Dive Brief:
- The head of the University of Pennsylvania’s police union is calling UPenn President Amy Gutmann's participation in a “die-in” protest “a slap in the face” to the police, and he’s demanding an apology.
- Eric Rohrback, the union president, says the university police who were working Gutmann's holiday party last week when student protesters showed up were “outraged” when she joined in a portion of the protest symbolizing the Michael Brown police shooting death, the Inquirer reported.
- The university’s vice president for public safety, Maureen Rush, says that Gutmann’s protest was not anti-police, and that the university president has proven her support by more than doubling the university police budget.
Dive Insight:
Gutmann isn’t the only Pennsylvania university administrator facing criticism for joining student protests of incidents of unarmed black males being killed by police. However, most of the student protest at Gutmann’s party was on the issue of the university funding local K-12 schools in lieu of taxes. Gutmann also was involved in controversy when a student at her Halloween party in 2006 took a picture of himself dressed as a suicide bomber standing next to her, and the photo was widely distributed online.