M

ake America Great Again 
— the motto of our current 
president, in reference to the 
distressed economy of the United States 
during the 2016 election. What if, how-
ever, America was never great in the first 
place? What if America does not need to 
return to the past, but reach for a new 
level of greatness? A 2017 survey from 
the Pew Research Center shows that a 
good proportion, right around 85 per-
cent, of Americans believe the U.S. either 
“stands above all other countries in the 
world” or is “one of the greatest coun-
tries, along with others.” The American 
population is patriotic and proud, but 
this patriotism blinds us from our faults. 
The idea that we are not great now, but 
must return to “former glory,” is claim-
ing that America used to be great despite 
its systemically racist institutions, mas-
sive economic inequality, disorganized 
healthcare system, horrific carbon 
emissions and more. America must not 
ignore these failures. It is easy to not 
feel the real urgency of a crisis until you 
see it with your own eyes. However, as a 
nation with a population of over 300 mil-
lion people, Americans must change this 
backward way of thinking to address 
these domestic problems.
Americans seem to have a sense of 
immunity when it comes to serious 
threats. We think because we are “above 
all other countries,” we will do things 
the best way possible and trust the gov-
ernment to ensure this. However, our 
government has proven itself extremely 
flawed and incompetent with respect 
to the deeply-rooted race problems 
embedded in our society as a result 
of slavery and in response to the 
COVID-19 pandemic. 
In American high schools, we were 
taught that the United States was por-
trayed as the savior. When other nations 
were struggling with corrupt leaders or 
war, the U.S. would step in and save the 
day with democracy (even if this meant 
replacing a just leader with a corrupt 
one). This teaching instills a sense of 
superiority in the American popula-
tion. As the 2017 Pew Research Center 
survey indicated that only 14 percent of 
Americans believe there are nations bet-
ter than the U.S., the people in power 
have failed at holding the government 
accountable for our own humanitarian 
crisis — the systemic and blatant racism 
that continues to plague this nation. 
This false sense of superiority has also 
led to the failure of containing COVID-
19, as only 56 percent of American adults 
view COVID-19 as a “real threat” as of 
March 17, 2020, which shows a drop of 
10 percentage points from the previous 
month. Similar to taking personal action 
against global warming, many Ameri-
cans prefer to not inconvenience them-

selves, often at the expense of others, 
because they have not seen the threat 
with their own eyes and therefore feel 
falsely immune to worldwide threats. It 
may be inconvenient to shop in person 
rather than online, eat less meat, recy-
cle, compost and use reusable cups, but 
these are small everyday changes that 
would make a difference towards a 
more sustainable future — just like 
wearing a mask can lower COVID-19 
transmission levels.
According to a PBS Marist poll, the 
percentage of Americans that view 
the pandemic as a “real threat” has 
decreased from February to March, 
while COVID-19 cases in the United 
States have continued to increase. Last 
year, I took a class called Philosophy 183: 
Critical Reasoning with Professor Anna 
Edmonds, a LEO Lecturer I. This class 
focused on the failures our brain makes 
when reasoning. One failure we studied 
was how the brain feels more comfort-
able with risks it has already survived. 
Once we have survived a risk for a period 
of time, the risk feels less and less scary, 
even if the probability of a negative out-
come remains the same or increases. 
As Americans continue to survive this 
pandemic without contracting COVID, 
their already heightened sense of 
immunity will only increase. 
America has done many great things 
of which its citizens should be proud 
of. The values of liberty and justice that 
define our goals in a democracy are great. 
But these values have not been achieved. 
The Pledge of Allegiance states, “with 
liberty and justice for all.” The U.S. has 
allowed this pledge to only apply to the 
white and wealthy of this nation for too 
long, with support for Black Lives Mat-
ter maxing at around 40 percent until 
the current rise of the movement.
It is time for Americans to wake up to 
reality and acknowledge that although 
greatness is achievable, we aren’t 
close. The first step toward progress is 
acknowledging that we as a nation are 
flawed. It has taken centuries for white 
Americans to realize how significant 
race inequity is throughout our judi-
cial, housing, law enforcement systems 
and more. Perhaps if students were 
taught current and historical crises in 
our own country and not just abroad, 
white Americans would be more able to 
reflect and make a change. If we want 
our nation to function as coherent and 
equitable and be truly great someday, we 
must hold our government accountable 
to protect the rights of ALL Americans, 
and be willing to sacrifice small incon-
veniences, like wearing a mask, for the 
greater good of the world.

