Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman

Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Max Mittleman
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

A 

university 
is 
many 
things to its students– 
an 
employer, 
a 
healthcare provider, a landlord, 
a gym, a restaurant, a library, 
an educator, an ISP, a creditor 
and more. Each of these roles 
has data associated with it 
which, 
when 
unified, 
can 
provide an extremely detailed 
picture 
of 
students’ 
lives. 
In today’s world of big data 
there is increasing pressure 
to utilize this information to 
improve students’ college lives. 
Will this lead to surveillance, 
inappropriate interventions and 
the repackaging of biases? Or 
could it set the example for how 
to responsibly and ethically 
utilize data in the future? 
Just as Amazon, Google and 
Facebook are creating models 
to 
predict 
our 
preferences 
and 
behavior, 
universities 
are increasingly looking to 
predictive models for help with 
student 
performance, 
well-
being and retainment. This is an 
area called “learning analytics,” 
and it’s filled with promises to 
improve student outcomes by 
analyzing mounds of data. But 
just as big tech faces a number 
of issues related to predictive 
modeling, universities do as 
well, with perhaps even higher 
stakes. For example, one could 
imagine a tool that recommends 
majors reproducing historical 
norms, steering women and 
minorities away from STEM 
fields. 
Particularly when thinking 
about recommendations and 
interventions, schools will need 
to avoid simply automating 
historical 
stereotypes 
and 
biases. Additionally, as schools 
inevitably turn to third-party 
vendors for help, they will need 
to be rigorous about access 
to student data. Companies’ 
security 
and 
authorization 
practices should be thoroughly 
vetted and monitored to avoid 
letting student data fall into the 
wrong hands. Already, hackers 
are 
increasingly 
targeting 
educational 
institutions 
for 
their valuable information.
Universities 
will 
also 
have to consider what they 
collect. 
To 
date, 
higher 
education has largely avoided 
the surveillance craze found 
in K-12 education, but that 
could easily change. A system 
could be constructed using 

data such as visits to the gym, 
class attendance and browsing 
history to surface potential 
“threats” in the student body. 
Surveillance in a more benign 
form is already found in many 
of the “learning management 
systems” 
used 
by 
schools. 
These 
systems 
often 
track 
minutiae such as keystrokes, 
time spent on assignments, 
and distance scrolled in the 
name of improving student 
performance. 
Additionally, 
schools are embedding trackers 
in 
recruitment 
emails 
that 
monitor things like whether 
prospective students clicked 
any links and how long they read 
to help gauge “demonstrated 

interest” in hopes of increasing 
enrollment rates. These forms 
of surveillance are the tools of 
a system that Shoshana Zuboff, 
an author and retired Harvard 
Business 
School 
professor, 
has 
termed 
“surveillance 
capitalism.” In something like a 
“learning management system,” 
users are monitored for data to 
fuel the creation of predictive 
models that are used with subtle 
cues and rewards to “tune, herd, 
and condition” behavior. Zuboff 
argues that this undermines 
autonomy 
by 
encouraging 
conformity and pushing users 
toward the system designer’s 
most desirable outcomes. If 
universities implement a form 
of 
“surveillance 
capitalism” 
on their campuses, they could 
threaten 
students’ 
personal 
and intellectual development 
by stunting the exploration and 
growth that is crucial to higher 
education.
For 
big 
data 
to 
be 
sustainable, Mark Zuckerberg’s 
mantra of “move fast and 
break things” will need to be 
discarded in favor of discussion, 
user-centered design and input 
from a diverse array of voices. 
Universities are well positioned 
to take this approach because 

of the knowledge, inquiry and 
discussion that is at the core of 
higher education. By tapping 
into 
the 
multidisciplinary 
expertise 
found 
on 
their 
campuses and including experts 
from 
non-technical 
fields 
such as history, sociology and 
anthropology, universities can 
ensure an array of perspectives 
are considered when designing 
technical systems. Additionally, 
universities are more likely to 
take a user-centric approach 
because the student, ideally, is 
whom they aim to serve. Though 
there may be external pressure 
from 
parents, 
donors 
and 
politicians, profit is (typically) 
not at the center of a university, 
making user (student) voices 
more likely to be heard.
Universities are in a unique 
position. With their wealth of 
interdisciplinary 
expertise, 
tradition of discussion and 
responsibility 
to 
students, 
not 
shareholders, 
they 
are 
as 
well-positioned 
as 
any 
organization to get big data 
right. If schools commit to 
transparency, 
discussion 
and student input, they can 
create an environment where 
students are educated about, 
and involved in, the utilization 
of their data. A healthy cycle 
of proposal, discussion and 
continuous consideration could 
emerge. Students, exposed to 
a 
transparent 
development 
process that respects autonomy 
and 
privacy 
while 
also 
considering 
sociocultural 
realities, could be empowered 
to demand the same type of 
treatment in the rest of their 
digital lives. Organizations such 
as non-profits, governments 
and even businesses would have 
a model for how to harness big 
data responsibly and ethically. 
By empowering students and 
creating a proven alternative 
to the big data practices of the 
tech giants, universities could 
challenge the inevitability of 
our every digital interaction 
being tracked, packaged and 
sold. Higher education bills 
itself as an intellectual leader 
that 
enables 
scholars 
and 
students to change the world 
— here’s an opportunity to live 
up to it.

