Content Warning: This column contains explicit language about sexual assault. S everal years ago, I was sitting in a hot tub with five or six friends. As the night wore on, a few of them went inside, one and two at a time, until I was alone in water with a friend of a friend. We were kissing, but I wasn’t interested in going any further. He went much further than I wanted to, telling me to “hold on” after I told him to stop and tried to push myself away from him. For three years, I didn’t tell anyone that I had been assaulted. I kept it from my parents, doctors and closest friends. My Catholic upbringing taught me not to have sex before marriage, and believe it or not, that’s exactly what I planned to do. I felt ashamed that I’d been unable to make him stop, and naive for having trusted him enough to allow myself to be alone with him in the hot tub. All I wanted was to forget it ever happened. Of course, I didn’t. While I’m fortunate to have had the support necessary to move past what was without question the worst night of my life, I’ll never be able to unlive it. Research suggests that one in five women and one in 71 men experience sexual assault at least once. Those individuals will never unlive it either. Our legal and criminal justice systems contribute to the problem by allowing an estimated 97 percent of accused rapists to escape conviction. And those who are convicted? Many receive far less than the maximum 14-year prison sentence. Data from 2009 shows that of 84 percent of convicted rapists sentenced to prison, five percent go to jail and 11 percent recieved probation or “other.” I’m not interested in raising my future children in a world where this heinous crime occurs with such appalling frequency. I don’t want my friends — or strangers for that matter — to live in constant fear of spiked drinks and strange men hiding behind bushes, waiting to grab them when they’re walking home at night. I’d like to think that most of you don’t want that either. Over the past few years, our country has made considerable strides on this issue. The national “It’s On Us” campaign — whose powerful backers include the White House, the U.S. Olympic Committee and MTV parent company Viacom Media Networks — has raised awareness about the issue on college campuses across the country, including ours. California became the first state to pass an affirmative consent law, and several others enacted legislation to help prevent sexual assaults on college campuses. One man has already begun to unravel the progress achieved by women’s safety advocates at every level of government: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the first major party candidate to have been accused before the primary of sexual assault in formal court documents from three different lawsuits, including an ongoing civil case alleging he tied a 13-year-old to a bed and raped her. Despite his transparent awfulness, Trump has the power to influence millions of his supporters whether or not he actually wins the presidency. Trump’s words are dangerous for the simple reason that leaders’ consequences have actions. Diminishing boastful claims that he can grab women “by the pussy” without consent as mere “locker room talk” runs the risk of normalizing the criminal behavior he described. In interviews with Politico, several Trump supporters defended Trump’s words in the video as they way “real men talk”; one 17-year-old said that “Trump’s comments weren’t predatory because they let him do it because he’s a star, and that is a form of consent,” according to the article. It’s possible that these words were born out of pure loyalty to the candidate. But it’s equally likely — perhaps more so — that these are the true attitudes that some hold. As just one example of Trump’s influence on those closest to him, his own son told radio listeners that Trump’s “grab her by the pussy” comments were simply a “fact of life.” Reducing the prevalence of sexual assault requires that more — not fewer — American men recognize it as the serious crime that it is. It also requires a social and legal environment where women can come forward with the reasonable expectation that she and her accusations will be taken seriously. Trump has made this unlikely as well. After the now-famous “grab her by the pussy” video was released, 11 women came forward claiming that Trump sexually assaulted or harassed them. Trump responded by personally attacking the women’s characters and appearances. He defended himself against one woman’s claims by saying that she wouldn’t be his “first choice” to sexually assault. He told the American public that the women were manipulative liars, part of a media scheme to “rig” the election against him — despite the fact that several witnesses claimed that wasn’t the case. When the women refused to recant their statements, Trump announced to cheering supporters that he would sue each woman who accused him of assault. He also threatened to sue The New York Times for publishing articles about the women’s allegations. To be clear, these aren’t likely to be very successful lawsuits. Even still, the media coverage surrounding Trump’s threatened lawsuits could create the misconception that survivors of sexual assault could face legal action against them if they come forward about their experiences or report the crime to police. In the eyes of some of his supporters, this might actually be a good thing. In a few weeks, voters will have the opportunity to seize Trump’s national soapbox by electing his opponent. Both the polls and election-betting markets strongly suggest that voters will seize