Posted on 20 September 2024.
OLIVIA HINES: Well, I have a story that I want to tell you that I don’t think, maybe I told you, maybe I didn’t tell you. So anyway, when I was eating my Honeycrisp apple, a bee got really up close and personal with me. This one didn’t sting me, but earlier this week, I did get stung by a bee in class. It was in my hair. I was fixing my ponytail.
Figured out that there was something in my hair, pulled it out and it was a bee and it stung me on my thumb and it hurt really bad and I’ve never been stung by a bee before. So for those first two minutes, I was thinking, am I, you know, am I going to go into anaphylactic shock? Am I going to figure out that I have an allergy? Am I going to die in this class where I’m learning about romantic era poetry. Like who wants to die in that class? You know?
KAYLIE SIROVY: Oh, that’s funny.
HINES: Yeah, so, PSA, please be careful guys about fixing your ponytails when you’ve been outside because you might have a bee stuck in it. Of all the ways that I thought I would get stung by a bee.
SIROVY: That’s not one of them.
HINES: That was not, no.
SIROVY: Hello, everyone. My name is Kaylie Sirovy, your host from the Minnesota Daily. Right now, you’re listening to In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota, and today in the studio with me, I have Olivia Hines. Hi, Olivia.
HINES: Hi, Kaylie. I’m the campus admin desk editor. So, I manage a group of five people who cover administration at the university. We cover the Board of Regents, as well as research and faculty and staff issues. Recently, we’ve been covering the protests that have been happening on campus, the inauguration that happened yesterday.
I also recently covered Provost Croson’s no confidence vote and the conflict of interest when it comes to Cunningham appointing her to hand select a faculty led committee to look into academic freedom and hiring policies that she herself violated.
SIROVY: So you have been very busy lately is what I’m hearing.
HINES: I have been. I’m like in communications with some people right now trying to get some data requests, uh, specifically regarding the story about Provost Croson and the university and its decision to rescind Raz Segal’s offer.
SIROVY: So are you going to do a follow up piece to the one that you previously did?
HINES: The plan is to do that, yes. It depends on what I learn.
SIROVY: So let’s talk about President Cunningham’s inauguration yesterday. I remember walking out of class, it’s like 4:30 p.m., and there’s a lot of people outside of Northrop. Some who are in favor of President Cunningham, and some who are not. So, let’s talk about that.
HINES: Yeah, so it was obviously a very big celebration for anybody who was there. There were roughly 200 protesters based on my interviews that I had with student organizers. There were about 40 to 50, maybe, protesters in the inauguration that disrupted the official ceremony that was happening inside Northrop.
SIROVY: Oh yeah, so inside Northrop, okay.
HINES: Yeah, there were about 200 outside Northrop. I think people are just really frustrated with how administration has handled the Israel Palestine conflict, especially since at this point in time, it’s very clear there is a genocide happening in Gaza. You just need to look at the numbers to know and talk to experts to understand that this is what is happening.
President Cunningham is coming in at such a difficult and tumultuous time, and I think it doesn’t help with past administration’s decision, Ettinger and Croson’s decision to not hire Raz Segal because of his expert opinion about how Israel’s involvement in Palestine is textbook genocide. But also the decision to consolidate protest policies that weren’t initially reinforced to kind of outline a plan to police these policies.
These very restrictive policies, feels like you’re stepping on free speech and the right to protest. From my understanding, a lot of student groups on campus, especially like SDS, Students for a Democrat Society, and UMN Divest Coalition, are having about biweekly meetings with the president. There was initially promises made in spring 2024 for full disclosure and transparency of investments as well as working with Palestinian universities and admitting displaced Palestinian students, among other requests that the university has not fulfilled on the promise to meet those requests.
And at this point in time, it really feels like students aren’t being heard. That administration is really ignoring their concerns, but saying that they are listening and that they do care and that students, they appreciate their right to talk about issues of public concern.
SIROVY: On the Daily article that you wrote about this, I see a whole bunch of signs that they were holding up. What were some of the ones that, like, kind of stuck out to you?
HINES: There were a lot. Yesterday, I noticed, “Cunningham you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” That’s a really big one that goes around. The classic ones are, “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.” “Free Palestine,” is something you will always see.
