto referendums need to be structurally strengthened so they aren't affected on the whim of a simple majority of the state House and Senate. Secondly, the State must be prevented from overruling the will of the people, and the procedural measures used by the legislature to subvert it in the first place must be outlawed.

Now we add the third, and final, step: accountability. Ironically, the one thing that the EM law removed will be the final nail in its coffin. The failures of the newly revamped Emergency Manager law are clear. Beyond the laws' repeal or removal, however, their champions must be held to account. The inhumane conditions of DPS schools are a direct result of slashed budgets, all in failed attempts to control a runaway deficit. The poisoning of the City of Flint, as one of my peers describes, and the deaths of children that resulted from it, were a direct result of slashed budgets, all in a failed attempt to control that runaway deficit. 

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder

These conditions were a result of conscious decisions made by Governor Snyder and his appointees, and they must answer for them. When I asked Mr. Davis about accountability, he responded in a way that seemed as if he had read my mind: "The Governor needs to resign, and if he doesn't, he should be recalled; impeached even. These actions were criminal, and the Justice Department should have indicted him by now. The Governor and Mr. Earley. Kids died in Flint, and irreparable damage was done to students in DPS. They need to go to jail."

Being Good Allies

So it was wrong to pick American Sniper to play at Umix, and it was wrong to cancel it. But it was also wrong to reinstate it as the headlining movie? The further you dig into the issue the less clear the problem becomes. It's easy to be cynical and think that we're just doomed to either have to limit free expression or deal with the marginalization that seems to go hand in hand with that expression. To be fair, there isn't ever going to be a perfect answer, but that isn't an excuse not to try. We're better than that. I'm very sympathetic to my fellow blogger Mitch Hansen's suggested solution that calls for discussion. Moreover, I believe there are practical and obvious steps that could've defused American Sniper-gate and maybe prevent any similar controversy from happening in the future.

I spoke with a member of the Center for Campus Involvement (the CCI is responsible for countless events on campus, including Umix) and he illuminated that the whole dispute started over what was basically an accident. "Early in the winter semester 2015, the Umix team selected all of the films for the remaining Umix programs. As the date drew near, American Sniper became more controversial nationwide. Films are chosen by a team of student employees and staff, and are generally 'pre-release,' meaning that they have not yet been made available for home viewing, but are no longer in theaters, [which] limits us to a smaller number of options." So the Umix team has to make decisions on what to show with a limited selection of films months in advance and they didn't mean for it to be a controversial pick. Yes, the movie had been out for a year at that point and they should have realized how polarizing it was, but it was a decision made by humans and none of us are perfect. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time it wasn't obviously the wrong film. 

The same person described the goals of Umix as "focused on relaxation and community-building." This is neither the coffee house nor the salon that Habermas imagined in his account of the Public Sphere. Umix is about consumption, and as such is not a place where people can engage in critical rational debate. Habermas writes, "...the settling of political questions, as far as their moral core is concerned, depends on the institutionalization of practices of rational debate." No one is arguing against people's ability to engage in debate, simply that there need to be the proper institutions in place for this to occur. So the solution is simple. There needs to be a separate university sponsored event for controversial films that creates a space for dialog to follow. I believe this will help on in two ways: creating the proper framing for such films and allowing for thoughtful discussion about them with a potential diversity of views. 

While we might not be able to recreate Habermas' French salon,
a venue that encourages discussion is a step in the right direction

With regards to framing, I think simply implying that there is something special about a movie like American Sniper will encourage its viewers to think critically about the film and not simply consume two hours of flashing lights and loud noises. If someone told you that American Sniper might be racist as you were about to watch it, you're going to think about whether or not they could be right. A separate venue doesn't have to go so far as labeling a film: simply pointing out that there is something that makes a film different than a traditional popcorn film will encourage individuals to analyse deeper than they might without this framing. If a screening of a film was followed by a town hall type discussion, with some faculty monitoring and directing conversation, then students would have the chance to challenge and defend their beliefs and this would lead to understanding. While this is not going to radically change anyone's mind, that's not really the point. It isn't about conformity, it's about empathy. 

This venue would also create an essential pressure valve for anyone seeking to protest a film. With American Sniper the protests lead to cancellation, which lead to Muslim students being accused of censoring free expression. If there was a known alternative venue, students could direct protests at moving the film away from Umix without the University's only option being to cancel the film. When human error leads to an inappropriate film selection, people would have a meaningful way to challenge this film.

This isn't a perfect solution. It might not even be a good solution. But it's a step in a direction that could lead to more empathy on campus. There's always going to be bad people who are going to think and do bad things. This wouldn't fix them. But they might be beyond our help. What this would do is help people who want to be good allies to their fellow students, but who aren't quite sure what that looks like. We don't need perfection, we just need meaningful, positive, change.

