A coalition of student groups at the University of Michigan say Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is now looking into possible charges against students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on the Ann Arbor campus, which her office has confirmed for the Michigan Advance.

The TAHRIR Coalition, made up of more than 80 student groups, held a press conference on the grounds of the First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor, where they continued to press their case that the university should divest itself, both financially and academically, from the state of Israel over its ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

“[University President Santa] Ono and the regents are materially supporting horrifying crimes against humanity, and they are doing it in the name of profit,” said Jaredo Eno of the Graduate Employees Organization, one of the coalition members. “The campus community has spoken on this over and over and over and has said time and again, we do not want to profit from mass murder.”

The efforts of the protesters have included a sit-in last November at Ono’s office, which resulted in felony charges being brought against four individuals, and an encampment that was broken up by campus police in May that led to four arrests.

Rhiannon Willow, a PhD student and research assistant in the Physics Department, speaks at TAHRIR Coalition “Call to Action”. July 1, 2024. Photo by Jon King

While no charges were filed by Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit’s office in the encampment confrontation, Eno said the university was not deterred in seeking to “repress and silence” them, including asking Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to press charges against protesters.

“We do not know how many people they have asked for charges against or what those charges are, but we have confirmed that U of M’s police department has requested warrants for criminal charges from the state AG’s office against people who are trying to stop the university from funding genocide,” said Eno. “It’s clear that Ono and the regents will use any tool that they can grasp at to silence those who refuse to be complicit in this. This is shameful, and this is dangerous behavior from our supposed leaders.”

Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for the AG’s Office, confirmed that they are looking into the activities of students in Ann Arbor and elsewhere.

“Our department is reviewing a number of cases involving protest activity around the University of Michigan,” Wimmer told the Advance. “As has been reported in the media, protesters have engaged in similar activities in multiple southeast Michigan counties and prosecutorial venues, and our office is uniquely situated to review multijurisdictional cases in their totality.”

U of M graduate Simrun Bose speaks at TAHRIR Coalition “Call to Action”. July 1, 2024. Photo by Jon King

A request for comment was also sent to the University of Michigan, but has yet to be returned.

Protesters actions have also included coalition members appearing outside the homes of U of M’s Board of Regents, including Chair Sarah Hubbard and Regent Jordan Acker. 

Acker’s office was also the target of vandalism in early June, although the coalition did not take credit for it and no suspects in that case have been identified.

Rhiannon Willow, a PhD student and research assistant in the physics department, was one of the students arrested during the clearing of the encampment, saying officers had “slammed my forehead and chin forcefully against the ground, which caused a long lasting and extremely debilitating concussion as well as injuries to my neck and jaw, which have still not fully healed.”

While no charges were filed against Willow, she was banned from campus for a year, which she says will complicate efforts at finishing her PhD dissertation. However, Willow told the Advance that she too is now concerned about state-level charges.

“I believe what’s happening is that, knowing that the Eli Savit’s office declined those charges, I think that’s why they’re going to the AG’s office,” she said. “They’re trying to make it harder for us to keep going, and it seems that the campus bans are unfortunately pretty effective because now so many of us literally can’t set foot on campus or we’ll get arrested immediately.”

Also speaking was Simrun Bose, who graduated in May, but says she was among more than two dozen students notified in mid-May that the university was pursuing disciplinary action against them for participating in either the Nov.17 sit-in. 

Bose said the university “flagrantly violated their own procedures” when she alleges they forced the Office of Student Conflict Resolution (OSCR) to start disciplinary proceedings without a formal complaint having been received, and that when one was finally submitted, it was weeks after the six-month deadline.

“Weirdest of all, the university representative who submitted the complaint was not a student, staff, or faculty member, once again violating OSCR’s own procedural guidelines,” said Bose. “Instead, the complainant was a California-based consultant who does not seem to have any knowledge of the events of Nov. 17. Hiring this consultant to do the regent’s dirty work is a cowardly move to avoid responsibility, and possibly is in violation of federal privacy laws.”

Jaredo Eno of the Graduate Employees Organization speaks at TAHRIR Coalition “Call to Action”. July 1, 2024. Photo by Jon King.

The coalition contends the consultant, Omar E. Torres of Grand River Solutions, was not a student, faculty, or staff member, violating the university’s own policy about who can file a formal complaint. However, they allege only after the fact was he then added to the faculty. An online check shows a listing for Omar Estrada Torres in the university’s human resources department.

A message was also sent to Torres for comment that has not been returned.

Bose says OSCR is forcing students to either “accept responsibility” or be subject to a formal hearing.

“I haven’t made my decision yet,” Bose said. “I have a lot of questions about how this consultant even got this information in the first place that I would hope to be answered before I’m able to make a decision.”

Meanwhile, Eno urged the community to show their support for the coalition’s efforts and keep up the pressure on the university to change its policies.

“We cannot endure continued support for this genocide,” he said. “So, we will keep fighting for divestment, and we will keep fighting to keep each other safe, because as you’ve heard from folks, that is exactly the type of world that we are trying to build and nurture through this coalition and its work. So, we’ll keep fighting.”

————–

( Michigan Advance ) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released a sweeping set of rules aimed at cutting air, water and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Environmental and clean energy groups celebrated the announcement as long overdue, particularly for coal-burning power plants, which have saddled hundreds of communities across the country with dirty air and hundreds of millions of tons of toxic coal ash waste. The ash has leached a host of toxins – including arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, radium and other pollutants – into ground and surface water.

“Today is the culmination of years of advocacy for common-sense safeguards that will have a direct impact on communities long forced to suffer in the shadow of the dirtiest power plants in the country,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s oldest and largest environmental organizations. “It is also a major step forward in our movement’s fight to decarbonize the electric sector and help avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

But some electric industry and pro-coal organizations blasted the rules as a threat to jobs and electric reliability at a time when power demands are surging. They also criticized the rule’s reliance on largely unproven carbon capture technologies.

