Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH 

and DEREK WOLFE 

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LEV FACHER

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael 

Paul, Allison Raeck, Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew 

Seligman, Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn, Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

W

ith the number of reported sexual assaults rising on college 
campuses, gun lobbyists have started suggesting that the 
legalization of carrying concealed weapons on college 

campuses would make female students safer. This year, lawmakers 
in 10 states pushed bills through their legislatures that would allow 
concealed carry on their state’s college campuses. While advocates for 
this reform argue it is for the benefit of sexual assault survivors, there 
seems to be political motivation behind their reasoning. It appears 
that the pro-gun lobby is now utilizing the issue of sexual assault to 
validate concealed carry. However, this view overlooks the real issues 
surrounding sexual assault on college campuses and should absolutely 
not be implemented.

Last month, Florida State Rep. Dennis K. 

Baxley (R–Ocala) stated, “If you’ve got a person 
that’s raped because you wouldn’t let them 
carry a firearm to defend themselves, I think 
you’re responsible.” This is a strong statement, 
as it suggests that the use of violence is more 
a “responsibility” of the victim than an issue 
of the offender. This solution, advocated by 
Baxley, also forces women to be responsible in 
stopping sexual assault, as opposed to society 
as a whole.

The Florida bill went on to pass out of sub-

committee and is currently on the floor of the 
state House of Representatives. In Nevada, 
Assemblywoman Michele Fiore (R), who is 
sponsoring a similar bill in the Nevada House of 
Representatives, added to Baxley’s tone, stating 
in an interview with The New York Times, “If 
these young, hot little girls on campus have 
a firearm, I wonder how many men will want 
to assault them.” Making the assumption that 
these “young, hot little girls” should have to 
assume the jobs of the law enforcement officials 
is not addressing the rise of sexual assault. It 
also isn’t going to decrease the risk of violence 
on college campuses.

Additionally, this assumption that the 

current problem with sexual assault on college 
campuses is merely happenstance of a sexually 
charged individual on the streets attacking 
a woman is false. What is true, according to 
a study published by the U.S. Department of 
Justice in 2007, is that 19 percent of women 
in college were survivors of sexual assault or 
an attempted sexual assault at some point in 
their college career. Furthermore, about 85 to 
90 percent of these assaults occur by someone 
known to the victim.

John Foubert, president of One in Four, an 

educational service on college sexual assault 
and professor at Oklahoma State University, 
offered a different voice to the debate. Foubert, 
a professor in a state with a college concealed 
carry bill currently under review, contends 

that guns can’t solve the problem: “If you have 
a rape situation, usually it starts with some 
sort of consensual behavior, and by the time it 
switches to nonconsensual, it would be nearly 
impossible to run for a gun.”

This is not a far-fetched theory, considering 

that the rate at which survivors of sexual 
assault or attempted sexual assault knew their 
assailant. The DOJ study found that, when 
described by the survivors, the assailant was 
most commonly a classmate, friend, boyfriend, 
ex-boyfriend or acquaintance. These incidents 
are reported to have occurred mainly in two 
locations: 60 percent of the time in one of the 
two party’s private domains and 10 percent of 
the time in a fraternity house. It would be rather 
difficult, as a person in danger, to know exactly 
when and how to properly defend oneself in 
such situations.

There is a complete lack of practical 

applicability with these bills, especially in 
Michigan. Considering the age to legally carry 
a concealed weapon is 21 in the state, and most 
of these “hot, young” and “drug and alcohol 
abusing” college students that these advocates 
of the bill are describing are between the ages 
of 18 and 21, it would be illegal under state law 
for these individuals to purchase handguns 
from licensed dealers.

These bills being pushed appear to be either 

flawed attempts to fix the problem of sexual 
assault on college campuses or a rather thinly 
veiled facade for what these lobbyists are really 
promoting: legalizing weapon carrying. The 
issue of sexual assault on college campuses is 
one that is both sensitive in nature and hotly 
debated in society. For legislation to be debated 
and passed that puts the onus on the women 
who attend these institutions glosses over the 
real issues that exist in society. Everything 
should be done to drastically reduce the rate 
of sexual assault on college campuses in the 
United States, but concealed carry on campus is 
not the answer we so desperately need.

F

or the last two years, there 
has been something greatly 
bothering me about my col-

lege education. As 
excited as I am to 
feel the pride in 
holding a college 
degree in my hands, 
I have to admit 
some apprehension 
over a few words 
that will appear on 
my diploma: Gerald 
R. Ford School of 
Public Policy.

On September 8, 

1974, President Ger-
ald Ford granted a full pardon to former 
President Richard Nixon, one of the 
most pernicious criminals in recent his-
tory. Ford was widely castigated across 
the country for his decision, with ques-
tions arising about Ford’s motivations, 
his competence and the legitimacy of 
the Oval Office. Ford made a tough call, 
and whether his choice was right or 
wrong is highly questionable.