KIANNA MARQUEZ | COLUMN

The ability to measure environmental justice is the key to our future
I

n the recent 1619 Project, 
by The New York Times, 
Jamelle Bouie comments 
on one of the main reasons 
why the political climate in the 
United States today has become 
extremely combative: “America 
holds 
onto 
an 
undemocratic 
assumption from its founding: 
that some people deserve more 
power than others.” For decades, 
the features of our capitalist 
system have translated into an 
attitude that we all exhibit: the 
necessity to compete in order 
to succeed more than the next 
person, with success generally 
measured by monetary gain. As 
a result, Bouie mentions, our 
current system favors those who 
are cutthroat enough to step 
on others and dismiss them for 
being inferior or for lacking some 
qualification.
In the same way that there is 
an unfair distribution of social and 
economic benefits throughout 
our 
country, 
underprivileged 
and marginalized communities 
continue 
to 
suffer 
from 
environmental 
injustice. 
We 
have been able to conceptualize 
this idea on a macroscale, such 
as with the idea that regions 
in North America with more 
wealth to recover from natural 
disasters experience a better 
quality of life than some regions 
of South America or Asia. To our 
misfortune, 
our 
bureaucratic 
system hasn’t been able to realize 
that this phenomenon also exists 
on a microscale within our own 
cities and neighborhoods. That is, 
until now.
Over this summer, graduate 
students attending the University 
of 
Michigan’s 
School 
for 
Environment and Sustainability 
developed a tool to identify 
the 
areas 
of 
environmental 
injustice in the state of Michigan. 
Combining techniques used in 
the tools developed to measure 
environmental 
injustice 
in 
the states of California and 
Minnesota, these students used 
11 environmental indicators and 
six demographic indicators to 
determine a community’s risk 
of exposure to environmental 
hazards and vulnerability due to 
social factors. Ultimately, these 
indicators were used to calculate 
an overall environmental justice 
score for each census tract in 
Michigan. After applying this 
tool, Paul Mohai, a founder of the 
Environmental Justice Program 

at the University and past member 
of the National Environmental 
Justice Advisory Council, was 
able to make a conclusion about 
environmental 
injustice 
in 
Michigan: “A key finding of this 
report is that environmental 
injustice exists across Michigan, 
with residents of low-income 
and 
minority 
communities 
disproportionately burdened by 
environmental 
contamination 
and health risks — just as we saw 
in Flint.”

In 
addition, 
this 
study 
involved 
interviews 
with 
30 
Michigan 
environmental 
justice leaders regarding how 
they 
themselves 
experience 
environmental injustice and how 
they use data and assessment tools 
in general. The study concluded 
that “people” and “community” 
were the most utilized words 
by these environmental justice 
leaders who also responded that 
decisions were influenced more 
often by monetary value than by 
the interest of the people. These 
leaders went on to commend 
affected communities for being 
“resilient despite adversity” and 
noted that difficulties in achieving 
environmental justice in Michigan 
existed due to “lack of political 
will and the erosion of democratic 
processes.” In expressing desire 
to utilize this tool for measuring 
holistic impacts in Michigan, 
these 
leaders 
acknowledged 
that it needs to be administered 
statewide to become effective.
As a result of this study, the 
state of Michigan now has the 
capability to identify the areas 
that need to be prioritized in 
terms 
of 
socioeconomic 
and 
environmental restoration. While 
the statewide implementation of 
this tool is completely feasible, last 
year local and state government 
officials were restricted by the 
lame-duck session, the period 
between an election and the end 
of a lawmaker’s term. Regulations 

were 
to 
proceed 
only 
with 
legislative approval for those new 
operations that exceed federal 
standards. In other words, a vital 
assessment tool that measures 
the extent that environmental 
injustice occurring in our state is 
being limited to a legislative body 
that may or may not understand 
the importance of its immediate 
implementation.
I believe that this tool is 
groundbreaking 
and 
should 
be considered a top priority in 
existing efforts to improve our 
quality of life in Michigan. As 
this tool seeks to identify areas 
of environmental weakness and 
public health shortcomings, I 
believe that a sustainable future 
will be possible with similar tools 
that can be used for restoring 
socioeconomic 
equality 
along 
with a flourishing environment. 
As a student who has invested 
much of my attention and efforts 
into this University that serves 
the student body, I am extremely 
proud of the work that our 
graduate students have done for 
our community and urge that this 
University waste no opportunity 
to promote the beneficial work 
our students do for our state 
legislature.
It’s essential that our state 
legislature 
understands 
the 
necessity 
for 
environmental 
justice 
because, 
as 
we 
can 
expect, a beneficial tool means 
nothing if our legislature doesn’t 
understand why it should be used. 
The greatest misunderstanding 
comes 
from 
neglecting 
marginalized communities, and 
this neglect comes from having 
a 
predisposed 
discrimination 
against a type of person or group 
for what they are. Furthermore, 
it’s important that we urge our 
government not to neglect those 
who are underprivileged and 
disadvantaged because we are 
indirectly hindering the quality of 
our environment as a result. 
There 
is 
a 
plaque 
commemorating 
the 
loss 
of 
Iceland’s first glacier to global 
warming 
that 
reads: 
“This 
monument is to acknowledge that 
we know what is happening and 
what needs to be done. Only you 
know if we did it.” For the sake 
of our future, we must do what 
needs to be done, especially since 
we now know how.