There was a very big red banner that says, I believe it says, “We are the red line, Netanyahu kills children.” Something along those lines. It’s always the same message, but it’s a very provocative message, especially with the images and videos circulating on the internet right now of the violence that Palestinians are experiencing in Gaza.
SIROVY: I also saw that President Cunningham came outside after her inauguration. What were some of her reactions as she was like coming outside?
HINES: I didn’t see a reaction to be honest.
SIROVY: So kind of just blank face?
HINES: Blank face. It’s like she was, she was very much happy, it seemed, to have listened to the Red Tree Singers Drum group. And she thanked them. Everyone went silent at that point out of respect.
She thanked them for their performance, but after that was done, students started yelling at her, shouting at her saying, “Cunningham, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” and then she was escorted away.
SIROVY: So, like, immediately after?
HINES: Immediately after, yeah. It was, like, in the span of maybe five, ten minutes. It happened so quickly, and I did not see a reaction from her at all besides her thanking the drummers.
SIROVY: Also, another article that you did was about Provost Croson.
HINES: Yes.
SIROVY: Who is also kind of under fire right now?
HINES: Yes. Actually, I did write about this in the piece, I wrote about the inauguration yesterday, but a bunch of faculty members were there wearing black t-shirts that said, “Respect the no confidence vote.” And in my article what I write about is that the no confidence vote means, it calls for a change in leadership.
It’s very clear based on Croson’s involvement as Chief Academic Officer that she was supposed to advise President Jeff Ettinger to follow academic freedom and hiring policies as outlined by the Board of Regents and the CLA Constitution.
Neither of them did and now we’re in the current state that we’re in right now. It just feels a little, I’m trying to find the right word, it feels a little out of touch for Cunningham to step into this and to have chosen Croson who faculty, they voted no confidence in her.
They don’t want her to be the Chief Academic Officer anymore because of her involvement in the rescinding of Raz Segal’s offer. It feels a little bit out of touch to have selected her to look into how academic freedom and hiring policies intersect. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a conflict of interest.
I tried to get a comment on it and I was unable to. There are some rumors circulating about her, Croson, being aware of what she was doing and that people, faculty would not be happy with that decision.
SIROVY: As you are writing these pieces and researching for them, what are your feelings about this? Like as either as a student or as a journalist or both.
HINES: Well, I think it comes down to this. I love the university. I love it so much that I want to hold it accountable, and that I want it to be better. I love the education that I’m getting here. So much so that I want faculty to have the opportunities that they deserve. I don’t want their academic freedom to be violated as much as I don’t want my own academic freedom to be violated.
I want the best faculty possible to be working here at this institution because it is a very good institution and what it provides educationally. I think it’s very frustrating to see and not even for myself, but for everybody else here at the university, it’s very frustrating to see how administration has been handling conflicts over the course of this year.
SIROVY: Is it specifically, like, these two conflicts, or has something else come up within the past year?
HINES: It’s mostly just, like, I mean, since Oct. 7, that it’s, like, students started protesting immediately because they recognized that the amount of force that Israel was bringing into Gaza wasn’t appropriate. That it was extreme.
Then experts started to weigh in, such as Raz Segal, and then it became very clear based on the numbers and especially after seeing the violence that’s happening that this is a genocide. The university kind of dragged their feet, especially the Board of Regents, about how to handle that.
Once calls for divestment came up, it took a very long time. It took until this summer for the board to even consider it. And then they decided to like adopt institution neutrality, which is something that they hadn’t done before.
And I think if they had done that before Oct. 7, or immediately after, if they had adopted institution neutrality, I think it would have gone over a little bit better. But they waited so long to address the issue that at this point, by choosing to adopt institutional neutrality, a lot of students see it as them supporting genocide.
SIROVY: I’ve noticed that on campus there’s a lot of people supporting Palestine in this issue and like the clubs that are protesting against President Cunningham like SDS. So it’s definitely not like a small majority either.
HINES: No, it is a very large majority, and even those who are not active in the groups on campus, it’s like you can talk to anybody really. It’s gonna be mostly the same conclusion which is that it’s not okay that the genocide is happening. It’s kind of as simple as that.
