7-Opinion

M

y worst habit involves 
reading the comments 
and quote tweets on 

The New York Times articles about 
sexual 
misconduct 
allegations. 

They are, without fail, a dumpster 
fire of victim blaming. However, 
given 
the 
well-corroborated 

account of New York Gov. Andrew 
Cuomo’s sexual harassment of 
former aide, Charlotte Bennett, I 
thought the discourse might reflect 
reality. 

No such luck. 
It doesn’t matter that the 

simplest explanation is that Cuomo 
did, in fact, do what he’s accused 
of, at least in the case of Bennett. 
For some, it is apparently easier to 
believe that Bennett lied to both 
Cuomo’s Chief of Staff and the 
administration’s special counsel 
and 
planted 
contemporaneous 

text messages to several different 
people only to sit on the lies for 
months to wait for a convenient 
time to let them blossom. I haven’t 
heard anyone outright suggest that 
she did all of those things, even 
defenders of Cuomo, probably 
because it would be ridiculous. 
Skeptics of sexual misconduct 
allegations hold themselves to a 
low standard. It is simple to invoke 
a horrible hypothetical without 
considering 
publicly 
available 

information, but that doesn’t make 
it smart or logical.

For some, it seems it is 

easier to believe that Cuomo’s 
lack of a categorical denial is 
inconsequential. 
However, 

Cuomo 
has 
denied 
other 

allegations — his press secretary 
called an earlier allegation of 
sexual harassment by a different 
woman “quite simply false.” In 
other words, if he could plausibly 
deny Bennett’s accusation, his 
own history indicates that he 
would. To me, the cries that 
Bennett is lying or that we must 
wait to pass judgment ring 
hollow. Cuomo has rights within 
the American legal system, but in 
the court of public opinion, I don’t 
know what stops people from 
simply being rational. 

Cuomo 
even 
issued 
a 

pseudo-apology, 
emphasizing 

that he never touched anyone 
inappropriately (Bennett does not 

accuse him of touching her) but 
that he may have made people feel 
uncomfortable without knowing 
he was doing so. Whether he 
intended to harass Bennett is 
irrelevant to her experience of 
harassment. 

So let’s recap: Cuomo is accused 

of sexual harassment, and the 
accuser has an extensive paper trail 
to back up her claim. Cuomo has 
not denied all the allegations but 
has issued something that appears 
to be an apology. Same page? 

I believe Charlotte Bennett 

because I am typically far more 
willing to risk the small chance 
that someone who has experienced 
sexual misconduct or harassment is 
lying than the much larger chance 
that they are is telling the truth. 
In refusing to believe a survivor, 
one makes their worst nightmare 
even harder. You should believe 
Bennett, and the other women 
making 
accusations 
against 

Cuomo, because they are believable 
allegations. 

There is more research on the 

instances of false allegations of 
rape (somewhere between 2-10% 
are false) than instances of false 
allegations of harassment, but 
given it all falls under the umbrella 
of sexual misconduct, similar 
principles likely apply. Yes, false 
allegations are rare, but even the 
ones that do happen do not look 
like what Bennett asserts. For 
example, studies have repeatedly 
shown that a common type of 
false allegation is one that comes 
from a teenage girl looking to 
avoid trouble with her parents. 
In those cases, it is almost always 
the parents who get authorities 
involved, after which the truth 
usually comes out pretty quickly. 
Another common type of false 
allegation comes from those who 
use it in order to obtain medical 
care or medication.

False accusers, much like real 

perpetrators, also often show 
a string of similar behavior. 
They may have a history of 
filing personal injury claims or 
committing fraud. But the most 
important characteristic of most 
false allegations is that, if they were 
true, they would be can’t-look-away 
horrifying (which is certainly not 

to say that horrifying allegations 
can’t also be true). These are 
the 
aggravated 
assault 
cases; 

the University of Virginia case 
documented in the now infamous 
Rolling Stones article is a good 
example.

False accusers want shock and 

action, so they wouldn’t make 
an accusation like the one made 
by Bennett, which involves no 
physical violence and one which 
any woman with access to the 
internet would know would be 
met with a solid contingent of 
people questioning whether or 
not it was ‘actually bad.’ 

