Forced arbitration: It’s a tactic used by corporations to avoid being held accountable in a court of law for detrimental, and possibly illegal, activities against consumers. Over the past several years, it has become increasingly difficult to apply for necessities such as an auto loan, a cell phone contract or even cable and internet service without being subjected to a hidden arbitration clause. Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Wells Fargo and many others use this scheme to circumvent courts and prevent consumers from joining together in class- action lawsuits, undermining the consumer’s ability to seek justice in the wake of corporate wrongdoing. These insidious clauses bind consumers to unknowingly sign away their access to a court, leaving them to deal with disputes through private, secretive tribunals that favor the company over the consumer, instead of undergoing a fair judicial process. The typical consumer never glances at the mountain of text in the terms and conditions, but a surprising number of contracts hide these clauses in the fine print, preventing everyday consumers from challenging predatory practices such as hidden fees, fraud and other illegal behavior. For-profit colleges such as ITT Technical Insitute, University of Phoenix and Everest College are some of the largest household names that include forced arbitration clauses. The ads and jingles hide the fact that attending these schools means unwittingly signing away rights. For- profit colleges are run by corporations and shareholders solely interested in profits, so as students shell out tens of thousands of dollars for school, prospective employers turn them down upon graduation, as many employers do not see their degrees from for-profit colleges as credible. Thus, when students attempt to sue these colleges, many of them discover their options are limited by forced arbitration clauses. Arbitration proceedings are shrouded in secrecy, do not use a jury and offer few grounds for court review. Even clear legal and factual errors by arbitrators may be an insufficient basis for overruling an arbitrator’s decision. Unable to take for-profit colleges to court, students may lose thousands of dollars and wind up in crippling debt. Yet students are not the only ones being thrown to the curb because of arbitration clauses. Obstetric patients, American Express cardholders and even cruise ship employees have had their rights stripped away for filing class-action lawsuits because of what has been hidden in fine print. In one not-uncommon case, a Wells Fargo employee opened up a fraudulent account without the customer’s knowledge in order to boost sales figures. Yet even then, the account holder would be prevented from suing and taking it up to court and instead be forced to deal with an arbitrator behind closed doors. To combat these dangerous and illegitimate clauses, Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, petitioned the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to restrict pre-dispute arbitration clauses. Both agencies have proposed rules to limit arbitration clauses. While the proposed rules fall short of banning arbitration clauses outright — and both still need to be strengthened — they represent a critical step forward in the fight against these dangerous clauses and are expected to be finalized before the current president leaves office. If you are looking to become involved, get involved at Public Citizen and fight forced arbitration clauses on the floor by telling your members of Congress today. Forced arbitration is a scam that forces individuals into giving up their rights in exchange for the ability to participate in the modern American marketplace. Law- breaking corporations should not simply be able to say “no thanks” to our system of justice by sneaking arbitration clauses into the fine print of everyday terms of service. Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4A — Wednesday, September 21, 2016 The fine print of for-profit schools BRENT KIM | OP-ED Who is Trump’s team, really? CJ MAYER | COLUMN “A nd you have to be smarter than they are. I hear so many times, ‘Oh, I want my people to be smarter than I am.’ It’s a lot of crap. You want to be smarter than your people, if possible.” — Donald Trump (2007) Throughout the election, you’ve heard the same argument when discussing Trump, his policy and how he’ll improve the country: He’s got the best guys and he’ll listen. Not only is this argument incredibly flawed, it’s just plain wrong. If this is the default response in policy debates from Trump supporters, there’s no point in having in-depth debates without first dissecting this logic. First, what if Trump did have the best advisers? Is that enough to make him a good world leader? Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works. Contrary to what you’ll hear from either side, many policy issues are outstandingly complicated with no single clear-cut decision to be made. Experts in everything from economics to education, even though they know their topic more than anyone else in the world, still disagree with one another. It’s up to the president to take their factual arguments and disseminate them. Sitting in the dark residential office ‘til the sun rises, pouring over endless pages, wrestling with arguments that could lead to death of American soldiers or lead to poverty for millions and deciding what is best for the American people — that is the president’s job. It’s why a president’s judgments and policy opinions matter and why simply listening to advisers is not enough to lead the free world. Now let’s bring attention to his advisers, and let’s start with Roger Ailes, the man preparing Trump for his debates. He spent his past two decades creating, leading and turning Fox News into the right-wing bastion that it is now. Why’d he leave his successful time at Fox? More than 20 people, ranging from