About a dozen students from the University of Minnesota stood outside a city meeting in Minneapolis last week to protest the city's proposal to axe the Minneapolis Civil Rights Complaint Investigation Unit. The students along with a few student groups are collecting signatures for a petition to keep the unit.  Without it, the student groups argue the 200 civil rights complaints the city's Civil Rights Department receives each year will go unchecked. 

Since Gov. Tim Pawlenty is cutting $30 million from the city's budget across all departments, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Ryback proposed eliminating the unit.  He notes that Gov. Pawlenty said the state's Human Rights Department already handled civil rights cases. However, students said the $300,000 allocated for the unit is only 1 percent of the city's more than $350 million budget and cutting it is indicative of the city putting civil rights issues on the back burner.

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