Hennepin, Ramsey, Anoka and Dakota counties will be under curfew from 7 p.m. Monday evening to 6 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made the announcement at a press conference Monday afternoon. There are exemptions, including for essential workers, he said.

The curfew comes after Brooklyn Center police killed Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop Sunday. Brooklyn Center officials released body camera footage of the incident at a press conference Monday. The footage showed Brooklyn Center police handcuffing Wright, who then tried to reenter the driver’s seat of the vehicle. A struggle ensued, and a police officer shot Wright.

The vehicle drove away “several blocks” before crashing into another vehicle, according to a press release from the Brooklyn Center Police Department.

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said that the officer “accidentally” discharged her gun and intended to fire her Taser. The officer can be heard yelling “Taser, taser, taser” before shooting Wright.

Protesters and mourners gathered at the scene in Brooklyn Center Monday evening, according to news reports. At nightfall, protesters confronted a line of police wearing riot gear outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department. Police fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades in an attempt to clear the crowd, MPR News reported.

Apartments across the street from the police department were in the line of fire as police deployed crowd-dispersal munitions, footage captured by Unicorn Riot showed.

Officials cited looting that occurred at a Brooklyn Center shopping center during the protests as a reason for the curfew. John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said that “within hours” of the looting, several law enforcement agencies were mobilized, and that “hundreds and hundreds of uniformed individuals” will be patrolling Tuesday tonight.

Besides Brooklyn Center police, multiple other agencies were deployed — including the University of Minnesota Police Department, State Patrol and several members of the Minnesota National Guard.

For those who violate the curfew “to exploit these tragedies for destruction or personal gain, you can rest assured that the largest police presence in Minnesota history and coordination will be prepared. You will be arrested. You will be charged, and there will be consequences for those actions,” Walz said.

The shooting comes at a tense time for a community already grieving the police killing of George Floyd. Protesters are intensifying calls against police brutality, as the jury hears from witnesses during the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin.

A vigil organized by Wright’s family was scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday in Brooklyn Center. It has since been rescheduled to 6 p.m.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the day police shot and killed Daunte Wright.

This is a breaking news report. More information will be added as it becomes available.

The University of Minnesota’s “Among Us” Club held a three-day tournament from March 19 to March 21 that awarded multiple winners out of over 60 registrants.

The club began in September 2020 as a way to organize students who wanted to play “Among Us,” a multiplayer online game, where a group of crewmates attempts to find one or more imposters in the group before they are all eliminated. Both current and former University students, as well as students from the University of California, Los Angeles have joined the club.

Currently, the group has over 500 members on its Discord server, where players can create and join “Among Us” games. The high volume of players was a surprise to the officers, said Narek Ohanyan, the vice president of the club.

“It basically just exploded. Like, right now we have over 500 people in the group,” Ohanyan said. “We were a little confused as to how that happened.”

Leaders of the club established the event after the University reached out to them and offered $750 in funding. Prizes included stuffed animals, stickers and a maroon and gold blanket, among other prizes.

Ohanyan, a second-year computer science student, said students who have joined the club have been able to meet new people and make friends, even amid the pandemic.
“I myself have made, like, actual — in real life — friends with some of the people that I played with, found out that they live literally, basically next door to me,” Ohanyan said.
Members of the club have also started streaming games they play, according to Ohanyan.

Since “Among Us” depends on players only being aware of their own location on the game map, watching another stream while playing in a game, also called “stream sniping,” is considered cheating. Therefore, officers of the club monitored streams during the tournament.

Autumn Moder, a graduate student at the University who placed fifth, said that she enjoyed the tournament because it helped her meet new people outside of her current group of friends and colleagues.
Moder also noted the pressure she felt during the tournament.

“My heart was racing pretty hard because when you’re an imposter, obviously you kind of have to lie,” Moder said. “I don’t have the map memorized so I’m sitting there like trying to cover myself in like different scenarios and not get caught.”

Fourth-year student Collin Sieffert, who won first place, was not a member of the group before registering for the tournament. Sieffert said he plans to keep playing “Among Us” with the club going forward.