I mean, there are concerns from students and faculty as well about safety because they are Jewish or Israeli, and that’s been raised. There’s just been a lot of mobilization of students in support of Palestine in more significant numbers than there has been in support of Israel.
SIROVY: For these pieces, what I also really want to talk about is some of the comments.
HINES: Yeah, let me pull that up really quickly. Okay.
SIROVY: For the protesting President Cunningham, as we’re recording this right now, there’s about four. One is specifically, he signed his name as a math professor here at the U. He said this in also the Provost Croson piece. It’s really just faculty speaking out. And I was kind of surprised about it.
HINES: Yeah, faculty definitely have opinions on what’s happening on campus because these are their students. They’re involved in their lives, they teach them, and also I think it’s just they’re people with opinions. And they see what’s happening and they have their thoughts on what is wrong or right or what the university should or shouldn’t do.
William Messing, who you’re referring to. Yeah, he’s commented on the last two, and we’ve noticed that. So, shout out to William, I guess.
SIROVY: We see you, but some of these other comments, they’ve got things to say. What did KG say on that other comment?
HINES: Oh gosh, yeah, let me pull that up. Oh, KG has this whole long thing. “Escalating the near hiring of Raz Segal, a CHGS director, into an academic freedom issue is misleading.” The problem with that is that it’s not misleading. It is an academic freedom issue. As it is in the Board of Regents policy for academic freedom and responsibility, is that academic freedom pertains to everybody who is studying, researching, teaching or talking about things of public concern.
It shields them, protects them from institutional, discipline or involvement. In this case, Raz Segal, an acknowledged expert in genocide who works at Stockton University gave his expert opinion on what was happening in Gaza. The university, because of some complaints from the community, President Ettinger decided to pause that search, and then rescind the offer. And it was based on what he said. So, it was a violation of his academic freedom because he shouldn’t have had his offer removed because of his expert opinion.
SIROVY: Did they, like, explicitly say that?
HINES: The university has not explicitly said that, nor will they. But it is very clear that that was the decision that was made.
SIROVY: What’s the timeline there?
HINES: Oh, I have the timeline. So, I think his, or, from June to July. I think the offer was sent to Segal June 5 and then the offer was rescinded. It was very quick and then it was announced publicly at the Board of Regents meetings, which are available to everybody.
SIROVY: I encourage you to listen in on them.
HINES: They’re boring.
SIROVY: Yes.
HINES: But they are important.
SIROVY: They are important especially as students.
HINES: I honestly really love going to those meetings and seeing and hearing what’s happening. But also it’s an academic freedom issue because now they’re, it’s like this is a center for holocaust and genocide studies. What’s going to happen for future directors if they can’t talk about genocide or the holocaust without the fear of being fired.
And it’s like you see people, they keep bringing up Oct. 7 and the Hamas attack. And yeah, that’s a terrible thing, 1,200 people were killed, but roughly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and about 90,000 severely injured. It’s like those numbers don’t really compare.
SIROVY: And I noticed for the provost story that you did, you talked to Michael Gallope.
HINES: Yes.
SIROVY: He is also the CSCL (Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature) department head. Oh, he’s such an amazing dude just to talk to.
HINES: I really enjoy talking to him. I did a background interview with him initially just to establish a good relationship with him. And then we did an on the record interview and I learned a lot from both of those interviews. I’m very happy with working with him and how that story turned out because of his involvement.
And also, William Jones as well, who I interviewed for the story, too. And he’s the Twin Cities AAUP. The American Association of University Professors. He’s the Twin Cities chapter president.
SIROVY: Okay.
HINES: So he was also there yesterday. I saw him at the inauguration. He was wearing one of the Respect the No Confidence Vote t-shirts. It’s great.
SIROVY: So like, as you’re looking out in the crowd, how many people were wearing those shirts?
HINES: It was, they had gone into the inauguration and then once the protesters disrupted the ceremony, they stepped out. And it was maybe ten people about. I don’t know if all of them were a part of AAUP or if it was just a select few faculty members but it was really great to see that.
And they came outside, and they watched the protest happen, and I took a photo of them together with their t-shirts, said, “Hi” to William, and yeah. So I wasn’t inside for the ceremony.
SIROVY: Okay.
