“It’s a way of getting work done real cheap.”

That’s what Cherrene Horazuk, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees’ (AFSCME) Local 3800 Union for University of Minnesota clerical workers, said as she talked about why the University readily uses student workers’ labor to run its departments.

Horazuk is the aid to the Dean of the University’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and advocates for a change in the minimum wage for municipal employees and University student workers.

“The reality is, I think there are many departments who really look at hiring student workers in order to save as much money as possible,” Horazuk said.

As campus buzz grows around raising the University’s $10.08 minimum wage to match Minneapolis’ minimum wage, workers have expressed feeling exploited by the University because of the amount of responsibility put on students’ shoulders, often for low pay.

“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to afford groceries at any given week.”

Student workers often endure financial stress because of low pay from University jobs combined with Minneapolis’ high cost of living. Some student workers said they had to go on government assistance to be able to afford groceries on their University wage.

Akadia Johnson graduated from the University last spring and worked as the head house manager for the University’s Rarig Center. Johnson said although they loved their job on campus, the low pay and irregular hours caused increased anxiety.

After two years of working in their position, Johnson said their office hours were reduced from five hours to two hours which affected pay.

“Once my office hours got cut, so it was two hours a week, I was under so much financial stress,” Johnson said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to afford groceries at any given week.”

Erin Brockmeier, a University second-year student, held a similar sentiment. Brockmeier currently works as an office assistant (OA) at a residential dorm and had to cut down on food because their University wage is not enough to afford groceries.

Brockmeier added they would like to see the University support student workers by creating more affordable food initiatives on campus.

“If you look at the prices of anything in the campus marketplaces, they are kind of insane. So affordable food costs would be a huge thing for me at least,” Brockmeier said. “We live in a food desert more or less.”

Brockmeier was one of many students and staff picketing outside of Boynton Health on Tuesday, Oct. 19 to demand the University leadership acknowledge the sacrifices essential health care workers made during the pandemic as they renegotiate their contracts.

University alumnus Adam Drabek, a College of Liberal Arts 1001 teaching assistant, said he pursued the TA position because he was studying education and thought it would be a good opportunity to work with students and run a classroom. Reflecting on his experience as a TA, Drabek said the low pay and work place experience did not compensate for the amount of responsibility coming with the position.

Throughout his experience as a TA, Drabek said he attended extensive unpaid training sessions in addition to his work hours. At the end of every month, he received a $500 stipend that totaled to around half of what he would have earned from the University’s hourly minimum wage.

“I did the math,” Drabek said. “Let’s say it’s fifteen weeks, four hours a week, so 60 hours [of paid work]. Plus 40 hours of unpaid training, if you include welcome week and weekends. That’s five dollars an hour.”

Since the University is a land-grant institution, Horazuk argued, it is able to avoid paying Minneapolis’ minimum wage despite the majority of campus residing in Minneapolis.

“Because the University is a land-grant institution and they are viewed as kind of a separate entity, they have a different relationship with the state and the legislature,” Horazuk said. “The University has been able to convince the legislature that laws such as the minimum wage laws and statutes in Minneapolis don’t apply to the University.”

Student and municipal workers’ protest and raise awareness

Katie Daly, a University fourth-year and student worker, has worked three student jobs throughout her studies at the University. She said the position she felt most exploited in was her role as a TA.

“I TA’d a couple of classes and in that I felt more exploited,” Daly said. “The professors would put a lot more responsibility [on TA’s], especially during COVID.”

Daly and her roommate started an online petition about a month ago in light of Minneapolis enacting a new minimum wage of $15 that asks the University to follow in Minneapolis’ footsteps.The petition now has over 760 signatures.

“We are going somewhere that we can’t afford. We are getting paid below Minneapolis standard minimum wage. We have student loans now,” Daly said. “That’s kind of what inspired the two of us to write it.”

According to Jack Ricker, the University’s Director of Public Relations, the $10.08 minimum wage is determined based on guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Education, although many student jobs pay more than minimum wage depending on factors such as the time worked in a position and the amount of industry knowledge required upon being hired.

Other benefits of student employment, according to Ricker, are the workplace experience and valuable training gained in a position, the networking opportunities, and the ability to have a real-world application of skills.

Along with student-led efforts to raise University minimum wage, University essential health care workers are asking for recognition for their continuous work through the pandemic, despite the risks.