“I’ve probably increased my video game playing in the pandemic like eight or 10 fold,” Sieffert said. “I’m not going to parties and not going to the bar. I’m not going to game nights with bigger groups or study groups and things like that. So all that time I now have, I’m putting into online social activities.”

Sieffert said he plans to give the stuffed “Among Us” toy he won in the tournament to his sister for her upcoming birthday.

The University of Minnesota has seen an increase in reported instances of scholastic dishonesty over recent years, prompting concern among faculty and administrators that this academic year could see even more as a result of online-only learning.

The Office for Community Standards (OCS) has cited an increase in reported incidents of cheating during the last school year. Although this academic year has not topped the 2019-20 reports, as of Feb. 10, 2021, the amount has nearly met the total reported incidents for the entire 2017-18 academic year.

One major way students are cheating is through the use of tutoring websites, like Chegg and Course Hero, to find answers to tests and quizzes, said Sharon Dzik, director of the OCS.

Dzik anticipates that the 2020-21 school year’s reported incidents will eventually exceed last academic year’s numbers.

Not all cheaters are necessarily being caught, however, said associate director of the OCS, Katie Koopmeiners.

“We know the real number is so much higher,” Koopmeiners said. “A lot of times either faculty don’t report even though they’re supposed to, or they’re not catching it or they feel like they don’t have enough evidence, so they’re not reporting it. … We know that incidents of scholastic dishonesty are being underreported on campus.”

The University has started working with Chegg to find students who are cheating online, which includes students sharing or taking information from tutoring websites, she said.

“Chegg will work with our office to identify students who are posting or looking at questions like exam questions when they’re not supposed to,” Koopmeiners said. “So, if a student is signing up with their U of M email, we get that information. Or we can research their IP address. We can work with IT security on campus to find out who the student is.”

When it comes to science and math courses, students who cheat often copy directly from online sites to find answers, Koopmeiners said. Lecturers can find misconduct by noticing students who use methods on exams that were not covered in class or if multiple students have identical answers.

For students in writing classes, graders can sometimes spot cheating if they notice students turning in assignments with substantial quality differences. This can be the case when students pay someone else to write an essay for them, an available function on some tutoring websites.

Students who post their materials onto online tutoring websites can also face consequences if others use their posts to cheat on exams, essays or quizzes.

“I would certainly say the pandemic contributed to the rise in scholastic dishonesty. I also think the word has gotten out about … these ‘tutorial sites’ and more students are accessing prohibited materials which has also played a role,” Dzik said in an email to the Minnesota Daily.

Students may not even realize they are taking part in cheating by sharing their past exam and quiz materials online, Dzik said.

Under University policy, most professors tend to own the material they develop for a course, according to an emailed statement from the University. Members of the administration, including Dzik, are creating messaging to inform students about this policy and the rules around spreading material online.

Regardless of a student’s intent, copying materials from these sites violate the University’s conduct code.

“I think they’re really deceptive,” Dzik said regarding the tutoring sites. “What they’re essentially doing is often setting a student up to … cheat. And sometimes the students, I don’t even think, realize that they’re sort of being duped into believing that it’s a study site versus a cheating site.”

Students who accept responsibility for cheating can choose to participate in the Academic Integrity Matters (AIM) program to change their disciplinary records. The program can be different for each student but may include completing online time management modules or apologizing to their professors, said Koopmeiners, who coordinates the program.

According to Koopmeiners, AIM has seen an increase in students using the program this year. The program is on track to have 99 AIM meetings this year, up from 67 meetings last year.

“This pandemic has brought out a lot of stress. Students who may not have had a lot of experience with online courses are now forced to do all of their courses online. We have students in different time zones who are getting up in the middle of the night to complete their classes,” Koopmeiners said. “So I think that there’s a lot of issues at play here, but I do think stress and pressure comes, you know, I think that’s probably the main reason.”

The University is not alone. Other schools nationwide have reported increases in student cheating, including Texas A&M University.

The chair of the Student Academic Integrity Committee (SAIC), Kenneth Leopold, said he was not surprised to see an increase in cheating during the pandemic. SAIC is a group of students, faculty and staff who advise the University administration on academic integrity.

