Steingraber said she was jarred by how the police treated her colleague Hudson, a Black man. “We were just reporters who were going inside to cover something that we had every right to go into, and it wasn’t me who was grabbed and smashed into the ground,” Steingraber said. “It was the Black man standing next to me.” Steingraber remembers standing in front of the car as other students surrounded it, but from that point, she said her memory fades. Laura Shue, who was an LSA junior, told The Daily at the time the AAPD officer threw Steingraber on the ground “with a vengeance” for blocking the car. “There was no need to use that much force,” Shue said. “I’d never seen anything like it. They don’t need guns if they’re that brutal.” Hudson did not respond to request for comment prior to publication. In the aftermath of the incident, University student activists mobilized against the Duderstadt administration as it increased the presence of law enforcement on campus, first instituted as part of a policy that students said limited protests against controversial guest speakers. After police officers killed George Floyd — and ensuing protests have heightened awareness and scrutiny of police misconduct — members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization went on strike and included demands to divert funding from policing in their platform. A review of the controversial history of law enforcement on campus shows this is not the first time student activists have gone toe to toe with the University’s administration over policing. Students are now bringing forward similar anti-policing measures more than 30 years after the University deputized officers. “It’s considered normal now for there to be basically a police force on campus,” Steingraber said. “It didn’t used to be that way.” Creating the police force In 1986, public safety officers carried flashlights, clipboards and radios, patrolling campus in shifts as small as three for a University with more than 30,000 students. Their only power was to make a “citizen’s arrest” if they saw someone committing a felony. In dangerous situations, the officers were to call the Ann Arbor Police Department. Public Safety Officer Vickie Juopperi told The Daily in August 1986 that people would generally comply more with deputized public safety officers who had the power to make real arrests. “I think that if they knew we have authority, that would tend to put a lid on things easier,” Juopperi said. Jack Weidenbach, former University director of business operations whose office oversaw campus security, opposed deputization in 1986, as did Regent Deane Baker, a Republican who was first elected to the body in 1972 and served for 24 years. “I don’t think the University should be in the business of operating a police force,” Baker said in an article published in The Daily in 1986. During this period, University administrators became increasingly agitated by student activists interrupting appearances from high-profile speakers such as Vice President George H.W. Bush, United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Attorney General Edwin Meese in protest of the Reagan administration. The Michigan Student Assembly — a precursor to Central Student Government — and Rackham Student Government passed resolutions against the University inviting Bush to campus. In response, then University President Harold Shapiro pushed back against a restriction on the types of ideas considered on campus “because of prejudice or political and intellectual authoritarianism.” At the May 1988 Regents meeting, Baker recommended the University’s Civil Liberties Board study the issue of free speech and offer a recommendation. “The time has come to regain control of this campus so that the University might once again function as a place of autonomy, civility and scholarly pursuit,” Baker said. After a recommendation from the CLB, the Board of Regents passed a five-part policy on the “disruption of student activities” in July 1988 to “advance freedom of speech and artistic expression.” The policy’s fourth part authorized Heatley and Pifer, the University’s top public safety officers, to make arrests but did not mean the public safety officers would be armed. “Guns in the hands of University personnel have no place in campus disputes, as experience shows,” the policy reads. “We do not want our people using guns.” Heatley and Pifer saw their first action as deputized officers at Duderstadt’s inauguration, where four students were arrested, along with Daily staffers Steingraber, Rollins, Southworth and Michael Fischer. The day of the ceremony, Ann Arbor Police Sergeant Norm Melby told The Daily only the most active protesters were arrested that day. “One officer can only make one arrest in some instances,” Melby said. “And sometimes that means the person who was most frequently warned to discontinue their activities.” Meanwhile, the Michigan House of Representatives debated a bill allowing state universities to appoint their own deputized campus security officers who report to their Regents and the state. At the time, Heatley and Pifer were only authorized by the Washtenaw County Sheriff. David Cahill, an aide to Ann Arbor Rep. Perry Bullard, told The Daily in September 1988 that Bullard opposed the bill. “He doesn’t want Harold Shapiro or (interim University President Robben) Fleming or whoever to have their own political police force to use against protesters,” Cahill said. Supporters of the bill, including Democratic Regent Thomas Roach, said the Ann Arbor Police Department was too understaffed to adequately help the University manage crime on campus. “There’s nothing like