America’s Power, a trade organization for the nation’s fleet of about 400 coal power plants across 42 states, called the number of new rules “unprecedented,” singling out the new emissions standards that will force existing coal plants to cut their carbon emissions by 90% by the 2032 if they intend to keep running past 2039.  Michelle Bloodworth, the group’s president and CEO, called the rule “an extreme and unlawful overreach that endangers America’s supply of dependable and affordable electricity.”

‘This forces that’

Many experts expect the regulations to be litigated, particularly the carbon rule, since the last time the EPA tried to restrict carbon emissions from power plants, a group of states led by West Virginia mounted a successful legal challenge that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the agency took great pains to conform the rule to the legal constraints outlined by the court.

“This rule is specifically responsive to that Supreme Court decision,” she said. “Which doesn’t mean that it won’t go to the courts but this is so carefully hewn to that decision that it should be robust.”

The four rules EPA released Thursday mainly target coal-fired power plants.

“By developing these standards in a clear, transparent, inclusive manner, EPA is cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said.

In some ways, they attach a framework to a sea change in electric generation that is already well under way, McNamara said.

Coal accounted for just 16% of U.S. electric generation in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 1990, by comparison, it comprised more than 54% of power generation. However, some states are more reliant on coal power than others.

In 2021, the most coal-dependent states were West Virginia, Missouri, Wyoming and Kentucky, per a 2022 report by  the EIA.

AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station in Petersburg, Indiana, has been burning coal since the 1960s but will shutter all of its coal-firing units over the next few years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released a sweeping set of rules aimed at cutting air, water and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom)

“This rulemaking adds structure to that transition,” McNamara said. “For those who have chosen not to assess the future use of their coal plants, this forces that.”

Heather O’Neill, president and CEO of the clean energy trade group Advanced Energy United, said the new regulations are a chance for utilities to embrace cheaper, cleaner and more reliable options for the electric grid.

“Instead of looking to build new gas plants or prolong the life of old coal plants, utilities should be taking advantage of the cheaper, cleaner, and more trusty tools in the toolbox,” she said.

The carbon rule 

In 2009, the EPA concluded that greenhouse gas emissions “endanger our nation’s public health and welfare,” the agency wrote, adding that since that time, “the evidence of the harms posed by GHG emissions has only grown and Americans experience the destructive and worsening effects of climate change every day.”

The new carbon emissions regulation will apply to existing coal plants and new natural gas plants. Coal plants that plan to operate beyond 2039 will have to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032. New gas plants are split into three categories based on their capacity factor, a measure of how much electricity is generated over a period of time relative to the maximum amount it could have produced. The plants that run the most (more than 40% capacity factor) will have to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032. Existing gas plants will be regulated under a forthcoming rule that “more comprehensively addresses GHG emissions from this portion of the fleet,” the agency said.

Michelle Solomon, a senior policy analyst for Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy think tank, predicts that most coal plants will close rather than install the costly technology to capture carbon emissions.

“Climate goals aside, the public health impacts of the rules in securing the retirement of coal fired power plants is so important,” she said. Coal power in the U.S. has been increasingly pressured by cheaper gas and renewable generation and mounting environmental restrictions, but some grid operators have still been caught flat-footed by the pace of coal plant closures.

“I think the role of this rule, to provide that certainty about where we’re going, is so crucial to get the entities that have control over the rate of the transition to start to take action here,” she said. But the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s CEO, Jim Matheson, called the rules “unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable” noting that it relies on technology “that is not ready for prime time.”

And Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, a trade group for competitive power suppliers, called the rule “a painful example of aspirational policy outpacing physical and operational realities” because of its reliance on unproven carbon capture and hydrogen blending technologies to cut emissions.

A beefed up Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule

The EPA called the revision to the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards  “the most significant update since MATS was first issued in February 2012.” It predicted the rule would cut emissions of mercury and other air pollutants like nickel, arsenic, lead, soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and others. It cuts the mercury limit by 70% for power plants fired by lignite coal, which is the lowest grade of coal and one of the dirtiest to burn for power generation.

For all coal plants, the emissions limit for toxic metals is reduced by 67%. The EPA says the rule will result in major cuts in releases of mercury and other hazardous metals, fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide.  The agency projects “$300 million in health benefits,” including reducing risks of heart attacks, cancer and developmental delays in children and $130 million in climate benefits.

Stronger wastewater discharge limits for power plants

Coal fired power plants use huge volumes of water, and when the wastewater is returned to lakes, rivers and streams it can be laden with mercury, arsenic and other metals as well as bromide, chloride and other pollution and contaminate drinking water and harm aquatic life.

The new rule is projected to cut about 670 million pounds of pollutants discharged in wastewater from coal plants per year. Plants that will cease coal combustion over the next decade can abide by less stringent rules.

“Power plants for far too long have been able to get away with treating our waterways like an open sewer,” said Thomas Cmar, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, during a briefing on the new rules earlier this week.

Closing a coal ash loophole

Coal ash, what’s left after coal has been burned for power generation, is one the nation’s largest waste streams. The 2015 EPA Coal Combustion Residuals rule were the first federal regulations for coal ash. But that rule left about half of the ash sitting at power plant sites and other locations – much of it in unlined disposal pits – unregulated because it did not apply to so-called “legacy impoundments” that were not being used to accept new ash.

“We’re going to see a long-awaited crackdown on coal ash pollution from America’s coal plants, and it’ll be a huge win for America’s health and water resources,” said Lisa Evans, a senior attorney with Earthjustice. “They are all likely leaking toxic chemicals like arsenic into groundwater and most contain levels of radioactivity that can be dangerous to human health.”

