Friends,
On February 5, students, faculty, and staff received an email from Provost Ritter acknowledging a “disruptive and difficult time” for the university community and announcing that the University will resume in-person teaching on February 16. The provost claims that the administration has “heard from students that being present and in class is better for their learning and overall well-being.” Reporting that “fewer than 10% of our students are choosing remote or flexible options when an in-person option is available,” Ritter reassures the campus community that the administration “remain[s] committed to supporting the needs of all students as we resume regular schedules.”
This letter is yet another example of the UMN administration’s dismissal of the well-being of immigrant and BIPOC students, faculty, and staff. Considering that the majority of the student body at UMN are citizens (only 7% are international students), and 62.8% are white students, the statistics used by Ritter as the justification for returning to in-person modality demonstrate that, despite its claims of supporting the needs of “all students,” the University administration prioritizes white supremacy. The safety of over 6000 non-citizen students, faculty, and staff, many of whom face brutalization and detention by ICE, seems to matter very little to this administration. The increasing number of deaths of immigrants in ICE custody, thousands of deportations and detentions in the Twin Cities, the violence with which ICE agents have been brutalizing not only non-citizens, but also citizens who are racially profiled, the deployment of chemicals and bullets at protesters, and the killing of two Twin Cities observers by ICE are reason enough for many UMN students, faculty, and staff to fear for their lives in public spaces. Ritter’s statement, however, makes it clear that as long as those affected are not in the majority (white and citizen), the risk of detention, deportation, and murder is simply not important to the administration.
Even as Ritter claims that there has been no ICE activity on our campus, UMN members continue to be affected by ICE terrorizing our communities. Last year, a graduate student was detained for months by ICE. Many student visas have been revoked; ICE agents were confirmed to be staying at the Graduate Hotel on the University property; plainclothes ICE agents have been reported to check student IDs on campus; Many of our students have been tear-gassed, beaten up, and arrested for protesting ICE kidnappings. And Alex Pretti, a UMN alum, was brutally killed by ICE agents while observing ICE kidnapping his neighbors. Even if we were to believe that ICE has not been physically present on campus, commuting to and from campus continues to pose serious risks for non-citizen students, staff, and faculty. By forcing instruction to return to in-person modality when over 2,300 ICE agents are active in Minnesota, the administration refuses to be accountable to its students, staff, and faculty.
Ironically, in its Rapid Response guidance, instead of taking any meaningful measures to protect non-citizen members of UMN, the administration has instructed faculty, staff, and students to call the police in case of “civil disobedience,” essentially to support ICE agents by criminalizing protest. The UMN’s directive to call the police not only jeopardizes vulnerable students, faculty, and staff, but it also proves that despite its empty words about valuing international students, the administration has, and will continue to, protect ICE any day over its own students, faculty, and staff. The UMN administration has liberally unleashed the UMPD to brutalize protestors and violate their First Amendment rights. We have seen, repeatedly, how UMPD has protected ICE and brutalized our students for protesting ICE’s terror. Instead of pressuring the Graduate Hotel to evacuate ICE from campus property, the administration has ordered UMPD to arrest those who have been protesting UMN’s complicity with ICE.
On January 25, UMPD and MPD attacked the peaceful protest in front of the Graduate Hotel with pepper balls and chemical clouds, striking one protester in the face and causing significant bleeding. On January 28th, 67 protesters were arrested in front of the Graduate Hotel. Two have been charged with “disorderly conduct” because they had citations from UMPD for defending their fellow students and workers in prior protests. They face disciplinary charges from the University and are banned from the East Bank. On February 6, twelve protesters were brutalized, arrested, and taken to jail overnight for protesting ICE’s presence at the Graduate Hotel. On February 7, four students who chained themselves to the Halimy Hall (Morrill Hall) doors to demand a sanctuary campus and protest the UMN administration’s failure to be accountable to its immigrant students were arrested and sent to the Hennepin County jail. Instead of protecting our students, faculty, and staff against ICE’s domestic terrorism, the UMN administration has been protecting ICE. A music professor who was invited to perform at a memorial for Alex Pretti at UMN was escorted out of the building for wearing a shirt with “ICE OUT” letters.