“The pandemic has been difficult for everyone. By saying so, I certainly do not mean to condone or justify cheating. I’m just saying that unfortunately, hard times can sometimes make people compromise their own principles,” Leopold said in an email to the Daily.

For students struggling with course material, there are resources available at the University, including Student Academic Success Services and Student Writing Support.

“A university degree ought to be backed by substance. Cheating undermines learning and therefore dilutes the substance. Some may say that they only cheat in courses they’re required to take but don’t care about,” Leopold said in the email. “As someone who has been in academic settings since the 1970s, I can tell you that you never know what facts or ideas from your past will pop up and become significant. Cheating just reduces the depth of knowledge and experiences one has to draw from later on.”

The University of Minnesota Senate voted to rename the Diversity and Social Justice course theme to “Race, Power and Justice in the United States” (RPJ) and make it a requirement for all undergraduate students on the Twin Cities campus during their Thursday meeting.

In past years, students were required to take four of the five available theme courses: civic life and ethics, diversity and social justice in the U.S., the environment, global perspectives, and technology and society. The new system will still require students to take four total theme courses, but students will now have to take a course classified under the RPJ theme specifically. The new requirement will not add additional credits to a student’s workload. The change will go into effect in fall 2021.

Twin Cities faculty senators voted to approve the proposal with 67 ayes, 15 nays and eight abstentions.

The Council on Liberal Education (CLE), a group of faculty that reviews and approves liberal education courses, brought the proposal to the faculty senate in December. According to Kathryn Pearson, the CLE chair, around a quarter of University students graduate without taking a course with the social justice theme.

Pearson said this proposal was created in response to a request from Executive Vice President and Provost Rachel Croson following the police killing of George Floyd last summer.

The council built on a years-long effort to change the University’s liberal education requirements. In December 2019, the senate voted against all proposed changes.

According to a statement from University Relations, the Office of Undergraduate Education and the CLE will work together on next steps for implementing the change. The new requirement will not impact current students, Pearson said.

Courses that currently meet the standards for diversity and social justice in the U.S. theme will automatically meet the new RPJ theme’s requirements. As courses come up for their regular review over the next few years, however, they will need to be updated to meet the new requirement, according to Pearson.

The Minnesota Student Association voted to endorse the new theme requirement at their Tuesday forum meeting.

“I think the University has a responsibility and a lot of ways partly just given where we are geographically, partly given what the objectives of higher education institutions are to equip students with a diverse worldview,” said Carter Yost, an MSA student representative, who co-led MSA’s endorsement of the new theme requirement.

“I think making this theme a requirement for students is a really great step towards better student understanding,” he said.

Some senate members expressed concern about the new requirement, such as the idea that requiring these courses could place additional emotional labor on students of color who have lived experiences with racial injustice.

Mattea Allert, the speaker for the Council of Graduate Students, said she feels the new requirement does not accurately address student needs.

“I don’t think it’s inherently a bad proposal,” Allert said. “I sort of come from the mindset of opposed to dedicating specific classes to talk about race and social justice, that race and social justice should be brought into … all subjects because it touches everything.”

The University is not alone in this effort. Other Big Ten universities are reevaluating how their undergraduate curriculums consider race and racial justice.

The University of Michigan and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will be re-evaluating racial themes in their curriculum. Additionally, Penn State will “establish a required, credit-bearing course for all incoming undergraduate students focused on social justice and equity with an explicit exploration of race.”

“We’re failing our students if we don’t make them aware of systemic racial inequality and give them the tools to analyze it and its implications,” Pearson said. “Minnesota has some of the worst racial inequities in education, housing, health care, criminal justice, the environment. And most recently, it’s the site of George Floyd’s murder.”

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents discussed ways to assess their internal culture and practices during their Feb. 12 meeting.

The process could involve hiring an external consultant or surveying regents to evaluate the board’s effectiveness. The board could also appoint someone to interview faculty and administrators to determine their relationship with the board. Regents voiced mixed feelings about the evaluation, including support as well as concerns about privacy.