Some may say it doesn’t matter 

whether they believe Bennett 
because Cuomo deserves due 
process anyway. For the wealth 
of other allegations that have 
been made, allegations which he 
disputes, I would agree. But the 
original calls for an investigation 
arose after Bennett came forward. 

As author and lawyer Alexandra 

Brodsky points out, investigations 
are for disputes and, insofar as she 
can tell, there is no dispute here. 
Bennett said she was sexually 
harassed, and Cuomo conceded 
that what he did might have 
made 
others 
uncomfortable. 

“Uncomfortable” is euphemistic, 
but it definitely isn’t a denial. 

Even if Cuomo manages to 

dodge the ever-growing chorus 
of voices asking him to resign, 
the question of whether we 
believe Bennett matters now. The 
investigation provides him time 
to let news cycles pass, to let other 
scandals take precedent. 

The 
investigation 
into 
a 

matter which the governor has 
seemingly 
already 
apologized 

for shifts the conversation from 
an 
uncomfortable 
one 
about 

workplace ethics to a familiar one 
about procedure. The conversation 
we need to be having is this: In 
the plausible event that Bennett’s 
accusations are true, what should 
happen? 

He should resign. And all of the 

not-that-bad naysayers need to take 
a hard look at their own workplace 
behavior.

F

ar from the 1960s American 
promise of a nuclear family — 
a heterosexual couple, their 2 

to 3 children and a stable unionized 
job with a guaranteed pension — 
college students now face a complex 
and troubling outlook. Today, many 
American 
college 
students 
and 

recent graduates are confronted by 
egregious student loans, a significant 
barrier to economic mobility in the 
United States. 

Not only are excessive loans a 

driving reason for students to drop 
out of school, but over half of indebted 
graduates claim that their loans 
have decreased their credit scores 
and forced them to delay saving for 
emergencies. 
Unfortunately, 
the 

brunt of this burden is on minority 
communities. 
Specifically, 
Black 

college graduates on average owe 
$25,000 more than their white 
counterparts. These diverse students 
have 
fewer 
job 
opportunities, 

contributing to the fact that default 
rates are 36% and 49% among 
Hispanic 
and 
Black 
borrowers, 

respectively, compared to just 21% 
among whites.

This amounts to an American 

crisis affecting the way 53% of 
borrowers choose their careers. It 
also decreases entrepreneurship and 
overall economic consumption while 
precipitously increasing household 
debt, and the problem is only getting 
worse, with student debt slowly 
encroaching on overall household 
spending.

In 2019, the average student 

owed $30,062 upon graduation, 
which represents about a 26% 
increase over the last decade. 
Furthermore, the average 2019 
college graduate makes $53,889 
per year. The average loan payment 
is $393 per month, which means 
that the average graduate uses 
8.75% of their yearly salary on loan 
repayment. Compounding on this, 
recent graduates of color typically 
have fewer opportunities for recent 
graduates. 

Now, while it is easy to dismiss 

this as an issue plaguing some 
individuals who were swindled 
into signing onto unaffordable 
loans, this is actually a systemic 
failure that has spiraled into a 

crisis that threatens our economy 
on multiple levels. At the micro-
level, college dropouts make 35% 
less than graduates, which, in 2011, 
amounted to $3.8 billion per year 
in lost wages and likely more in lost 
economic output. At the macro-
level, the federal government 
holds $1.5 trillion in student loan 
debt,accounting 
for 
29.8% 
of 

all government assets. Holding 
these high-risk assets is costing 
taxpayers $170 billion from 2017 to 
2026. The current trajectory of this 
crisis, especially due to the onset 
of the COVID-19 pandemic, is 
untenable. Our government needs 
to formulate a comprehensive, 
multi-pronged 
approach 
to 

mitigate this impending crisis 
and develop more opportunities 
for economic mobility through 
education.

Now, many at the federal 

level have devoted a significant 
amount of time and effort to fix 
the problem, specifically proposals 
from Sens. Elizabeth Warren, 
D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., 
for the cancellation of student debt. 

