W
hen I first heard “The
Monster”
by
Eminem
ft.
Rihanna,
I
wasn’t
impressed. My per-
sonal music critics
(read: all three of
my
housemates)
constantly
con-
demned the entire
“Marshall Mathers
LP2”; there was no
awe-inspiring
tal-
ent,
the
samples
were awful, the lyr-
ics mediocre. Emi-
nem’s brilliance was
dwindling.
However, as I began to really listen
to the lyrics, I couldn’t help but fall in
love with the song.
It’s no secret that my family is full
of people with mental health issues
similar to those that Eminem suffers
from. My dad and his three siblings all
have severe anxiety and depression,
passing along these wonderful traits
to nearly all of their offspring. Their
dad, my late grandfather, took several
medications most of his life for bipo-
lar disorder, a disease that we unfor-
tunately discovered was passed along
to my youngest brother when he was
nine years old.
Despite recognizing the plethora
of mental health problems existing
within the Marsh DNA, I never quite
recognized the other anxiety-associ-
ated issues affecting my family until I
heard Eminem rapping about them on
the radio.
In the second verse of “The Mon-
ster,” the self-proclaimed Rap God
admits to experiencing obsessive-
compulsive disorder alongside other
mental health issues. Other than one
episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” in which
Dr. Miranda Bailey is forced to stop
performing surgery to deal with her
problematic OCD, it was the first time
I had actually heard someone in popu-
lar culture talk about experiencing
obsessive-compulsive symptoms.
While the Detroit-based art-
ist was revealing his problems with
OCD, the rest of the world seemed to
remain silent. According to an article
from Medical Daily, “Because there
isn’t much public awareness of OCD,
(it makes) it even harder for people to
cope and find help for their condition.”
Is OCD another case of don’t ask,
don’t tell?
According to the National Institute
of Health, only 2.2 million American
adults, about 1 percent of the popula-
tion, have been diagnosed with OCD.
Yet, a 2014 study found that 94 per-
cent of people experience intrusive,
unwanted thoughts associated with
OCD in their daily lives. The disorder
exists on a spectrum, with most affect-
ed individuals being able to rationally
cope with their intrusive thoughts.
Unfortunately, the 1 percent of our
population who have been diagnosed
OCD suffer from severe symptoms
that interfere with their lives on a
daily basis. There are many classifi-
cations of OCD: washers, checkers,
doubters and sinners, hoarders, coun-
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.
EMMA KERR
EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
DEREK WOLFE
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@umich.edu
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
4
Thursday, August 6, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
As a result of state control
of DPS as well as Public Act
362 of 1993, which established
charter schools in Detroit,
DPS has become progres-
sively worse from both fiscal
and enrollment standpoints.
According to the Title VI com-
plaint, in 1999, when the state
first took control, DPS had a
stable budget, a $93 million
surplus and 173,000 students.
Currently, DPS has an enroll-
ment of less than 50,000 and a
budget deficit of approximate-
ly $350 million. The state’s
use of public funds is highly
questionable; millions of dol-
lars have been used to reno-
vate buildings that have been
subsequently
demolished,
abandoned or sold at a price
lower than the cost of repairs.
In fact, only about half of bond
money, paid for and approved
by Detroit citizens, has gone
to repairing buildings that are
still in use by DPS. Twenty-
eight buildings had $295.4 mil-
lion invested in them, but are
now leased to charter schools,
community organizations and
Snyder’s new school district,
the Educational Achievement
Authority, which he did not
have the authority nor the leg-
islative permission to create.
The charter schools that have
benefitted from state inter-
vention are directly in com-
petition with DPS, and these
schools have increased enroll-
ment to about 40,000 students.
From these facts alone, the
state’s use of DPS bond money
is, at best, poorly planned and
wildly ineffective. At worst, it
is blatantly corrupt and mali-
ciously depriving Detroit stu-
dents of their education. The
Department of Justice needs
to carefully examine who has
benefitted from money spent
by the state on DPS; clearly the
main beneficiary was not DPS.
The
complaint
claims,
“Governor Snyder has usurped
the authority of the State
Board of Education, the State
Superintendent and that of the
locally elected school boards
and replaced them with a cor-
rupt, syndicate like, racketeer-
ing operation, resulting in the
worst academic performances
and fiscal insolvency in the
Obsessing over OCD
FROM THE DAILY
Money mismanaged
The state should relinquish control of DPS
T
he state of Michigan took control of Detroit Public Schools in
1999 through Public Act 10, which replaced the democratically
elected school board with a CEO whose power encompassed
that of a school board and a superintendent. This loss of local control
caused the first decline in DPS enrollment in a decade; for the next
school year, approximately 5,000 students left the district. Over the
next 16 years, the state has only ceded control of DPS for approximately
three years, and DPS is currently controlled by the district’s fourth
emergency manager, Darnell Earley, who was appointed by Gov.
Rick Snyder in January. Put simply, DPS has deteriorated under state
control, and on June 16, the Detroit Board of Education filed a Title VI
complaint against the governor, asking that the Department of Justice
look into the misspending of public funds, the violation of special
education students’ rights and discrimination by the state. Moving
forward, the state must return control of DPS back to the school board
and the federal government should act diligently in investigating the
claims made by the board.
history of the State of Michigan.” This
degradation of DPS, and thus Detroit
students’ academics, has come at great
cost to Detroit. The effects of poor
education can be seen in Detroit’s
poverty rates. Of the nation’s 50 larg-
est cities, Detroit has the most chil-
dren living in extreme poverty, with,
as of 2012, approximately 59 percent
of Detroit children living in poverty.
Considering that education is widely
considered to be a means to escape
poverty and access a better life, the
decline of DPS effectively closes this
door to many children. If the claims
made by the Detroit Board of Educa-
tion are true, the state of Michigan
can be blamed for many of the social
issues, including poverty, that face
Detroit today.
The low caliber of education and
high rate of poverty take on a racial
dimension in Detroit, which has the
highest concentration of racial minori-
ties of any U.S. city with a population
of over 100,000. Furthermore, another
minority population affected by DPS
is special education students, as DPS
has the highest population of special
education students in Michigan. The
complaint alleges that both groups
have been discriminated against by
the state. It accuses the state of cre-
ating “two separate and unequal
school systems” in Detroit and other
majority-Black school districts across
the state. Additionally, it claims that
special education students have suf-
fered as a result of state control of DPS.
According to the complaint, teacher
witnesses and complainants have seen
ongoing patterns of discrimination
against special needs children, whose
needs are not being met and Individu-
alized Education Programs are not
being followed. These allegations of
discrimination are serious but war-
ranted, and the Department of Justice
will hopefully shed light on whether
these instances of inequality are in fact
the result of state control of DPS. Until
such a time, though, it is unthinkable
to allow DPS to continue to flounder
under an emergency manager.
AARICA
MARSH