Were one to study public policy 

at Michigan, it sure wouldn’t seem 
that way.

Today, the Ford School serves as 

a permanent memorial to a largely 
misunderstood period of history. The 
school’s halls are adorned with pho-
tos of Ford’s life, a large portrait of the 
former president and commemorative 
posters of the school’s renaming and 
groundbreaking. According to Paul 
Courant, public policy professor and 
former director of the Ford School’s 
predecessor, the Institute of Public Pol-
icy Studies, there was little resistance 
to permanently memorializing Ford 
despite his rocky decision-making.

“Almost everybody, by the time we 

named the school, had come around to 
the view that actually pardoning Nixon 
was the right thing to have done,” Prof. 
Courant told me. “I didn’t detect any 
unhappiness about it within the faculty 
or students.”

Books about Ford paint him as a 

genuinely decent man committed to 
public service, while his own writing 
bleeds with a humility that’s hard not 
to admire. He would have been the first 
to admit that he was not perfect, nor 
was his decision-making. But herein 

lies the problem with the Ford School: 
memorials aren’t there to spark debate 
or respect nuance. As Adam Gopnik 
writes in The New Yorker, “The memo-
rials’ end is to sacralize their subject in 
a way that shames anyone who contests 
its centrality — to build in a way that 
makes contention come at an extreme-
ly high price in social discomfort and 
 

disapproval.”

For Gerald Ford, the unquestioned 

orthodoxy is simple. As Susan Collins, 
Dean of the Public Policy School, told 
me, “There is increasingly a view in ret-
rospect that he did the right thing even 
among people who strongly disagreed 
with him … the idea (was) that in order 
to heal the country, it was more impor-
tant to move forward and focus on other 
topics instead of focusing on the trav-
esty of what Richard Nixon had done.”

There is little doubt that Ford 

made the pardon with good inten-
tions, but it being the “right thing 
to do” is far from settled. Looking 
at the way executive immunity has 
grown since Watergate, it becomes 
increasingly difficult to view Ford’s 
decision positively. As Glenn Green-
wald argues in his book “With Lib-
erty and Justice for Some,” the same 
reasoning behind the Nixon pardon 
has excused endless high-level law 
breaking from Reagan to Clinton to 
Bush to Obama.

Ford created a precedent where the 

prosecution of executive officials would 
“tear the country apart.” This argument 
that America needs to “look forward 
and not backward” and avoid “reopen-
ing old wounds” is exactly why Bush-
era officials have never been prosecuted 
for torture and warrantless spying.

In both situations, the assumption is 

that the American people are too sensi-
tive or too vindictive to see presidents 
treated like any other criminal. I don’t 
know what these platitudes about the 
country being “torn apart” are sup-
posed to mean, but if America can sur-
vive a civil war and the assassination of 
presidents, it can survive Richard Nixon 
and Dick Cheney facing trial. Ford let 
Nixon go with the stroke of his pen, but 
his legacy is the reason Cheney and oth-
ers will never face justice. In 1974, when 
asked about writing an executive code 
of ethics, Ford responded, “The code of 

ethics that will be followed will be the 
example that I set.”

To be fair, Gerald Ford is not the only 

questionable person memorialized at 
Michigan. Sam Zell filled the Chicago 
Tribune’s leadership with philander-
ing drunks who drove the company 
to bankruptcy, while Alfred Taubman 
is a convicted felon. Weill Hall, the 
Ford School’s home, as well as the 
Joan and Sanford Weill Deanship, are 
both named in honor of an investment 
banker dubbed “The Shatterer of Glass-
Steagall.” This phenomenon is not lim-
ited to Michigan; plenty of campuses 
are dotted with schools, buildings and 
programs named for powerful people 
with shady pasts.

To their credit, both Collins and 

Courant welcomed critical inquiry into 
Ford’s legacy. Dean Collins expressed 
her desire to hold events debating the 
Ford presidency, especially the pardon 
of Nixon, and wished I had voiced my 
concerns sooner. While I appreciate the 
open-mindedness, an occasional panel 
discussion will be long outlasted and 
overshadowed by the sheer size and per-
manence of the Ford School itself.

The public policy school is not about 

to change its name, nor are any of these 
other institutions in question. But 
shouldn’t there be more debate on who 
deserves to have their name adorn our 
University? Shouldn’t policy schools 
scrutinize presidents, not deify them?

Shouldn’t we be worried about dis-

torting history?

