Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, December 2, 2019

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Grace Hermann
Joel Danilewitz

Emily Huhman
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Michael Russo

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Joel Weiner
Erin White 
Lola Yang

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VARNA KODOTH | COLUMN

We cannot continue to fail our suvivors

“

Now that we are speaking, 
let us never shut up about 
this kind of thing. I speak 
up to make certain that this is 
not the kind of misconduct that 
deserves a second chance. I 
speak up to contribute to the end 
of the conspiracy of silence.”
This is from the very end of 
actress Lupita Nyong’o’s op-ed on 
her one-on-one encounters with 
producer Harvey Weinstein in 
The New York Times published 
back in 2017. I reread it now 
and then to better understand 
her story, as it likely shaped her 
as a woman and actress. Maybe 
it’s because I feel that I owe her 
and all the women at least that 
much. No matter how many 
times I try to read it I find myself 
wondering: Where did we fail 
her? How do we continue to fail 
every single female warrior who 
has come forward with their 
truth? I struggle to read through 
all the #MeToo stories because 
I already know the sequence of 
events that follows extremely 
vulnerable, 
courageous 
acts 
like Nyong’o’s: The story gains 
plenty of traction, elicits a strong 
response (typically more so from 
women) but then is forgotten 
over time. Where is the justice in 
this? It is unimaginably difficult 
to offer the world your personal 
story and to speak up about a 
deeply personal experience. 
More specifically, the female 
voices stepping forward from 
the film industry to share their 
harrowing 
experiences 
with 
Weinstein 
deserve 
justice. 
There’s 
a 
power 
difference 
between these actresses and 
Weinstein here that cannot go 
unnoticed. It’s an unfortunate 
thematic 
element 
of 
most 
sexual assault narratives. So 
let’s call it exactly like it is: 
Harvey Weinstein is a white, 
heterosexual established male 
in 
a 
challenging 
industry 
who preys on young, early-
professional women. It brings to 
light the disadvantaged position 
women — and women of color 
in particular — are placed in 
from the moment they choose 

to enter a career in Hollywood.
Every story I read, I am 
taken aback by the confidence 
Weinstein 
presumably 
held: 
the very same confidence that 
drove his ability to mentally 
manipulate budding stars and 
to toy with their passions and 
life paths. Based on the social 
identities he holds, it is not a 
coincidence that he also holds 
dominance 
in 
the 
industry 
and therefore he is cushioned 
by his success. The power 
dynamics are important here 
because what he did is worse 
than 
simply 
disrespecting 
women; he disrespected their 
hard work. It’s the same reason 
why Weinstein is able to plead 

not guilty despite the damning 
evidence and the same reason 
why he’s comfortable making 
a public appearance though he 
is soon to be on trial and faces 
rape allegations. 
Just the other week, at 
Rutgers University, a minor 
was arrested for sneaking into 
the Livingston dormitory on 
campus and sexually assaulting 
a college student. What scares 
me is that, as I read this, I 
didn’t feel phased by the story. 
It wasn’t until I read a follow-
up on the case a few days later 
that I reflected and began to 
feel disturbed by the young 
age of the assailant and the 
fact that this took place in 
what’s supposed to be a safe, 
on-campus location with card 
swipes and security. Stories 
like this are happening all the 

time, all over the world, and 
while there is media coverage 
of higher-profile situations, 
it doesn’t seem there are any 
steps taken to prevent this 
from happening again and 
again. This is the crux of the 
situation. When, and how do 
we start making strides to fix 
it?
I particularly struggle to 
read 
the 
Weinstein-related 
sexual 
harassment 
stories 
because 
I 
always 
wonder 
how Weinstein changed the 
feelings of his victims toward 
their hard-earned work. I 
learn about the strong women 
behind the words and I want 
to help them in the only way 
that I can: I want their stories 
to be heard and I want it to be 
their narrative. Sharing stories 
is an incredible and powerful 
practice and I am proud that 
there are mediums and safe 
spaces for these stories to 
be shared, increasingly so 
in contrast to the rest of the 
world. Yet, there needs to be 
a purpose to sharing these 
stories. There needs to be some 
reciprocation from the social 
justice end. 
We cannot afford to let 
Weinstein 
slip 
through 
the cracks. We cannot let 
Weinstein 
re-enter 
the 
public 
sphere. 
We 
cannot 
continuously fail the victims 
of sexual assault. We cannot 
continue to only listen to these 
voices and then not confront 
reality. The justice system is 
absolutely failing our victims, 
but so are we. We must actively 
support and advocate for the 
victims, as victims shouldn’t 
be the only advocates. So until 
Weinstein goes to trial on Jan. 
6, 2020, don’t just sit back and 
watch what happens. Educate 
yourself on the allegations, 
read the victim cases and 
actively support the survivors 
who bravely share a piece of 
themselves with us. 