Deborah Pavlica, the president of AFSCME’s Local 3260 union for University health care workers, said the University’s leadership has been unresponsive to the demands of essential workers as they renegotiate their contracts, despite work by essential workers to keep University facilities running during the pandemic.

Pavlica works at Boynton as a licensed practical nurse. She and other essential health care workers kept Boynton running through the pandemic for a hazard pay of two dollars an hour, according to Pavlica.

“[The University] had us come out and only gave us two dollars an hour,” Pavlica said. “So my life is worth sixteen bucks a day for like three months.”

Although Pavlica works on a yearly salary, she said the additional two dollars an hour in hazard pay provided by the University did not atone for the high risk of COVID-19 that essential workers endured, especially at the beginning of the pandemic because of more uncertainty of COVID-19 transmissibility and what safety precautions should be taken.

Essential workers also had to pay more for services during the pandemic. This included the costs of day care for children, commuting when some public transportation options were shut down at the start of the pandemic, which the hazard pay did not accommodate for, according to Pavlica.

Essential and student workers both expressed how they would like to see the University start valuing its workers instead of profits.

Ginger Beezley is in her second semester at the University and has worked two different on-campus jobs so far. Beezley said the challenges of her job did not stem from on-duty managers, but the perceived lack of involvement and leadership from the University.

“A common theme of working at the U is, not necessarily the OA directors [because] they are doing the best they can, is the lack of support from higher up,” Beezley said. “I guess they have something better to do than worry about people who actually work at their university, they just have to think about making money.”

More recently, University students have mobilized to raise the minimum wage. Cassidy Drummond, a past member of the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) and University alumna said MSA passed a resolution around raising the minimum wage in the 2019-2020 academic year, but the pandemic hindered their progress around this issue.

While studying at the University, Drummond worked for the University’s Housing and Residential Life and said she believes that the University is unwilling to support students through mental health struggles.

After seeing the treatment of student workers struggling with mental health and the lack of flexibility in student worker positions in accommodating academic schedules, Drummond said she thinks it is discouraging that the University, in her opinion, is not addressing the needs of students.

“Housing very much preaches that they care about their employees and prioritize self-care, but when it really comes down to it, when it comes to actual action, they really have shown that they don’t care,” Drummond said.

University students have long pushed the University administration to make gender neutral bathrooms accessible in every building on campus, but even as the University made strides towards making every single-use bathroom on campus gender neutral, students and staff still raise concerns about these facilities not being able to accommodate the demand.

“The demand [for gender neutral bathrooms] is getting high,” said Will Clashe, member of the Trans Advisory and Action Team (TAAT). “We know there is not enough to meet that demand, and when there are enough to meet that demand, that is going to benefit people for a long time and really be a concrete, material commitment to equity.”

TAAT members suggest one way the University could address the demand for gender neutral bathrooms is by constructing gender neutral bathrooms with more than one stall across campus buildings. Currently, there is only one multi-use gender neutral bathroom which is located in Ford Hall.

“There’s a huge barrier [for the University] to having multi-use gender neutral bathrooms, which would solve a lot of the issues, because then you would have [more] capacity,” Lee Penn, University chemistry professor and TAAT member, said.

This is an initiative already being tackled by staff at the Andersen Library. According to Wanda Marsolek, engineering liaison and data curation librarian, the library is currently exploring design options on how to make a multi-use gender neutral bathroom available there.

The first step in this process is to get cost estimates for the necessary renovations. As of now, the University has invested about $11,000 in only getting the Andersen Library cost estimates conducted, Marsolek said.

Although it is less expensive to make all single use bathrooms gender neutral compared to constructing gender neutral bathrooms with multiple stalls, Marsolek said it is important for the University to make these investments.

“I think there needs to be a focus on making these investments so people believe they belong, that they have these rights,” Marsolek said.

Just like the work being done in Andersen library, different academic departments in the University have taken initiative to ensure that their buildings have gender neutral bathrooms, according to Penn.

“I think chemistry is a great example [of this],” Penn said. “I think it was in 2011, [when] we were the first department in the College of Science and Engineering to explicitly push for a gender neutral bathroom in our building, and now we have three.”

Even if buildings have gender neutral bathrooms, it can be difficult to locate them within buildings, according to Penn.

“You’ll walk into a building and [signs] will say where the men’s bathroom is, and where the women’s bathroom is, but there is no sign that includes where the gender neutral bathrooms are, which I think is frustrating,” Penn said.