this opportunity. But a Clinton victory will not be sufficient to undo the damage Trump’s campaign has inflicted on the legitimacy of sexual assault as a serious crime and on survivors as people to support and believe. When it’s all said and done, millions of voters will not believe Hillary Clinton was rightfully elected, even if Trump loses. Trump will still be a leader to some of those people, and his words will still have value. I still want my children to inherit a world devoid of sexual violence, and I still think it’s possible. It will require years of education, advocacy and criminal justice reform. But perhaps the best first step toward combatting the vehement, baseless rhetoric Trump spreads is to simply be louder than the pervasive coverage of the campaign. Opinion & Michigan In Color The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4A— Tuesday, October 25, 2016 The prowess of the lamestream media ROLAND DAVIDSON | COLUMN I have a deep self-destructive streak, which is why I often add myself to Tea Party Facebook groups. These groups are wonderlands of people totally unironically sharing National Inquirer articles, and conspiracy theories that Michelle Obama is actually a trans woman and that Obama will declare martial law any day now. To be clear, none of this is exaggeration. What binds these Facebook posts together is the persistent complaint that the mainstream media (itself a nebulous term) is not covering these “issues.” I often see a similar complaint from the left, that mainstream journalism doesn’t cover issues (note the lack of scare quotes) as well as they should. However, neither critique really holds water once one critically examines the relationship that consumers of news and niche news organizations have with mainstream media. After ISIS agents killed 130 people in France last November, many progressives begun criticizing the “mainstream news media” for not properly covering terroristic violence in non-Western countries like the bombing in Beirut, which happened a day prior and claimed over 40 lives. I could rationalize the discrepancy and come up with reasonable justifications, such as the fact that a terrorist attack in France is more concerning to American audiences than one in Lebanon since the former could portend violence here. But all of this is irrelevant because these maligned news outlets actually did an excellent job covering these terrorist attacks, giving them plenty of airtime and page space. What I believe is going on here is that people didn’t know about these issues and instead of owning up to their ignorance, they made the claim that the media had failed to educate them. A similarly common critique is that the news media “rigged” the election against Bernie Sanders because they denied him essential coverage during the primary. This simply isn’t the case. A report by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center confirmed that though he may have gotten a third of the coverage Clinton received, he also had the most positive coverage out of all candidates, averaging 50.5 percent more positive news coverage than his competitor. However, liberal media outlets chose to ignore that part of the report, instead printing headlines like “Harvard Study Confirms Bernie Sanders Was Right: Media Blackout Badly Hurt Campaign” and then not bothering to go into the story on a deeper level. You can’t have your big media conspiracy go both ways. Part of the issue with these critiques of mainstream media is that these critics are people who don’t even bother to glance at, say, The New York Times. Many progressives claimed that The New York Times didn’t even bother covering the Dakota Access pipeline, a pipeline that would run through miles of Sioux land. Lo and behold, on Aug. 24, 2016, the Dakota pipeline is on The New York Times’ front page. I would add that the Anti-Media article I linked to was actually published on the 25th, lending further credence to my belief that those critical of mainstream media don’t even bother looking at it. Explicitly liberal news sources don’t have the same vested interest in presenting balanced media coverage as The New York Times because websites like Democracy Now! specifically cater toward a niche audience, much in the same way that Fox News does. These leftist journalist outfits don’t bother interviewing government officials or people building the pipeline so they can churn out the stories faster. The process of creating fair and balanced media has cleaved against our society’s desire for faster and faster news such that taking time to properly research a story has become perceived as media blackout. ROLAND DAVIDSON 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 Roland Davidson can be reached at mhenryda@umich.edu Victoria Noble can be reached at vjnoble@umich.edu Read more at MichiganDaily.com Trump’s sexism isn’t isolated VICTORIA NOBLE | COLUMN TUNE IN TO OUR ELECTIONS PODCAST For our second episode of The Michigan Daily’s Election Podcast, columnist Brett Graham interviews Democratic candidate for the Michigan 7th congressional district Gretchen Driskell and her campaign manager Keenan Pontoni. CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. VICTORIA NOBLE NICOLE KHAMIS | MICHIGAN IN COLOR Support scholarships for Syrian refugees I wake up in my room and I close my eyes, trying to go back to sleep as the sun shines through my windows. In a state neither quite asleep nor awake, I hear the sound of a plane. Instantly, I am awake. All I can hear is the sound of the plane, and it’s coming closer. Nothing will happen, I reassure myself. This