Varna Kodoth can be reached at 

vkodoth@umich.edu.

ALANNA BERGER | COLUMN

Billionaire tears
I

n early November, Michael 
Bloomberg, billionaire and 
former mayor of New York 
City, entered the 2020 Democratic 
primary for president of the United 
States. Bloomberg entered the race 
to add to the moderate lane because 
apparently one billionaire and 
another mayor of New York City just 
weren’t enough. 
Bloomberg’s entry into the race 
could be motivated by concerns 
about the rise of Sen. Elizabeth 
Warren, D-Mass., and her wealth 
tax, which would tax two cents 
on every dollar of one’s assets 
beyond $50 million. This policy 
would 
disproportionately 
affect 
billionaires, because billionaires 
own a disproportionate amount of 
wealth in the U.S. In fact, the top 
three richest men in America — 
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren 
Buffett — own more wealth than 
the entire bottom 50 percent of 
the U.S. population, which is about 
160 million people. It is important 
to note that gender and racial 
disparities in wealth inequality are 
particularly prevalent in the U.S. Yet, 
Bloomberg isn’t alone in attacking 
Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 
stances against billionaires. In fact, 
Bloomberg’s 
fellow 
billionaires 
Leon Cooperman, Gates, Mark 
Zuckerberg, Ken Lagone and Jamie 
Dimon have also criticized Warren 
and Sanders for their commentary 
on billionaires. 
Coopeman came out in support 
of Bloomberg’s candidacy, saying: 
“He understands how the world 
works. He’s not a hater.” 
Later in the month, Cooperman 
responded to an ad by Warren’s 
campaign 
that 
addressed 
billionaires, 
saying: 
“She’s 
disgraceful. She doesn’t know who 
the f*** she’s tweeting. I gave away 
more in the year than she has in her 
whole f***ing lifetime.” 
The billionaire feels threatened. 
Poor billionaires. Well, except for 
the fact that neither Warren nor 
Sanders’ tax policies for billionaires 
would substantially reduce their 
amount of money. 
In response to the growing 
whining by billionaires, Warren 
released 
her 
billionaire 
tax 
calculator. It has ready calculations 
of how much billionaires like 
Bloomberg and Republican donor 
Charles Koch would pay under her 

wealth tax. Bloomberg’s estimated 
net worth is about $54 billion; 
he would pay about $3 billion in 
taxes, leaving him with a meager 
$51 billion. Gates, who recently 
complained about Warren taxing 
him $100 billion, would be taxed 
about $6 billion, leaving him with a 
paltry $101 billion. 
Some argue that we should 
be 
thankful 
for 
philanthropic 
billionaires like Bill Gates. Gates, 
famous for being a co-founder of 
Microsoft, also co-founded the Bill 
and Melinda Gates Foundation. It 
wasn’t for purely altruistic motives, 
though. 
Anand 
Giridharadas, 
author of “Winners Take All: The 
Elite Charade of Changing the 
World,” has said, “Gates was the 
first one who really started and 
shifted his image really drastically 
from sort of … well, Darth Vader (by 
engaging in philanthropy).” 

To 
be 
fair, 
the 
Gates 
Foundation has done a lot of good 
in the public health realm — such 
as supporting efforts to eradicate 
malaria, improving access to 
vaccines and expanding access 
to contraception worldwide. Still, 
Bill and Melinda Gates donated 
only $4.78 billion in 2017, which 
is about a billion and a half less 
than what they would pay under 
Warren’s wealth tax. It is also 
important to note a billionaire’s 
philanthropic 
donations 
are 
not guaranteed; they could stop 
flowing or significantly decrease 
at any moment. Philanthropy is 
not a substitute for taxation. A 
plan like Warren’s or Sanders’ 
would guarantee they pay their 
fair share to society. 
Warren’s wealth tax could be 
used to fund universal childcare, 
student loan debt cancellation, 
universal free college and more. 
Her six-cent tax on every dollar 
in net worth over $1 billion will 

