On Thursday, Mar 20, 2025, members of the Eastern Michigan University community gathered at Fighting Racism, Deportations, & Genocide, an event organized by the Labor, Equity, and Justice (SLEG) Committee of the EMU chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
The event started with speeches from guest speakers who addressed each of the key issues outlined by the event title.
Mark Fancher, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, discussed the impacts and origins of racism in the labor movement.
Fancher explained that white workers have been led to blame marginalized communities, such as immigrants and people of color, for their poor living conditions as opposed to the corporations creating these conditions. This perpetuates racism within the white working class and prevents an effective labor movement.
“When we ask the question, how do we deal with this, what we do to deal with it … is to organize and educate the white workers,” Fancher said.
Roberto Frausto, a student at EMU, also spoke at the event. He discussed recent arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, including that of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder.
“We need to become aware of the ways the government is targeting our most vulnerable communities … we need to call it out for what it is: fascism,” Frausto said.
After hearing from the featured speakers, attendees broke up into smaller groups discussing either racism, deportations, or genocide. People could move between different groups or stay with one group the whole time. The discussion groups brainstormed the best ways to organize against these issues, both on campus and within the community.
At the end of the event, each group summarized their discussion and shared their main takeaways from their group discussion with the rest of the attendees.