Groundwater monitoring data shows that the vast majority of ash ponds at coal plants are contaminating groundwater, said Abel Russ, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. Butunder the old rule, Russ said, facilities could dodge cleanup requirements by blaming contamination on older ash dumps not covered by the regulation.

“This is a huge loophole,” Russ said. “You can’t restore groundwater quality if you’re only addressing half of the coal ash sources on site.”

However, several attorneys on the Earthjustice briefing said the new rules, which will require monitoring at clean up and hundreds of more ash sites, will only be as good as the enforcement.

“It’s meaningful only if these utilities obey the law. Unfortunately to date, many of them have not,” said Frank Holleman, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Robert Zullo

Robert Zullo is a national energy reporter based in southern Illinois focusing on renewable power and the electric grid. Robert joined States Newsroom in 2018 as the founding editor of the Virginia Mercury. Before that, he spent 13 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Louisiana. He has a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. He grew up in Miami, Fla., and central New Jersey.

 

Published under under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

Via Michigan Advance

‘We’re making more money off the blood of people overseas’

By: Jon King and Susan J. Demas –

( Michigan Advance ) – While student encampments at New York and Texas colleges protesting Israeli military action in Gaza have generated confrontations with police, similar protests at Michigan universities have so far remained peaceful.

At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, more than 120 students are camped out on the Diag, the open space at the heart of the main campus. That has grown from about 50 students who turned out on early Monday morning to set up the encampment directly in front of the Hatcher Graduate Library.

Amid Palestinian flags and banners that call on the university to “Divest Now!,” sit more than 40 tents, most facing toward the center of the encampment where food tables and information boards sit, as well as a small staging area for organizers to address fellow students.

The Friday morning announcements began with an update on similar protest encampments across the country, reminders to not engage with any counter-protestors and Shabbat services and dinner planned for the encampment later Friday night.

Alifa Chowdhury, a junior studying political science and one of the student organizers, told the Michigan Advance that they have one demand for the university’s board of regents. 

“Our only demand is divestment, and we’re here to stay until divestment demands are met,” said Chowdhury, who is also a member of the TAHRIR Coalition, a student-led alliance of more than 80 organizations “fighting for divestment from Israel and the military-industrial complex and reinvestment in our education and our community.”

Specifically, Chowdhury said “weapons manufacturing and war profiteering companies” are connected to about a third of the University of Michigan’s $18 billion endowment.

The student encampment on the University of Michigan campus. April 26, 2024. Photo by Jon King.

“During times of war, like right now, they make more money because obviously people are buying more weapons,” she said. “And that just doesn’t make sense to us as students because that’s just not ethical because we’re making more money off the blood of people overseas. So the ask really is to take that $6 billion out and reinvest it into communities and really ethical things.”

The conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out on Oct. 7, after a surprise Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel killed about 1,200 people and resulted in the taking of more than 250 hostages. The resulting Israeli retaliation has killed more than than 34,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry.

In a news release issued Monday by the TAHRIR Coalition announcing the encampment, the group said, “We are not leaving the Diag until we achieve full divestment. Power to our freedom fighters, glory to our martyrs. All eyes on Gaza, the Thawabit is our compass.”

Colleen Mastony, the university’s assistant vice president for public affairs, told the Advance that their investment policy has been in place for nearly 20 years and shields the university’s investments from political pressures. 

“Much of the money invested through the university’s endowment, for example, is donor funding given to provide long-term financial support for designated purposes,” she said. “The Board of Regents reaffirmed its position on this issue earlier this year.”

A March 28 statement by Regent Michael Behm said the university’s endowment had no direct investment in any Israeli company. 

“What we do have are funds that one of those companies may be part of a fund,” Behm said. “Another statement that was made was that $6 billion dollars or roughly one third of our endowment is invested in these Israeli companies. I asked the endowment team about that and, in actuality, less than one-tenth of 1% of the endowment is invested indirectly in such companies.”

Chowdhury, however, says the regents and university are hiding behind a policy that has been flexible in the past.

“The university has made it known that they will not divest because they don’t make investment decisions and financial decisions based on political pressure, but we know that’s not true,” she said. “They divested from Russia in a week, they divested from South African apartheid, they divested from fossil fuels, and those are inherently political decisions they had to make. So we’re here when we’re going to push for it and we know it’s going to happen.”

The protestors have also demanded that University President Santa Ono meet with them by at 8 p.m. Sunday. 

“Many of you have expressed interest in meeting with the TAHRIR coalition; here is your opportunity to do so,” stated an email sent by the group to the university and its board of regents.

“We stand in solidarity with our brave students occupying campus until our demand for divestment is met in full,” the email continued. “We reject any attempt to surveil, criminalize, or otherwise punish them for their activism. As members of the University of Michigan community, we firmly and proudly demand divestment now.”

Earlier in the week, the Anti Defamation League (ADL) of Michigan, posted a picture from the encampment of a banner that read “Long Live The Intifada,” a reference to the Arabic word for uprising and a term often used to describe Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

“We are dismayed to see anti-Israel protests at colleges and Universities like this one at the University of Michigan, using terms like Intifada, which refers to two periods of indiscriminate violence directed at Jews in Israel, resulting in the loss of thousands of innocent lives – Palestinian & Israeli. Simply put, Intifada is a call for violence that only stokes fear, anger and division,” stated the ADL. “Protests that use these terms don’t alleviate suffering nor bring about lasting peace in a global or local setting.”

The banner was not visible on Friday. As to claims that their protest is antisemitic, Chowdhury insists that is a false accusation that seeks to undermine legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and its policies, and has nothing to do with the Jewish religion.

“I think if people spent more than ten minutes at this encampment, there’s so much community and love and joy, music and art builds and open poetry and open mics,” she said. “This is also co-led by the Jewish Voices for Peace students, and so no, we don’t foster antisemitism here. It really is a place of love. Anti-Zionism and anti-Zionist rhetoric should not be conflated with antisemitism. They’re not the same thing. They’re not interchangeable.”