be used to pay for Medicare 
For All, which would guarantee 
health care to every single 
American as a basic human 
right. 
What’s 
really 
frustrating 
about this entire conversation 
is that we are only listening to 
these people because they have 
a lot of money. Billionaire Tom 
Steyer has bought his place on to 
the Democratic debate stage — 
by spending $10 million dollars 
just to gain $1 from the required 
130,000 donors — and continues 
to survive in the race because 
he can spend millions on TV 
ads. Being the CEO of a popular 
coffee company or being a hedge 
fund manager does not make 
you qualified to be president of 
the U.S. any more than being a 
reality TV host and fraudulent 
real estate businessman does. 
Why aren’t we seeing the 
same amount of — or more — 
coverage of people whom these 
policies would help? Where 
are the interviews of people 
working three jobs to support 
their families or those who are 
being crushed with medical 
debt? Why do we care more 
about the opinions of a few rich 
people than the millions who 
are not insured at all or the 45 
million people who would have 
their student loan debt canceled 
under Warren’s policy?
Well, 
Americans 
are 
particularly inclined to love rags-
to-riches stories and find rich 
people aspirational. Millionaires 
and billionaires are ostensibly 
the American dream come true. 
And yet, economic inequality 
hurts everyone, even the rich.
Bloomberg’s entry into the 
primary — and the collective 
tears 
of 
billionaires 
— 
is 
emblematic of how people who 
are empowered by the status quo 
will always work to maintain that 
status quo. Power is hard to let 
go. They’ll dig their heels in and 
clench their firsts, but we can 
change the systems that allow the 
rich to get richer while the rest of 
us get poorer. The billionaires are 
scared. And that’s how we know 
we’ve got ‘em.

Marisa Wright can be reached at 

marisadw@umich.edu.

MARISA WRIGHT | COLUMN

How rehab facilities fail their patients
I

n her new podcast series 
“Last Day”, author and 
activist Stephanie Wittels 
Wachs introduces listeners to 
her younger brother, Harris 
Wittels. She begins by detailing 
Wittels’s 
almost 
meteoric 
rise to success as a comedy 
writer, beginning with his 
first major writing job at age 
22 for “The Sarah Silverman 
Program.” From there, Wittels 
was hired as a staff writer for 
NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” 
where he eventually became 
executive producer. In this 
time period, he coined the 
term 
“humblebrag,” 
which 
eventually 
entered 
the 
dictionary and was the basis 
for a book he later published. 
As “Parks and Recreation” 
approached its series finale, 
Wittels was set to move to 
New York City to co-star in 
and write for Aziz Ansari’s 
acclaimed 
series 
“Master 
of None.” But less than a 
week before the “Parks and 
Recreation” 
final 
episode 
aired, Wittels died of a heroin 
overdose at the age of 30.
What many in his life did not 
know was that throughout his 
various successes, Wittels had 
been struggling with substance 
abuse of opioids stemming 
from a previous back injury. 
He had entered and completed 
a 
rehabilitation 
program, 
which 
was 
successful 
for 
some time before he suffered 
a 
relapse. 
Soon, 
Wittels 
turned to injecting heroin for 
a cheaper, stronger high. By 
the time of his death, Wittels 
had completed three stints 
in 
different 
rehabilitation 
facilities. 
The three-time failure of 
rehabilitation 
facilities 
to 
provide lasting recovery for 
Wittels is not an isolated 
case. In fact, between 40 
to 60 percent of those with 
substance abuse problems who 
enter treatment experience 
relapse. The reason for these 
failures is not because of an 
inability on the part of the 
patient to get clean, but an 
institutional failure on the 
part of the facility to provide 
therapeutic 
processes 
that 
actually work. In the United 
States 
today, 
rehabilitation 
for drug and alcohol abuse 
disorders is a multi-billion 
dollar industry, yet it is also 
an 
industry 
that 
fails 
in 
providing lasting recovery for 
those seeking help. In order 
to remedy this issue, society 
must look into why these 
facilities have been able to get 
away with their failures and 
hold them accountable for the 
lack of standards that lead to 
an ineffective system.
For individuals dealing with 
substance 
abuse 
disorders, 
rehabilitation centers are the 
first step on a difficult path to 
recovery. However, there is no 
nationally accepted definition 
of standards for rehabilitation 
facilities. 
This 
lack 
of 
definition means that there 
are no federally regulated 

