Opinion

SHOHAM GEVA
EDITOR IN CHIEF

CLAIRE BRYAN 

AND REGAN DETWILER 
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LAURA SCHINAGLE
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 — Friday, March 11, 2016

C

entral Student Government elec-
tion season is upon us. Over the next 
few weeks, you will be accosted by 

candidates as you walk through the Diag 
and you will receive scores of social media 
reminders to vote. Come election day, if 
you vote, chances are you will either vote 
for the party your friend is in, for the party 
that annoys you the least or write in some 
campus celebrity. If you go with the latter 
option, more likely than not you will want 
to write in Jim Harbaugh. Many of your 
classmates will do the same, and Coach 
Harbaugh will take third or fourth place, 
depending on how many viable parties run. 
Conventional wisdom says these votes will 
be thrown away. But that might not be true.

The Central Student Government Con-

stitution (yes, there is such a thing) states, 
“No representative may run for election 
or hold office representing a constituen-
cy of which that person is not a member.” 
This means that a representative must be 
“enrolled or actively working toward their 
degree.” Nowhere else does the Constitu-
tion mention qualifications for office. That 
settles the question, right? Jim Harbaugh 
isn’t working towards a degree, therefore he 
cannot be president. Not quite.

The CSG Constitution uses very specific 

language. It uses the term “representative” 
only when it refers to members of the legis-
lative branch — the Assembly. When it refers 
to the president, it uses the term “president.” 

When it refers to members of Central Student 
Government as a whole, it uses the terms 
“members” and “officers.” 

There is a legal canon of statutory con-

struction called “expressio unius est exclu-
sio alterius,” which means the expression of 
one thing comes at the exclusion of others. If 
you state one item, and not another, you only 
meant to include that one item. 

Note that the one clause in the Constitu-

tion containing an enrollment restriction 
only mentions representatives. It does not 
say “members” or “officers.” Thus, using the 
expressio unis canon, the text of the Consti-
tution states that anyone — student or not — 
can be president, but only those enrolled as 
students working toward their degrees can 
be representatives. If the Constitution want-
ed that restriction to apply to all members 
of CSG or the president, it would have used 
“members” or “officers,” as it does in other 
sections. Likewise, if it wanted to include 
the president in that restriction, it could have 
stated, “A representative and the president,” 
or included a similar provision in the article 
on the executive branch. But it does not.

Interpreting the Constitution — and any 

legal document — should remain faithful to 
the text. The text of the CSG Constitution is 
clear as to who is eligible to serve as president. 
Jim Harbaugh can serve as CSG president. 

— John Lin is a Public Policy graduate student.

Harbaugh as CSG president?

A

t the beginning of Sunday’s 
Democratic 
presidential 

debate in Flint, moderator 

Anderson Coo-
per 
informed 

his 
viewers 

about the cata-
strophic 
state 

of Flint’s water 
system.

“Now, we’ve 

come to Flint 
because this is 
a city in crisis,” 
Cooper said. “A 
city where, as 
you 
probably 

know, the tap 
water is toxic.”

In other words, Cooper was say-

ing that by conducting the debate 
here, the national media’s atten-
tion, and, by extension, the entire 
country’s attention, was turning to 
this city, perhaps as a way of show-
ing solidarity with the victims of the 
Flint water crisis. Throughout the 
rest of the debate, both candidates 
did allude to Flint and the need to 
give this city attention.

How much does it actually help 

the cause if we stage an event here 
— one single event — and then pack 
it all up and keep on kicking the can 
down the trail? In fact, I would argue 
that this whole debate distinctly 
hurts the Flint community. If only 
for a moment, it gives the American 
people the sense that we are doing 
enough, because the mainstream 
media and political establishment 
are giving this city the attention 
it deserves. For Christ’s sake, they 
even hosted a debate there! In that 
horrible, impoverished city! They 
must, then, really care!