HINES: I did have help with reporting this. My reporter Tyler Church was inside during the inauguration itself and I was outside covering the protest that was happening. They were a little bit early.
We thought the protest was going to start about 2:30 p.m. and it started around 2:15 p.m. ish. So, and by that time they had amassed a fair amount of numbers. So it was, I would say fairly well organized for a protest. I think they’ve definitely gotten a lot more organized over the course of the year.
SIROVY: They’ve been doing a lot of protests.
HINES: Yeah, they’ve had three so far. The first two were about 100 people and this is the biggest one they’ve had yet.
SIROVY: You think that number is just going to grow? Or do you think that they’re kind of like leveling out?
HINES: I think this number might grow as we get closer to Oct. 7. Their calls have been, like it’s been almost a year at this point.
SIROVY: Yeah, and I think that we forget that from time to time.
HINES: Yeah.
SIROVY: Because, especially as students, we kind of live just in our homework, in our classes, and the days just kind of go by and we don’t really recognize that some of this stuff is also going on at the same time.
HINES: Yeah, and it’s okay to like, live your life. Do the things you need to do. But I think it’s like you need to be able to understand other people’s perspectives on what is happening and the fact that there are people who are dying right now.
SIROVY: Is there anything about these stories that, like, you didn’t write in the articles that you, like, want to speak your mind about?
HINES: There were a lot of things I didn’t include in the inauguration piece that I wish I did. It’s like, I only have one line about the Red Tree Singers drum group, and I really wish that I would have put in more about them, that I would have talked to them and interviewed them.
There was so much happening that it was kind of like, when you’re in a position like that, you have to choose what you think is the most newsworthy thing that’s happening, and I think the protest that was happening was definitely more important. I wish I would have been able to talk to the faculty wearing the t-shirts.
SIROVY: Were you not able to?
HINES: I wasn’t able to interview them. I did talk to William, but I wasn’t able to interview them. I also wasn’t able to interview any of the vendors that were setting up. Even about their setup, I couldn’t even interview them about that. They were concerned. They were told not to talk to anybody about the protest happening.
SIROVY: Oh, interesting.
HINES: Yes. I’m not sure who exactly told them. The person that I had talked to just raised some concerns and just didn’t want to get in trouble for talking to a reporter about their set up or about the protest happening. Just wanted to give people apples and corn, you know.
So that was the food that was available at the celebration. So my partner Jay said that he, said that he skipped part of work to go to this celebration, which he didn’t even know was happening. Even though I told him about it and like this is happening and I’m covering it. He wasn’t aware.
SIROVY: The dots weren’t connecting.
HINES: Yeah, they were not connecting at all. And he texts me while I’m finishing reporting this story and I’m asking him like, “Did you check on the dog?” And he’s like, “No, but I ate five pieces of corn and they ran out.”
SIROVY: Five corn cobs?
HINES: Five whole corn cobs he ate. And I was like, “Okay, so you didn’t have time to take our dog out, but you did have time to eat five corn cobs.” Okay. I love you for that. It was all good though.
SIROVY: That’s such a Minnesota thing to do, though, even though I know he’s not Minnesotan.
HINES: Yeah, it is very Minnesotan.
SIROVY: He’s just eating corn.
HINES: He said it was the best corn that he’s ever had, so shout out to the vendors, honestly, for making some really good corn. I guess the record was eight corn cobs.
SIROVY: Yesterday?
HINES: From what I was told, somebody ate eight corn cobs and.
SIROVY: Kudos to them, man. Was it just corn and apples, or was there other food? Cause I remember seeing like other vendors set up.
HINES: I think there were some other foods. I saw someone with pizza, but I only noticed the corn and the apples to be honest. And I did get an apple. I got a Honeycrisp. I love it. It’s my favorite apple.
SIROVY: It is also my favorite apple.
HINES: It’s just it’s called Honeycrisp. It’s sweet. It’s crunchy. It’s perfect. Like what, you couldn’t ask for a better apple. It was delicious.
SIROVY: It’s the corn and the Honeycrisp they decided to choose, like.
HINES: They had a few other apple variations, but I forgot what the other two were.
SIROVY: What an interesting combination.