Meanwhile, Michigan State University students set up their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” early on Thursday morning in “The People’s Park” — the site of a similar protest against the Vietnam War decades ago.

By 1:30 p.m. Thursday, about 50 students were gathered at the site in back of Wells Hall along the Red Cedar River, where roughly two dozen tents were set up amid Palestinian flags, a “Free Palestine” chalk drawing on the sidewalk and banners that read, “Stop Funding Genocide” and “Trustees: Divest Now.” 

The protest also featured a well-stocked snack table with cookies, fruit snacks, drinks and more, with students periodically trekking in more supplies, like green foam sleeping pads.

The protest was still going strong on Friday after protesters spent their first night camping out. MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant told the Advance that the protesters applied for a permit Thursday afternoon, requesting to camp/tent on campus through Sunday. The Board of Trustees Office approved the permit around 5 p.m. Thursday.

Fliers posted at the camp for “Encampment Norms/Expectations” included the following:

• Practice kindness and treat others with respect.
• Keep alert for marshalls’ instructions. Marshalls are wearing high-vis orange vests and are here to keep us safe.
• Avoid interacting with police. If you see police, inform a marshall.

There was no sign of a police presence at that time, although students said MSU police had made several stops earlier in the day telling them to disperse. 

Just a couple blocks away, dozens of MSU students donning green caps and gowns were busy taking photos outside Spartan Stadium and the Sparty Statue, the day before the start of spring graduation ceremonies.

Guerrant told the Advance on Friday that “graduation has gone extremely smooth today.”

Most students, many who wore masks, deferred to student leaders to talk to reporters on Thursday.

One of those who did speak was Camille Duvernois, a third-year student in world politics and journalism, who told the Advance the MSU students also seek divestment. The encampment was a joint effort by about 20 campus groups, she said.

“We are here to get the university to divest from weapons manufacturers, to divest from Israeli aid. They have millions of dollars vested in weapons manufacturers,” she said. “Students and community members are uncomfortable with our tuition money going to not only profiting off of genocide, but also funding it. We are paying our tuition and then that tuition money is going back into investments that kill children, that are bombing children senselessly, that are bombing innocent civilians in a land that has been occupied for decades illegally by settler-colonialist forces.”

Duvernois said the protestors would also like to see a ceasefire in Gaza that allows Palestinians “displaced recklessly” by Israel to return to their homes.

“But the attempts for a ceasefire have been continuously rejected by the Israeli Knesset [Parliament]. They’ve been repeatedly rejected by [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu. He has repeatedly refused any sort of peace attempts from Palestinians,” Duvernois said. “Israel has refused for decades to allow Palestinians to exist in peace. And whenever there’s retaliation of any sort, people resisting their occupiers, it turns into genocide and it turns into senseless murder, and we don’t want our tuition money going to that.”

When asked whether the remaining hostages taken by Hamas should be returned as part of a ceasefire, Duvernois said it was absolutely a concern, although she continued to place blame on Israel.

“Of course. We don’t think that there should be any sort of violence or loss of life,” she said “But ultimately this violence is caused by the settler colonial ethnostate that is Israel. I mean, they are the reason that there are hostages. There’s the reason that there is violence.”

Duvernois said their protest would last as long as it took to achieve success.

“We will not end this stuff until the university decides to stop using our money for this sort of violence. They said in their last board trustees meetings that they would not be reconsidering their investments, that they would not be considering divestment. And when [new University President Kevin] Guskiewicz just talked to us, he said they were considering it. So that’s progress in some manner. I mean, they said it would be too chaotic to divest, but this is chaotic.”

However, Guerrant relayed a different version of the meeting with Guskiewicz on Thursday.

“The president did stop by the encampment yesterday around noon, but he did not say the university would divest,” Guerrant said in an email on Friday afternoon. “Rather, he reiterated what was said at the April board meeting — that MSU will not be divesting. The university is committed to safeguarding its investment portfolio from political influence. We currently have no direct or indirect investments in gun manufacturers nor in the three publicly traded civilian firearm manufacturers. MSU does not own an Israeli-issued security bond.” 

Eli Folts, who just finished his junior year at MSU, is a member of the Young Communist League on campus part of the encampment. He said on Thursday that divestment was not an impossible goal.

“We need divestment. We’ve done it in the past and we were a leader then,” he said referencing divestment in the 1980s from the then apartheid-nation of South Africa.

“I mean, if you think about it, look at the timeline,” he said. “It took eight to 10 years. It took a long time, but once it kind of hit that critical mass where we had that cooperation between faculty and students, it was very powerful. And I think that’s far from impossible. We can do it. We have the people; we have faculty support. We just really need to push this and we need to engage community members. We need to engage alum.”

 

 

Jon King

Jon King is the Senior Reporter for the Michigan Advance and has been a journalist for more than 35 years. He is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association and has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell.

Susan J. Demas

Susan J. Demas is a 23-year journalism veteran and one of the state’s foremost experts on Michigan politics, appearing on C-SPAN, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and WKAR-TV’s “Off the Record.” In addition to serving as Editor-in-Chief, she is the Advance’s chief columnist, writing on women, LGBTQ people, the state budget, the economy and more. For almost five years, Susan was the Editor and Publisher of Inside Michigan Politics, the most-cited political newsletter in the state. Susan’s award-winning political analysis has run in more than 100 national, international and regional media outlets, including the Guardian U.K., NBC News, the New York Times, the Detroit News and MLive.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Via Michigan Advance

Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

 

( Michigan Advance ) – Without equitable data systems, governmental policies will always come up short of fairly representing all of the people they are intended to serve. 

