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Universities can and SHOULD use their political clout to call out racist policing and demand accountability. AND they must be willing to reimagine their own campus police departments which are modeled on the same oppressive logic. Glad @UMNews has taken *some* action. 1/ https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1265786445853151234
Universities can and SHOULD use their political clout to call out racist policing and demand accountability. AND they must be willing to reimagine their own campus police departments which are modeled on the same oppressive logic. Glad @UMNews has taken *some* action. 1/ https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/1265786445853151234
The history of policing is rooted in the enforcement of white supremacy and capitalism. From the very beginning, police agencies were always about enforcing the “social order” as defined by the ruling class; primarily maintaining an environment to accumulate wealth 2/
The first publicly funded police agencies in the U.S. were slave patrols, many in Southern states, but it wasn’t just the South. Police in northern cities enforced racist curfews and were later tasked with capturing runaway enslaved people... https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing 3/
Policing was expanded after the elites found it too burdensome to hire private security to break up union strikes- instead they shifted that burden to the state to enforce the interests of the ruling class. This is largely the origin of “state police”. https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-3 4/
Racist policing and police brutality are hardly a modern phenomenon. It traces its roots back to the very beginning. The race construct has always positioned Black, Indigenous and POC immigrant groups as inherently violent, dangerous and “uncivilized”. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-painful-history-police-brutality-in-the-us-180964098/ 5/
We have seen how police force has been used against Black and Brown students on college campuses throughout the 60’s and 70’s; from the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968 ( https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/orangeburg-massacre) to the Jackson State Massacre in 1970 ( https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126426361). 6/
But policing on campuses is not just a historical phenomenon. Just this year, police at @ucsantacruz arrested 17 graduate workers during a strike for pay increases. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/02/14/graduate-strike-uc-santa-cruz-leads-arrests/ 7/
We saw how police at @du1869 pepper-sprayed and arrested protestors who were (rightfully) outraged that this private HBCU hosted David Duke- the former grand wizard of the KKK for a Senate debate in 2016. https://www.nola.com/news/education/article_2ab0fcdc-92ac-547e-a64b-5145a2b00fee.html 8/
We even saw this past fall how Tulane’s own campus police department shot an ex-contract worker in the chest ON CAMPUS using policies that are banned under the NOPD’s own use-of-force guidelines (there was also a toddler in the car). https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_e05a744a-d0e5-11e9-98b4-b39d2776f4e1.html 9/
So YES, universities should use their resources to work towards justice and accountability, but that starts with turning a critical eye towards their own role in enforcing racist policies and practices on campus. If universities are serious about equity and justice then... 10/
Universities should be using their resources to re-imagine community safety, justice and accountability entirely. They should invest in community-led efforts around restorative and transformative justice, prison abolition and alternatives to policing. 11/
Universities should divest from campus policing and other programs and departments that reinforce domination through violence and hegemony; ROTC, criminal justice and prosecution legal programs, “homeland security studies,” and similar programs. Interrupt the pipeline. 12/
Stop hosting recruiters from oppressive ICE, HSI, and other Law Enforcement agencies. Invest in building new institutions, rather than propping up the legacy of white supremacy, militarism and imperialism. Invest in workers. Invest in students. Invest in justice. 13/
Lastly- shout out to all the university organizers, unions and radical academics who are fighting to make the production and sharing of knowledge more humanistic and liberatory. Through small wins and major victories, we can transform our world together. Follow these folx 
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