Since the Virginia Tech killings, university administrations at a few universities around the country have been using their campus police forces as private armies to carry out the will of the administration. Campus police have been known to illegally threaten, intimidate, detain, remove, and pull guns upon students, staff, and others lawfully on campus, that the administration deems undesirable. This abuse of power goes unchecked at universities like UM, which have failed to institute the required oversight. Do you think that it is an unintentional error of the UM administration that the DPS Oversight Committee has failed to perform it's duties? The fact that the the UM General Counsel's office tried to obstruct Dr. Smith from bringing these problems to the attention of the MSA shows that the UM administration prefers to keep their private army, unchecked by students stopping them from abusing their power. That they would abuse their power has been shown by the cases of former nursing student Linda Martinson and Dr. Andrei Borisov, both of which have filed suit.

Repeal of the law would mean that Universities could not grant police powers to their public safety officers. I agree that the provisions for civilian oversight should be clarified and strengthened. This has become more important since MCOLES, which licenses police officers, has pressured more and more universities to have their own police force. The judiciary committee of the state legislature should hold hearings to see how well or poorly civilian oversight is working and what needs to be done to improve it.