L

ast week, I attended a town
hall meeting hosted by Stop
Spencer at the University

of Michigan, which was set up in
order to discuss Richard
Spencer’s
impending

visit to campus. I wanted
to catch myself up on
the current situation,
the
likelihood
he

would
actually
come

and to understand the
University’s response to
this saga.

I want to respond

to two different things
that I learned. First,
according to the organizers
of the meeting — who did an
incredible job presenting all of the
information — administrators have
made no contact with Counseling
and Psychological Services (CAPS)
to either understand the status of or
to improve the mental well-being of
their students.

This
failure
to
coordinate

with CAPS demonstrates an act
of callousness. And it entirely
contradicts
the
University’s

publicly disseminated, “official”
position. In one of the sparse,
vague
statements
released
by

the University about Spencer’s
visit, University spokesman Rick
Fitzgerald wrote, “The university
will carefully consider [Spencer’s]
request, paying close attention
to the safety and security of our
community.”

Since I began writing this

column,
the
University
has

announced that Spencer will not
be coming this semester. I urge you,
the reader, the campus community,
anyone, to not understand this as a
victory, but simply as the University
kicking this disgusting can further
down the road. Even with this
news, I think we should deliberate
about Spencer’s potential visit.

We might, for example, pause

and consider the debate around
hate speech more broadly. Why
would the University want Spencer
to come here? I believe it’s because
the University would like to
demonstrate the strength of this
institution. This position might say
that no one individual, regardless
of their beliefs, can tarnish what
we have collectively made here.
By allowing Spencer to come and
continuing to function as a school,
even after he is gone, we will
emerge stronger; victorious over
this one bigot.

But the University has arrived

at this position without any input
from its students. By largely
excluding its students from these
negotiations,
the
University

is
suppressing
the
voices
of

marginalized communities — the
victims of Spencer’s hate speech —
in order to promulgate this image

of strength in the face of evil. To
be clear, this school belongs to its
students. By coming here, we give
these administrators work to do.

They work for and
alongside us. And yet
nobody among us,
not even those most
informed
on
this

issue, knows what’s
going on.

It
takes
an

immense
amount

of
exclusionary

privilege to declare
what
will
make

our
University

stronger,
especially

as marginalized communities are
crying foul in the face of those
declarations. To arrive at the
decision that Spencer’s presence
will ultimately be a withstandable
event, one that might eventually
bring us together and prove our
collective strength, ignores this
conflict entirely. The solution would
be to engage the entire University
community, Ann Arbor residents
and the relevant southeastern
Michigan communities in this
debate. Tragically, the University is
doing just the opposite.

What does all of this say about our

University? What characteristics
can be gleaned from this misguided
response? What does it say about
our campus climate that Richard
Spencer, one of the most prominent
white supremacists of our day feels
he can come here, feels he would
have enough of an audience here
to make it worth his time? And,
finally, why does the University
believe Spencer’s presence on this
campus would make us better off?

By not reaching out to CAPS,

the
University
is
failing
to

leverage its power to make a real
difference in the mental health of
the members of its community.
Apparently, mental health does
not fit the scope of the “safety and
security” that Fitzgerald and his
fellow administrators are trying to
protect.

By hardly telling us — the

students — anything about the
ongoing
negotiations,
by
not

providing any real public space for

a conversation between students,
faculty and the administration to
take place, thereby leaving it to
uncompensated students — already
coping with the psychological
burden of Spencer’s impending visit
— to make that meeting happen, the
University is seeking to suppress
dialogue.

By telling us that we cannot

stop Spencer from coming here
based on the content of his speech
and that stopping him would lead
to a court battle, the University is
capitulating in the face of bigotry.
I say, go to court for your students.
Fight for us. By protesting (as we do
so often), we fight for you, we fight
to make this place more equitable.
Now, it is your turn for an equitable
and inclusive exchange between
diverse groups of people. Diversity,
equity
and
inclusion.
Sound

familiar? These are principals that
you, the University, claim to uphold
and strive for but routinely fail to
embody.

Just by living here, students

of color and marginalized folks
sacrifice their sense of safety and
their mental well-being (which you
don’t even care about enough to
check in with the office delegated
for doing exactly that), and yet you
won’t potentially lose a legal battle
in the name of these students.

Because it would tarnish your

reputation as a premier law school
in the country. It would be a drag
to be dealing with Spencer in such
a public way. This drag, of course,
pales in comparison to the drag that
so many of my peers and professors
feel in having to deal with this
University all the time.

Maybe Spencer wants to come

here because he can sense all of this
in the air. Maybe he wants to come
because the University’s shocking
inaction has left a real void in our
trust of the administration that
runs our everyday lives, in the
communication between us and
them, in our collective feeling of
security here in Ann Arbor, in
our sense that we can actually do
anything to advocate for ourselves
in such a way to see tangible, direct,
immediate results. He sees an
opportunity to fill this void with his
sick, twisted version of an answer
to our problems.

No matter his reason, it’s time

this University stops prioritizing
its lofty, mystical, fake public image
over its responsibility to take
tangible actions to ensure the safety
and well-being of our community.
It’s time we stop having to judge
this University by noticing what it is
not, what it refuses fails to do, time
and time and time again.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, January 31, 2018

DAYTON HARE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St.