It is with that in mind that we at the Michigan League for Public Policy and many of our partners have long advocated for the inclusion of racial and ethnic groups that are currently left out of data collection, including, but not limited to individuals with origins in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The MENA region includes several countries, such as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Yemen; many Arabic-speaking and non-Arabic speaking groups, as well as ethnic and transnational groups.

For far too long, MENA has been excluded as a separate race category in federal data collection — such as the decennial census — here in the United States, but is instead collapsed into the white or “other” categories. This means no federal agency has established an understanding of MENA Americans or their lived experiences. It also means the MENA-American experience has been systemically unaccounted for in federal data and has, therefore, long been excluded from the design and implementation of policies and programs intended to address civil rights and racial equity. 

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

This has had significant impacts on many aspects of the lives of MENA Americans and masked many pressing social concerns, like barriers to quality healthcare, limited opportunities for success among MENA small business owners and entrepreneurs, and a lack of understanding by federal agencies regarding health disparities, child well-being, and other social and economic disparities in MENA communities. 

Having complete, disaggregated federal data that provides more visibility for MENA Americans is especially important here in the Great Lakes State, as the state’s population becomes more diverse and the MENA population rapidly grows. 

In fact, Michigan has the second-largest MENA population in the U.S. at 310,087, second only to California, according to data collected through a new write-in option under the white category in the 2020 Census that specifically solicited MENA responses. 

While this data is valuable, it’s incomplete and does not provide a full, accurate and reliable picture of the MENA population. And, the decennial census write-in option continues to fail to recognize that many of the people in MENA communities do not identify as white and have very different lived experiences from white people with European ancestry. 

The good news is that we may soon see MENA added as a minimum reporting category in federal data collection thanks to one of several recently proposed, important updates to Statistical Policy Directive (SPD) 15. SPD 15 was developed in 1977 in order to collect and provide consistent, aggregated data on race and ethnicity in every area of our federal government, including the decennial census, administrative forms and household surveys. It serves as a crucial element in the oversight and administration of policies and programs that address racial and ethnic disparities and, yet, since its development, it has only undergone one update — in 1997. 

Recognizing the need to keep up with population changes and the evolving needs and uses for the federal data collected, a work group was established in 2022 to develop several new, proposed updates to SPD 15. And early last year during the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) public comment period on the initial proposed updates, we at the League were proud to formally voice our support for the proposal to add MENA as a new minimum reporting category.

The League also made sure to include a policy recommendation in the 2023 Kids Count in Michigan Data Book calling for investment in more robust and equitable data systems — specifically pointing to the lack of a MENA reporting category in the U.S. Census.

By ensuring that MENA Americans are included in federal data collection moving forward, we can ensure that they receive the representation, resources and programmatic support they need to thrive, support their families and make a stronger impact in their local communities. Changes to our current data systems are long overdue and must be made in order to lift up and address the needs of racial and ethnic groups that have been long overlooked. 

We at the League are continuing to follow the status of the proposed SPD 15 updates closely and are hoping to see the OMB make changes — including the addition of the MENA reporting category — this year. Community members are welcome to follow the League’s website and social media for updates on this issue as they become available. 

 

Simon Marshall-Shah

Simon Marshall-Shah is a state policy fellow at the Michigan League for Public Policy. He previously worked in Washington, D.C,. at the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), providing federal policy and advocacy support to nonprofit, Medicaid health plans (Safety Net Health Plans) related to the ACA Marketplaces.

 

 

 

Michigan Advance

Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

As much of the Great Lakes region experiences its warmest winter on record, and more record high temperatures are expected in Michigan, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported record low levels of ice coverage on the Great Lakes, amid a steady, decades-long decrease in coverage.

While ice coverage on the Great Lakes usually peaks in the late February to early March, NOAA began reporting daily record-lows for Great Lakes ice coverage on Feb. 8, through Feb. 15. While there was a brief spike above historic lows after Feb. 15, those numbers quickly neared and tied low ice-coverage records, with historical lows recorded on Feb. 27 and 28, Jennifer Day, director of communications for NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory said in an email.

Ice coverage on the individual lakes has followed similar patterns, with Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron recording historic low coverage for the date on Feb. 28, while ice concentration for Lake Erie sat at 0% and concentration on Lake Ontario sat at less than half a percent.

NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory Ice Coverage Chart for Feb. 29, 2024. | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Ice concentration on Lake Superior sat at 1.74% on Wednesday, while NOAA recorded 3.6% concentration in Lake Michigan and 7.84% concentration in Lake Huron.

The total peak for ice concentration across the five lakes was recorded on Jan. 22, with 16% coverage. However, Lake Superior has since recorded a new maximum for the year on Feb.19, exceeding its January peak.

Ayumi Fujisaki-Manome, an associate researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research told the Michigan Advance the lack of ice is the result of anomaly conditions overlaid on long term warming trends. Alongside El Niño conditions contributing to a warmer and wetter winter than normal, the North Atlantic Oscillation — which describes atmospheric pressure patterns — is in a positive phase, which prevents cold arctic air from coming down into the Great Lakes region.

Day noted that the strong El Niño coupled with a warm December and above average air and water temperatures throughout winter did not create the conditions needed for ice to develop.

Low ice was also recorded in 2020 and 2023, Day said, with the annual maximum coverage near 20%, compared to the long-term average of 53%.

However, NOAA has also recorded very high ice years in the previous decade, in 2014, 2015 and 2019.

“Even though there’s a decreasing trend in max ice (5%/decade), there is a great deal of year to year variability,” Day said.

Although there has been a long-term decline in Great Lakes Ice Coverage, predicting those fluctuations from year to year remains a big question for researchers, Fujisaki-Manome said.

While a lack of ice may bring disappointment for those looking to ice fish in the Great Lakes, or visit ice caves near the coast, the lack of ice coverage also carries concerns for shoreline conditions, lake effect weather, and for various animal species in and around the Great Lakes.

