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

