(Disclaimer: This article is satire and is not meant to be taken seriously. It does not reflect the views of The Spectator or UW-Eau Claire.)

There was a gathering of students last Wednesday on the campus mall in protest of on-campus police.

The “Cops off Campus, Dare to Divest” rally hosted many student speakers, with topics surrounding policing, transformative justice and a $15 minimum wage for on-campus staff. 

This rally, like every event on campus, was safeguarded by the UW-Eau Claire’s own police force. This made many of the protesters at the rally feel safe. 

Second-year WGSS student Amethyst Smith was one of these students.

“Everyone I talked to during the rally felt comfortable there with the police being minutes away if we needed them,” Smith said. “It’s better to have them and not need them then need them and not have them.”

Smith still agrees with the rally’s main message of divesting the police.

“They’re all racist pigs though, so unless they’re protecting me at an event, I want them gone and out of the job,” Smith said.

Other protesters like first-year English student Margot Adams had more indifferent opinions on the police.   

“Yeah the police were protecting us while our event was occurring, but we would not have missed them if they didn’t,” Adams said. 

Adams said she struggles to find a reason for the police to protect anything.

“It’s not like someone could easily smuggle a knife, gun or pipe bomb on campus,” Adams said. “If that were possible, I would definitely be more in favor of police on campus.” 

For some students, this event was all about the money. Second-year English linguistics student Chuck Garcia said he knows exactly what divesting the police can do for him.

“Fifteen dollars an hour? Count me in!” Garcia said. “Yeah campus will be a lot less safe but campus workers like myself will make a lot more money, so there’s some give and take.”

Garcia said he was very thankful he was able to protest safely with law enforcement’s protection.

“Until that day comes though, I gotta shout out the UWEC police department for keeping campus safe and allowing amazing, forward thinking ideas like getting rid of them to flourish,” Garcia said. “Once we have safely discussed their removal and seen it through, every student can rest easy knowing that there are no more pigs on campus.”

The rally’s demands have not been commented on by university administration yet. 

Doyle can be reached at [email protected].