One of the first questions posed 

at the debate dealt with the con-
crete action the candidates would 
take in Flint, long after this 
momentary spotlight dims. Ander-
son Cooper asked, “Why should 
the people of Flint believe that 
you aren’t just using this crisis to 
secure political points?”

In her response, Hillary Clin-

ton cited her long political career 
as evidence that she will be here to 
stay, that she genuinely cares about 
the people of Flint. “I think because 

throughout my public career I have 
been evening the odds for people 
in every way that I could,” Clinton 
said. “I will be with Flint all the way 
through this crisis…”

Upon 
further 
examination, 

Clinton’s rather meaningless and 
platitudinous statement about her 
loyalty to marginalized members 
of society does not hold weight. She 
was a fierce supporter of Bill Clin-
ton’s 1996 welfare reform, which 
sought to end “welfare as we know 
it.” Clinton’s reforms tore apart poor 
communities by severely limiting 
access to social security benefits and 
food stamps.

The crucially destructive element 

of Clinton’s reform, the Personal 
Responsibility and Work Opportu-
nity Reconciliation Act prohibited 
welfare to mothers under 18 years 
of age and denied aid for addition-
al children for mothers who were 
already on welfare. This legislation 
did allow for mothers in school to 
recieve welfare; however, it assumes 
that one has resources in her life to 
provide for a child and stay in school. 
Of course, this is only true for the 
most privileged among us. Clinton 
sought to create a system where, in 
order to receive welfare, one had 
to work or be in school. This was 
meant to promote individuality and 
productivity. Additionally, because 
of Clinton’s 1994 Violent Crime 
Control and Law Enforcement Act, 
the largest crime legislation in this 
nation’s history, people returning 
from prison were received at home 
with disdain; Clinton’s legislation 
ignited the stigma that still sur-
rounds ex-prisoners today. Nobody 
would hire them. In turn, they could 
not receive welfare. The Clintons, 
together, created this vicious, unfor-
giving, dividing cycle that Michelle 
Alexander, among other scholars, 
has dubbed the New Jim Crow.

And yet, here Mrs. Clinton was 

on Sunday evening, spouting off 
once again a stump speech of sorts, 
deceitfully trying to convince resi-
dents of this city that she has always 
supported them, has always stood 
for those who face the longest odds.

Bernie Sanders, responding to 

the same question, discussed how 
he had met with residents of Flint 

to hear about their struggles: “(I 
held a) town meeting, which was as 
nonpolitical as I could make it, for 
hundreds of people to tell me and 
the world through the media exactly 
what was happening here in Flint.”

One member of this community 

who knowingly avoided Sanders’ 
private community meetings was 
Melissa Mays, the founder of Water 
You Fighting For, an activist group 
whose target is clean water. In an 
interview with John Whitesides, 
Mays explained her absence.

“I’m not going to be used like that. 

I’m not going to be a token. Do some-
thing first, then I’ll show up.”

Mays raises a crucial point: Sand-

ers — and the rest of the political 
arena — cannot expect everyday 
citizens to put their lives on hold to 
hear them speak, when Sanders and 
his colleagues have not reciprocated 
and have not taken action in the 
name of justice for these people. Of 
course, neither candidate has had 
the time or space to do anything 
concrete — they are each busy run-
ning a national campaign. But all of 
these words, from both candidates, 
given their past actions in relation to 
Flint or communities demographi-
cally similar to it, are absolutely 
meaningless. And so this debate 
cannot be the only national spotlight 
that Flint receives. It cannot be, for 
millions of us, our only exposure — 
I hesitate to even call it that — to 
what is going on in Flint and in mar-
ginalized communities across the 
country. We have an obligation to go 
forward, to do more, to educate our-
selves and to help in concrete ways 
that the political establishment is 
unable to match.

Both candidates’ flat responses, 

then, highlight the issue: Staging 
the debate in Flint on Sunday night 
does not help the cause because it 
does not concretely aid our suffer-
ing brothers and sisters in this rav-
aged city. If anything, the strategic 
staging of this political event numbs 
the national audience to its inaction. 
Ultimately, we are rendered more 
profoundly ignorant of, and improp-
erly content with, our inaction.

— Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be 

reached at izeavinm@umich.edu.

The superficial media “spotlight”

ISAIAH 
ZEAVIN-
MOSS

M

y feet drag across the cement, 
slowly shuffling before abruptly 
stopping to avoid face planting 

into a purple backpack. 
I take a deep breath, 
trying to calm myself. It 
is a passive aggressive 
breath. My sigh is due to 
the girl in front of me who 
is focused on her phone, 
her frozen fingers moving 
across the screen faster 
than mine ever could, the 
boy in front of her has 
frozen fingers, too, and 
so on. As if slow walkers 
were not enough, I looked 
all around me, seeing the Diag as a sea of 
individuals who are there but somewhere 
else — phones with people attached, a line 
of robots trudging to class.

Yet, I am a hypocrite. I do it, too. Even in 

rooms with clocks, I sometimes take out my 
phone to check the time and end up doing 
something else without even realizing it. 
Maybe it is the distraction I like. I grew 
up in a very rural community and the area 
of the woods I lived in did not receive the 
Internet well. My addiction may not be as 
profound as others’, simply because my 
technological skills lack comparatively, but 
I have watched more pointless YouTube 
videos since coming to college than would 
ever be considered necessary.

Lately, 
the 
ever-growing 
addiction 

and reliance on technology has become 
overwhelming. Time and history have shown 
us we can survive without technology, but 
what can we do about it now? Of course 
technology is not just mindlessly used, it 
has become an integral part of academic 
life and post-graduate hopes. As students, 
there are innumerable professional goals to 
be achieved, and with many fields utilizing 
the technology that has been developed, 
how rational is avoiding this emerging 

dependence? From the current access to 
online class materials to reserching for 
and writing letters, from networking to 
searching for employment opportunities, all 
together staying away from technology does 
not seem either possible or beneficial.

Despite this, I cannot help but feel pathetic 

(in addition to agitated) when I see the slow 
lull of text-shuffling, endless narcissistic 
selfies, and my own Facebook history, where 
it seems I have searched every person I have 
ever known. These habits often can waste 
time, distract from schoolwork, cause people 
to become more sedentary and lead to other 
negative effects. Sometimes I walk into walls 
when I am texting, but technology addiction 
can be truly dangerous. Thirty-three percent 
of adults admit to texting and driving, causing 
about nine deaths every day from cellphone-
related distracted driving. While we may not 
be able to completely detach, we should stop 
the compulsive behaviors that can be harmful.

Breaking habits is hard. I am 19 and still 

struggle with biting my nails when I am 
nervous, let alone conquering a fixation 
that seems to have overtaken our whole 
society. I always tell myself I’ll try to fix 
the problem starting tomorrow, always 
tomorrow. That’s just another way of 
technology sucking away our time. Luckily, 
some people find solutions where most 
do not. This May, I am participating in 
the New England Literature Program, a 
University of Michigan-sponsored program 
where students hike along the eastern coast, 
gaining nine English credits along the way, 
and which prohibits participants from 
using technology in order to encourage 
engagement with the tangible world around 
them. How great it must be to be given six 
weeks to form better, healthier habits.

With any luck, most of us will have at 

least six weeks to try something new. 

—Payton Luokkalla can be reached 

at payloukk@umich.edu.

W

hen I first began fill-
ing out required health 
and emergency contact 

forms to send to the University of 
Michigan as an undergraduate, my 
mom said to me, “Don’t just put 
your dad and me as emergency con-
tacts.” Seeing the confused look on 
my face, she went on to explain that 
of course she would like me to put 
her as one of my emergency con-
tacts, but given that I was going to 
be in Michigan, relatively far away 
from her and my dad who both live 
in California, they could be of very 
limited help in some situations. 
Someone else echoed a similar sen-
timent a little while later, when 
they advised us to have someone 
in-state for the University to con-
tact in an emergency. Though par-
ents want to help and will try to 
help, they may end up feeling hope-
less and all it may do is scare them.