The day that Ford was to pardon 

Nixon, Jerald terHorst, Ford’s press sec-
retary and longtime friend, handed in his 
letter of resignation. Writing to the presi-
dent, terHorst said:

“I cannot in good conscience support 

your decision to pardon former Presi-
dent Nixon … Try as I can, it is impossible 
to conclude that the former President is 
more deserving of mercy than persons 
of lesser station in life whose offenses 
have had far less effect on our national 
 

wellbeing.”

It wouldn’t be much, but along with 

the statue and photos of Ford, maybe 
terHorst’s letter deserves a place in my 
school, too.

 
—James Brennan can be 

reached at jmbthree@umich.edu

Keep guns off campus 

Concealed weapons are not the solution to sexual assault

The names they carry

JAMES
BRENNAN

The negative that prevails

T

he First Amendment has 
offered us many liberties to 
express our voices without 

hindrance. 
How-

ever, with such a 
broad 
freedom, 

we cannot expect 
that everyone will 
always 
use 
this 

privilege 
in 
the 

wisest way. There 
are instances each 
day when we may 
— 
purposely 
or 

unintentionally 
— abuse our free 
speech rights for ill 
over advantage.

Our words are precise, and they 

have power to inflict pain. Howev-
er, this isn’t something wrong with 
the amendment or wrong with free 
presses that do not censor voices. 
Rather, the culprit lies in the indi-
viduals who present the harmful or 
offensive perspectives.

Especially with the onset of the 

digital age, the reader experience 
has extended to deeper dimen-
sions. Though we’re separated by 
individual screens, the Internet has 
created an expansive community 
of consumers. Before online com-
menting culture, article authors 
and media creators remained elu-
sive and aloof from us as consumers. 
Now, we’re able to interact directly 
with content producers and share 
our thoughts with fellow viewers 
— and more than ever before, we 
have a larger, diversified platform 
to megaphone our pedestrian ideas. 
Our voices are louder and more free 
than ever.

As a result, “new media” has 

emerged, where we can respond 
to articles and share our thoughts 
through personal channels, like 
blogs or “vlogs” (video-logs). The 
boundaries between content cre-
ator and consumer have blurred — 
anyone, regardless of education or 
other demographics, can add input. 
The inclusion of more voices may 
illuminate some especially impor-
tant insight from common citizens, 
but it also comes with the potential 
for creators to offend parties and 
receive harsh opposition. In fact, 

when our bodies are physically hid-
den behind a screen and our identi-
ties can be obscured by an online 
pseudonym, we may feel more auda-
cious and sound more brash than we 
would in real life.

This all being said, as both con-

tent creator and consumer now, we 
have developed a natural tendency 
to focus on the negative. In the vast 
body of opinions on the World Wide 
Web, in the wealth of knowledge 
on the online abyss — we somehow 
manage to selectively identify the 
offensive and the harmful — and 
focus our energies there.

On the one hand, from the con-

tent creator lens — personally, as 
both a student journalist and artist 
— upon initial reaction, one nega-
tive comment on my work overshad-
ows the array of other comments I 
may receive.

On the other hand, as a member 

of the Internet consumer commu-
nity, when I scroll through social 
media feeds or skim newspaper 
front pages, I subconsciously click 
on headlines of devastation or 
revulsion first. I’m subconsciously 
drawn to stories of turmoil and 
corruption, or opinions that strike 
a chord of alarm or even disgust. 
Articles are stories: to us as readers, 
they are nothing important or inter-
esting if not defined by conflict. We 
grow too quickly bored by a lack of 
disruption in the news.

The media represents our best 

understanding of the norm — and 
because the news more often than 
not reports the negative, our under-
standing of “normal” has skewed 
toward pejorative. In the most 
prominent examples: from an out-
of-state perspective, Detroit is often 
portrayed in terms of crime and 
economic deterioration; to western-
ers uninformed on the Middle East, 
the area as a whole is generalized 
with strife and turmoil; the preva-
lence of female victimization sto-
ries have elevated male perpetrator 
statistics to feel higher than they 
 

actually are.

In these instances, when a mar-

ginal representation of the whole 
picture dominates our understand-
ings, we fail to see the nuanced 

dimensions behind each subject. 
We fail to see the improving parts 
of Detroit vibrant with history and 
culture; we may categorize one 
race or religion hatefully based on 
atrocities committed by a fraction 
of them; we may oversimplify a gen-
der based on exaggerated fears of 
all men. When we are immersed in 
news of global warfare and national 
corruption — with news of mun-
dane communal peace or human 
righteousness rarely mentioned on 
national scales — we become accus-
tomed to remembering and paying 
attention to the negative most.

In some inexplicably wicked 

way, we are excited by the negative 
(widespread danger, the ignorance 
or deviance of others) gives us emo-
tional stimulation to incite discus-
sion and collective effect. However, 
we have to remember that they’re 
not representative of the whole. 
Personally, as a writer, it’s impor-
tant to remember that one piece of 
negativity isn’t representative of all 
the consumers of my content.

