Vicious sexual assaults and incidents of hate and discrimination spurring racial tensions. These are the major problems facing students, faculty and administrators here at the University of Wisconsin.

While UW’s mishandling of sexual assaults has spurred federal investigations and racial tensions continue to rise, UW Police Department has decided to focus elsewhere. Instead, for the last six months, they have decided to focus on pursuing a student who has been writing graffiti condemning racism on UW buildings.

[UPDATED] UWPD arrests student during class over graffiti highlighting racism on campus

Let me rephrase this in another way. Instead of focusing on their failure to adequately investigate sexual assaults, and instead of working with the greater UW community on the racial tensions, UWPD spent six months hunting down someone addressing the problems UW has failed to address.

Crazy how hard UWPD was looking for a person doing graffiti and can’t find not one of the 3 men who raped that girl. #therealUW

— Ant (@AyyoAnt) April 14, 2016

On top of that, UWPD decided the best time to question and arrest the student was during class. According to their press release, UWPD had tried to make contact with the student through other methods, but storming into a class and disrupting lecture is not at all right. In basic terms, UWPD used a student’s education as a trap. They used a student’s class as a way to basically corner them.

The precedent it sets should be self-evident, but apparently UWPD needs me to lay it out for them. Using someone’s education as a way to trap them sets the precedent that the classroom is not a safe learning environment. You not only disturbed that one lecture, you put the rest of the student body on edge, giving us just one more reason to stay in bed and not to go to class.

Graffiti and property damage is a crime, and I understand that. But focusing on this crime, while countless assaults are occurring and racial tension on campus is rising at an alarming rate, is probably not the best idea.

But by all means UWPD, keep going on six-month witch hunts for people addressing the problems you and UW administrators have failed to address. Keep having the wrong priorities and failing the students and faculty you were hired to serve.

Luke Schaetzel ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and journalism.