While both of these are admirable 
efforts that would make the 
problem better than it is currently, 
there are two main issues. 

Primarily, the idea is politically 

infeasible. But even if it weren’t, it 
would only provide an economic 
multiplier of 0.08x to 0.23x, which 
are both low returns — especially 
relative to infrastructure spending 
that provides a 1.6x multiplier 
in a recession. Instead, many on 
the more moderate end of the 
spectrum have chosen to advocate 
for modest reforms like increasing 
the availability of Pell Grants or 
switching the system to income-
based loan repayment, both of 
which would help mitigate the 
crisis.

With that being said, I personally 

prefer a more market-based solution. 
Specifically, to free working capital, 
the 
federal 
government 
should 

increase the scope of the current 
Public Service Loan Forgiveness 
program. Currently, PSLF forgives 
federal student loans for those who 
have paid loans on time and worked 
for ten years in the government, a 

nonprofit, AmeriCorps or the Peace 
Corps. However, if the government 
were to expand the program through 
a public-private partnership, they 
could vastly increase the number 
of jobs that are available to recent 
graduates and decrease the amount 
of outstanding student loan debt.

The system could operate in four 

different funding categories: large 
and medium-sized businesses (above 
100 employees), small businesses 
(100 employees and under), 501(c)(3) 
nonprofits and state governments 
and federal agencies. All businesses 
participating must meet certain 
diversity 
standards 
and 
a 
$15 

minimum wage. 

In 
exchange, 
the 
federal 

government 
would 
introduce 
a 

matching program: providing 50% of 
the new hires’ salaries (up to $50,000 
per year per employee) in treasury 
bonds at large and medium businesses, 
75% of the new hires’ salaries (up 
to $75,000 per year per employee) 
in subsidies at small businesses and 
nonprofits and a Medicaid-like dollar-
for-dollar matching program with 
state governments.

In order to incentivize students to 

go into small businesses, nonprofits 
and 
government 
careers, 
PSLF 

requirements would be altered based 
on the category. For small businesses 
and government, students would 
have to work for seven years. For 
nonprofits, students would only have 
to work for five years.

This desperately needed update 

to the PSLF would free students 
from the shackles of student loans 
more quickly while ensuring that the 
backers of these loans retrieve their 
principal. This, in turn, would create 
a large multiplier whose shockwaves 
would be felt across the nation, 
providing a sustainable roadmap for 
long-term growth. 

With that being said, there are 

many other ways of fixing this 
uniquely American problem, and, 
no matter your ideology, you should 
do the research and get behind one 
solution to student debt — our elected 
officials won’t fix this issue unless we 
make them.

U

niversity 
of 
Michigan 

students are bad at failing. 
While there is no doubt 

that we form a community of 
extraordinary go-getters, it is often a 
fear of failure, rather than a passion 
for success, that propels us. In a 
highly-competitive academic setting, 
these fears may develop into chronic 
academic performance anxiety when 
left unchecked. Ironically, a formidable 
solution to our anxieties is to get better 
at doing badly. Here’s how. 

Picture yourself receiving a high 

grade on a test after several grueling 
nights of preparation. “It was all 
worth it,” you acknowledge, beaming. 
Now picture yourself failing that 
same test despite your hours-long 
commitment. Feeling the hole in your 
chest widening, you think to yourself, 
“it was all for nothing,” and you 
criticize yourself for not being capable 
enough. You dedicated the same 
amount of determination and labor in 
both scenarios. Yet, your evaluation 

of the worth of your labor is entirely 
dependent upon the final outcome. 

When our appreciation of our effort 

is entirely conditional like this, our 
sense of worth hinges on an imagined 
outcome that may never unfold the 
way we planned, no matter how much 
we went through in the hopes of 
achieving it. Subsequently, when we 
fail, we feel that it speaks to who we are 
as a person, and this outlook ultimately 
puts us farther away from our goals 
than failure itself does. 