5

Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
5
OP
OPINION
ON

America, look in the mirror

LIZZY PEPPERCORN | COLUMNIST

Lizzy Peppercorn can be reached at 

epepperc@umich.edu.

MAEVE SKELLY | COLUMNIST

T

he COVID-19 pandemic has 
forced colleges and universi-
ties in the United States to 
consider and implement alternative 
“public health-informed” fall semes-
ters. Many schools are trying to avoid 
an all-online semester, but as cases con-
tinue to rise in the U.S., remote classes 
are becoming increasingly unavoid-
able. On July 6, less than two months 
before most colleges are set to reopen, 
President Donald Trump’s adminis-
tration released a statement through 
the U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement that had the potential to 
further complicate potential reopen-
ing plans. According to the Student 
and Exchange Visitor Program, 
if a college is offering solely online 
classes, international students attend-
ing school would have two choices: 
transfer to a college offering some 
in-person classes or leave the country. 
On Tuesday, July 14, ICE rescinded 
this policy. While this is a huge win 
for international students, this rule 
should have never been proposed in 
the first place, and should force U.S. 
universities to reckon with the fact that 
international students are valued not 
for any potential economic contribu-
tions, but because they are students. 
This policy would have been a gross 
human rights violation that would 
have harmed international students. 
Every student has the right to learn 
and if they are here on a visa, the 
right to feel safe without the threat of 
removal. This policy infringes on both 
of those rights. Students who signed a 
lease for the academic semester would 
have been stuck with it, searching for 
a subletter in a market that has little to 
no demand. Students who are in their 

last year of school would no longer be 
able to graduate as planned, plunging 
them into further uncertainty and pil-
ing on financial difficulties. Students 
whose visas expire after the academic 
year would not be able to have them 
renewed, leaving them unable to 
return to the U.S. to finish their 
degree. Students forced to leave the 
U.S. would potentially be returning 
to unstable environments unsuit-
able for academic work and face 
challenges posed by faulty internet 
connection, inability to access edu-
cational resources, disruptive time 
differences and unsafe health condi-
tions in the midst of the pandemic.
Since ICE announced its student 
visa policy, many have invoked the 
economic benefits of international 
students as a counterargument. Uni-
versities in the U.S. have long relied on 
the revenue generated by international 
students’ tuition (international stu-
dents pay up to three times more than 
in-state students at public universities) 
and the fact that international students 
contribute $39 billion to the national 
economy. These arguments are harm-
ful in opposing human rights violations 
perpetrated by ICE. To reduce interna-
tional students to their economic value 
is degrading. To suggest that their 
rights should be protected relative to 
that economic value is immoral.
ICE has a disturbing reputation of 
dehumanizing those who do not enjoy 
the privileges of United States citizen-
ship. To defend international students 
from ICE based on their economic sta-
tus neglects the activism and struggle 
of marginalized groups — especially 
refugees, migrant workers and other 
undocumented individuals — that 

have long fought to abolish ICE with-
out the benefit of robust economic 
power. International students deserve 
protection from ICE not because of 
their economic contributions, but 
because everyone — from the wealthi-
est international student to the hum-
blest refugee at the border — deserves 
safety, dignity and belonging. 
Beyond defending basic human 
rights, this policy would have made 
even less sense on the stage of the glob-
al COVID-19 pandemic, and will likely 
increase the spread of the disease. The 
U.S. has over one million international 
students each year. Deporting even a 
fraction of these students and forcing 
them to travel in unsafe conditions 
creates a large risk for a second wave 
of COVID-19 to affect other countries 
that may have recovered or controlled 
the spread. The policy also would 
have put international students 
themselves at risk for contracting 
COVID-19 if forced to leave their 
current homes in the U.S. 
In the policy, ICE stated that inter-
national students would have the 
option to transfer to a school that is 
offering in-person classes. However, 
this option to transfer is not a true 
alternative. ICE made its announce-
ment less than two months before the 
beginning of the semester, rendering it 
nearly impossible for students to trans-
fer to another university based solely 
on the timing of application deadlines. 

Masked xenophobia under ICE’s rescinded student ban

Maeve Skelly is a senior in the 

Gerald R. Ford School of Public 

Policy and can be reached at 

skellym@umich.edu.

Read more at MichiganDaily.

Graphic by Hibah Chughtai

