Night 1: the UCPD has a jurisdiction of over 65,000 (!) HP residents, 50,000 have NO affiliation with the University!

“How UCPD moves affects all of us in negative ways. I can never walk around my neighborhood without being hounded by UCPD. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone grocery shopping while being followed by UCPD.” - a young HP resident with @GKMC18

Night 2: In the past decade, the UCPD has seen more changes, including its partnership with security company AlliedBarton (more on them later this week ...), decisions have included bringing more officers to campus and increasing bluelight & cop "visibility"

2011: According to the University’s community safety website, the “budget for police protection has increased by more than $1 MILLION in the past 3 years” despite crime rates in 2010 & 2011 in HP-Kenwood being some of the lowest in decades

Night 3: Modern UCPD tactics were guided by consulting of Bratton Group, led by William Bratton pioneer of 'broken windows policing' which relies on intense criminalization of nonviolent activities like loitering, vandalism, weed, and 'dancing recklessly.' As you can guess ->

this always leads to rampant racial profiling! This is no surprise, as William Bratton also oversaw stop-and-frisk as commissioner of NYPD. The UCPD's field report data reflects this philosophy, as tons of black neighbors are questioned for 'loitering,' i.e. existing in public.

Night 4: Between 1933 and 1947, the University of Chicago spent $1,554,196 supporting legal defense for racially-restrictive covenants (adjusted for inflation). Those are legal documents that White residents would use to keep poc from moving into a neighborhood -->

The Chicago Defender, iconic Black newspaper of the south side, harshly criticized that support. In response, UChi President Robert Hutchins said that the University "must endeavor to stabilize its neighborhood as an area in which its students and faculty will be content to live”

To the University then, much like today, it doesn't matter if their actions uphold white supremacy, the important part is that the area is palatable to a largely white student body and wealthy donors & parents.

Night 5In the early 50s, leading UC administrators and white residents established the South East Chicago Commission; the University providing most of the funding. Their signature Urban Renewal Plan was approved in 1958, displacing 4,371 families, 2,534 of which were black

If policy-based disdain for black lives doesn’t spook y’all, ask what will?

Night 6: The University still actively funds gentrification through the Employer-Assisted Housing Program. This offers loans of up to $10k to faculty and full-time (!!!) staff to gentrify from Douglas to South Shore. -->

This restriction to full-time staff means it leaves out the many Black and Brown contracted workers we see in the dining halls, who the University failed to pay spring quarter.

Night 7 fact: as Woodlawn transitioned from 86% white to 86% black in the 1950s, the University began to engage in an aggressive, racially biased form of “proactive” policing largely concentrated along the Southern edge of campus

To this day, 61st street acts as a dividing line between the University and Woodlawn neighborhood, a reminder of the connection between the University’s policing strategies and it’s attempts at neighborhood control

Night 8: in June 2015, the UCPD began publishing data on its daily interactions w/community members. From then until April 2016:
-155/166 people stooped &questioned on foot were Black
-Black made up 59% of jurisdiction, but 93% of field interviews

-75% of drivers stopped were Black, an additional 10% were Asian or Latino, when only 64% of drivers in the neighborhood were minorities

no wonder they’d never published their facts before, and still refused to follow FOIA (freedom of informant ion act)