L

ast week, Sen. Elizabeth 
Warren, 
D-Mass., 
announced her plan for 
criminal justice reform. The 
plan contains a host of changes 
to the current system, but 
one in particular stands out: 
ending the cash bail system. She 
joins eight other presidential 
candidates who also support 
eliminating cash bail. 
To be clear, this does not 
mean eliminating all forms of 
money bail, which the state of 
California did last year. Cash 
bail is one of the primary forms 
of money bail in the United 
States. Another more common 
form is through a bail agent. A 
court will determine a certain 
amount of money to be paid, 
and, rather than pay the full 
amount, the defendant will pay 
a bail agent a small percentage 
of it, which the defendant does 
not get back. If the defendant 
does not show up for court, 
the bail agent must pay the full 
amount, but they can go after 
the person’s assets to be repaid. 
Cash bail, however, is when the 
defendant pays the full bail 
amount to the court and gets 
most of it back (there usually is 
a fee) after showing up for all of 
their proceedings.
The 
problem 
with 
this 
system is that many people 
cannot afford to pay the full 
amount for bail. This puts 
them in the position of having 
to decide whether to go to 
jail or go to a bail bondsman, 
which will be more expensive 
in the long run. In addition, 
courts know that bail agents 
initially require their clients to 
only pay a percentage of their 
bail, so they will set a higher 
amount if they suspect that 
a defendant will go to a bail 
agent. Faced with this choice, 
many defendants choose to go 
to jail. This may be why almost 
half a million people in jail 

have not been convicted. The 
justice system is slow, meaning 
those awaiting trial can spend 
many months or even years 
behind bars.
The 
impacts 
of 
that 
incarceration can be tragic, 
such is the case of Djibril 
Niyomugabo. In Grand Rapids 
in January 2016, Niyomugabo 
was 
charged 
with 
stealing 
a bottle of wine from a car, 
to which he pled not guilty. 
Because he could not post bail, 
he was held in jail. A few days 
later, he was found unconscious 
with 
a 
bedsheet 
wrapped 
around his neck. He was taken 
to a hospital in Grand Rapids 
and died two days later.
Furthermore, 
the 
flaws 
in 
the 
cash 
bail 
system 
disproportionately 
affect 
minorities, 
specifically 
African 
Americans 
and 
Latinx 
individuals. 
Courts 
were less likely to release a 
Black defendant on their own 
recognizance than they were 
white defendants. In addition, 
Black defendants between 18 
and 29 were given higher bail 
amounts than defendants of any 
other race or age.

The problems do not end once 
people are let out. Those who 
are incarcerated for anytime 
longer than a few days can lose 
their jobs, making it harder to 
get their lives back together 
if released. If the defendant 

has a family, losing income 
can make it difficult to make 
ends meet. To avoid putting 
that strain on themselves or 
their families, defendants will 
sometimes simply plead guilty. 
That decision can subject them 
to harsh fines and years of 
probation. In addition, having 
a criminal record makes it 
much harder to get a job, get 
into school and access certain 
public 
benefits. 
This 
also 
increases that likelihood of a 
false conviction, which means 
the real perpetrator would go 
unpunished.
It does not have to be like 
this. There are alternatives 
to a cash bail system, such as 
one Washington, D.C. began 
implementing 
as 
far 
back 
as the 1990s. Rather than 
forcing people to pay money to 
maintain their freedom, they 
determine which defendants 
are most likely to show up for 
trial as well as which ones are 
threats to public safety and 
make a judgment on whether 
to jail them. In this system, 89 
percent of defendants appear 
for their proceedings.
The injustices in the cash 
bail system undermine the 
integrity of the criminal justice 
system as a whole. It is a system 
that jails people based not on 
their guilt or the threat they 
pose to the public, but on their 
ability to pay. Resolving this 
issue is critical to fighting the 
United States’s problem with 
mass 
incarceration. 
Former 
Vice 
President 
Joe 
Biden, 
despite 
having 
worked 
on 
the 1994 crime bill that many 
progressives have pointed to 
as being deeply flawed, has 
changed his position on cash 
bail. It is well past time for the 
country to follow suit.

How cash bail is deeply flawed

Kianna Marquez can be reached at 

kmarquez@umich.edu.

CHAND RAJENDRA-NICOLUCCI | COLUMN

Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci can be 

reached at chandrn@umich.edu.

Big data is coming to college campuses

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JOEL WEINER | COLUMN

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The problems 
do not end once 
people are let 
out

Schools will need 

to avoid simply 

automating historical 

stereotypes and biases

A beneficial tool means 

nothing if our legislature 

doesn’t understand why 

it should be used