Ice coverage serves as a barrier, protecting coastlines from high winds, high waves and storm surges. Without that barrier there will be long-term impacts, such as shoreline erosion, Fujisaki-Manome said.

A lack of ice to protect from waves makes shorelines more susceptible to coastal flooding and creates a higher potential for storm damage to shoreline infrastructure, Day said.

Additionally, less ice and more open water is the perfect set up for a lake effect snowstorm or an ice storm, Fujisaki-Manome said.

During late fall and winter cold air flowing over the warm waters of the Great Lakes leads to the production of lake effect snow leading to increased snowfall in areas downwind from the lakes. This effect usually diminishes late into the winter season, as the formation of lake ice reduces the supply of warm and moist air in the atmosphere.

Thick, stable ice also protects fish eggs that are deposited nearshore in the fall and incubate over winter, Day said. Ice cover can help minimize the effect of waves that would dislodge or break apart eggs from species like lake whitefish or lake herring, she said.

Ice cover also affects winter fishery harvests, especially in bays, drowned river mouth lakes and nearshore areas, Day said. During cold winters when ice is thick and lasts three to four months, harvests for panfish, whitefish, bass, walleye and yellow perch are high, with low harvests when coverage is low and unstable.

It is unlikely that total ice coverage across the Great Lakes will exceed its January peak, Day said.

Significant ice growth is not expected over the coming weeks, and longer term temperature trend predictions indicate that ice levels across the Great Lakes will likely remain below average for the next several weeks, Day said.

Kyle Davidson

( Michigan Advance ) – WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted for charges he schemed to overturn the 2020 election, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, rejecting Trump’s argument he was immune from criminal prosecution for any alleged conduct during his presidential term.

In a unanimous opinion, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel denied Trump’s request to throw out the federal charges accusing him of lying to and encouraging supporters who turned violent on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump and his attorneys argued the case should be dismissed because Trump was acting in his official capacity as president and that allowing a president to be sued would have disastrous consequences.

The court found those arguments were “unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution.”

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” Tuesday’s unsigned opinion said. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

Trump is expected to appeal the ruling, either to the full D.C. Circuit or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, in a process that could take months while he continues his campaign as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Neither court is required to take the case, but exercising his appellate options will help Trump extend the case, potentially beyond Election Day, although Trump and his legal team have not explicitly said it is part of their strategy to delay the case as long as possible.

Further appeals

The full D.C. Circuit is “highly unlikely” to hear a further appeal of the presidential immunity ruling, according to legal experts Norman L. Eisen, Matthew A. Seligman and Joshua Kolb, who wrote an outline of potential timelines in the case for Just Security, a site devoted to foreign policy, democracy and security analysis, that published Jan. 9.

The Supreme Court is also “unlikely” to hear an appeal, they wrote.

Trump brought the appeal from a trial court in D.C., where he faces federal charges related to the 2021 attack on the Capitol. An investigation by special counsel Jack Smith resulted in a four-count indictment last year accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“MSNBC Video: “Maddow: Trump claim ‘outrighted mocked’ by court in immunity rejection”

The indictment accuses Trump of working with a group of co-conspirators to recruit false slates of electors, lying to the public about non-existent determinative election fraud and encouraging supporters to obstruct the election certification in a violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump raised a so-called presidential immunity defense in the trial court, saying he could not be prosecuted for the actions alleged in the indictment because he was acting in his official capacity as president to counteract election fraud.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan denied that claim, a decision Trump appealed to the D.C. Circuit. On Friday, Chutkan also officially postponed his trial, which had been set to begin March 4.

Hours before the three-judge panel issued its ruling, Trump posted in all capital letters on his online platform, Truth Social, that “IF IMMUNITY IS NOT GRANTED TO A PRESIDENT, EVERY PRESIDENT THAT LEAVES OFFICE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED BY THE OPPOSING PARTY.”

“WITHOUT COMPLETE IMMUNITY, A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUNCTION!” he wrote.

Jacob Fischler

Jacob covers federal policy and helps direct national coverage as deputy Washington bureau chief for States Newsroom. Based in Oregon, he focuses on Western issues. His coverage areas include climate, energy development, public lands and infrastructure.

Ashley Murray

Ashley Murray covers the nation’s capital as a senior reporter for States Newsroom. Her coverage areas include domestic policy and appropriations.

Via Michigan Advance

Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

 

Mayor slams op-ed as ‘bigoted’ and ‘Islamophobic,’ calls for increased police patrols in city

By: Jon King –

( Michigan Advance ) – Reaction to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece about Dearborn intensified through the weekend, as President Joe Biden and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined the chorus of condemnation. 

The WSJ op-ed, “Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital,” alleged thousands of residents in the predominantly Muslim city, including “imams and politicians” are siding with “Hamas against Israel and Iran against the U.S.”

The op-ed was written by Steven Salinsky, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a group critics say often produces selective or inaccurate translations to negatively portray Muslims and Arabs. 

By Saturday morning, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a former House member, took to social media to lambast the piece.

“It’s 2024 and the @WSJ still pushes out this type of garbage. Reckless. Bigoted. Islamophobic,” said Hammoud, who called Dearborn “one of the greatest American cities in our nation,” noting that not only was it the home of the Ford Motor Co., but the fastest-growing city in Michigan, as well as  among the most diverse.

But within about two hours, he came back to X to note the negative impact the WSJ piece was having. 

“Effective immediately –  Dearborn police will ramp up its presence across all places of worship and major infrastructure points,” said Hammoud. “This is a direct result of the inflammatory @WSJ opinion piece that has led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online targeting the city of Dearborn. Stay vigilant.”

Requests for comment on the nature of those threats were sent by the Michigan Advance to both Dearborn Police and Michigan State Police, but have yet to be returned.