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN

Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND

ASHLEY ZHANG
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.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Isaiah Zeavin-Moss can be reached

at izeavinm@umich.edu.

Megan Burns

Samantha Goldstein

Emily Huhman
Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan






Lucas Maiman
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Ali Safawi














Kevin Sweitzer
Tara Jayaram
Ashley Zhang

Ellery Rosenzweig

Elena Hubbell

T

he federal government
shutdown
ended

anticlimactically
last

week after three tense days,
with a bloc of Senate Democrats
lending their support
to
a
Republican

short-term spending
plan. In exchange,
Republican
Congressional leaders
promised to schedule
a vote in the coming
weeks on continuing
the Deferred Action
for
Childhood

Arrivals
program,

which
President

Donald Trump plans to dismantle.

Despite
the
compromise,

a renewed struggle looms in
the near future. The stopgap
funding
measure
will
expire

on Feb. 8, setting the stage for a
prolonged battle over a long-term
spending plan. Even with the
Republican
concessions,
many

Senate Democrats and a majority
of House Democrats still voted
against the spending bill that
ended the shutdown, raising the
possibility that the government
could shut down again, especially
if Congress is unable to come to
an agreement on the future of
DACA. An even more bitter fight
potentially waits in the distance
over the debt ceiling, which will
need to be raised or suspended at
some point this year.

This shutdown — and the

sparring to take place over the next
few weeks — is closely intertwined
with immigration policy, similar
to the infamous 2013 shutdown
revolving
around
Obamacare.

While policy takes the central
role in each iteration, the broader
issue of the national debt looms
above these spending battles, even
though shutdowns are not directly
related to the debt.

The current hyper-partisan

political
climate
prevents

Congress from reliably passing
the
12
core
appropriations

bills, as in decades past. This
forces Congress to fund the
federal
government
with

massive
“omnibus
budgets,”

but the deep divide between
Republicans and Democrats on
government spending, taxation
and the federal deficit makes this
challenging. When legislators fail
to agree to an omnibus budget,
Congress must resort to funding
the federal government through
a series of short-term continuing

resolutions. These continuing
resolutions are ripe for partisan
conflict, as evidenced by the
current fight over DACA. Since
their primary purpose is to simply

keep the government
operating, continuing
resolutions often fail
to address budgetary
concerns or produce
a plan to stabilize the
national debt.

Though Republicans

championed themselves
as
deficit
hawks

throughout the Obama
administration,
their

actions thus far during

the Trump presidency paint a
different
picture.
The
GOP’s

signature piece of legislation in
2017, the tax reform bill, slashes
government
revenue,
which

inevitably bloats the federal deficit,
thus increasing the national debt.
When passing the bill, Republican
leaders argued that economic
growth would offset the tax breaks,
leaving government revenue levels
the same, but this contention is
simply not supported by the facts.
The nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office projects the tax bill
will pour $1.5 trillion onto the
national debt, while an analysis by
The Wharton School of Business
at the University of Pennsylvania
predicts a nearly $2 trillion
national debt increase.

Meanwhile,
Trump
seems

misinformed about the national
debt, despite his campaign pledge
to eliminate it within eight years.
On the campaign trail, Trump
made a disturbing proposal to
renegotiate the debt in hopes of
persuading the U.S. government’s
creditors to accept less than
they are owed — in essence,
defaulting on the national debt.
Doing so would derail the U.S.
economy and irreversibly destroy
investor confidence in the federal
government, as experts were quick
to point out.

And after Trump was blasted

for the proposal, he countered
with the claim that the U.S.
can’t default on the debt, since
it can merely print money. This
is technically true — the U.S.
Treasury could theoretically just
make the money it owes — but
this “solution” is nonetheless
ludicrous, as it would lead to
catastrophic inflation and major
economic problems of its own.

Since
his
victory
and

inauguration, Trump has stepped

back
from
his
renegotiation

proposal while making several
more suspect claims. Last October,
Trump blamed the debt on
foreign aid, even though such aid
constitutes only a minute fraction
of the federal budget. Days later,
Trump falsely claimed that gains
in the stock market are reducing
the debt.

Little can be interpreted from

the president’s statements about his
true feelings towards the national
debt, but his conflicting claims
and evolving positions are clear
evidence that his administration
lacks a clear and realistic plan to
address the national debt. In fact,
Trump’s enthusiastic embrace of
the Republican tax plan indicates
that the debt is likely to grow far
worse during his presidency.

In order to truly address

the national debt, a pragmatic
solution
involving
both

reasonable
tax
increases

and spending cuts is needed.
Unfortunately, such a solution
seems
unlikely
to
manifest

itself in the near future given
the passage of the Republicans’
fiscally irresponsible tax bill
and
the
Trump’s
apparent

commitment
to
wasteful

spending on frivolous matters
such as his infamous border wall.
Still, voters and legislators should
not let the national debt fade
into the political background.
Without concrete action and
responsible budgeting, Congress
could easily come to rely on
continuing resolutions to fund
the
government.
If
these

stopgap
measures
become

the
norm,
shutdowns
will

become commonplace and our
government’s functions will
consistently be held hostage
to
partisan
gimmicks
and

political feuds.