“Well-designed assessments really help provide a snapshot of how well the governing board is functioning. It provides a common understanding and language that will allow the group to have conversations that maybe sometimes are difficult or awkward,” board executive director Brian Steeves said during the February meeting.

There have been past evaluations of the board, including a survey in 2014. In 2015, the board held individual meetings between regents and an outside consultant to discuss the strength of relationships between the regents. The board discussed but decided against conducting an assessment in 2017.

Regent Michael Hsu said that he would support an assessment of the regents, particularly to address what he sees as recent shortfalls of the board, such as initially choosing not to fully refund room and board costs to students when many had to leave residence halls following the beginning of the pandemic.

“We don’t try to learn from our mistakes, and that’s, I think, a problem because no one wants to be honest about our mistakes. You know, one of the big mistakes this past year was when the pandemic started and we had the refund issue,” Hsu said. “We did correct it finally, but it was a completely self-inflicted wound, and we did damage to ourselves.”

During the February meeting, Steeves emphasized that the assessment would not be aimed at placing blame on any of the regents.

“If you’re trying to use an assessment to address problems between individual board members or it’s being used to try and place blame for an outcome that maybe certain members didn’t like or as some kind of a quick fix,” Steeves said. “Assessments don’t tend to be helpful in that space and, like I say, can actually be more harmful than good, because in some cases they can be viewed as a kind of a weapon.”

Steeves said that a minority of public universities and colleges regularly assess their governing boards.

Public-facing boards can face multiple difficulties when creating evaluations for themselves, including timing the assessment with when members are elected. Due to the schedule of regent elections, one-third of the board could be replaced every two years. It can be difficult to create an assessment with a new board, or regents who might leave the University in the coming months, Steeves said.

Another difficulty that public institutions face when they attempt assessments is “sunshine” laws that require meetings to be held publicly, Steeves said. These laws can make it difficult for board members to be open with feedback they have for other regents in fear they might not be able to remain anonymous.

Multiple regents voiced support for the potential evaluation but expressed concern about the privacy of their feedback.

“Even in private boards and corporate boards, you know, assessment can give rise to, you know, quite frankly very mixed feelings among board members,” Regent Kendall Powell said during the February meeting. “I think, you know, board members worry about confidentiality.”

Five months after University of Minnesota President Joan Gabel announced an external review of the campus police department, Dr. Cedric Alexander presented his findings to the Board of Regents during its Feb. 12 meeting.

The report, released Jan. 26, has eight pillars, which include goals to build trust between the University community and University of Minnesota Police Department. The recommendations include the demilitarization of UMPD, which would “eliminate all military grade weapons, vehicles, ammunition, tear gas, except under certain conditions,” and a review of UMPD’s staffing needs. According to the report, Alexander spoke to over 200 people and held over 70 meetings in consultation for the review. Some students, however, are critical of the final product.

During Friday’s board meeting, Gabel announced the creation of the M Safe Implementation Team, comprising faculty, staff and students who will consider and effect Alexander’s recommendations. The nomination process is still taking place, she said.

According to Gabel, the implementation committee will be led by Dr. Kathy Quick, an associate professor in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Dr. Mylene Culbreath, director of diversity and inclusion for the Graduate School Diversity Office.

“In order to really think about whether these recommendations are acted upon, or in what order or in what way, he recommends standing up an implementation committee, and we’re doing so,” Gabel said during the meeting.

During the meeting, Alexander spoke about balancing the needs of University community members who are concerned about crime and violence on campus with the needs of those who do not feel safe with the presence of UMPD.

Alexander noted that now that the report has been released, more difficult work on reforming UMPD has begun.

“There are no bad guys here. You have an outstanding police department that has done incredible work to work hard to try to build those relationships, but the challenges are still there,” Alexander said.

The University is working to immediately implement certain recommendations in the review, including installing body cameras, working with the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul to clarify the roles of UMPD, the Minneapolis Police Department and the St. Paul Police Department on areas around campus and placing the safety department under the purview of Senior Vice President Myron Frans.

