A University of Minnesota student group uses the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement to call upon university leadership to change the structure of campus police.

By Mikayla Scrignoli

When the University of Minnesota Police Department (UMPD) arrived at the East Bank campus outside the police headquarters wearing riot gear and holding rifles on May 29, Celia Nimz, one of some 500 student protesters there, said she felt threatened by their presence.

“That was probably one of the most intense moments I’ve had as an organizer,” Nimz said, who’s a three-year member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). “That was a pretty scary situation.”

Nimz and other members of SDS, a progressive student activist group according to its Instagram biography, were protesting the use of force against students of color. 

The event was part of a series of demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd in May and was part of SDS’s call on the university to reform UMPD policies.

University leadership took steps to consider the group’s ideas and to potentially meet some of their requests.

President Joan Gabel brought in Dr. Cedric Alexander, a former police officer and a former member of President Obama’s 21st Century Policing Task Force, to conduct an evaluation of campus safety, according to Gabel’s email.

“Part of Dr. Alexander’s assignment is to listen to the campus community and offer insight,” Lacey Nygard, a university public relations official said. “This input will provide valuable perspective on opportunities to enhance safety on the Twin Cities campus.”

SDS began requesting UMPD policy reforms about two years ago and decided during the Minneapolis protests that it was timely to suggest these specific proposals, Nimz said.

“In the limelight of national uprising and just with the stronger presence of police brutality and violence and that police forces need to be held accountable,” Nimz said. “We figured, as a student group, we would start with our police force on campus.”

SDS’s policy requests include the minimization of police presence on campus and the removal of guns from officers’ daily uniforms, according to a statement on SDS’s Instagram profile.

SDS also proposed the creation of a student and community accountability council (CPAC). This would control the hiring and firing of officers and set UMPD’S budget, according to the statement.

“We really want to institute a CPAC, we’ve been pushing for that for so long,” Annie Russell-Pribnow, an SDS member, said. “It’s what works when it comes to reforming the police because the police cannot perform oversight on themselves effectively.”

SDS and the Minnesota Student Association (MSA), the university’s student government, called on the school to cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) after Floyd’s death.

Shortly after, Gabel announced in an email on May 27 that the university decided to limit its collaboration with MPD.

While MSA continues to support SDS’s policy requests, the student government is weighing the needs of all students and there are diverse opinions on how many, or if, police officers should be on campus, Shelby Jacobson, MSA’s Director of Communications said.

“There isn’t an easy answer at this time because there are students who would feel safer with more police on campus. There are students that would rather see no police on campus,” Jacobson said. “There’s a lot that we have to consider because we want to help our most vulnerable students.”

According to a student survey MSA conducted in November, 45% of 2,200 respondents said that the number of officers on campus should remain the same, while 20% asked for fewer officers on campus, Jacobson said.

In August, Gabel announced in an email that the university brought in Alexander to evaluate and make recommendations on campus safety.

“His report will be considered by Gabel by early in the new year,” Nygard said in an email.

It is unclear whether the full report will be made public to students or if there will be a vote on any of the proposals, Jacobson said. Nygard declined to say if the report would be made public.

Throughout the fall semester, Alexander met with about 40 to 60 student groups, including MSA, Jacobson said.

“We brought forth our concerns about the process and our desires to actually see real change and real reform from this process,” Jacobson said. “We’ve seen, in a lot of cases, big reform promised and barely any ground made from those.”

Meanwhile, Alexander met with SDS twice, Nimz and two SDS organizers said.

Nimz said that to an extent, Alexander seemed open to some of their ideas, including the creation of the CPAC.

Midori Van Alstine and Russell-Pribnow, freshmen SDS members, said that they felt it’s important to advocate for these policies since UMPD serves the community and the community should be involved in policy creation.

“The way it’s set up now, it’s just basically Joan Gabel and the Board of Regents that are telling the police what to do,” Van Alstine said.

Nygard declined to respond to the claim that Gabel and the Board of Regents control UMPD.

On Friday, SDS plans to host a virtual accountability session regarding UMPD and Gabel, according to the group’s Instagram. Nygard declined to say if Gabel would attend.

“I’m hopeful to see real, true reform come from this. What will happen, we will see come spring semester,” Jacobson said.

UMPD declined to comment and directed all questions to the university’s public relations team.