a police presence to deter criminal activity,” Roach said in the Daily article. No cops, no guns, no code In June 1990, the Board of Regents proposed a full campus police force of 24 deputized officers. Some of the discussion focused on whether the force would improve campus safety, but the most contentious issue was the University’s relationship with the city of Ann Arbor. University officials concluded that the nearly half a million dollars spent on seven AAPD patrol officers and two detectives was unreasonably high given slow response times. City officials disputed that the response time was slow and said the University “receives more from the AAPD than it pays for.” The vote to expand the University police force passed 6-1, leading to a new wave of activism when students returned to campus in the fall. A September 1990 column in The Daily called the June vote “another traditional summer move,” undertaken while most students were at home and unable to attend Regents meetings. In another September 1990 Daily op-ed, Jennifer Van Valey, president of Michigan Student Assembly, urged students to protest the deputization. She wrote that the University was uninterested in stopping protests about issues unrelated to the institution, like foreign policy and reproductive rights, but that it needed control when protests focused on the “deficiencies” of the University. “Through an analysis of the University’s history of pushing for a campus police force, it becomes clear that the very real problem of safety on campus is being used opportunistically to dupe students into supporting their own repression,” Van Valey said. “It is also clear that, ironically, the only way to stop the administration is through student mobilization and protest — the very thing the administration instituted the force to prevent.” Dozens of students soon took up Van Valey’s call to action, marching to Duderstadt’s office to negotiate deputization on Nov. 14, 1990. Duderstadt was not there that day, so the group, Students for a Safer Campus, occupied the office overnight. Walt Harrison, executive director of university relations, told students the administration had no plans to negotiate on deputization and called the sit-in “political theater.” On Regents’ Plaza outside the administration building, students held a candlelight vigil at 10 p.m. to support those inside the president’s office. “To the beat of a drum and the flash of office lights which were flicked on and off by students inside, approximately 100 students held candles and chanted, ‘No guns, no cops, no code,’” The Daily account reads. After more than 24 hours in Duderstadt’s office, Henry Johnson, vice president for community relations, met with the students. They demanded the University halt the deputization and arming the police force and take students’ voices into account. “The University must immediately institute a policy- making body that ensures students will play a representative and powerful role in the decisions that affect their lives,” one demand read. Johnson offered a small number of students from the group a chance to meet with administrators after Thanksgiving. The group denied the offer and Johnson went to a back office to meet with Heatley, the chief of the Ann Arbor Police Department and other administrators. Heatley announced everyone remaining in the building after five minutes would be arrested. Jeff Hinte was among the 16 students who stayed and awaited arrest. “We have the rights of sea slugs with social security numbers,” Hinte said at the time. Police released the students once outside the building and issued warrants for criminal trespassing. During a break at the Regent’s meeting in November 1990, Duderstadt said the sit- in was “political opportunism” with Michigan Student Assembly elections on the same day. “The students protesting are not representative of the community,” Duderstadt said. “You can’t let their political agenda dictate.” In January 1992, the Department of Public Safety purchased 29 new 9-millimeter pistols, along with 20 cases of ammunition and 20 magazines. Harrison said the increase in the officers’ budget meant the University was no longer dependent on the AAPD. Despite student protests, by September 1993, the University had guns, cops and a code — the Student Statement of Rights and Responsibilities governing student behavior. In a column printed in The Daily that month, Amitava Mazumdar wrote he wasn’t proud of his one- time opposition to deputization, saying he’d bought into the “faddish fascists-in-Fleming mentality.” “But any sort of intellectual honesty requires that facts be examined objectively, not twisted or reconstructed to match (generally leftist) ideological preconceptions,” Mazumdar wrote. “... The predictions of ineffectiveness, costliness and repressiveness have so far proven false.” “Activism has to go on for a long time” Last month, striking GEO graduate students listed several anti-policing demands, including disarmament, a 50 percent reduction in the DPSS budget and cutting ties with AAPD and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Rackham student Alejo Stark, who has been involved in GEO since 2013, said security and safety often get conflated. “We cannot have a safe campus with police on campus,” Stark said. “It’s also important to be clear on how campus police emerged. We have really just naturalized the fact that the University of Michigan spends $12 million on police every year.” The University’s budget for the Department of Public Safety and Security for fiscal year 2020- 21 totaled nearly $12.4 million dollars, a decrease of $124,728 from the year prior. The University now