One of the resources available to students is an online gender neutral restroom map, where students can figure out which buildings have gender neutral bathrooms and where inside the buildings the bathrooms are located. This map can be found under the resources section of the University’s Gender and Sexuality Center for Queer and Trans Life’s web page.

TAAT is currently working with the University’s facilities management to complete a comprehensive inventory of bathrooms on campus, Clashe said. The inventory is a necessary next step to address where the University could stand to improve the availability of gender neutral restrooms on campus.

“In the area of bathrooms, it’s a daily need,” Clashe said. “It’s a basic human right. It’s about dignity.”

The Office of Discovery and Translation (ODAT) funded eight projects this fall to improve health equity and accessibility in Minneapolis and across Minnesota.

ODAT is a funding program at the University that funds research and projects proposed by applicants that will lead to new health care innovations. Every year, ODAT chooses an area of focus for the projects they fund, and this year they chose health equity and accessibility.

“Health equity and health disparities have been a growing area of interest in health care so we have been increasingly focusing our efforts on this,” Jodi Fenlon Rebuffoni, ODAT’s senior program manager, said.

The eight programs this year will improve health equity by addressing numerous areas of health care disparities among different communities.

Those included in these eight projects, which often receive disparate health care from medical professionals, include LGBTQIA+ people, people of color and those from rural areas. Other projects in the ODAT initiative focus on under-addressed disparities in specific medical conditions including cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, chronic kidney disease, and congenital heart disease.

“One area we were really consistent about is making sure we were funding in the area of health equity and accessibility, [and] that we were covering as many different types of populations as well,” Rebuffoni said.

Although each of the programs cover drastically different aspects of health disparities, project leaders said their initiatives prioritize taking direction from the communities most affected by the topic of research.

Wendy St. Peter, one of the project leaders, plans on doing this by sending open-ended surveys to people affected by the issue, holding discussion groups and generally consulting with the patients affected to see what course of action they would recommend.

St. Peter is a professor in the University’s College of Pharmacy and is currently leading a project to reduce medical-related disparities in African Americans with chronic kidney disease through her national initiative “Advancing Kidney Health Through Optimal Medication Management.”

St. Peter said her project cannot be done without first consulting with the people affected by these disparities to understand the root cause of the disparate health care, in this case, in African American patients with chronic kidney disease.

“Being a healthcare professional, oftentimes in the past, we think we know where the problems are,” St. Peter said. “We think we know what the solutions are, but oftentimes, we’ve created those solutions without those underlying communities and we’ve shown that that hasn’t been very effective.”

In her project, St. Peter will start by distributing surveys to African American patients with chronic kidney disease to shed light on issues they have noticed in health care. The project will use their responses to guide discussion groups that will start to unpack the root causes of these health disparities.

She added that in the project, “we are going to create a nationally recognized training and education program for pharmacists that embraces diversity [and] addresses key disparities in medication optimization in communities like African Americans.”

The purpose of creating the education program is to train the next generation of healthcare professionals to apply this education and address health care disparities in their future careers. Rebuffoni emphasizes that taking this approach is important for all of the projects.

Rebuffoni said she hopes these initiatives will draw attention to health equity and accessibility so the students working in the projects will be motivated to continue working on similar initiatives in their careers.

Julie Gray, a fourth-year pharmacy student, said she started working on St. Peter’s project and plans to take the information she learns about disparate healthcare into her future career as a medical professional.

“What I would like to get out of it is just understanding the disparities that are happening specifically with kidney health,” Gray said.

Gray is currently working with the University’s Institutional Review Board to get approval for the project.

“My hopes are to provide, pharmacists mostly, but health professionals with the tools, background and the education to address these medication-related disparities in many different populations,” Gray said.

The fall semester brings the establishment of the new Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender and Sexuality Studies (RIDGS) at the University of Minnesota.

When the RIGS initiative was adopted in 2015 following student and faculty advocacy, conversations surrounding its intersection with disability emerged as time went on.

This past year, these conversations contributed to the RIGS initiative becoming a University center and in turn, the RIGS faculty decided to formally incorporate disability into the new center’s title, following advocacy from the Critical Disability Studies Collective.

The new RIDGS Center will be headed by Director Keith Mayes.