When we permit our failures to 

intersect with our core sense of identity 
and self-esteem, we lose the ability to 
extend compassion toward ourselves 
and others. We become trapped in a 
painful cycle of criticism and anxiety. 
The underlying belief that self-worth 
and happiness is conditional upon 
a narrow view of success actually 
threatens our potential for success 
as it inhibits our ability to adapt to 
challenges in the future. It even 
threatens our ability to learn.

Performance anxiety rests on 

the false assumption that the most 
gratifying step toward a goal is 
achieving 
it. 
This 
is 
a 
misunderstanding. 

The final result of our successes is 
not the most meaningful part of our 
journey. Accomplishments have value 
because of the knowledge and skill 
we gain in our effort to achieve them. 
For example, you might not value an 
accomplishment that took little effort 
on your part, but one that took years 
of training and preparation is cause 
for immense celebration. Because 
the value of our hard work is actually 
independent from the final result, 
hard-earned failure can hold the same 
value as hard-earned accomplishment. 
In order to feel good about ourselves, 
we need to appreciate the equal 
value of failure. From this expanded 
viewpoint, we are able to honor our 
shortcomings and bounce back from 
feelings of inadequacy. 

Another 
challenge 
to 
our 

relationship with success and failure is 

our tendency to compare our suffering 
against our peers’ suffering as a metric 
for success. For example, when we 
observe our classmates pulling all-
nighters and living on caffeine, we 
worry that we ourselves are not doing 
enough. 

This mode of thinking is like 

watching a race. As a runner reaches 
the finish, you notice that she had 
been running with a knife in her foot. 
You assume that she won because 
of the knife in her foot rather than 
in spite of it. When it is your turn to 
compete, you proceed to stick a knife 
in your own foot, thinking that this 
will aid your success. Clearly, this is 
an irrational and inefficient mode of 
approaching success. When we use 
comparison of suffering to measure 
success, we cultivate disingenuous 
motivation. This kind of motivation 
is founded in insecurity, anxiety-
driven 
productivity 
and 
self-

resentment. While perpetuating this 
negative feedback loop may lead to 

“success,” it leaves us feeling so dead 
inside that we lose the ability to enjoy 
and appreciate what we are working 
toward in the first place. The more 
fulfilling 
source 
of 
motivation 

is internal — it lives within us in 
the form of hope, passion and 
commitment. We can avoid undue 
suffering by cultivating genuine 
motivation. 

Constantly 
feeling 
exhausted 

and overworked is not a virtue. It 
is an inability to understand the 
source of success. Success is not how 
much suffering you can endure, but 
rather how much suffering you can 
let go of, knowing that passion and 
determination will be there to carry 
you once you let go of fear-driven 
perfectionism. Academic performance 
anxiety can be useful to give us the 
boosts we need in small increments, 
but running on it for years is draining 
and destructive toward our physical 
health, ultimately depriving us of 
happiness. 

Living life from a place of fear 

retracts from our limitless personal 
potential. 
Before 
we 
enter 
the 

professional world, U-M students need 
to dissect whether our fear of failure 
stems from a fear that we are not 
productive and valuable human beings 
at our core. 

Students can move away from this 

fear by developing a greater sense 
of self-compassion. This may seem 
simple, but it is far from a magic trick. 
Mindfulness practices constitute a 
family of research-backed therapeutic 
approaches to tackling low self-esteem 
and anxiety. By practicing powerful 
mindfulness techniques, we can 
create space between ourselves and 
our negative thought loops, enabling 
us to observe and correct damaging 
patterns without judgment. 

Hopefully, we will fail a few times in 

the process.

Opinion
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

BRITTANY BOWMAN | MANAGING EDITOR 

KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST

ALEXIS HANCZ | COLUMNIST

Jessie Mitchell can be reached at 

jessiemi@umich.edu.

Brittany Bowman can be reached at 

babowm@umich.edu. 

Keith Johnstone can be reached at 

keithja@umich.edu.

Alexis Hancz can be reached at 

ahancz@umich.edu.

