On December 6th, after two separate and unrelated incidents, two first-year and first-semester resident advisors (RAs) were called into separate meetings with their supervisors. In each incident, the responsibilities of their jobs demanded them to make difficult decisions that are common to the RA position: to help their residents in a time of need. As anyone who responds to emergencies can attest, good judgement and official policy are not always congruent. The two RAs had reported these incidents to their supervisors in good faith and expected a conversation about next steps. They were not informed that these meetings would be disciplinary and had no reason to believe they would be. In each meeting, these RAs were fired and told they had 48 hours to move out of their residence halls. As if this lack of a due termination and conflict-resolution process isn’t egregious enough, the decision to fire and evict the RAs was carried out at the beginning of finals week, arguably the most stressful period of the semester.

GEO stands in solidarity with residence hall workers and urges University of Michigan Housing (MHousing) to reverse its decision to terminate and evict two student workers. The decision to terminate was a disproportionate reaction to an alleged first-time policy violation and exposed these workers to undue stress, harm, and precarity. RAs, like all workers, should be supported and respected by their employer. Rather than take these workers’ earnest efforts to preserve student safety and well-being, MHousing has disregarded its own principles of restorative justice and a positive living environment.

These terminations underline the worrying, punitive approach the University has taken in the last year in response to workers and students on campus. It further emphasizes that the only way for RAs to secure dignified working conditions is to have a fair contract. In a city plagued by soaring rent prices, MHousing and the University of Michigan should be ashamed that it chose to fire and evict these workers rather than address root cause issues and train these workers for similar scenarios in the future. 

We at GEO demand that the two employees terminated on Dec 6th be reinstated immediately and the decision to evict them be reversed.

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