This is our home. Let's make it a place where everyone is comfortable living.

A Fork in the Road: Rooming Assignments within Fraternities (Series 3)

Series 3: Finding the Greener Grass  

Welcome to the final segment of my Three Part Series on Rooming Assignments within Fraternities. Thus far, I have introduced you to a very unique situation in which I was entrusted with the responsibility of assigning 21 of my closest friends to live in rooms of very different value, both monetary and material. With no way to differentiate ones “Rights” to a certain room, I found the process to be much more difficult than I had originally thought. After all, how was I supposed to grant one friend a significantly better room than the other without some form of merit to back my decision?

Floor Plan (First Floor) of our Senior Year House

Ultimately, the result of our decision to approach this situation in a “Democratic” matter left two of my friends in living arrangements that they were very unhappy with. As shown in the floor plan above, the rooms of our future house vary in size, and obviously in location.

My two friends, Sam and Paaras, whom we heard from in last weeks blog ended up being placed in Rooms 125 SF and 102 SF, respectively. Sam must be up very early on most mornings, either for his job as a Manager for the University of Michigan Football Team or as a Research Assistant for the University Hospital. Being bordered by both the main living area and the front door, Sam will easily have to endure the most noise out of anyone living in the house. Paaras, who had lived in a very small room this past year, will once again be living in one of the least coveted rooms in the house.

At the time, I knew that I would not be able to please everyone, but once 19 out of the 21 housemates had approved their assignment I began to feel better about our decision. Not until sitting down and talking with my two friends, did I realize that this was an issue rooted deeply within Democracy itself.

As noted last week, Sam and Paaras were both initiated a semester after the 19 other housemates that we will be living with next year. Over the past four years, the representation of such Winter Pledges within our own Chapter’s Executive Board, the main decision making body of the fraternity, has been significantly deflated compared to the recent increase in winter initiations. The number has grown from a pledge class of 4 in 2012-2013 to an average of 10 new winter members over the following three years. As shown in the table below, if and only if a winter member was elected as a member of the EC, it was limited to only Secretary, a relatively small-scale responsibility.

                  Number of “Winter” Representatives in Chapter Executive Committee

Year	President/VP	Marshall	Treasurer	Secretary
2015-2016	0	0	0	1
2014-2015	0	0	0	1
2013-2014	0	0	0	0
2012-2013	0	0	0	0

The obvious issue with this is that, as a Winter, not only are you subject to poor representation in our main decision making body, but the consequences of this misrepresentation have began to spill over into everyday life. In order to prevent such issues in the future, both Sam and Paaras believed that it would be best to increase their representation during original deliberation.


As a minority of Winter Pledges, Sam and Paaras felt as though they were far less influential than their Fall counterparts. Their proposed solution can be better explained when compared to the works of Christopher Karpowitz[1], which describe the consequence of inequalities during deliberation. An overwhelming majority of our housemates accepted my proposal, and since it will be implemented come this Fall, it is safe to say that our deliberation was operating under a “Majority Rule” decision as described by Karpowitz. If we compare the muffled political voice of my two friends to the gender inequalities faced by women during deliberation, we can begin to craft a solution that will not only increase the representation of Winter Members but also their participation in future deliberation. By simply adding one Winter Member to representative body, their interest group will feel more compelled to participate and voice their concerns before it is too late.

Another proposed solution, again stemming from the works of Karpowitz[2], would be to implement Enclave Deliberation in future scenarios similar to my topic of choice. By combining the members of a disempowered group, prior to deliberation, their needs and interests will be mapped out and clearly defined before any decisions have been made. In the case of rooming assignments, Sam and Paaras would have been able to express their concerns with much more influence than they had before.  

In terms of proposed solutions to a Democratic failure, I believe that these two examples work better in large-scale scenarios. Increased representation and participation of disempowered minorities would do wonders for large legislative bodies such as the United States Congress, yet in such a small-scale environment, I propose that my fraternity move back to our original merit based rewards system. If we examine the situation through John Rawls’ “Veil of Ignorance” it becomes clear that there really is no way to “properly” allocate these rooms, and that is why I believe this to be a prime example of a democratic failure. Returning to a merit based reward system provides incentive for chapter members to stay active, and is the only fair way to go about room assignments in the future.

As Chantal Mouffe loves to remind us, there is no unification without leaving some members out.

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[1] Christopher Karpowitz, “Gender Inequality in Deliberative Participation” Page 536

[2] Christopher Karpowitz, “Deliberative Democracy and Inequality: Two Cheers for Enclave Deliberation among the Disempowered” Page 577-579