H

ero. That’s a big word, 
a title not easy to 
come by. Let’s think 
about the classics: Superman, 
Captain America, Spiderman, 
Batman — the list goes on. 
However, at the ESPYS this 
year, we saw a new wave of 
heroes claim their titles. Larry 
Nassar, the former team doctor 
for 
USA 
Gymnastics 
and 
Michigan State University, has 
recently been sentenced to up 
to 175 years in prison thanks 
to the brave testimonies of 
hundreds 
of 
the 
survivors 
of his sexual abuse. Their 
speaking up was incredibly 
important 
in 
breaking 
the 
culture of silence that normally 
surrounds 
women’s 
sports. 
Aly Raisman — a two-time 
Olympian and three-time gold 
medalist at the forefront of the 
movement against Nassar — is 
one of those many heroes. Her 
testimony has been powerful 
and moving and many have 
felt encouraged by her words, 
as many would never suspect 
that such a strong, talented, 
powerful woman could have 
gone through such a traumatic 
experience. The truth is, her 
story is all too common.
At the ESPYS, 141 of Nassar’s 
victims took the stage to claim 
the 
Arthur 
Ashe 
Courage 
Award. 
These 
survivors 
spoke with so much wisdom 
when 
they 
accepted 
their 
award and it was an honor to 
witness. Sarah Klein, Nassar’s 
first victim, said, “Make no 
mistake, we are here on this 
stage to present an image for 
the world to see, a portrait 
of survival. A new vision of 
courage.” She continued on to 
talk about how important it is 
to speak out against abusers, 
no matter how difficult that 
may be. The most shocking 
part of the acceptance was 
when Raisman listed all of the 
years that there were claims of 
sexual abuse against Nassar. 
“1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 
2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.” 
For 10 years, those Nassar 
abused were ignored. How 
can these adults ignore young 
women and girls telling them 
about their abuse? Here we 
have an example of when the 
survivors weren’t silent, but 
the system failed them over 
and over and over again. The 

people in positions of power 
decided that the words of 

these women were not strong 
enough 
to 
stand 
against 
Larry Nassar. They let him 
continue his abuse. This lack 
of accountability from those 
in charge is what continues 
to drive this cone of silence 
surrounding women’s sports. 
It stops victims from coming 
forward 
and 
allows 
these 
coaches, trainers, managers, 
etc. to continue to abuse.
The Nassar scandal doesn’t 
stand alone. Recently, there 
have been allegations against 
a former doctor for Ohio State 
University. Those who came 
forward revealed how badly 
the situation was handled. 
Based 
on 
Ron 
McDaniel’s 
story, it was clear that coaches 
and administrators knew of 
his abuse and continuously 
failed 
to 
act. 
McDaniel 
spoke about how when his 
teammates heard about what 
had happened to him they 
just 
laughed 
and 
basically 
said, “Yeah, that happens all 
the time to everyone. It’s no 
secret.” At the University of 
South Carolina there have been 
allegations of abuse against 
the campus gynecologist. The 
abuse is said to have spanned 
over 30 years and, as of now, 
200 women have come forward 
with their stories. He did this 

from the time he began his job 
at the university until the time 
he 
stopped 
working 
there. 
This shows there is a pattern 
of abuse that goes ignored and 
is hushed up by universities all 
around the country. Women 
and men have come forward, 
sharing 
their 
stories 
and 
telling us they were brushed 
off and not taken seriously by 
university officials. Though 
women in particular face more 
of this kind of abuse than 
men, especially in the sports 
community, it is so important 
to remember that there are 
many people out there who 
have gone through what you 
have. Women and men alike, 
despite all the differences, go 
through similar issues, have 
survived the same abuse and 
stand strong through it all. If 
there is going to be any kind of 
progress, it needs to start with 
administrators and the people 
receiving these reports. Each 
one should be taken seriously 
and thoroughly investigated. 
Dismissing 
these 
kinds 
of 
allegations should no longer 
be, and never should have 
been, an option. 
Raisman’s 
words 
so 
accurately depicted how the 
system failed all 141 women 
standing on that stage: “All 
those years we were told, ‘You 
are wrong. You misunderstood. 
He’s a doctor. It’s okay. Don’t 
worry, we’ve got it covered. 
Be careful. There are risks 
involved.’ The intention: to 
silence us in favor of money, 
medals and reputation.” But 
she then reminded everyone 
that nobody is alone when she 
said, “We may suffer alone, 
but 
we 
survive 
together.” 
These women are true heroes. 
These women are the new 
image of courage. They stood 
up to their abuser despite 
countless setbacks, showing 
unparalleled 
courage. 
Let’s 
use 
these 
women 
as 
an 
example of what it means to 
be brave and use their stories 
to address the multitude of 
issues — like victim-blaming 
and payoffs — that exist within 
the system. Let us no longer be 
silent. Let us be brave. Let us 
be courageous. Let us follow in 
the footsteps of these heroes. 