standards that facilities have 
to meet to be considered 
a 
legally 
sanctioned 
rehabilitation 
center. 
The field of treatment for 
addiction is overwhelmingly 
underregulated and under-
supervised. In many states, 
the process of becoming an 
addiction counselor does not 
even require that one gets 
a high school degree or has 
any specialized training. As a 
result, rehabilitation centers 
continue using old treatment 
programs that do not have 
scientific 
evidence 
that 
supports their effectiveness. 
To 
understand 
the 
programs 
that 
abound 
in 
most rehabilitation facilities, 
it is important to be familiar 
with the “12-step program.” 
This program has been the 
gold standard in addiction 
treatment 
for 
decades. 
In fact, the exact 12-step 
program 
used 
today 
in 
Alcoholics Anonymous was 
first developed more than 
80 years ago, in a time when 
neuroscience was a fledgling 
field of study. Additionally, 
the program was developed to 
largely serve alcohol abusers 
participating 
in 
Alcoholics 
Anonymous, not those with 
addictions to drugs. Ruben 
Baler, a health scientist for 
the 
National 
Institute 
on 
Drug Abuse, emphasizes the 
popularity of these 12-step 
programs but states there is 
no scientific evidence they 
actually work. Baler further 
explains the only evidence 
used 
by 
rehabilitation 
facilities to prove the efficacy 
of such treatment programs is 
purely anecdotal.
The 
widespread 
use 
of 
the 
often 
ineffective 
12-step program is just one 
manifestation of failures in 
addiction treatment. A 2012 
study from the National Center 
on Addiction and Substance 
Abuse at Columbia University 
found that a low number 
of patients with alcohol or 
drug abuse disorders who 
seek 
treatment 
receive 
any care that even closely 
approximates 
evidence-
based care. Instead, many 
rehabilitation facilities pour 
their budgets into treatments 
like equine therapy. While 
such 
facilities 
boast 
the 
benefits of equine therapy as 
stress-relieving 
and 
mood-
boosting, there is no empirical 
data to support claims that 
they help in substance abuse 
recovery. 
In the face of antiquated 
treatment processes, it is no 
wonder why many patients 
at 
rehabilitation 
facilities 
relapse shortly after finishing 
treatment. 
However, 
many 
substance 
abuse 
treatment 
centers boast inflated success 
rates. In fact, many assert 
success 
rates 
of 
over 
80 
percent for their patients. 
Yet, when they are pushed to 
provide evidence to support 
these claims, they are unable 

to do so. In more realistic 
terms, 
the 
generally 
prevailing success rate for 
treatment programs is about 
30 percent. Even after the 
realization that 70 percent 
of patients receive no benefit 
from their time spent in 
rehabilitation 
centers, 
a 
figure many experts still 
believe is too low, the reality 
of rehabilitation treatment 
gets more abysmal. A 2015 
study found that patients who 
solely received psychological 
support in their treatment 
program are twice as likely 
to die from overdoses than 
those who receive opioid 
replacement 
medications 
such as methadone. Despite 
this, 
three-quarters 
of 
substance abuse patients are 
treated without the use of 
replacement medications. 
As the opioid epidemic 
continues 
to 
reach 
crisis 
proportions, the market for 
those in need of treatment 
is as large as ever. When 
done properly, rehabilitation 
centers have the power to 
change lives for the better. 
But a lack of accountability 
and scientific evidence for 
treatment efficacy combined 
with a desire to maximize 
profits create an industry 
that fails its patients. Those 
with 
substance 
disorders 
are led to believe that these 
facilities prioritize patient 
recovery. Yet the fact remains 
that there is more money in 
recurrent patient relapses for 
rehabilitation facilities than 
there is in long-term patient 
recovery. 
Perhaps 
this 
is 
the reason why treatment 
centers continue to utilize 
programs with no scientific 
evidence of their efficacy and 
simply perpetuate a cycle of 
patient recovery and relapse. 
It is a cycle that led to the 
death of Wittels, the famous 
musician Prince and millions 
of 
anonymous 
Americans 
seeking 
treatment. 
If 
rehabilitation centers want 
to become more capable of 
providing lasting recovery, 
they must abandon the 12-step 
program as a one-size-fits-
all 
model. 
Additionally, 
they must increase access 
to 
medication-assisted 
treatment with drugs like 
methadone as an acceptable 
treatment 
model, 
allowing 
patients to ease themselves 
into a longer lasting recovery. 
Finally, the American public 
must hold the rehabilitation 
industry 
accountable 
for 
its unethical practices and 
corruption. In its current 
form, rehabilitation processes 
provide inadequate care to 
give their patients lasting 
recovery. 
By 
implementing 
these changes to the system, 
those 
suffering 
from 
substance abuse disorders can 
access the recovery that is all 
too elusive to them today. 

Alanna Berger can be reached at 

balanna@umich.edu.

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How do we 
continue to fail 
every single 
female warrior 
who has come 
forward?

Philanthropy is 
not a substitute 
for taxation.