has 450 officers in DPSS across the three campuses, according to DPSS Executive Director Eddie Washington. The vast majority of DPSS branches do not carry weapons, Washington said, adding that only about 18 percent of DPSS officers are armed police officers. The other DPSS staff include security officers, dispatchers, parking enforcement officers and support staff, all of whom are unarmed. He told The Daily that DPSS wants to be sure the response to high-level incidents such as interpersonal and domestic violence is “commensurate with the risk.” “If a weapon has been reported and someone has been assaulted, we tend to send officers there that have the ability to use the least amount of force necessary, but also be in a position to defend themselves and whoever’s been harmed,” Washington said. According to records obtained by The Daily, DPSS fired a weapon just once from Aug. 2018 to Aug. 2020, which was aimed at a deer that was wounded after crashing into a car. Washington and Robert Neumann, chief of the University of Michigan Police Department, said the University was the last in the state and the Big Ten to deploy in-house police officers. Washington said he has resisted arming officers who are not sworn in. “The police component is essential to bring certain comfort for certain communities, but it also brings a chilling effect to others and we just feel like we can accomplish much of what we need to (by) having a blended model,” Washington said. University President Mark Schlissel did not directly answer whether the University is looking into disarming DPSS and reallocating its funding in an interview with The Daily on Thursday. He recently announced a task force to look into the issue of campus policing. Heather Young, communications director for DPSS, told The Daily in an email that DPSS has worked with Ann Arbor police to close roads for demonstrators to march safety at more than 30 protests in the last two months. “DPSS is committed to ensuring that all members of our community can safely exercise their first amendment rights to free speech and assembly,” Young wrote. Schlissel said he knows for many people, seeing a police officer they think has a weapon is “terrifying.” “And not because of anything that police officer did, but because of that person’s life experiences, and the experiences that people they know and identify with that have engaged with police,” Schlissel said. “I’ve not had those experiences personally, but I’m privileged in many ways.” Police officers monitoring students is still a contentious point among students. After the University announced its plan to have law enforcement officers work with student ambassadors to enforce adherence to social distancing guidelines around campus, organizations representing students of color criticized the Michigan Ambassadors program, saying it neglected potential harm to vulnerable communities. In an op-ed, members of the Black Student Union, the United Asian American Organizations Executive Board, La Casa and the Arab Student Association E-Board called for an end to the policy. “Michigan Ambassadors program canvassing teams rely on AAPD and DPSS, which build upon a historical and current legacy of police harming communities of color, despite President Schlissel’s claims that the Michigan Ambassadors program utilizes peer-to-peer accountability ‘to reduce the need for law enforcement,’” they wrote in the op-ed. The University later discontinued the Michigan Ambassadors program entirely. Steingraber said students need to carry on the tradition of activism long after they graduate. “Student activism is almost always really smart and really provides a framework for how to think about local issues, but the leaders of campus activist movements then graduate and move on,” Steingraber said. “Activism has to go on for a long time.” Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly named the Department of Public Safety as the Division of Public Safety. This article has also been updated to clarify the position of Robert Neumann, who is chief of the University of Michigan Police Department. Daily Staff Reporter Calder Lewis can be reached at calderll@ umich.edu. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com News Wednesday, October 14, 2020 — 3 POLICING From Page 1 than three weeks after her lease began, she and her roommates received an email from Varsity inquiring about their plans to renew their lease for the following year. Varsity gave them a Nov. 6 deadline for renewal. Waelchli said while she understands why landlords would want to get an early start to leasing, the uncertainties regarding the pandemic and whether future semesters at the University of Michigan will have in-person components make it more difficult to decide on a tight timeframe. Waelchli said when she first signed the lease in November 2019, she was excited about the apartment’s location because it meant she would be close to her classes. “Then, suddenly, there were no (in-person) classes, and it’s not something that I would have ever thought would happen,” Waelchli said. “So now I’m just wary to sign something early again.” Waelchli isn’t alone. Various property management companies are asking tenants to commit to long-term plans in uncertain times as landlords move ahead with November deadlines for renewal. Eric Jensen, who owns several rental properties in Ann Arbor, is among those who are continuing with a November deadline. Jensen emphasized that student demand helps maintain the unusually early leasing period in Ann Arbor from year to year, even amid the pandemic. “It’s kind of this never-ending cycle that students want to get the best places