5
OPINION

Thursday, August 9, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

sleep and lower sleep quality. 
Another 
study 
found 
that 
students who refrained from 
using 
their 
phones 
during 
class wrote down 62 percent 
more information from lecture 
and scored a full one and a 
half letter grades higher on a 
multiple-choice test.
Aside from the question of 
how phones impact the lives 
of students, what are mobile 
devices doing to us socially? 
Upton Saiidi reported that “87 
percent of millennials admitted 
to missing out on a conversation 
because they were distracted 
by their phone,” corroborating 
Melissa Dahl’s claims that the 
presence of cell phones make us 
less empathetic; simply placing 
a mobile device on the table 
during a meal reduces feelings 
of “interconnectedness.” Cara 
McCoogan and James Titcomb 
provide us with the evidence 
showing that the presence 
of smartphones make us less 
smart, 
while 
Mike 
Elgan 
writes about how they make us 
distracted and unproductive. 
“As a thought experiment,” 
he writes, “imagine that an 
employee who used to pay 
attention 
to 
your 
business 
eight hours each day now pays 
attention only seven hours a 
day because he or she is now 
focusing on Facebook during 
that last hour.” He then goes on 
to cite Flurry Analytics, whose 
data put U.S. smartphone user-
time to be more than five hours 
per day, and found that the 
time spent using mobile apps 
increased 69 percent from 2015 
to 2016. The story to which 
I relate most is one written 
by Michael Gonchar for the 
New York Times; it raises the 
point that though technology 
is supposed to make us feel 
more connected to one another, 
though it is supposed to help 
us stay in touch all the time, 

a lot of us actually feel that 
it’s “getting in the way of real 
socializing” and “making us 
more alone.”
I know we can’t all go to 
Maine for the summer, and we 
can’t all go four days without 
a phone because of safety 
and 
responsibility; 
group 
texts are quite necessary for 
collaboration on projects and 
a perfectly timed email tells 
you that class is cancelled. But 
summer is the perfect time to 
take baby steps, to opt for that 
one day at a time without your 
phone. An even smaller step, a 
movement in which Generation 
Z is apparently participating, 
is electing to get off social 
media by deleting your apps 
or accounts, thus removing 
any 
temptation 
to 
refresh 
your news feed. We grew up 
“digitally connected,” looking 
at photos of lives where the 
grass is always greener, or it’s 
edited and filtered to look that 
way.
Summer is the perfect time 
to turn off text notifications 
and only use your phone for 
its map and camera, to try it 
out and monitor whether you 
feel less anxious or sleep more 
soundly. It is the perfect time to 
rehabilitate your relationship 
with your phone, to reshape 
your brain to focus on what’s 
in front of you, a skill for which 
you’ll be grateful when it’s time 
to get back into schoolwork. 
It is the perfect time to go on 
a hike and not document it on 
Snapchat or Instagram, to like 
your day instead of a picture of 
somebody else’s.
Summer is the perfect time 
to recharge your mind instead 
of your phone. So give it a shot. 
I dare you. 

Marlee Burridge can be reached at 

marleebu@umich.edu.

Julia Montag can be reached at 

jtmon@umich.edu.

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Recharge your mind, not your phone by Julia Montag continued below:

“We have 
an example 
of when the 
survivors 
weren’t silent, 
but the system 
failed them over 
and over and 
over again...
the wordsof 
these women 
were not strong 
enough.”

MARLEE BURRIDGE | COLUMN