“The reformation of the center around disability … I think becomes an opportunity for students to understand that there are opportunities to communicate and share interests, research and other ideas about disability in that framework,” said David Johnson, chair of the University’s Disabilities Issues Committee.

The Critical Disability Studies Collective (CDSC) was ultimately responsible for the incorporation of disability into the formal title and scope of the new center.

“The CDSC is really an organization that’s working to enhance and foster an intellectual and academic community, in the Twin Cities and at the University of Minnesota, around complex understandings about disability,” Angela Carter, the founding chair of the CDSC, said. “We think of disability as a social, historical, economic and political category rather than a medical problem that an individual needs to fix or address.”

During her graduate studies at the University, Carter said the lack of disability community groups for students was the reason she founded the CDSC.

“My inspiration [for founding the CDSC] was really my own needs and recognizing my own needs as a disabled scholar, educator, organizer on campus, and feeling very alone both in my identity as a disabled person and disabled graduate student, and also in my work in critical disabilities studies,” Carter said. “I just didn’t have that community that I needed.”

In 2015, a few of Carter’s friends and colleagues joined in the creation of the group. The following year, Jessica Horvath Williams, a postdoctoral associate in English, became a co-chair of the group. Carter and Horvath Williams’ worked together to make the CDSC an official affiliate of RIGS in 2017.

“We came under the umbrella of RIGS,” Horvath Williams said. “We needed a home, so we petitioned RIGS to join them.”

For the past four years, Carter and Horvath Williams worked alongside the other CDSC members to formally include disability in the title of the center.

“Last year, Angela and I, as co-chairs, with the permission of the CDSC, wrote a very long letter requesting our formal incorporation into RIGS,” Horvath Williams said. “And so RIGS is now RIDGS.”

Student groups and University committees across campus have voiced their support for the transition from RIGS to the Center for RIDGS this fall.

“I want to acknowledge that I am very happy to see disability as part of the conversation about diversity and intersectionality on campus,” Johnson said.

The Organization for Graduate and Professional Students with Disabilities (OGPSD) is also supportive of the formation of the new Center for RIDGS, but it has raised concerns over the potential failure to consult students with disabilities in the decision to transition from RIGS to RIDGS.

“One issue I have frequently advocated about is that, many times on college campuses, diversity, equity and inclusivity efforts include many marginalized populations, to their credit, but unfortunately all too often routinely exclude students with disabilities,” said OGPSD President Ryan Machtmes.

Machtmes added that although OGPSD was not consulted about this decision, it was a positive change and a step in the right direction for the University.

“I recognize that the University is actively making strides towards improving campus climate and accessibility for students with disabilities,” Machtmes said. “But of course, it does have a length to go before we can claim to be a truly accessible and welcoming campus for all individuals with disabilities.”

Additionally, OGPSD members hope to see the Center for RIDGS take on new initiatives, now that disability is formally included in its focus. Machtmes said he would personally like to see the establishment of a University disability studies program.

“Race and gender and sexuality and indigeneity, all of those things, are connected to disability in a very real-world way,” Horvath Williams said. “The argument of the Critical Disability Studies is that we can’t talk about any of these things without talking and thinking through disability as well.”

Many students and faculty hope the CDSC’s activism to get disability included in the RIDGS Center will foster conversations about the intersectionality of disability with other identities.

“The issue is to develop an understanding of these issues around disability across campus, trying to destigmatize disability and view it as a natural condition of life and living,” Johnson said.

After years of pressure from student groups and numerous resolutions passed within the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Student Association (MSA), the University recently announced plans to fully divest from fossil fuels in the next five to seven years.

“I genuinely didn’t think that was something that was going to come out at the beginning of this year,” said Madeline Miller, the MSA director of the Environmental Accountability Committee. “I thought I was going to spend the rest of my year here fighting for divestment.”

The student-led movement to divest from fossil fuels gained traction in 2013 after MSA passed a resolution for the University to divest from fossil fuels. It took eight years after this student resolution was passed for the University to take concrete steps to fight climate change, despite overwhelming support from the student body.
“I think overall it’s a good decision [to divest from fossil fuels],” third-year student Nour Hussein said. “[It’s] long overdue in my opinion, and I just hope that it’s a full divestment, and that funds that are divested are put into something that counteracts fossil fuels.”

University student groups like Students for Climate Justice expressed frustration at the University’s lack of action, even after numerous referendums and resolutions passed by MSA.