sound brings me back to Jordan and Syria, and all the individuals I met this summer who fled the brutal civil war, now going into its sixth year. I sit up in my bed and immediately turn toward the window. All I can focus on is the sound of the engine nearing my house. Nothing will happen, I say. There is nothing you can do, the refugees would say. I sit helpless in my bed and wait, my eyes on the sky. I am transported, if only for a second, back to Jordan, to the stories that I was told while living there, many revolving around what the sound of a plane evokes for those who fled rebel-held areas in Syria, where bombs would be dropped on civilian areas. The sound of a plane consumes you, the refugees would say; you look to the sky and follow the plane with your eyes, and wait to see if you are spared this time. It is an anthem of death, our anthem, they would say. At this moment, I am thinking of Amira, a Syrian girl whom I tutor over Skype. Amira, upon hearing the sound of a plane fly by (even though she was granted asylum in Canada) hysterically bursts into tears and shakes uncontrollably as she is reminded of the horror she witnessed. But, as expected, as I sit in my small town 1,000 miles away, the low-flying plane is already gone. Once you cross a border, everything changes. This is what the refugees I met this summer in Jordan would say to me. Here, lives are valued, a plane isn’t dropping bombs and I am already asleep. I am here. The sound of a plane means nothing to people here anyway, I remind myself. While studying for midterms this past week, did you have a safe place to study? Access to Internet? A teacher to email to ask pre-exam questions? Did you fear an end to your education? Were you confident that school was going to begin again on Wednesday? I ask these questions only because it is important to realize that the very environment we find ourselves in, one that allows safety and security and is conducive to our ability to study, is one we take for granted. The normalcy of what we experience is something unavailable to many individuals around the world. As we posit ourselves as “Leaders and the Best,” and recognize our unique position to assist, stand with and support disadvantaged people throughout the world, we must also take a look at the importance of education and what it can do. While we are empowered by virtue of our education, let us pass on the opportunity of a world-renowned education to also empower others. This is why I am calling on Central Student Government to support fully funded scholarships for Syrian refugees, as proposed in a resolution this Tuesday by the Books Not Bombs campaign. The impact of the Syrian Civil War on education has been disastrous. After five continuous years of civil war, the conflict in Syria has reversed more than a decade of progress in children’s education. Today, 2.2 million of Syria’s 4.8 million school-age children are not in school as a result of the conflict. Since the start of the war over 4,000 schools throughout Syria have been devastated, damaged or converted into shelters for those displaced. If they are able to attend school, many students are stopped from accessing education. They are physically attacked for trying to go to school, under threat of having their school bombed, and commonly find themselves in the crossfire of snipers. Under the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Child, the right to a quality education is guaranteed to all children. Under the continuing civil war, children and students our age are being denied a basic human right. As students who have made a promise to ourselves and to the University of Michigan to use our education to contribute to a more just and equitable society, will we stay silent in the face of the worst humanitarian crisis the world has ever seen? The answer has never been clearer. If we truly believe in the power of an education to transform the lives of individuals, and if we truly believe education to be the basis of the betterment of society, we must stand by our commitment of education for all. We must remember that we are here by luck. By chance, we found ourselves not in the midst of a civil war; by chance we can achieve our dreams. We are the lucky ones; we get to continue our lives as normal simply because we are here. If we are “Leaders and the Best,” let us as students collectively come together to ask our University to provide educational opportunities to individuals who have been displaced, and whose education has been interrupted by a conflict they found themselves embedded within by no fault of their own. It is time, and it is long overdue, to place Michigan among the ranks of the many other universities that have been offering fully funded scholarships to Syrian refugees. Many in the world have risked being dangerously complacent about the Syrian humanitarian crisis. Those who have lost the opportunity of education risk becoming a lost generation in our lifetime. Let us be among those who stand up and make our voices heard in this time of deafening silence. Education knows no borders and no ethnicity; it is a human right and one we must support by offering scholarships to Syrian refugees. You can support the Books Not Bombs campaign to support scholarships for Syrian Refugees as an individual here, and as a student group here. Questions about the BNB campaign? Email: books-not- bombs@umich.edu Nicole Khamis is a Michigan In Color columnist and can be reached at nlkhamis@umich.edu NICOLE KHAMIS Let us be among those who stand up and make our voices heard in this time of deafening silence.