A classroom-sized group of students gathered outside Washington State University Vancouver’s Dengerink Administration Building on Wednesday, Feb. 4, to protest a Public Safety Celebration being held inside the building.
The event included the swearing in of Officer David Ortner by WSU Pullman Chief of Police Dawn Daniels and public safety updates from Interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Damien Sinnott. Ortner’s hiring puts the campus back at two officers. Protesters said the celebration highlighted misplaced funding priorities at a time when the campus still lacks a full cafeteria and student services face potential cuts.
The protest was organized by the Collective for Social and Environmental Justice and included participation from Students for Justice in Palestine, Survivors’ United, the Black Scholars Association, LatinX Student Union and Muslim Students Association.
Kate Petersen, a senior at WSU Vancouver and president of Students for Justice in Palestine, spoke during an open mic held alongside the protest.
“In light of the recent attacks on public education by the Trump administration, a national housing and unemployment crisis and cuts to student services at our university, I, like you all, am questioning why we must dedicate our limited funds towards bolstering campus security,” Petersen said. “I find it obscene to celebrate the appointment of a police officer at a time when state violence and surveillance have surged in this country, when WSU has refused to mandate rapid response training among its personnel, when students and staff come to campus still fearing for the safety of themselves and their loved ones.”
An increased police presence on campus would lead to a heightened sense of fear, according to some students.
“Our officers have implied that they will defend their jurisdiction over university grounds in the face of federal encroachment,” Petersen stated during the protest. “Many others claim that (Department of Homeland Security) agents are poorly trained, that a return to 'traditional policing' will save us from this mess. If you find yourself amongst this camp, I would like to dissuade you of such a notion and reaffirm that we cannot abolish ICE without abolishing policing as we know it.”
Chief Daniels of Pullman emphasized that campus police do not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We’ve not had any ICE interactions on our campuses,” Daniels said. “We do not assist or cooperate with ICE in immigration enforcement procedures unless required to do so by a judicial warrant or court order,” Interim Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Damien Sinnott added.
Bethany Fischer, a student involved in organizing the protest, learned about the Public Safety Celebration about a week in advance during a Collective for Social and Environmental Justice meeting. She said frustration with the campus budget and the lack of a full cafeteria were among the factors that motivated students to organize quickly.
“We do not have a well-functioning cafeteria,” Fischer said. “The idea of not only swearing in a new person, who, as students see it, is not needed, and then celebrating it and posing it as a vital thing for our campus is insulting.”
Chelsea Kopp, a graduate student and instructor in the English department, said celebrating police presence felt disconnected from students’ daily needs.
“Students have been really quick to point out we don’t have a cafeteria, we don’t have food on campus, faculty aren’t celebrated, students aren’t celebrated in the same way,” Kopp said. “Tuition keeps going up, parking keeps going up, and it’s becoming a campus that more and more people don’t have access to. So why police us further?”
WSU Vancouver has not had a traditional and staffed cafeteria since the COVID-19 pandemic. The campus currently features Canteen's micro market, which stores frozen and refrigerated meals for students to self-checkout. Kopp said food insecurity has been a long-standing issue on campus that has only worsened since the pandemic.
“When you go into the cafeteria, the food is expired and overpriced. It’s not healthy or nutritious,” Kopp said. “So why is it so hard to feed each other and yet so easy to like have these celebrations about police?”
According to Sinnott, the Department of Public Safety at WSU Vancouver operates on a combination of campus operating funds and parking permit revenue. Officer Ortner’s position, which has been vacant for over a year, is funded exclusively from parking permitting according to Sinnott. The department has approximately $317,000 in operating funds and anticipates about $600,000 in permit fee revenue for the current fiscal year.
According to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs’ Crime in Washington Annual 2024 Report, WSU Vancouver had no reported crimes that year, though two larceny-theft offences were reported in 2023.
Sinnott added that he has heard concerns from students and faculty about the food options available on campus.
“It’s a struggle for a campus this size to support an operation that provides hot food. That was true pre-COVID, it’s still true,” He said. “We are working with students right now to try to come up with some creative solutions to bridge the gap, so to speak.”
Protesters said they hope the demonstration pushes university leadership to reconsider how student needs are prioritized.
“I just hope WSU listens,” Fischer said. “WSU is nothing without the students, and if the students don’t feel supported, then what are we doing here?”