“There’s no force that comes along with a lot of the MSA policies,” Zach Fisher, a member of Students for Climate Justice, said. “Even as someone in the student senate, I was a member of the social concerns committee, the most we could do is recommend to the board.”

Unless dramatic change is made to carbon emissions, about 89% of which is caused by the use of fossil fuels, the world will exceed the goal set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees celsius. The effects of this are already seen in rising sea levels and increasing frequency of wildfires and extreme weather events like floods and heatwaves.

After little change resulted from MSA resolutions and referendums, Students for Climate Justice started to take a direct-action approach to pressure the University’s administration to divest from fossil fuels.

“Two years ago, we started more actively protesting,” Fisher said. “We tried to make the [Board of Regents] feel like we weren’t just going to sign papers. We were going to show up. We were going to protest. We were going to make noise.”

By holding rallies and marches around campus, student activists made it clear that they are not going anywhere without climate action from the University.

Keeping a strong student movement over the years has been a struggle for many student climate activist groups, especially as their members graduate. While student activists can easily mobilize against climate change living on campus, it is not as easy to advocate for change after graduation, said Fisher, who believes the University waits for activists to graduate and move off campus so it does not have to address their concerns.

Students for Climate Justice has powered through to create a sustained climate justice movement, even as some of their more active members graduate.

In combination with sustained protests and continuous action, the University finally announced on September 24 it would be divesting from fossil fuels.

“It was really amazing that MSA was able to help in this process,” Miller said. “But it really was done by years and years of work of all of these different student groups and people in the University community.”

Many students involved in the widespread efforts are calling for accountability going forward in the divestment process.

“Their divestment was very good,” Fisher said. “As long as they follow through, I personally cannot say I have any complaints on this policy.”

Fisher and Miller said that the divestment is a step in the right direction. However, considering the extent of the climate crisis, the University needs to take further action to make a significant difference.

“I think they are doing a good job. That’s not to say that work should be stopped in that field,” Hussein said. “We are in a state of climate emergency, have you looked at the news?”

From Sept. 12 to 18, the University of Minnesota and other Big Ten universities launched a fundraising campaign titled “One Big Week” to raise funds to support student groups. This year, the University’s focus was to support Boynton Health’s Nutritious U Food Pantry.

Located on the second floor of the Memorial Union, the food pantry is a resource for students to reduce the stress around accessing food, said Amber Chang, the coordinator of Boynton Health’s Nutritious U Food Pantry.

By the end of the fundraiser, the University raised $3,330 of their $5,000 goal which will go toward helping Boynton Health’s Food Pantry stock its shelves with produce and dried goods from The Food Group, a local food bank.

“[The money raised] will allow Nutritious U to serve over 3,000 food insecure students and will ensure their basic needs [are met], so they can focus on their academics and not have to worry about where their next meal will come from,” Chang said.

A student’s inability to access transportation to grocery stores, along with the lack of grocery stores in the immediate campus area, contributes to a student’s anxiety around finding meals, Chang said.

“We live in a food desert,” said Priscilla Trinh, a fourth-year student and lead officer for the Food Recovery Network. “Food deserts are a really common phenomenon in urban centers.”

Since 2014, the Food Recovery Network is another University student group working to fight food insecurity and decrease food waste. Every Friday, the Food Recovery Network goes to on-campus restaurants and collects excess food to donate to Loaves and Fishes, a local food distributor, Trinh said.

By diverting excess food from landfills, the Food Recovery Network fights not only food insecurity but also the environmental damages that come with food waste, like climate change. Every year, the Food Recovery Network diverts a total of four to five thousand pounds of food from campus restaurants to food shelves, according to Trinh. 

Although Boynton and groups like the Food Recovery Network aids in fighting food insecurity among University students, the financial effects of the pandemic have caused more students to wonder where their next meal will come from.

“We know that one in six Americans is food insecure, and on our campus alone, 17%,” Trinh said. “That’s almost one in five students afraid of their food running out.”

Many student groups fighting food insecurity expanded their current initiatives or started new programs to accommodate for the increasing number of students experiencing food insecurity. One of these groups includes Swipe Out Hunger.

Swipe Out Hunger is a University student group that allows students to donate their meal swipes to students seeking additional dining resources. But since the onset of the pandemic, Swipe Out Hunger started distributing restaurant gift cards to food insecure students who may not have access to the dining halls, said Gigi Otten, a third-year student and leader of Swipe Out Hunger.