hosts like Gretchen Carlson and stars like Megyn Kelly to employees like booker Laurie Luhn, have all come forward and accused Ailes of sexual harassment. Ailes started advising Trump after these accusations. Take Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first (and now fired) campaign manager who has re-emerged as one of his closest confidants. Lewandowski was the force behind the “let Trump be Trump” movement and encouraged him to never apologize and to attack the Gold Star Khan family. Trump initially defended Lewandowski after he faced charges for battery of a female reporter. That’s not where the story ends. There’s so much division in the campaign that following Lewandowski’s firing, adviser Michael Caputo tweeted out “Ding dong the witch is dead!” (for which Caputo resigned the same day) and former state director Jim Baker texted Lewandowski, mocking him. Still think Trump hires the best guys and can run the United States, even though his campaign looks like a disaster? Campaign chair Paul Manafort became the No. 1 guy following Lewandowski. We’ll skip his controversial comments and go straight to his deal with Russia. Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin puppet running for prime minister in Ukraine in 2005, hired Manafort to help repair his image after the Orange Revolution, a mass protest in Ukraine after it became known that Yanukovych had rigged the election. Then The New York Times revealed that hidden in a secret ledger in Ukraine was $12.7 million listed for Manafort. Experts are unclear as to whether he still advises in Ukraine. To recap: The man in charge of Trump’s campaign helped a Russian puppet dictator after rigging a democratic election and was paid secretly upward of $12 million to do so. Manafort was finally fired after The Times’ story. Can we top that? Trump’s newest leader, campaign CEO Steve Bannon, is the former head of far-right (and I mean far-right) Breitbart News. Under Bannon, Breitbart News authored articles such as “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” to “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech, They Just Suck at Interviews.” Former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella said of Bannon: “He made more off-color comments about minorities and homosexuals than I can recount,” and that if you were on their Brietbart News’s conference calls, it sounded “like a white supremacist rally.” This is all to contrast with Clinton, who has had a stable inner-circle since 2015, led by young, Democratic superstar campaign manager Robby Mook, who is known for “an aversion to the spotlight and an interest in data.” She has a team filled with veterans, including her chief strategist and pollster, and one of Obama’s closest allies, Joel Benenson. One of the four corner offices in her headquarters belongs to Elan Kriegel, Clinton’s “invisible guiding hand,” an analytic genius who has stayed completely out of the spotlight — his full name had not been tweeted since October 2015 when a Politico Magazine profile was published about him in early September. Republicans, as noted in the Politico piece, are terrified that Trump’s campaign team is so lacking of talent that the next generation of Republican campaign operatives is nonexistent. Clinton’s campaign is very far from perfect, but her advisers are of the highest caliber and she trusts them enough to keep them through difficult times. Her campaign is competent. And then there’s Trump — Lewandowski, Manafort and now Bannon at the helm. Firings left and right. Disaster and division within the ranks, from cheering a firing to calling for a literal firing squad. A head spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, whose penchant for lying and ignoring facts can stack up pound to pound with anyone on TV. A campaign in such constant disarray that the only people he truly listens to are his own children. His closest ally in the Senate, Jeff Sessions, is most famous for joking about the KKK. According to a testimony by Thomas Figures, an assistant U.S. attorney in Alabama at the time, “Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he ‘used to think they (the Klan) were OK’ until he found out some of them were ‘pot smokers.’ ” His team of economic advisers just happen to be some of his biggest donors. When asked about who he consults concerning foreign policy on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump said, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” What about his campaign screams this guy can govern? The Republican National Convention, completely controllable by Trump’s campaign, is a free, four-day, nationally covered commercial. How’d he do in running that great opportunity? It was arguably the worst convention in political history. For the first time ever, people were less likely to vote for the candidate following the convention. This is the worst campaign in American history. This was Trump’s test, and he failed. Politics isn’t business, and his talents clearly do not translate. He doesn’t have the skills or the people to competently operate in the political arena, and he would make a disastrous president of unknown proportions. 