We need to stop allowing the 

negative to prevail, or else we will 
only impart this affinity for negativ-
ity onto others, ingraining it deeper 
into our peers and our future gen-
erations just as it has been instilled 
in us. We’re a new media culture 
with a vast interactive community. 
It has become our duty to do more 
than consume idly now that we have 
the ability to both create and com-
ment. We’ve been granted immense 
liberties to speak as freely as we 
wish. So in return, we must use 
our free speech privileges to share 
articles of positivity and poignancy 
just as much as articles we comment 
 

hate upon.

To form a complete and balanced 

view of any subject, the negative 
information presented must be cou-
pled with the good. We must read 
enlightening responses along with 
the articles we spite. Along with 
disagreement we input on articles 
we dislike, we must also respond 
with positive comments on opinions 
we find insightful.

 
—Karen Hua can be reached 

at khua@umich.edu

KAREN
HUA

BEN KELLER | VIEWPOINT
Keeping church and state separate

For as long as there have been inhabitants of 

the American continent, multiple sets of religious 
and moral codes have determined how its popu-
lations lived. Whether it be the nature-based 
religions of Native Americans or the “newer” 
faith of Christianity brought by European set-
tlers, institutions of distinct beliefs have guided 
the vast majority of ethnic and social groups that 
have existed on this land. There’s little doubt that 
religion has had a heavy influence on our society, 
and its role in the formation of the United States 
is strikingly clear in our founding documents. 
However, there’s considerable debate regarding 
religion’s role in our government, and how law-
makers have, and continue to, inject their faiths 
into policy matters.

A recent piece in The New York Times by 

columnist Frank Bruni highlights attempts by 
politicians, particularly conservatives, to justify 
their agendas with reference to personal faith. 
These instances aren’t reserved for those on 
the right wing, either. As Bruni points out, 
during the 2008 presidential campaign, then-
Senator Barack Obama pointed to his faith for 
the reason he did not support the legality of 
 

same-sex marriages.

The fact is, since even the days before the 

American Revolution until the present, govern-
ment officials have defended actions and pro-
posed new laws based off of the religious code 
that they adhere to. This isn’t the correct path to 
sound administration. Rather, this form of gov-
erning results in baseless legislation lacking any 
real-world evidence and misconstrues the very 
nature of our founding.

I want to state that I am a religious man, 

myself. I do not harbor any ill will toward any 
set of faiths nor those who openly practice 
their beliefs. However, as a citizen, I do not 
subscribe to blurring the boundaries of religion 
 

and government.

Were our founders religious? Yes. Did they take 

certain values of their religion — equality, justice, 
freedom — and incorporate them into our gov-
ernment? Yes. Did they envision a nation where 
the government enacted laws with the guidance 
and approval of a higher being? Unequivocally no. 
James Madison, a key contributor to some of the 
most important decisions establishing the United 
States as a nation, was once quoted saying, “the 
civil government functions with complete suc-
cess by the total separation of the Church from 
 

the State.”

It should come as no surprise that the First 

Amendment accentuates this fact: the state can-
not establish a religion, but it cannot impede the 
free exercise of one, either. In his piece, Bruni 
quotes former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee 
as saying America had abandoned its identity as 
a “God-centered nation that understands that 
our laws do not come from man, they come from 
God.” While Mr. Huckabee may truly believe 
that, he seems to be forgetting that even our 
founders did not believe in divinely inspired leg-
islation. Moreover, it is important to note that not 
all of our current lawmakers believe in Christi-
anity like Mr. Huckabee, let alone God.

When we legislate based on morality, issues 

get distorted to focusing on aspects of life that 
one can debate ad nauseam. For instance, if I 
propose a law to you and base it off of a religious 
teaching in which you don’t believe, then there 

is no room for debate or compromise. 
There is no historical precedent to 
cite, no facts or figures to corrobo-
rate that type of theory. Religious 
beliefs can’t be proven with secular 
evidence — that is the point of faith. 
However, this type of argument is 
continually used for issues ranging 
from marijuana legalization to gay 

marriage to abortion.

I believe in God. I do not believe 

in a government derived from God. 
Seldom is there a place for religion in 
politics, and to try and use religion 
to advocate for particular measures 
politicizes a part of life that should 
remain above the jungle that is the 
current state of American politics. As 

Mr. Bruni states so accurately, “Politi-
cians’ religions … should be a source of 
their strength and of their empathy, 
not of their agendas.” I love practicing 
my faith, and I love participating in 
my government. Let’s keep those two 
actions separate.

 
 Ben Keller is an LSA freshman.

FROM THE DAILY