Click On Detroit | Local 4 | WDIV | Video | –
“Dearborn police on high alert after WSJ opinion article”

CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said the group welcomes “the proactive approach taken by Mayor Hammoud to protect the Muslim community from potential attack based on the false claims in this inaccurate and inflammatory commentary.” The Washington, D.C.-based CAIR reports that the groups received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023 — a 178% increase compared to a similar period in 2022.

Almost exactly 24 hours after Hammoud’s post, Biden also posted to social media his criticism of the WSJ op-ed.

“Americans know that blaming a group of people based on the words of a small few is wrong,” said Biden. “That’s exactly what can lead to Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate, and it shouldn’t happen to the residents of Dearborn – or any American town. We must continue to condemn hate in all forms.”

State Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) said he’ll be introducing a resolution in the House on Tuesday condemning “vile rhetoric.” 

“Glad to see the President condemning the hateful bigoted piece published by @WSJ,” he wrote. “Let’s not forget that dehumanizing words and policies lead to the rise in hate crimes we’re seeing.” 

Whitmer also issued a post on Sunday.

“Dearborn is a vibrant community full of Michiganders who contribute day in and day out to our state. Islamophobia and all forms of hate have no place in Michigan, or anywhere. Period,” she said.

Residents in Dearborn have organized and held multiple protests of the war against Hamas by Israel, jointly condemning the administration, and Biden specifically, for not embracing a cease-fire in Gaza, where more than 27,000 Palestinians have died since the Oct. 7 surprise attack by Hamas that killed as many as 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians.

Most recently, groups held a rally last Wednesday at Fordson High School in Dearborn, protesting the ongoing Israeli military action. It took place on the eve of Biden’s campaign visit to Michigan — which also drew protesters, as the Advance previously reported — and about a week after several Arab American leaders, including Hammoud, declined to meet with Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez.

While Biden administration officials have affirmed Israel’s right to respond to the attack, they have increasingly demanded more attention to minimizing civilian casualties.

“Israel must do more to stop violence against civilians in the West Bank and hold accountable those responsible for it,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last Thursday on sanctions levied by Biden against four Israeli settlers in the West Bank, part of an effort to curb civilian casualties in the region as the Israel-Hamas war continues. Negotiations on a ceasefire continued Sunday.

Critics of the WSJ op-ed said that protesting against American foreign policy, and even an American president, should not be used to indict an entire community, especially on ethnic or religious lines.

“Bigotry.  Hatred.  Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim.  If the headline was about any other minority — with the worst stereotype of that group — it would have never gotten through the editors at the WSJ,” said U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), who is Jewish.

Fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor), who lived in Dearborn for nearly 40 years, called it “another example of hate directed at a community that is already hurting, resulting in fear, vitriol, and threats of violence.”

Dingell said her “neighborhood and friends were supportive, caring, and dedicated, and concluded by stating that “We cannot let hatred of any kind, Islamophobia, antisemitism, destroy people. We must stand up to hate everywhere and anywhere we see it.”

 

Jon King

Jon King is the Senior Reporter for the Michigan Advance and has been a journalist for more than 35 years. He is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association and has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell.

 

Michigan Advance

Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

( Michigan Advance ) – Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said she “wasn’t surprised” by news that former President Donald Trump allegedly pressured Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers to refuse to sign the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Benson, a Democrat who spent most of 2020 warning about the potential for disinformation over election results, told CNN that the revelation, first reported late Thursday night by the Detroit News, was further evidence of Trump’s efforts to upend a free and fair election.

“It’s quite extraordinary,” said Benson. “We had a gut feeling and had lots of different pieces of evidence to suggest that this was happening. So, I wasn’t surprised by anything that was revealed or any of the revelations in the recording.”

The News said it had reviewed a recording of a phone call Trump made on Nov. 17, 2020, to the two GOP Wayne County canvassers, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann. 

“We’ve got to fight for our country,” the News reported Trump said on the recording. “We can’t let these people take our country away from us.”

Also reportedly on the call, which the News said was recorded by a person present with Palmer and Hartmann at the time, was Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a Wayne County resident and niece of U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

“If you can go home tonight, do not sign [the certification]. … We will get you attorneys,” McDaniel is reported to have told Palmer and Hartmann. 

Trump is then said to have added: “We’ll take care of that.”

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, won Michigan over GOP President Donald Trump by over 154,000 votes. Biden secured about 68% of the votes cast for president in Wayne County and Trump received about 31% of votes in the county. The blue county is home to Detroit, Michigan’s largest city and is 79% African American.

After initially voting against certifying the Wayne County election results, Palmer and Hartmann relented after sharp criticism from members of the public and voted to approve them, as the Advance reported at the time. 

Benson said on social media that moment was a turning point.

“Hundreds – hundreds (!) – of citizens showed up to the meeting of the Wayne County Canvassing Board to remind them of their duty under the law to ensure their votes counted,” she said. “Their voices mattered. Their votes mattered. In my view that turned the tide. Citizens and election officials in Wayne County and statewide didn’t flinch, stood firm, and demanded their votes be certified as required under the law.”

However, the News says it was 30 minutes after the meeting ended that Trump called, saying it would look “terrible” if they ended up signing the certification after initially voting in opposition.

Former President Donald J. Trump is seen in silhouette holding an umbrella as he talks to members of the press on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, prior to boarding Marine One to begin his trip to Hershey, Pa. | Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian via Flickr Public Domain

Following the phone call, Palmer and Hartmann left the canvassers meeting without signing the official certification document. Then they tried to rescind their votes the following day, an effort that proved unsuccessful and paved the way for certification in Wayne County, but also ultimately at the state level, confirming Joe Biden’s win in Michigan. He would be awarded all 16 of the state’s electoral votes.

“Had Trump succeeded in delaying or preventing a county or statewide certification in Michigan, that precedent would have been used to delay or block certification in Pennsylvania (which was certifying the following week), Georgia and so on, paving the way for the false slate of electors. We knew we were the first domino to go and that what Michigan did would impact the others,” said Benson on the social media platform X.

