News

March for Science, Not Silence

Miranda Gardner

Staff Member

This is the resistance and this is history in the making.

The National March for Science on April 22 is quite the drive, but the March for Science in Ann Arbor is close to home.

Professor of mathematics Mark Naber is encouraging students to band together and attend the sister march.

“At 1 p.m., we will march to the federal building,” he said. “From there we will take over the world and put things right.”

Protesters will gather at the Diag, which is the center of the downtown campus around noon. There will be about 45 minutes of speeches before the march begins at 1 p.m.

“I would like to set up carpools,” Naber said. “Perhaps each student club can organize its own transport?”

Anyone marching would be taking a stand for empirical science and fighting for their right to knowledge that should be available to the public.

After the recent election, the Trump administration ordered a communication blackout on tax-funded research.

Federal scientists at the EPA, FDA, USDA, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, and the National Park Service were muzzled from speaking to the press about their work and findings.

“Scientific advancements are useless if the public doesn’t know about them,” student Ryleigh Byrne said.

This information suppression goes as far as prohibiting news releases, photographs, infographics, fact sheets, and any social media content.

References to climate change have been eradicated from the EPA and White House website, scientific agencies are under government censorship now, and tax-funding to scientific research is being slashed.

As a nation, we lose more than these organizations, but the transparency necessary to our democracy, Byrne said.

“There’s a reason we’ve had access to this information for all these years before,” she said.

For more information students can contact mnaber@monroeccc.edu or call (734)384-4252.

Students can sign-up officially on the Facebook event group at https://www.facebook.com/events/1237144609734310/.

Anyone interested in carpooling to the event should email mgardner31641@my.monroeccc.edu.