Brian Weimer, center, speaks during the town hall event on Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021 at Wrench Auditorium in Columbia. Weimer, who is the chief of the MUPD, talked about how his department hopes to partner with more student groups in the future, in order to build stronger and more positive relationships with the campus community.
Piper Molins, guest multimedia reporter, assembled a package on the MSA safety town hall. Listen to it here!
Content Warning: This story contains content relating to sexual violence, hazing and gun violence.
The Missouri Students Association Senate held a town hall meeting on Dec. 1 concerning campus safety at Wrench Auditorium. Bill Stackman, vice chancellor of Student Affairs, Andy Hayes, the assistant vice chancellor for Title IX and Civil Rights and MUPD Chief Brian Weimer were in attendance. MSA Senate Speaker Lane Cargile asked the administrators predetermined questions based on a student survey of topics of interest conducted before the meeting.
Although the panel discussed student safety at MU in general, the administrators each spoke on issues specific to their respective departments that arose over the fall semester. These included student protests over reports of druggings and sexual assault on campus, multiple shootings in downtown Columbia and, most recently, the hazing incident which resulted in the suspension of Phi Gamma Delta, a fraternity commonly referred to as “Fiji”.
Cargile’s first question concerned communication between MU administration and students, a common complaint among students in regards to shootings downtown, as well as sexual assault on campus.
“Realize we are very different from the Columbia Police Department because of jurisdiction,” Weimer said. “We work very well together, we share information with each other, however, if there’s crimes and things that are going on out in the community, that’s not part of our jurisdiction — we don’t investigate them and there’s nothing we can do with them.”
Hayes made similar comments about the role of the Title IX office concerning communications to students on issues of sexual assault.
“With our office, we can’t help what we don’t know about. That’s really kind of my biggest message tonight,” Hayes said, in the context of communications and alerts sent to students surrounding sexual assault.
In an MSA survey conducted before the town hall, there was a lack of confidence in MU prioritizing safety throughout departments shown based on responses. Cargile then asked how each department specifically prioritizes and addresses safety concerns as they come across their desks. Stackman responded first.
“When I think about responding to concerns, I try to set the stage to make sure that people know that I, my office and my staff — we welcome those comments,” Stackman said. “We work hard in building trust and having an open door accessible.”
Weimer addressed the lack of confidence and general mistrust among students of his department by saying, “I don’t see that there’s a big mistrust between students and administration. I think there’s a lot of misinformation.”
Weimer explained that while his department holds events such as Pizza with Police or self defense classes to try and create positive interpersonal experiences between students and the MUPD force, many times students refuse to participate because of preconceived notions about the police. One student who attended the meeting, however, did raise their hand to make the note to Weimer that especially in the case of students of color, a long history of violence between police and citizens could point to the reason as to why some students may not want to interact with the MUPD, and this issue extends far beyond the MU campus.
Stackman also mentioned that he and his staff attended the sexual violence protests on campus to listen to student concerns firsthand, and they have worked with those students for the last eight weeks to address their concerns. He pointed out that, after the Fiji protest, campus fraternity activities were shut down for a week, and also spoke about regular meetings he holds every Monday with different student leaders to address their complaints.
The floor was then opened to students for a question and answer session with the panel. The first to speak was junior President of the Asian American Student Association and MU junior Jane Elliston, who attended the town hall to address instances of sexual violence within her organization, and ask the panel what she should do as a leadership figure concerning allegations in order to keep those within her association safe.
Hayes said the most Elliston’s peers could do was report their situations, keeping in mind that even then the alleged perpetrators would not necessarily be removed from campus, though they could be barred from the AAA.
“When something is reported, there is a very high standard that has to be met in order to remove someone from campus, because everyone has a right to an education,” Hayes said.
Hayes said that, while the Title IX office holds trainings and seminars for students and student organizations that can be accessed through their website, they often have limited engagement.
“When we go and do these training sessions and when RSVP [Relationship Sexual Violence Prevention Center] sets up a really great event and has a panel and food, literally like six students come,” Hayes said. “Even tonight, it’s not well attended, so it’s the people who are already well informed that come and we really struggle to reach the campus as a whole.”
Several students pointed out the fact that the Title IX office and MUPD could solve this through working on their social media outreach efforts to students.
Cargile then mediated another question, which brought up the perception that MU takes a male consideration more seriously than a female consideration, especially concerning policy and procedure following male cases of hazing versus female cases of sexual assault.
Stackman simply responded, multiple times, saying he wasn’t sure that he understood the question.
“Male students within Greek Life are held to a different standard than female students within Greek Life with reporting incidents in that system,” Cargile said, reframing the question.
Stackman responded, “I wasn’t aware. What we’re trying to do right now is learn more about the activity on campus so we can be better with policy, activities and education.”
Stackman listed several incidents that occurred on campus throughout the semester, including an unprecedented number of drugging reports, multiple instances of hazing (there were at least nine cases reported), a number of sexual assaults and a higher number of reports associated with underage drinking.
“I don’t know if this answers your question because I really don’t understand your question, but we really want to use this and next semester to understand our campus,” Stackman said.
Ale Vargas, MU sophomore and member of the MSA asked a final question. She wanted to know how the Title IX office made sure students felt supported throughout their investigations after an assault is reported, noting that the process was, in her experience, usually long.
“We look at what the offense was and a full range of sanctions are available and they range from a warning to expulsion,” Hayes said. “It’s hard because I think a lot of times people think our investigators are your support person or your advocate and they’re not, and they absolutely cannot be.”
Hayes maintained that she and the Title IX investigators were obligated to stay neutral in these cases to avoid legal depositions or being sued.
After this question, there was a brief period where students gave the panel suggestions on how to better outreach to students and engage with them, including more interconnectivity in person and through social media. After the meeting, some students, such as freshman Brogan Rumpf, were satisfied with the information given, and felt it shed light on the stigmas surrounding some of the administrative offices and the legal or technical reasons they sometimes cannot meet students’ concerns.
“Tonight was insightful about the process that they have to go through, the shackles that they have to traverse through the bureaucracy at Mizzou,” Rumpf said. “We have to understand that there are a lot of limitations about what they can and can’t do but they are trying their best.”
Others, including Vargas and Elliston, harbored mixed emotional reactions to the town hall. Vargas said she was still frustrated and concerned with the Title IX system, but the meeting helped her realize that the problem was bigger than the scope of MU, and there are federal and state level processes that may limit what the university itself has control over. Elliston was also appreciative of the information given.
“I have had a lot of concerns from personal experiences, but going here and getting to humanize Chief Weiman and Dr. Hayes, who — despite going through a year-long process with the Title IX center — I had never actually met before, was nice,” Vargas said.
Elliston expressed both concern and satisfaction with the meeting, and was also appreciative of the information Hayes gave on behalf of the Title IX office, but was not satisfied with the responses from the MUPD or Student Affairs representatives.
“There was a lot of negation of historical distrust towards policing, and it felt like [Weimer] was misinformed and not knowledgeable about the issues that he’s facing. In terms of student affairs it honestly really bothered me that Dr. Stackman was on his phone a lot of the time,” Elliston said. “With all that being said, I’m leaving with mixed opinions.”
MSA will hold more town halls with different panels concerning different topics throughout the week. More info on those can be accessed through MU Engage or the MSA website.
Edited by Namratha Prasad | nprasad@themaneater.com