One difficult aspect of the review is the disconnect between the data showing that UMPD has relatively few complaints and high satisfaction with the anecdotes and stories of students who have concerns about UMPD. One interpretation of this disconnect could be that students think they are interacting with UMPD as opposed to MPD.

“UMPD can be doing good work based on the data, and people can still be feeling unsafe. That can coexist. And so what we’re trying to do is find a set of evolutions, initiatives and engagements that help resolve that undeniable tension,” Gabel said.

Alexander stressed the importance of transparency within UMPD during the board meeting.

University community response

Some students have been critical of the nearly 60-page report, including Samiat Ajibola, the president of the Black Student Union (BSU).

The review was not in line with student activist requests to abolish or defund UMPD, she said.

Ajibola said while she felt Alexander listened to her and other student advocates during meetings in the fall, listening to activists is not enough; there has to be action following listening sessions.

“I believe that Black students on this campus specifically are tired of being told that [administrators] ‘hear us’ and that they ‘see us,’ but they continue to make steps to show the exact opposite,” Ajibola said. “I just believe [Alexander] may have heard us, and he listened to us, but he did not take it fully into consideration … because he completely disregarded the idea of defunding.”

BSU struggled to continue parts of its activism around the police while the review was ongoing, including an attempt to build a connection with UMPD, Ajibola said. During the fall, BSU asked the president’s office to speak with UMPD about the “current climate” of campus. According to Ajibola, the group was told to meet with Alexander directly because of the ongoing review instead of meeting with UMPD.

Andy Oien, an activist within the University’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), said that the review does not fulfill SDS’ demands for structural changes within UMPD.

Leah Spellman, a third-year graduate student at the University, is also critical of the review. She said she sees the review as proof the University is not listening to students, who have been advocating for the abolition of UMPD. Spellman has worked with SDS before but is not a member of the student group.

“The whole issue for me is that there’s still going to be a policing structure,” Spellman said. “Regardless of what they’re going to try and do and their actions moving forward, my hesitation is that they … still seem to want to maintain this idea that police are good and can be reformed when we’ve been telling them that you cannot reform a really deeply rooted racist structure.”

Anthony Scott, the president of the University’s Black Faculty and Staff Association, said that while the review is a great start, the University has more work to do for Black faculty.

“Because the review’s on public safety, it doesn’t address what we wanted to address as Black faculty and staff,” Scott said. “And that is protecting Black faculty and staff in terms of our ability to work at the University of Minnesota.”

Political science faculty from universities nationally have signed onto two letters, one of which includes a demand that college administrations be critical of hiring staffers from former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Over 150 professors have signed the letter, including five from the University of Minnesota. The letter, which was written in early January, asks for University administrators to “refrain from hiring or otherwise giving positions to senior officials, political appointees, and political staffers in the Trump administration without first applying the strictest of scrutiny — including consultation with faculty and students.”

Some Trump administration aides and staffers are reportedly worried about finding employment following their time under the former president, according to reporting by Politico. Over the last several years, universities attempting to hire former Trump staffers have faced protests from students and faculty, including at the University of Virginia.

“The intent of signing a letter at least for me, is sort of making a public commitment and sending a signal. The reason for doing it is to let people in positions to make these kinds of decisions know that they have faculty and other people in their institution who are going to speak up if this happens,” Humphrey School of Public Affairs professor Joe Soss said.

Soss signed the letter after seeing it circulate on social media and said he expects the University to consult with faculty, staff and students before hiring former members of the Trump administration.

“We think there should be a presumption with this administration that it will be inappropriate to offer positions of our institution to people who’ve done the work of this administration,” Soss said.

However, Department of Political Science professor Tanisha Fazal says she is skeptical of the effectiveness of the letter.

“I tend not to sign a lot of these kinds of letters. But there are certain lines that, if crossed, require accountability,” Fazal wrote in an emailed statement to the Minnesota Daily. “Honestly, I’m skeptical that the letter will have, or has had, much of an effect (although I would be glad to be wrong about this). Even so, and speaking only for myself, it was important for me to speak up by signing the letter.”

