On Sept. 26, President Donald Trump nominated judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Many believe Barrett could be the one to push the Court toward a 6-3 conservative majority, which would allow a chance for the court to overturn legislation supporting abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act.

According to NPR, the recently deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose seat Barrett may potentially fill, told her granddaughter that “(her) most fervent wish is that (she) will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”

In order to create fair and equal access to the internet for every Michigander, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced a $12.7 million award last Thursday to projects across the state to help increase broadband internet access at the North American International Cyber Summit.

These projects will provide access to over 10,900 households, businesses and community anchor institutions in Michigan. The projects have all committed to helping close the divide to internet access and help provide digital literacy training materials.

Yesterday was Columbus Day, a day meant to celebrate the explorer who for many years was credited as the person who discovered America. The holiday was first celebrated in 1792, on the 300 year anniversary of the voyage that gained Christopher Columbus a legacy. The holiday was first observed federally in 1937, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency.

But Columbus did not discover America, the land had long been inhabited by Native Americans. The treatment of those very Native Americans and the call for representation and celebration of those who initially inhabited America led to the creation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day was first proposed as a replacement for Columbus Day in 1977, at the United Nations International Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas. Since then, 14 states have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, including Michigan.

In a land acknowledgment, The Native American Institute at Michigan State University acknowledged that “the land that MSU occupies is the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg – the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa  and Potawatomi peoples – that was ceded in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw”

Yesterday, The Rock on Farm Lane was painted in celebration of the day and the Indigenous people of this land.