Last week the University of Vermont announced that the Burlington Police Department would be conducting additional patrols of student neighborhoods — paid for by UVM — to ensure that social distancing guidelines were being upheld as students returned to campus on and around June 1.
The next day, UVM senior Ri-Ri Stuart-Thompson woke up to a call from a black student who had seen that email and was now in tears, scared to come back to campus.
When she got off the phone, she saw five other texts saying essentially the same thing. Her friends and peers were wondering if it was worth it to continue their studies at UVM.
Over the past few weeks, thousands of people across the country have protested against police brutality and systemic racism because of the second degree murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer on May 25.
That’s why when Stuart-Thompson, interim president of the UVM Womxn of Color Coalition, heard from her peers she urged the campus to respond to their fears about police interactions at UVM.
“Take this shit seriously,” she tweeted that morning in response to the email, calling on UVM’s Student Government and Student Union to use their platforms to take action.
Stuart-Thompson and the Womxn of Color Coalition requested that student groups support their call for the university to cut all ties with the Burlington Police Department, and to continue to develop anti-racist systems and conduct de-escalation trainings for staff, faculty and campus police.
The coalition also circulated a survey, asking students to share their experiences with the university, campus police, and the Burlington Police Department, and their demands for UVM officials about how to ensure student safety on campus.
“I don’t feel safe on campus at all,” said Moirha Smith, who will be president of the Womxn of Color Coalition in the fall. “As a black student, when I’m leaving my apartment, I see both the Burlington Police Department and the University of Vermont Police Department at daytime, nighttime — basically whenever they want. When they pass by and want to have a conversation, I’m thinking like, I don’t want to have a conversation with a police officer and I shouldn’t be forced to.”
Over 250 survey responses have already been recorded, and a social media post by the student union encouraging UVM students to call the administration and demand that the school cut ties with BPD has been shared nearly 300 times.
Stuart-Thompson has been carefully documenting every tweet, every survey response, and every call she has with an activist or official. She said she’s now seen for years that when students demand change at UVM, the university asks for proof that the problems they say exist really exist. This time, she said, she will have hundreds of pieces of evidence at the ready.
“This is highly important because these demands were asked from the UVM administration since 2018,” Stuart-Thompson said. “And we’re in 2020. Is that a pattern? Hell, yes. They don’t listen. They. Don’t. Listen.”
The students noted that a petition with almost 70,000 signatures is currently calling for the termination of four Burlington police officers who have “displayed a pattern of violence without provocation or just cause.”
The department disportionately uses force on black residents, according to a department study released last year. The department is currently facing three federal lawsuits alleging police brutality against black men.
UVM spokesman Enrique Corredera declined to answer a number of questions from VTDigger about student safety on and off campus.
“We recognize the concerns of our students and other community members and are reviewing the situation,” Corredera said in a statement.
Mayor Miro Weinberger has said the patrols are just part of the city’s efforts to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The return of students to the city at the start of June received significant attention amid concerns that returning students could spark an outbreak of the pandemic in Burlington.
Weinberger said at his May 29 briefing that the BPD usually does the patrols in the fall and spring, paid for by the university.
“These patrols have been very successful in bringing down noise complaints in the city,” he said. “They now have this additional charge of looking for gatherings that are in violation of the governor’s stay home order.”
Weinberger said he was aware of students’ concerns about the BPD patrols and agreed with them, “at some level.”
“This isn’t something Burlington Police should have to do,” he said. “This is something that is a longstanding, chronic issue in this community, that UVM has to take responsibility for, and they have paid for these patrols. I certainly agree with the sentiment, I’d be just as happy if Burlington Police were not doing it.”
But Weinberger said the patrols had to happen, especially during the pandemic.
“We are getting calls about large groups of students assembling in a way that is not consistent with the Governor’s orders, and is not safe,” he said. “Unlike past years, where this was just about noise, this is now about the spread of this deadly virus, and in some sense, compliance is a matter of life and death.”
But many students are skeptical. Chris Harrell, founder of the UVM Student Union, said now that the state limit for gatherings has been upped to 25, the idea that students need their residences patrolled by police to ensure compliance is far-fetched.
“I see very little probability that over 25 kids are going to be gathering in a visible way during these patrols,” he said. “It’s disturbing to have to just accept them as a fact of life.”
Aggressive policing is never the answer to public health problems, especially when that policing puts the university’s most marginalized students in harm’s way, Harrell said. Student tuition funds the patrols, he said, and that’s not only a waste of money, but it’s also potentially endangering all students of color on campus.
“We’re not a fan of these patrols at any point in time, but it’s really a slap in the face right now to see that the university doesn’t even have a modicum of self-awareness or respect for their students of color,” Harrell said.
Stuart-Thompson said the university claims that it only works with the Burlington Police Department in “necessary” situations. But she said that it’s time the university align with schools like the University of Minnesota in cutting ties with city police.
Stuart-Thompson and her fellow organizers said what happened in Minneapolis could occur in Vermont.
“Burlington could have the next George Floyd, the next Tamir Rice, the next Sandra Bland, and so on and so on,” Stuart-Thompson said.
She said the Womxn of Color Coalition has begun preliminary discussions with university officials, but are waiting for the full results of their survey before moving to the next step to ensure that the university can’t dismiss what they have to say.
Aidan Quigley contributed reporting.