“With our return this fall semester … we have had a large increase in the use of our gift card option,” Otten said. “I think that really comes from more students being aware of it and more students facing the financial difficulties of having to pay tuition again, and doing it in probably a different environment than they had before the pandemic.”

Recently, Swipe Out Hunger started a third initiative to distribute meals on campus. However, running three initiatives with a small group of students has posed some challenges, so Swipe Out Hunger is actively looking for more student volunteers, Otten said.

Although food insecurity among students is increasing, Maria Bonilla, The Food Group agency program manager, said she noticed more universities have launched programs to increase students’ access to food resources.

“This is an issue that has really come to the surface, and colleges and universities across the metro are addressing and taking some action around it,” Bonilla said.

Although more attention and new programs are working to address food insecurity on campus, Otten said there is still a gap in the number of aid programs offered to college students compared to any other age demographic. 

“We [Swipe Out Hunger] are definitely continuing our work on advocacy for college students, because a lot of times, we are considered one of those gaps in the public health and public support systems,” Otten said. “There are a lot of programs [available] for K-12 and when you are an adult and beyond, [but] a lot of the times the college areas lack some of that support.”

Editor’s note: This article discusses sexual assault. If you or anyone you know has experienced sexual assault, the Aurora Center’s 24-hour helpline can be reached at (612) 626-9111.

Four years ago, a group of student protesters marched down University Avenue, also known as “frat row,” to denounce rape culture and demand the University of Minnesota take action to stop sexual assault after a string of sexual assault reports occurred across University fraternities.

On Sept. 10, dozens of University students continued this legacy with a march starting from Cooke Hall and ending at the Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) house, led by recently formed student group UMN Against Frats.

The FIJI house was chosen as the end location of Friday’s protest to show solidarity with the protests at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) after a sexual assault was reported at its FIJI chapter.

With chants of “All frats are FIJI,” protesters made their message clear: they stand in solidarity with the protesters at UNL and victims of sexual assault at the University of Minnesota.

“I think what’s happening at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is giving different schools momentum to continue this work,” said a representative of Abolish Greek Life UMN, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety reasons. “Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that sexual violence has happened on campuses, but I think now people are tuning [in] especially with what’s happening at FIJI.”

Abolish Greek Life UMN is another recently formed student group that uses their Instagram profile to post stories written by students about their experiences with two Greek life organizations, the Interfraternity and Panhellenic Councils. Many of these stories depict sexual assault at fraternity houses and experiences that caused students to drop out of greek life.

“What we hope to do by posting victim-survivor stories is just [to show] solidarity,” the Abolish Greek Life representative said. “Some of the members of the group did experience sexual violence on campus and didn’t feel like they had the outlet to talk about their stories and I think that’s so true for so many other victim-survivors.”

Advocacy in the Greater Minneapolis Community

Like Abolish Greek Life UMN, other groups in the Minneapolis community are working to elevate the voices of victim-survivors. One of these groups is called Break the Silence.

Anishaa Kamesh, a board member of Break the Silence, said the organization is a “grassroots, survivor-led organization that works to support survivors and dismantle rape culture through a trauma-informed and victim-centered approach.”

In the past, Break the Silence joined conversations surrounding sexual violence on campus. In 2017, they organized a non-violent protest in response to sexual assault allegations against 10 University football players,

“We have aligned ourselves with survivors in the community in their fights for justice and accountability through nonviolent demonstrations,” Kamesh said.

Aside from their direct-action work, Break the Silence has fought for four years for legislative change to eliminate barriers for victim-survivors. They recently helped pass a bill in the Minnesota legislature ending the statue of limitation for sexual assault cases. This bill went into effect on Wednesday.

Another group on campus, the Aurora Center, works to provide free, confidential and accessible resources to student and staff victim-survivors. Housed in Appleby Hall, the Aurora Center advocates for victim-survivors at the University of Minnesota and Augsburg University in the legal system, academic settings, through medical examinations, law enforcement and in finding safe housing.

“Our mission is to serve all student survivors and concerned people regarding sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking and sexual harassment at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, as well as Augsburg University,” said Katie Eichele, director of the Aurora Center.

