ARRESTEES ARE STILL FACING LEGAL REPERCUSSIONS. DINKYTOWN RIOTERS, 5 MONTHS LATER PAGE 3 SOME
CLOUDY HIGH 70° LOW 45°
U OF M
MINNEAPOLIS
ST PAUL
THURSDAY
OCTOBER 23, 2014
ONLINE EXCLUSIVES AT MNDAILY.COM
CITY GOVERNMENT
Attorney: City can’t stop ‘Redskins’ On Wednesday, the Mpls. city attorney said banning the name would violate the Constitution. BY ETHAN NELSON enelson@mndaily.com
Minneapolis doesn’t have legal authority to ban the Washington Redskins’ name when the NFL team plays at TCF Bank Stadium early next month, the city’s attorney said to a City Council committee Wednesday. The legal opinion came more than two weeks after council members started
CAMPUS
exploring whether they could legally ban the name and mascot that some people have called racist and of fensive toward American Indians. Some City Council members and activists say they’re disappointed with the outcome of the attorney’s review, and discussion surfaced at the committee meeting about revisiting the issue when the Washington team plays at the new Minnesota Vikings stadium that’s set to open in 2016. “This is part of a larger problem,” Ward 2 City Councilman Cam Gordon said at the meeting. “Derogatory terms against Native Americans go back a long, long way.” At the meeting, the city attorney who
RESEARCH
gave the legal opinion, Susan Segal, said she and her of fice “would like nothing better than to be able to file a lawsuit and help provoke a long-overdue change in the name of [the Washington] team.” But banning the name would be a violation of the First Amendment, she said, which protects freedom of speech. Also, Minneapolis’ civil rights ordinance doesn’t apply to the University of Minnesota since it’s a state institution, Segal said. The University has already said it has no authority to enforce a ban on the name when the team plays at its stadium Nov. 2. When the new Vikings stadium is completed, the city might have a case against
the team because the stadium falls within its jurisdiction, Segal said at the meeting. But the First Amendment might prevent any legal action in that case, she said. “[The First Amendment], whether we like it or not, protects really hateful speech as well as speech that we favor,” Segal said. If Minneapolis could show that the name creates a “hostile environment,” its claims could have legal standing, she said. Ward 5 City Councilman Blong Yang said he doesn’t think Minneapolis is the right plaintiff for this kind of suit. A private citizen, who could more easily claim that u See NAME Page 3
Like a Honeycrisp
Dept. close concerns students When PsTL closes in two years, some worry students will lose a valuable first-year experience. BY TAYLOR NACHTIGAL tnachtigal@mndaily.com
Some students and faculty members are worried that when the University’s Postsecondary Teaching and Learning Department closes in two years, its programs won’t serve its students as effectively. Although the leaders at the College of Education and Human Development say the dissolution will only affect some faculty members, others in the college say it’s likely that students will bear the costs of the closure. PsTL, a department in CEHD, focuses on serving underrepresented student populations, like first-generation college students who are placed in the department’s First Year Experience Program during their first two semesters at the University. The depar tment currently has more than 40 faculty and staf f members. The closure will downsize CEHD from eight depar tments to seven. The college will disburse PsTL faculty members, staff and programs across the rest of the college, CEHD Dean Jean Quam said last month in an email to the department’s students, staff and faculty members. While PsTL faces its closure, an email sent from the school to faculty members this week lauded CEHD’s 95.6 percent student retention rate, which is tied for second-highest at the University with the College of Science and Engineering, the email read. “When the first-year experience gets dissolved, that retention will almost certainly go down,” said Dan Detzner, a PsTL professor. “That program that has helped keep those students here is being dissolved.” With its high retention rate, PsTL associate professor Tabitha Grier-Reed said, cutting the depar tment doesn’t make sense. She said the department’s current
AMANDA SNYDER, DAILY
Pine Tree Orchard manager JP Jacobson holds the University-developed MN55 on Wednesday in White Bear Lake. The apple will be available for purchase around 2018.
University scientists have created a new apple that tastes similar to the Honeycrisp but has an earlier growing season. stages of being marketed on a larger scale.
BY CHRISTOPHER AADLAND caadland@mndaily.com
A
Researchers and growers say they’re excit-
pple lovers usually have to wait until
ed to start growing and distributing the ap-
fall to bite into the crispest and juici-
ple on a wider scale with hopes it will take
est selections of the fruit.
over the early-season apple market.
But now, a new apple created by Univer-
The researchers and growers say the
sity of Minnesota researchers promises to
apple possesses qualities similar to the
greet those people with a renowned taste
Honeycrisp apple — the University’s flag-
similar to the school’s famous Honeycrisp a
ship apple creation. It’s a cross between
month earlier in the season.
the Honeycrisp, for its texture and flavor,
The team started working on the apple
and the MonArk, an apple known for its
— temporarily named the MN55 — in the
early ripening date, said Jim Luby, apple
late 1990s, but it’s just now in its beginning
researcher and director of the University’s
u See CLOSURE Page 3
u See MN55 Page 18
PUBLIC SAFETY
STUDENT GROUPS
Somali police relate to serve About a dozen Somali police officers strive to prevent local terrorist recruitment. BY NICK WICKER nwicker@mndaily.com
ELIZABETH BRUMLEY, DAILY
High heels, sneakers, boots and sandals were coupled on the inside floor of the Washington Avenue Bridge on Wednesday to honor the 19th annual Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Event organizers said the pairs of shoes symbolized those who have died from police brutality in Minnesota since 2000. A new campus group, Students United Against Police Brutality, helped plan the event.
Salah Ahmed wanted to become a cop ever since he moved to the United States from Egypt. On the other hand, Abdiwahab Ali’s interests gravitated to law enforcement after 9/11 — several years after he moved from Somalia to Minnesota in 1995. After becoming a Minneapolis Police Department officer, he went on to help establish the Somali American Police Association. Ahmed, who is originally from Somalia, reached his goal when he graduated from the police academy last year. In addition to being an officer for the Metro Transit Police Department, he now serves as SAPA’s vice chairman. Founded in in 2012, SAPA helps SomaliAmericans, like Ahmed, find their way into police forces across the nation.
The national organization has at least 10 members — all law enforcement officers — in the Twin Cities. They are working to stop potential recruitment of Somali-Americans by terrorist groups, like al-Shabab and the Islamic State, in the city’s Cedar-Riverside and Franklin Avenue neighborhoods. Ahmed said he has ample opportunities to talk face to face with young people in the area and recognize early warning signs of recruitment. SAPA has been successful so far, he said, citing a recent incident in which Cedar-Riverside residents were afraid a fellow mosque-goer was trying to recruit overseas fighters, so they called police. “The Somali community is very educated about recruitment,” Ahmed said. Voluntar y community-police communication would be impossible without a diverse police force, Metro Transit Police Chief John Harrington said. “[Officers] meet probably once a month with elders from the Somali community to have an ongoing conversation about this u See SAPA Page 4
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 31