Meet Darnell Earley, the man who's ruining southeast Michigan, city by city, with no consequences. Earley is currently the emergency manager for the Detroit Public School system and formerly served as emergency manager for the city of Flint, Michigan.

Although he contributed to both of the most urgent Michigan crises, Earley has mostly slid under the radar while Governor Rick Snyder is targeted by the media mob. Both of these men and various other people, including the City Council of Flint, can all be credited for various amounts of contributing to the disasters. However, in both cases in question, Earley was in charge and high up enough to have made a change.

Flint Water Crisis

Certainly Earley didn't rub his hands together, cackle a diabolic laugh and smile as he said to himself, "I'm going to choose a poisoned water supply for the city of Flint!" However, he is substantially more tied to the crime than anyone else. Yes, the city council voted to change the source of the water supply. But they didn't pick the new source -- Earley decided that the city's water would come from the polluted Flint River and through corrosive lead pipes.

The water supply change was voted in partially to cut costs -- which has now clearly backfired. After the city council voted the motion through, it was up to Earley to pick a new water source. The Flint River is a logical choice, due to proximity. The river is part of the Saginaw River watershed, sourced from Saginaw Bay and, ultimately, Lake Huron. But before you make a policy change like that, isn't there supposed to be an environmental impact report or some sort of protocol? Since they hadn't used the Flint River as a water source recently, shouldn't someone have checked the pipes?

Detroit Public Schools Crisis

On January 11th, 2016, two-thirds of Detroit Public Schools were closed. The cause? Not a snow day: a boycott. Teachers staged a "sick-out" to protest the dilapidated, unsanitary and unfair school conditions. The Twitter handle @teachDetroit has created the hashtag #SupportDPSteachers to expose what the conditions are like. Both teachers and students have been using this hashtag to demand change.

The worst part is that Earley claims that he is not at fault for either of these situations -- probably to help him sleep at night. Nobody wants to admit that they poisoned an entire city and hid the fact for a substantial period time, or that because they haven't done their job children are struggling to get an education. It's hard to admit when we're wrong, but that's the line of work that Earley chose. He is an emergency manager -- his job is to find problems and remedy them. The first logical step in his job should be prevention, and coming up with solutions should be a close second.

Earley, as an emergency manager, should have had something in place to deter the violations of basic rights that have occurred. Everyone should have access to clean water, food, shelter and education. These are fundamental human rights, principles that the United States and many other countries are founded on. Darnell Earley is responsible for allowing violations of two of these rights. Even worse is that he will not admit his faults and has already surpassed an acceptable reaction time to present a solution to these issues.