Get police out of schools — including university campuses | Salon.com

Get police out of schools — including university campuses | Salon.com

Get police out of schools — including university campuses

Municipal police departments' racist policing practices do not stop when policing university campuses

The brutal police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade, among many others, and the wave of national Black-led protests against racist police brutality that followed, have permanently altered the realm of the possible. Once deemed fringe or too radical, calls to defund and abolish the police are not only within view of the mainstream, but are suddenly on the table. Such demands have fueled new and already existing movements to dismantle and defund police on college campuses. In particular, the University of Minnesota's (UM's) move to cut some ties with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in response to Floyd's murder, as called for by student activists, has further shifted the paradigm, demonstrating that universities can absolutely act to remove law enforcement from their campuses.

Specifically, UM stated that it would no longer contract with the MPD to provide additional police for football games, concerts or other major events, or for specialized services (such as support for explosives detection). To be sure, the decision does not necessarily represent a firm commitment from UM to police abolition or even divestment from partnering with other forms of external law enforcement — it is merely a proclamation that the university will not partner with MPD. Still, the decision has served as inspiration for countless student activists and groups across the country, who have released public statements urging their universities to end university-police relationships and to abolish campus policing altogether. Citing numerous instances of the unlawful search, harassment, racial profiling, assault, arrest, coercion, incarceration, police beatings, and in some instances, the killing of primarily Black students or residents, these statements reveal an undeniable pattern of anti-Black racist policing practices and violence. CONTINUE READING: Get police out of schools — including university campuses | Salon.com