WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (ABC4 News) – A protest organized at the University of Utah made three demands.
- We demand that Ruth Watkins resign from the presidency immediately.
- We demand that a plan to abolish the UUPD be presented within the next year.
- We demand that the budget for the UUPD be partitioned as 60% towards the UCC and the CSW, 20% towards a legal clinic for students, and 20% towards student centers and orgs.
According to a release sent by the protest organizers they are protesting for the following reasons.
“The UUPD, the University of Utah, and President Watkins have shown within the past couple of years their inability to prioritize student safety. These have truly been brought to the public eye due to their mishandling of Lauren McCluskey’s pleas leading up to her murder and the handling of sensitive evidence surrounding her case. Recently, we brought to light a university cover-up of at least one rape committed by University of Utah football players, with one of the victims being a 17-year-old refugee. The evidence in these cases could not have been withheld if President Watkins had not signed off on it. “
“We have received countless reports of students being ignored or mistreated by the UUPD and the OEO when they seek help for traumatic events such as hate crimes, sexual assault, or IPV incidents. We have also found that President Watkins has actively been blocking the release of a policy brief outlining the failings of the OEO & Title IX office. It has also been expressed by some officers in the UUPD that it feels like most of the calls they get are from White students reporting “suspicious” Black and Brown students on campus. The evidence is overwhelming and is damning.”