possible,” Jensen said. “And so to find the best place as possible they start as early as they can to start looking. And if landlords want to get in on that cycle of when students are really looking, landlords have to be able to make their units — at least information about the units — available sooner rather than later.” In 2018-2019, the occupancy rate for off-campus student housing was 98 percent, according to a report from Triad Real Estate Partners. Jon Keller, alum of the University and owner of his namesake company, which manages over 100 off-campus rentals in Ann Arbor, wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily that the November deadlines aren’t as early as they once were, thanks to a city ordinance requiring landlords to wait 70 days after the current lease period has passed before showing or leasing a property for the following year. “When I was at U-M (2002- 2006) we would pick up our keys on September 1st and be forced to sign for the following year, or lose the house,” Keller wrote. “It was incredibly stressful for students — oftentimes with the best houses rented years in advance. The 70-day leasing ordinance allows tenants to get acclimated to the new house, the location, even their group, and then determine if they want to stay for another year.” Before the 70-day ordinance was passed, landlords were technically required to wait 90 days. Some city government officials have made unsuccessful attempts to push the leasing period back even further to the winter semester. In addition to maintaining the fall leasing period deadlines, several landlords are also moving forward with raising rent for next year. Others are staying the course. “In terms of what I’m doing with rents for next year, I’ll just say that I’m being consistent with what I’ve done in the past,” Jensen said. Oxford Companies, another major property management company in Ann Arbor, will be raising rent next year. Katie Vohwinkle, the company’s associate director of residential property, said that in order to be mindful of the unexpected economic strain imposed by the pandemic, the rent increases are lower than in years prior. “We understand that this year is a bit unique for basically all of us, including the students at the University,” Vohwinkle said. “Our annual rent increases are significantly lower this year than they have been in years prior, despite higher increases that the buildings and the owners are still receiving for taxes, maintenance costs, utilities, that kind of thing.” Affordable housing advocates say a rent increase, no matter how small, is still a disadvantage to people from low-income backgrounds. Julia Goode, a member of the Ann Arbor Tenants Union, said the early leasing period also poses challenges for students who cannot depend on their parents’ income when deciding where to live. “It’s really impossible for working people to be able to sign a lease eight months in advance,” Goode said. “The only reason why students can really do it is if they have parental help, which many students don’t have. So it does really create a great economic unfairness that doesn’t have to be there.” Keller also noted that certain costs prohibit freezing or lowering rent, adding that he believes tenants have room to negotiate with their landlords next year. “While we would love to keep rents flat on renewals or even lower them at times, the carrying costs like property taxes, utilities, lawn and snow care, maintenance and insurance rates go up every year,” Keller wrote. “It would be difficult to lock in a rate for too long a period and continue to make money … All that being said, there is probably more room than in previous years to negotiate a more attractive renewal rate.” Advocates for affordable housing have voiced opposition to the early leasing practice in the name of tenant rights as well as issues of access for low- income students. LSA senior Lindsay Calka said the early leasing period puts students in a compromising situation, many of whom are unaware of their rights as tenants. “I think a lot of landlords take advantage of that (early leasing period) and put their tenants in a position where they have to make decisions,” Calka said. “They’re able to hike up rent or change things about … the lease that maybe tenants wouldn’t be wanting to do or (would) want time to bargain on, or at least have discussion on.” Jennifer Hall, executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, echoed these concerns. She said certain decisions in the University’s power affect the housing market and can limit accessibility for low-income students. “The U-M has a significant impact on the local housing market through the number of students they admit and enroll, the number of housing units they provide, the number of staff that they hire and the properties they purchase and develop,” Hall wrote in an email to The Daily. “As a U-M alumna and local resident, I think the U-M needs to be more proactive about providing housing at a reduced cost to low-income students.” Both Goode and Calka said they see opportunities for students to organize and assert their rights in the present moment. Goode pointed to the Graduate Employees’ Organization’s advocacy around housing as providing a model for other students to follow. GEO also recently went on strike to demand the University provide increased protections for graduate students with partial success. Goode also said she hopes students registered to vote in Ann Arbor will vote in favor of the affordable housing millage on the ballot in November because the funds will help address the demand for more housing. Read more at MichiganDaily.com LEASE From Page 1