The Aurora Center focuses on giving victim-survivors back the control and choice in processing an experience that took away that control and bodily autonomy, said Gavin Grivna, the associate director of the Aurora Center

“I think it’s important that [victim-survivors] have the ability to choose, following what has taken place because a survivor doesn’t have a choice with what they experience,” Grivna said. “Being able to create that choice and autonomy is really important and what we prioritize.”

The Aurora Center staff members are dedicated to supporting victim-survivors’ decisions and providing the right services to address their wants and needs, Grivna said.

“At the end of the day, we just want the survivor to feel supported,” Grivna said. “There’s places and people they can go to for support, to be heard, and engage in what a healing journey looks like for them.”

While the services and resources at the Aurora Center on campus are available as free, confidential support for victim-survivors, the first-ever national memorial to honor victims and survivors stands in Boom Island Park.

This project, started by Break the Silence, is meant to create a safe space for victim-survivors in the Minneapolis community to heal and reflect, according to Kamesh.

The recent student-led protest, along with advocacy efforts led by groups like Break the Silence and the Aurora Center, are just some of the recent advocacy efforts at the University and greater Minneapolis community that provide safety and healing to victim-surivors, while striving to end the stigma of speaking out against sexual violence.

However, according to the representative from Abolish Greek Life UMN, there is still a long road ahead in the fight to end rape culture and the silencing of victim-survivors rooted in fraternities — and in society as a whole.

“It’s going to be a long battle and I hope it continues,” said the representative from Abolish Greek Life UMN. “I’m hopeful because I’m seeing a whole bunch of other people getting involved, and I think there needs to be a long-term solution, just because it shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of the students to do this work.”

This past summer, the first-ever George Floyd Memorial Scholarship in Law was awarded to Brandon Redmon, a student who is starting at the University of Minnesota’s law school this fall.

The purpose behind the scholarship is to ease the financial burden of tuition and inspire the next generation of law students. Redmon, this year’s recipient, had previously completed his bachelor’s in American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

He was inspired to become an attorney after being involved in a lawsuit against a former employer for wrongful termination on the basis of discrimination.

“[George Floyd’s] murder was so shocking and upsetting and we wanted to do something to, first of all, honor him and make sure his name was never forgotten,” said attorney and University alum Catlan McCurdy. “Secondly, to in some way, counterbalance the racial inequity in this country. My husband and I are both lawyers … so we thought this is one way we can try and create a greater impact in the legal community.”

The scholarship was created with a donation from McCurdy and her husband Sanjiv Laud which was later matched by the University’s Law School and went on to receive over 425 additions from outside donors.

“It’s special, we know that folks can come together for a common goal and this is just evidence to show that,” Redmon said.

Redmon is entering his first year as a law student this fall and as he begins his studies, he continues to reflect on what the scholarship means to him.

“This scholarship gives folks like myself an opportunity to fund a legal education to be the folks on the frontline … and [to] fight against racial and ethnic injustice,” Redmon said.

Being a father of four and being a truck driver before getting his bachelor’s, Redmon recognizes that himself and George Floyd share many similarities.

“I think I was selected for the scholarship largely in part that Mr. Floyd and I, we share a lot of similarities,” Redmon said. “Both were truck drivers … both are family men.”

After being named the scholarship’s recipient, Redmon said he developed a close friendship with the initial donors McCurdy and Laud.

“Meeting them, they were awesome. It felt like I was meeting old buddies, like people I haven’t seen in forever,” Redmon said.

McCurdy expressed a very similar sentiment when she described her first encounter with Redmon.

“I think he’s such a fantastic person. It was really fun to meet him as the first recipient,” McCurdy said. “I’m so excited for him and his future.”

With 425 donors and counting, the goal for McCurdy and Laud, along with the Law School is to continue offering this scholarship in future years to ease the financial burden for law students hoping to continue their studies at the University.

“Our hope is that the scholarship will make it possible to come study here [and] that it will ease some of their financial burdens so they can get the most out of their experience and get the preparation they need to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve,” said Garry Jenkins, dean of the Law School.

What started with a donation from two University alums after the tragic murder of George Floyd became a way for the University to offer support to the next generation of lawyers. “Taking something that was a tragedy and trying to make something positive out of it, we are really proud to help make that possible,” Jenkins said.

“I am very appreciative to everyone who donated ─ time, energy, money ─ everyone who gave gifts to help the cause,” Redmon said. “I am very appreciative of that and I am really enjoying my time at the law school right now.”