HINES: That was the most Minnesotan thing that I have ever seen is like, it was also such an odd dichotomy. To go from covering this protest. People shouting and yelling at the Board of Regents and other upper administrators and President Cunningham and carrying these flags.
And there was one kid with like a bullhorn that he made me take a picture of him. I caught him in a video that I was taking because some members of the board and administration decided to do a photo op on the stairs outside of Northrop.
It was like, so, I was trying to take a video of them assembling to do this photo op outside on the stairs of Northrop which is right where the protest is happening. And then turn over to where the the protesters are shouting and chanting and the speakers are.
SIROVY: They had like games out on the lawn too. They had like bags, and they a whole bunch of seating.
HINES: Yeah, and then like down on onto the mall. That’s it was like, you know, food games, vendors. Yeah, it was very simple, but I think the expectation was definitely for it to be a wholesome event.
SIROVY: don’t know if wholesome was the end product.
HINES: Definitely did not feel like wholesome what happened. President Cunningham, I think, was supposed to give a speech and she wasn’t able to.
SIROVY: Oh, outside?
HINES: Yeah. The band was supposed to.
SIROVY: Oh, I saw that. Yeah.
HINES: To perform outside and they weren’t able to. Some things were canceled. I think the cheerleaders were supposed to do a performance and they weren’t able to either. We saw them outside.
There were plans that were set in place that weren’t fulfilled because of that. But it was an eventful day. It was a fun day. It was great. What happened yesterday is like, this is why I’m a journalist, you know?
SIROVY: Yep. These are the moments that like we kind of live for.
HINES: Yeah. It was messy and dramatic.
SIROVY: I do remember, um, like when I was walking to class, I do remember seeing a lot of cop cars. Did anyone get like suspended from these protests?
HINES: There were threats definitely for suspension. I do not know if any of those threats were followed through. Um, there were threats during the inauguration for people who disrupted the ceremony. I do not know what happened to any of those people.
It’s definitely something I’ll be following up on. And there were threats that were made outside for the protesters. The protesters became very loud and angry once those threats were made. And then they quieted down and then they had a prayer session. An Islamic prayer session.
SIROVY: What a day.
HINES: Yeah, again, and a lot of things happened and it’s kind of like, I wrote up about four pages.
SIROVY: There’s so much more that you could have written about.
HINES: Exactly. And it’s kind of like, what’s most important? What do I need to include in this? It’s like, Cunningham at a panel earlier that day, talking about health and all areas of health: agricultural health, economic health, like physical health, public health for people.
There was protests that happened that I was covering.
Tyler covered the inauguration inside. We all eventually met outside, and so many things kept stacking on top of each other. Of, this is happening right here, this isn’t happening now, it’s like, who do we talk to? It’s like, I definitely, there’s things that I wish I would have been able to talk to the faculty or some other students who weren’t organizers of the event.
SIROVY: There was just people just standing and watching.
HINES: Yeah, there were people who were just viewers. Talk to the regents even. I’m very familiar with what the regents look like, so it was very funny walking around and like spotting them in the crowd.
There was a lot of familiar faces.
SIROVY: Are there any pieces right now that you guys are doing about, or like any, like, ones in the coming days about President Cunningham or the Board of Regents?
HINES: So, definitely we’re probably going to be doing a follow up on the inauguration and seeing if any students were suspended for protesting. Definitely we are going to be doing a poll on Cunningham’s likability.
SIROVY: On a scale of like 1 to 10?
HINES: Kind of just like, do you like her? Yes, no.
SIROVY: I would love to see the numbers on that.
HINES: I’m really curious to see, kind of like, because everything that I think right now is based off of the conversations that I’ve had with only select few of people who are involved in the community. I would like to see the bigger numbers and the bigger picture at hand because maybe she is more liked than we think or maybe what people are saying is true and people don’t really like her.
SIROVY: Sorry, that kind of took me out there.
HINES: She’s the face of the university, so she’s going to get a lot of flack for what happens.
SIROVY: Alright, this episode was produced by Kaylie Sirovy. As always, we appreciate you listening in, and feel free to leave us an email at podcasting@mndaily.com with comments, questions or concerns. I’m Kaylie.
HINES: And I’m Olivia.
SIROVY: And this has been In The Know.
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