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Around 50 people gathered on the University of Michigan Diag Thursday afternoon for a rally against police militarization on and off-campus organized by the Graduate Employees’ Organization.
Before the rally, GEO protested at the Michigan Medicine Pavilion construction site. Out of solidarity, construction workers refused to cross the picket line, which shut down the site as long as protesters remained at the location. In an interview with The Michigan Daily at the rally, Brian Geiringer, Environment and Sustainability graduate student and event organizer, spoke on the impact of protesting outside the construction site.
“From what I have heard, that particular construction site is about a $500,000 blow to the University, which is great news because they can’t operate without us,” Geiringer said. “We are just doing everything we can to show them that this University works because we do.”
GEO began striking three weeks ago after stalled contract negotiations with the University. As part of their platform, GEO is demanding that the University fund an unarmed non-police urgent response program to work alongside the Division of Public Safety and Security.
In addition to raising awareness for this piece of their platform, GEO also protested the “Cop City” project in Atlanta, Ga. and the expansion of the Camp Grayling National Guard Military Base located in northern Michigan at the rally.
In her speech at the rally, Detroit-based filmmaker Christiana Beckley said Cop City poses an environmental threat to the South River Forest and would disproportionately harm Black communities in the area.
“As early as 2017 the Atlanta Police Foundation proposed building a 300-acre police training facility on urban forest land stolen from the Muscogee people,” Beckley said. “The South River forest is one of the largest urban forests in the country and plays a key role in mitigating climate-driven heat waves and floods in the surrounding majority Black communities.”
GEO was joined by various organizations across southeast Michigan, including Detroit Will Breathe, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and Defend Affordable Ypsi.
Geiringe said he believes it is critical to implement a non-police urgent response program at the University and hopes GEO can build on its momentum to achieve this goal.
“I think that the recent state judge decision to side with the University on the strike violating the union contract will not do much,” Geiringer said. “Our momentum is stronger than ever, and you can see that here today. DPSS is notoriously bad, and we have had a lot of testimonies of harm by the program. I feel that, in general, armed violent policing is just not the way to keep us safe.”
In his speech at the rally, Tristan Taylor, an organizer with Detroit Will Breathe, said he believes GEO’s strike will motivate labor organizers nationwide.
“We have this great opportunity that your fighting spirit presented when you not only made the decision to go on strike, but you made the decision to make this strike about everything that impacts all of the students’ and workers’ lives,” Taylor said. “You created an opportunity for us to spread this (strike) as an example to the rest of the nation and the world to show that it is possible.”
In an email sent out to the campus community on April 19, University Provost Laurie McCauley and University President Santa Ono said GEO’s demands related to policing should not be conditions on the bargaining table because they would impact the broader campus community, and thus warrant input from the whole campus.
“The union demands the university fund a non-police urgent response program separate from the Division of Public Safety and Security (DPSS) and available throughout Washtenaw County, as well as bar federal agents from entering university property to execute certain search or arrest warrants,” the email read. “Both proposals are outside the scope of the union’s contract and would be inappropriate for one bargaining unit to decide for our entire community.”
The event then opened up for any attendee to speak to the crowd. LSA senior Zac Kolbusz told attendees he feels frustrated by the University’s response.
“I am particularly disgusted by the lack of support from faculty at U of M,” Kolbusz said. “The GSIs are the engines for change here at the University, and I just wanted to shout out that your work has not gone unnoticed.”
Daily Staff Reporter Emma Lapp can be reached at emmalapp@umich.edu.