In early January, Soss and multiple other University professors also signed onto a letter demanding the former U.S. president’s removal from office, which had signatures from over 100 faculty at universities nationally. Jane Lawrence Sumner, another faculty member in the University’s political science department also signed the letter.

“I think that it’s important that people who study politics and government and political science be willing to take a stand and just say our political institutions mean something, and we believe in protecting them,” Sumner said. “I think one thing that does unify us is we all do share this commitment to sort of the strength and resilience of political institutions. And I think it’s important to take a stand on that.”

Four of the seats on the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents are up for election this year.

Each regent on the 12-member board serves a six year unpaid term and is chosen by the Minnesota Legislature.

Elections are held every other year, with one-third of the seats up for reelection. One board member is chosen from each of the state’s eight congressional districts, while four are chosen from the state at-large. At least one at-large regent must be a student at the time of the election.

The seats up for election are from the 1st, 4th, 6th and 7th Congressional districts.

Regents Michael Hsu and Randy Simonson have applied to serve another term on the board, and the Regent Candidate Advisory Council recommended 12 candidates after interviews with 20 candidates in total.

Regents Richard Beeson and Thomas Anderson did not apply for another term on the board, according to the Star Tribune.

The candidates will speak about their perspectives on the University on Tuesday, Jan. 19 during the 2021 Regent Candidate Forum. Attendees of the forum are able to submit questions upon registration at the University’s Alumni Association website.

An attempted robbery occurred Wednesday evening at 1021 29th Ave. SE, according to a SAFE-U notification.

The incident took place around 8:14 p.m. The suspect is described as a male wearing a brown and black sweater and blue jeans. He also attempted to steal the victim’s Xbox.

Community and campus members are advised to use caution in the area.

This is a breaking news report. More information may be added as it becomes available.

The University of Minnesota has seen an over 400% increase in positive COVID-19 tests on campus since Halloween.

According to a University public health expert, social gatherings have been responsible for spreading the virus, as opposed to classroom settings. The University has also expanded its testing program in the last few weeks.

The University’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 31 positive COVID-19 cases during the week of Oct. 29. The number jumped to 263 positive cases during the week of Nov. 12. The dashboard’s most recent update shows that the cases have since decreased to 156 positive tests, and does not account for positive tests among University community members tested outside of Boynton Health.

“Like every college campus in the nation, we expected to see increased cases following the Halloween weekend. Those cases, combined with the rapid growth of community spread amongst the general public, have combined to create the rise in cases we are experiencing in our campus community,” said Jill DeBoer, director of the Health Emergency Response Office in an emailed statement to the Minnesota Daily.

There are 32 isolation rooms, and 20 quarantine rooms in use as of Nov. 19. Around 11% of the University’s rooms are currently in use, according to the University’s dashboard.

Students and faculty have received codes for mail-in saliva testing across all five system campuses. The University also had two days where community members could get tested in the Field House during the week of Nov. 16. The University tested around 4,000 students and faculty during the testing event, DeBoer said in an interview with the Daily.

“Testing is one part of the picture — there’s also the distancing and masking, those are the most important prevention behaviors,” DeBoer said.

Some students have expressed concerns about the elevated numbers of cases this month, as others continue to go to bars and parties.

Third-year mathematics and economics student Joey DiSpirito has noticed regular parties throughout the semester near Dinkytown, where he lives with multiple roommates.

“A ton of people around us are basically partying every weekend,” DiSpirito said. “Everybody’s acting as if nothing’s going on.”

DiSpirito said he has been avoiding large gatherings to limit the spread of the virus, and plans on getting tested before going home to visit his family for Thanksgiving.

Other students also say they are frustrated at the lack of social distancing and the rising cases on campus.

Rogan Isbell, a first-year student in the College of Liberal Arts, regularly went to the University’s Recreation and Wellness Center to find a sense of structure during the pandemic. He said he was frustrated when the gym closed due to new coronavirus restrictions issued by Gov. Tim Walz.

“But now the gym is closed, I can’t do that anymore and now I’m sad,” Isbell said. “If it helps reduce cases then like I’m alright if it closes, but like, I just want to get back to normal.”