Trump also met with Michigan GOP leaders in the White House on Nov. 20, 2020, including former Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) and House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering). Republicans have claimed they weren’t pressured to overturn election results.

The News reported that while Hartmann has since died, neither Palmer nor McDaniel and Trump, through spokespeople, disputed a summary of the phone call when presented to them. The paper noted, however, that Palmer in the past described the conversation with Trump as, “Thank you for your service. I’m glad you’re safe. Have a good night.”

The News said those comments weren’t included in the segments of the call the paper reviewed.

McDaniel, a former Michigan GOP chair, said she stands by her statements made at the time that there was “ample evidence” that warranted an election audit. 

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the paper that Trump’s actions “were taken in furtherance of his duty as president of the United States to faithfully take care of the laws and ensure election integrity, including investigating the rigged and stolen 2020 presidential election.”

Despite continued allegations of election fraud, no evidence has been validated, while multiple judges, many of them Trump appointees, have rejected every legal attempt to overturn the results.

Trump also faces both state and federal charges for illegally attempting to interfere in the election process. 

The day following the phone call to Palmer and Hartmann, Trump further boosted the pressure to stop the certification by making unproven and inaccurate statements.

“The numbers have not improved, it is still 71% out of balance”, stated Wayne County, Michigan,  Canvassers. “There is widespread irregularities in poll numbers.” There are “more votes than people”. The two harassed patriot Canvassers refuse to sign the papers!,” he posted on social media.

Similar false conspiracies were later brought up during a now-infamous Michigan House committee meeting featuring Rudy Giuliani, who was then serving as Trump’s personal attorney. Giuliani, who is also facing charges in Georgia for election interference, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, days after a jury ordered him to pay nearly $150 million to two former Georgia election workers for defamation.

Peter Bondi, managing director of the nonprofit Informing Democracy, expressed concern about what Trump will do after the 2024 election if he loses again.

“Following Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, it’s easy to predict that he will loudly call for every local election official to refuse to certify the results of the election in 2024. What we can’t predict is how many will actually listen to him,” Bondi said. “Unfortunately, from what we’ve seen in Michigan, Arizona, and elsewhere, we know that some may follow his command, breaking their oath and disregarding the votes of the citizens they’ve sworn to serve — and in many cases breaking the law.”

Benson, meanwhile, was asked by CNN’s Abby Phillip that in light of the recording, if she thought charges should be sought against Palmer or McDaniel.

“I have great faith in our Attorney General Dana Nessel,” she responded. “She just today announced charges in a very different inquiry against former state employees for abusing their power [Robert and Anne Minard]. So when the law is violated, she will ensure there is accountability. So we’ll see how that unfolds. I think the other thing to remember here is at the end of the day, the commissioners and folks on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers did their job. They certified the election, as the state board did as well. So despite attempts to bribe or cajole or interfere, influence, it was unsuccessful. And democracy prevailed, in part because hundreds of citizens showed up that night to demand that the law be followed. And indeed, it ultimately was.”

Mark Brewer, an elections lawyer and former Michigan Democratic Party chair, was more blunt.

“Lock ‘em up: Trump, Palmer, Ronna Romney McDaniel, and everyone else who was part of this criminal scheme,” he posted.

Jon King

Jon King is the Senior Reporter for the Michigan Advance and has been a journalist for more than 35 years. He is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association and has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell.

Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Michigan Advance

( Michigan Advance ) – As a symbolic gesture and demonstration of solidarity with the people in Gaza, Hamtramck’s all-Muslim City Council has decided to rename a stretch of Holbrook Street to “Palestine Avenue,” between Buffalo Street and Saint Aubin Street.

A resolution posted online before the council meeting on Dec. 12 says that Mayor Amer Ghalib and Hamtramck’s City Council “acknowledge the profound impact of the recent and ongoing events in Gaza resulting in the loss of almost 20,000 people since October 7, 2023, comprising mostly of completely innocent women and children,” referring to Israel’s military campaign there.

The renaming will not have any impact on official postal addresses or other legal designations and is solely a show of “solidarity, remembrance, and compassion for the lives lost in Gaza.”

Council members approved the resolution 4-3, according to Michigan Radio.

One council member who voted “no” said he was against the resolution because of Hamtramck’s controversial “neutrality flag resolution,” which banned LGBTQ+ pride flags from being flown on city property. The policy also prohibits the display of religious, ethnic, racial, and political flags and states that the city won’t provide “special treatment to any group,” though critics say the resolution, which was voted on unanimously, was mainly rooted in homophobia.

Click on Detroit | Local 4 | “Hamtramck to rename part of Holbrook ‘in gesture of solidarity’ amid Gaza war ”

“It’s not anything against Palestinians. I just want to stand on the same point when we decided no other flag would fly,” council member Muhith Mahmood said. While Hamtramck’s resolution allows the flying of “nations’ flags that represent the international character of our City,” Palestine is not recognized as a state by the U.S.

Others expressed the same concern, including a Reddit post that asked: “Is this casual political gesture any different than the gay pride flag?”

The new resolution was almost removed from the council meeting’s agenda due to a vote by four members, according to an article by the Detroit Free Press. However, it was brought back following complaints from the public as well as Ghalib, who didn’t want to disappoint residents.

There is no timeline yet for when the new name will be implemented, but signs to mark Palestine Avenue are reportedly currently being made, Metro Times reports.

This story first ran in the Detroit Metro Times. Follow them: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Layla McMurtrie

Layla McMurtrie is the digital editor of Detroit Metro Times. She’s passionate about food, music, art, and Detroit’s culture and community. Her work has been featured in the Detroit Free Press, Between the Lines, Metromode, and other various Michigan publications.

Michigan Advance

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