Operation Metro Surge, State Violence, and Resistance at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus
315 Pillsbury Drive SE
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
How has Operation Metro Surge affected the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus?
This panel addresses this question by focusing not only on the Surge's impact, but faculty, staff, and students' responses and resistance to state violence, that is, governmental authority that causes unnecessary harm to individuals and/or groups. In doing so, it aims to begin a conversation with alumni, students, staff, and faculty about how the Twin Cities campus has been impacted by and responded to state violence—contemporarily and historically.
Panelists begin by reminding us that we work and teach on Dakota land where Oceti Sakowin Nations were exiled and murdered by the federal government. Today, federal agents' occupation of the Twin Cities and their practice of racial profiling have led, once again, to violence against Native people as well as arrests. The irony that Native people are being arrested contemporarily on their homeland, on land that was taken from them in 1862, requires sustained investigation. Another panelist is doing important work to protect vulnerable students against state violence on campus and still another panelist is training students to become “constitutional observers” to document arrests and abductions of vulnerable people for legal cases and hearings.
Our final panelists proffer another historical perspective drawing striking parallels between the collective efforts of campus student movements of the past and student activists in the contemporary moment. Students have resisted social injustice collectively yesterday and today; the University administration has adopted an uncompromising, strict policy against their protests across time. As these panelists remind us, it has been staff, students, and faculty that keep/have kept us safe.
The panel will conclude with an audience Q&A. Reception with refreshments will follow.
This is a hybrid event - guests are welcome to join online via Zoom or in-person at Pillsbury Hall on the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus. This event is free and open to the public. Registration required.
About the speakers
Nick Estes is an enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, associate professor in the Department of American Indian Studies and author of the award-winning book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance which places the indigenous-led movement to stop Dakota access into historical context.
Anna Freyberg Oertel is a public historian and recent alumna of the Masters of Heritage Studies and Public History Program at the University of Minnesota.
Jessica Lopez-Lyman Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary performance artist in the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies and University of Minnesota and a McKnight Land-Grant Professor. Her book Place-Keepers: Latina/x Art, Performance, and Organizing in the Twin Cities explores contemporary social movements.
Rahsaan Mahadeo is an assistant professor in the department of African and African American Studies and the author of the award-winning book Funk the Clock: Transgressing Time While Young, Perceptive, and Black.
Eva Peña received her BA from the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota in May 2026 and works for Communities Organized for Latine Power and Action (COPAL).
About the Moderators
Jennifer L. Pierce is a Professor Emerita of American Studies and a Distinguished University Teaching Professor. She is author or coauthor of seven books, among them "Queer Twin Cities: Twin Cities GLBT History Project" and "Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash Against Affirmative Action".
Elliott Powell is Professor of American Studies and Asian American Studies and University of Minnesota Distinguished Teaching Professor. He is author of the multiple award-winning book including "Sounds from the Other Side: Afro-South Asian Collaborations in Popular Music".
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