Jairahel Price, Director of the Student Rights Advocates, said the event, which the Legal Services Department also hosted, has a history of being hosted before the COVID-19 pandemic. These sessions traditionally covered topics such as interactions with law enforcement, including arrest, detainment, search, and questioning procedures.

"We are looking to now expand that to different topics that are applicable to our current state, specifically in regards to federal threats to civil rights that is ongoing since the recent election, so this event is specifically to also add on how free speech is regulated just in general in our country, and then how that applies to students at MSU," Price said.

Price said students and attendees can expect to receive information from an ASMSU attorney, along with a presentation and the opportunity to ask specific questions about the topics to be discussed. Anyone who has specific questions can pre-submit them when registering for the event.

Price said her office will discuss how it supports students navigating the conduct system, whether that be in relation to conduct involving law enforcement or freedom of speech concerns. The event will also have the Office of Student Support and Accountability present.

Since the series of events has not been held since COVID, Price said there’s a knowledge gap for the majority of the governing documents that MSU uses to regulate all student behavior. 

"We really think that it's important for students to at least have that basic foundational knowledge of what rights they have at MSU and then what responsibilities they have that could subject them to misconduct accusations," Price said.

In terms of Immigration Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the event will have presentation materials from the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center to discuss how different regulations would be applied to MSU students and how any existing concerns with other types of issues can be answered with resources being offered, both within and outside of the university.

Price said the office is planning the next event for next semester, intending to make the "Know Your Rights" discussions a recurring event, with hopes it would be held once or multiple times per semester.

"Since we're getting towards finals this semester, we are looking to have a large turnout for this event so that we can gauge the audience's understanding of their rights in terms of other topics and have them complete an exit survey to gauge what type of topics they want to hear so that we can best prepare our next event tailored to what exactly students feel like they don't know," Price said.

For those who will be unavailable to attend Wednesday’s event, Price said students should rely and lean on the resources available to them within MSU.

"If you do unfortunately run into any concerns with either law enforcement, general misconduct within our university or even academic concerns, our office specifically can help students connect with different resources that they may not know about, even if our office cannot directly support them with that specific issue," Price said. "We are here as a whole as your student government to support them with any concerns that they have."