W

ith over 130 years of 
independent 
student 

journalism, 
The 

Michigan Daily’s mission is to maintain 
“impartiality, fairness and the complete 
truth.” The editorial leadership of 
The Daily holds the concepts of 
journalistic integrity, accountability and 
transparency in the highest regard and 
we — as student journalists, University 
of Michigan students and Ann Arbor 
residents — derive a deep sense of 
gratitude and appreciation for the 
opportunities and responsibilities this 
institution has afforded us. 

That said, in order to maintain 

transparency and hold ourselves 
accountable in pursuing that mission, 
we are notifying our readers that on 
Feb. 28, The Daily’s Managing Editor 
discovered numerous instances of 
plagiarism during the editing process 
in an ultimately unpublished Arts 
column submission. A day later, the 
individual who was found to have 
plagiarized — an Arts writer and The 
Statement contributor — was notified 
of their termination as a Daily staffer. 
As stated in The Daily’s bylaws, “A 
violation of these bylaws and/or the 
ethics code is cause for dismissal. … 
Plagiarism is a fireable offense, but 
should be considered in the context 
of the situation.” Per the bylaws, the 
individual appealed the firing, inviting 
a formal investigation and hearing 
to take place. Over the course of the 

following week, the Managing Editor 
met with a panel of nine editors across 
three sections to review all published 
articles by the individual to check for 
any other instances of plagiarism. 

Unfortunately, in addition to the 

latest unpublished column submission 
by the individual, four other articles 
published 
September 
2020 
to 

December 2020 were found to have 
varying levels of plagiarism. Since the 
individual appealed the firing, The 
Daily’s Management Desk met on 
Sunday, March 14, to review the case. 
Management Desk determined that 
the writer’s plagiarism was intentional, 
that the firing should not be overturned 
and that the individual should not 
be allowed to join another section of 
The Daily. Seventy-six Management 
Desk members were present, and all 
three items were passed with majority 
support. 

Over the past two weeks since the 

initial discovery of plagiarism, we have 
taken steps to combat further instances 
of this unethical and unacceptable 
behavior. The Daily’s Copy Desk, as 
well as the Managing Editor, now use a 
plagiarism database checker; between 
the Copy team and the Managing 
Editor, all published editorial content 
will be scanned for plagiarism moving 
forward. 

It is important to note that The 

Daily’s Arts content was not edited by 
the Copy Desk until January of this 

year and, based on comprehensive 
education of no-tolerance policies 
regarding stealing others’ work put 
in place by both The Daily and the 
University, section editors do not 
anticipate occurrences of plagiarism. 
No matter the intent, plagiarism is 
unacceptable and stands in stark 
contrast with the ethical values and 
goals of The Daily. 

With that in mind, the following 

articles containing plagiarism have 
been permanently removed from 
our website: “‘Raised by Wolves’ is 
a religious sci-fi mashup” — Sept. 7, 
2020; “Without live audiences, Ann 
Arbor comedians search for ways to 
perform” — Sept. 24, 2020; “Good dog 
or bad dog? A condensed almanac of 
canines in history” — Oct. 21, 2020; 
“The Humor Column’s guide to off-
campus housing” — Dec. 3, 2020.

As we remain deeply invested in 

maintaining the transparency and 
integrity of The Daily, we apologize 
on behalf of our institution. As student 
journalists, we sincerely hope that this 
incident can be a learning process for 
all those involved and that we can all be 
better for it. It is our honor and privilege 
to provide our community with daily 
content, and we will continue to do 
so with an upgraded standard of fact-
checking and editorial solidarity. 

Instances of plagiarism found in several Daily articles

Fix the damn loans

JESSIE MITCHELL | COLUMNIST

An investigation of what?

We need to get better at failing

BRITTANY BOWMAN

Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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

CLAIRE HAO

Editor in Chief

ELIZABETH COOK 
AND JOEL WEINER

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

Julian Barnard
Zack Blumberg

Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Elizabeth Cook
Brandon Cowit

Jess D’Agostino
Andrew Gerace

Krystal Hur
Min Soo Kim
Jessie Mitchell

Zoe Phillips

Mary Rolfes

Gabrijela Skoko

Elayna Swift

Jack Tumpowsky

Joel Weiner
Erin White