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. SHOHAM GEVA Editor in Chief CLAIRE BRYAN and REGAN DETWILER Editorial Page Editors 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. Carolyn Ayaub 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 Kevin Sweitzer Rebecca Tarnopol Ashley Tjhung Stephanie Trierweiler EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS CJ Mayer can be reached at mayercj@umich.edu. MELISSA STRAUSS | COLUMN We can’t leave refugees behind I n light of the recent ceasefire agreement brokered between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Syria, I began thinking again about an issue that is close to my heart: the Syrian refugee crisis. During my internship with the Truman National Security Project this summer, I conducted a research project focusing on U.S. policy toward refugee resettlement. Throughout my research, I found myself alarmed by the global response to the largest humanitarian crisis the world has faced since World War II and extremely worried for the United States’s future response following this important presidential election. The Syrian refugee crisis is something we hear about almost daily — and often through the lens of highly political rhetoric. We’ve all heard of Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering our country, the fact that 31 governors have sworn to stop admitting refugees into their states and numerous politicians claim the refugee crisis is a window for ISIS and other extremist groups to enter our country in “Trojan horse” fashion. In a nation built on the premise of freedom and security for all, this growing trend of fear and hate is alarming. While the U.S. election in November will clearly affect our own lives at home, it will also be incredibly important for the 4.8 million Syrians who have fled their homes in search of safety. The United States has a long history of admitting refugees from all over the world. Providing a safe haven for vulnerable populations is in our DNA. Since World War II, the United States has been a global leader on refugee resettlement, providing homes for 3 million refugees since 1975. This year, President Barack Obama and Secretary Kerry have pledged to admit at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016, and 100,000 total world refugees by 2017. While these are important and meaningful steps in the right direction, the election this fall has enormous implications for our future policies regarding refugees. If we get it wrong, then we risk turning our backs on refugees, and thus turning our backs on deeply rooted American values. Experts argue that admitting Syrian refugees into our country will not only maintain and restore American credibility abroad, but is also essential in advancing our own national security interests. Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, stated that “increased resettlement and aid helps protect the stability of a region that is home to U.S. allies.” Additionally, a bipartisan group of former U.S. national security advisers, CIA directors and department secretaries sent a letter to Congress in December stating that “resettlement initiatives help advance U.S. national security interests by supporting the stability of our allies and partners that are struggling to host large numbers of refugees.” If we don’t help ensure the stability of our allies, we risk these states breaking down and giving rise to more extremist and hostile groups. Demagogues would have you believe that terrorists will easily slip across our borders posing as refugees, but these statements are highly debatable. In our nation’s long history of refugee resettlement, a refugee has never successfully committed a single terrorist attack against us. Since 9/11, only three refugees have been convicted for terror- related activities — and none of them had any viable plans for an attack within the U.S. Unlike European countries, where refugees often show up on their borders without the luxury of screening first, the U.S. refugee screening process constitutes possibly the most difficult manner of entering the country. Refugees must endure a lengthy 18- to 24-month-long process, involving the UNHCR and multiple U.S. government departments. Of the 4.8 million registered Syrian refugees, only about 18,000 have been referred by the UNHCR to be resettled in the U.S. Once refugees arrive in the United States, they are connected with nine voluntary resettlement agencies that help them settle into their new communities and become economically self-sufficient. A great new student organization, the Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, has partnered with Jewish Family Services to help resettle refugees in the Ann Arbor area. The group is dedicated to raising awareness about the current refugee crisis, particularly by adding a student voice to this crisis while also humanizing refugees. LSA senior Nicole Khamis says she decided to start MRAP this semester because it is a time when local refugee resettlement agencies need assistance the most and students often feel helpless in the face of this incredible crisis. “I have little patience for any arguments against settling refugees in the United States for numerous reasons, but mainly because they are based in xenophobic fears and also reproduce the rhetoric of Arabs/Muslims as terrorists and violent in nature,” Khamis says. Additionally, if Donald Trump is elected in November, Khamis believes refugees will no longer be able to seek protection in the United States. Refugee policy is not a partisan issue. It is a moral one. As the situation in the Middle East worsens, the United States has an obligation to provide assistance to this vulnerable population and to our allies on the frontlines. If xenophobic rhetoric continues to flourish in American political discourse, we risk alienating our Muslim and Arab-American populations — possibly leading some vulnerable people to seek support and community in overseas terror organizations. Electing the right person in November will determine whether or not we hold true to American values or succumb to fear and bigotry. A 1939 poll showed that three out of five Americans opposed the resettlement of 10,000 Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany. Imagine the devastation and imagine our nation’s current cultural fabric had these voices prevailed during that time of crisis. We cannot allow these same voices to triumph today’s context. Brent Kim is an LSA junior and was a communications intern for Public Citizen in summer 2016. Melissa Strauss can be reached at melistrau@umich.edu. MELISSA STRAUSS CJ MAYER