Though the end of the latest

shutdown may bring short-term
relief, it is no cause for celebration
and Congressional leaders deserve
little praise for the bare bones
stopgap measure that temporarily
reopened the government. With
this spending plan only funding
the government until Feb. 8, more
trouble looms on the horizon, and
always will unless political leaders
can reach consensus on budgeting
and implement a comprehensive
plan to counter the nation’s
growing debt.

Shutdown ends, but trouble looms

NOAH HARRISON | COLUMN

A

fter
Larry
Nassar’s

sentencing last week, the
convicted sexual predator

will now serve a minimum of 100
years in state and federal prison. It
is an unquestionable that he will
die there.

Controversy was elicited by

the intense, emotional nature of
Nassar’s sentencing. Specifically,
the behavior of Judge Rosemarie
Aquilina attracted a significant
amount of the media’s attention.
Far
from
being
impersonal,

Aquiliana ensured her fury was
felt by Nassar. She also extended
her empathy to each victim
immediately after they read their
statement, as opposed to waiting
for every victim to speak first, as
is convention. Hesitation towards
her approach, if not outright
disapproval, could be found in
varied and credible news sources.

In an article for Vox, a public

defender argued that Aquilina
“overstepped her boundaries as a
judge.” Andrew Cohen of the New
Republic took it a step further,
asserting that Aquilina could not
be both “crusader for sexual assault
victims and a tribune for those who
are struggling to find their voice”
while maintaining her impartiality
as a judge who has sworn to uphold
the U.S. Constitution.

For many, especially those with

a respect for and a familiarity
with tradition, it was jarring
to see such passion in what is
frequently
a
disimpassioned

process. But as our generation
begins to work in, for and against
the current system of justice, it’s
important that we recognize that
justice is ours to define.

The
meaning
of
“justice,”

as practiced, has always been
contested.
For
some,
justice

means retribution, as with Larry

Nassar’s life sentence. For others,
justice would mean rehabilitating
Nassar, putting an expectation of
restitution on him. Most times,
justice entails both elements of
suffering and penance.

What is certain is that humans

determine how justice is carried
out. To be inhuman is impossible.
In the 21st century, we can no
longer let Lady Justice wear the
blindfold. It was supposed to
symbolize fairness in spite of race,
gender or wealth, but I argue that
the blindfold is a slap in the face.

Our generation has witnessed

countless instances where justice
was poisoned by those tasked
with carrying it out. We’ve seen
police officers carry out capital
punishment for noncompliance;
we’ve seen the character of people
of color be impugned by the
media, as if any amount of teenage
delinquency merits execution in
the street.

We know the justice system

counts money. It plays a part every
time rich defendants assemble
legal dream-teams; meanwhile,
poor young people of color are
often encouraged to plead guilty
to crimes regardless of their
culpability, saving the system
time and money. Lady Justice,
to be clear, peeks out from under
her blindfold all the time, because
we do that same thing. But our
conversation has evolved in ways
that have made the pretending of
impartiality a farce.

The vision of a post-racial

society in the wake of President
Barack Obama’s 2008 victory
came unraveled when segments of
the public conscience realized that
racism would never be a problem
of the past. Even as Obama
enjoyed unprecedented support
from people of color, so too did his

behavior attract derision in ways
it would not have if he looked like
our previous 44 presidents, or the
president after him.

In America now we have two

paths: to feign blindness, claiming
that we don’t see race, gender or
wealth when we make impartial
decisions, or to acknowledge our
vision and biases. I choose not to
act, to pretend as if it’s possible not
to see these factors of race, gender
and wealth.

I’d much rather begin the hard

work of deconstructing the social
mores in place that allow for
prejudice to impact impartiality.
What good does it serve to pretend
that the justice system works the
same for people of color, for each
gender, for the poor?

It’s rarely a good idea to

remain married to the past.
Perhaps
more
fittingly,
it’s

important
to
acknowledge

that some marriages are better
off ended. When it comes to
the abuses of the system, it’s
important that criminals are not
the only ones being tried. The
system itself must also come
under scrutiny.

The voices that flinch at

Judge Aquilina’s wrath have a
point. Feelings can’t be trusted
to fairly inflict punishment, nor
can emotion ever be expected to
fairly arbitrate the outcome of a
case like Nassar’s. But we cannot
uphold impartiality unevenly.
It
is
hypocritical
absurdity

to pretend the system is not a
method of cathartic vengeance
for every victim of Nassar’s, and
all victims of such crimes, while
looking the other way as the
guise of impartiality reigns.

Remove the blindfold

ANDREW MEKHAIL | COLUMN

Our University and hate speech

ISAIAH ZEAVIN-MOSS | COLUMN

Noah Harrison can be reached at

noahharr@umich.edu

Andrew Mekhail can be reached at

mekhail@umich.edu

It’s time the

University stops
prioritizing its
lofty, mystical

fake public

image over its
responsibility

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ISAIAH

ZEAVIN-MOSS


NOAH

HARRISON

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