Despite its claims of neutrality, the UMN upper administration has proved time and time again that it would not hesitate to sacrifice our BIPOC and immigrant members to safeguard their inflated salaries and defend white supremacy and genocide. While the administration has repeatedly violated academic freedom by circumventing shared governance and unilaterally removing unit statements against the genocide in Gaza, Cunningham has justified her stealth contract with the private weapons manufacturing companies and the U.S. Department of War to develop hypersonic missiles at U More Park under the pretense of “academic freedom.” She has particularly been ready to criminalize our students and has leveraged her position as the University President to punish any dissent, mirroring the Trump administration’s belligerent attitude and retaliatory bullying and violence.
The stopgap measures providing flexibility to students, faculty, and staff in their teaching and working modality are the bare minimum the university could provide to non-citizen students, faculty, and staff. Instead of making UMN a sanctuary campus, however, the university administration is hastily returning instruction to in-person modality, once again proving that it puts profit and white supremacy before the well-being of BIPOC and immigrant students and workers. While some college deans have sent subsequent emails offering more flexibility to students, faculty, and staff beyond February 16 for “personal emergencies” and extraordinary circumstances, the burden should not be put on vulnerable students, faculty, and staff, who are instructed to ask for approval to continue to learn or work online. Rendering non-citizen students, faculty, and staff exceptions to the citizenship norm makes them even easier targets for surveillance and violence by racist anti-immigrant forces, as their immigration status is “outed.” This would deter many vulnerable non-citizen people from asking for online accommodations, which in turn puts them at risk as they commute to campus for work and school. If remote instruction and work were possible during the COVID 19 pandemic, it should be possible during a time when an erratic and deadly militarized force has created paralyzing fear and debilitated our communities.
We have had enough! Call and email the UMN administration this week and demand that:
- Online instruction for all students and faculty is available until ICE completely evacuates Minnesota.
- End all financial, logistic, and academic cooperation with ICE, DHS, and the Department of Defense.
- End all university spending at The Graduate Hotel and cancel the lease if ICE is not kicked out of the hotel on university property.
- Drop all disciplinary charges against student protesters.
- Stop deploying UMPD on student protesters for standing up for immigrant students, faculty, and staff.
- Allocate resources to support vulnerable non-citizen student workers, faculty, and staff whose job responsibilities cannot be performed online, for as long as ICE terrorizes our communities.
- Make UMN a sanctuary campus now!
Sample Call-in/Email script:
“I am writing/calling to demand that the University of Minnesota protect immigrant students, faculty, and staff. The University must ensure that online instruction for all students and faculty is available until ICE completely evacuates Minnesota. Ending the flexible instruction and online option on February 16th jeopardizes our immigrant community members’ lives. UMN must end all financial, logistic, and academic cooperation with ICE, DHS, and the Department of Defense. The University must also end all spending at The Graduate Hotel and cancel the lease if ICE is not kicked out of the hotel on university property. I demand that UMN drop all disciplinary charges against student protesters and stop deploying UMPD on student protesters for standing up for immigrant students, faculty, and staff. UMN should allocate resources to support vulnerable non-citizen student workers, faculty, and staff whose job responsibilities cannot be performed online, for as long as ICE terrorizes our communities. Last but not least, I demand a sanctuary campus to protect all immigrant members of the UMN community.”
If you can call all the numbers and email all the people below, that would be ideal. If you cannot call all of them, make sure to call Gretchen Ritter, Rebecca Cunningham, and Molly Portz's offices.
For your convenience, we have provided the emails in a cluster at the end, so that you can just cut and paste.
Numbers and email addresses:
Gretchen Ritter, Executive Vice President and provost
Phone: 612-625-0051 Email: provost@umn.edu
Rebecca Cunningham, President
Phone: 612-626-1616 Email: upres@umn.edu
Molly Portz, Assistant Vice Provost and Interim Director, ISSS
Phone: 612-626-8792 Email: mportz@umn.edu
Scott Lanyon, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Education
Phone: (612) 625-2809 Email: grad.umn.edu
Beth Lewis, Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs
Phone: (612) 626-9545 Email: faculty.umn.edu
Stacey Tidball, Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education
Phone: (612) 626-9425 Email: undergrad.umn.edu
UMN Board of Regents
Email: uregents@umn.edu
If you would like your comments to be published at the Board’s public docket material, use this link for the virtual forum: https://regents.umn.edu/boards-virtual-forum
All email addresses in one place: provost@umn.edu, upres@umn.edu, mportz@umn.edu, grad.umn.edu, faculty.umn.edu, undergrad.umn.edu, uregents@umn.edu
CC: umnejp@gmail.com
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