In many ways, this made sense, 

but this thought resurfaced in my 
mind a few weeks ago. Trudging 
through the streets of Ann Arbor 
on my way to the library down-
town, excited to see Tiffany, a girl I 
tutor at Proyecto Avance. I glanced 
at my phone and saw an alert from 
a news station in my hometown that 
read, “Breaking: Child hit, killed 
by car in Richmond.” My natural 
reaction was, of course, sadness. 
And for the rest of the evening, I 
kept feeling an underlying sadness, 
which seeped into the time I always 
looked forward to with Tiffany. 
That was when I knew I needed a 
break from the 24-hour news cycle 
that has become all too prevalent 
with the advent of the smartphone 
and apps that give us access to news 

at the touch of a button. I needed a 
break.

This moment allowed me to 

reflect on how inundated I was 
with information: Partly because 
I had been working at the Daily, 
and knowledge of all current 
events seemed imperative, and 
partly because I subscribed to 
updates from five different news 
outlets: my hometown news sta-
tion (KTVU), CNN, The New York 
Times, MLive and BBC. In fact, a 
few weeks prior to this moment, 
I had been subscribed to updates 
from The Huffington Post as well. 
But walking back from tutoring 
that day, I realized I was still sub-
scribed to too many news alerts. 
Did I need to be alerted by CNN, 
The New York Times and BBC that 
Hillary Clinton won the South 
Carolina primary? Now that I was 
living in Michigan, why did I need 
to know there was a crash on the 
Bay Bridge and there was approxi-
mately a 30-minute backup get-
ting on to the bridge? Similarly, 
was it necessary or healthy for me 
to know about every shooting that 
went on in my hometown?

Before I go further, I want to 

stress that I’m not saying I want 
to be ignorant of what is going on 
in the world. Ignorance isn’t bliss. 
Ignorance is ignorance, and I don’t 
want to be ignorant. In fact, one 
of the advantages of having easy 
access to so much information is 
that you can stay informed, under-
stand what is going on in the world 
and participate actively in shaping 
the world. But I believe there is 
such a thing as being too informed 
— something that I only fully real-

ized recently.

A constant stream of infor-

mation isn’t just an option; it’s 
assumed that we want it this way. 
On my iPhone, unless I actively 
turn off notifications, I receive 
updates from every app that I 
download. This constant stream 
of information is also bad for our 
health: studies have shown that 
having access to all of this infor-
mation at the tip of our fingers 
increases stress. As an excessive 
worrier myself, I will do every 
little thing I can do to reduce my 
stress and improve my health.

I have since turned off notifica-

tions for the majority of news apps, 
forcing myself to pare it down to 
the most relevant news sources. 
There is something to be said for 
the proximity to an event.

At times it is better to not know 

everything going on in every corner 
of the Earth at every minute, espe-
cially if you have no ability to do 
anything about what has occurred. 
It is important to know the rates of 
pedestrian-car accidents, as it may 
help pass legislation, but learn-
ing that someone was hit by a car 
approximately 3,000 miles away 
from you is sad, and that’s just it. 
When I read it, I grieve for the 
child, the family, the life lost. But 
that is all I can do. I feel helpless — 
powerless and stressed — just as a 
parent would who was their out-of-
reach child’s only emergency con-
tact. Sometimes you need to tap out 
before you get tapped out.

—Anna Polumbo-Levy is a 

senior editorial page editor.

Tapping out from news

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, 

Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Kit Maher, Madeline Nowicki, Anna 
Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, 

Kevin Sweitzer, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, 

Hunter Zhao

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Breaking millennial habits

PAYTON 
LUOKKALA

E-mail in Chan at tokg@umiCh.Edu
IN CHAN LEE

ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY | OP-ED

JOHN LIN | OP-ED