Our second Racial Justice Series event took place on 4/26/21. Titled “Divesting from Campus Policing in the UC System and Investing in Community Alternatives,” this Town Hall featured UCSB Professors Paul Amar (Global Studies, Chair of Academic Freedom committee), Charmaine Chua (Global Studies, Cops Off Campus coalition), and Terrance Wooten (Black Studies, Cops Off Campus coalition. Professors Chua and Wooten illustrated the principles and horizons of the abolitionist movement, stressing that abolition is not a negative act. Instead, it is a re-orientation that creates the conditions of possibility for a society based on community-based practices of safety and de-escalation rather than policing and incarceration. Professor Amar connected the abolitionist cause to the need for faculty to oppose four UCOP proposals that go directly against the current movement to divest from police forces and invest in changing the culture of enforcement into one of community health and self-healing. You can access the recording of the event on the SBFA Facebook page.
Informed by the discussions at the Town Hall, the SBFA Board has these two recommendations for its members:
In respect to the May 3 Day of Refusal:
The momentous rethinking of racial relations and structural racism in our country over the past months cannot be ignored or considered business as usual. The SBFA board seeks to foster discussion and mobilization of faculty on the crucial issue of the divestment from and dismantling of UC police forces by inviting all SBFA members to keep themselves informed and consider supporting the May 3 Day of Refusal, sponsored nationwide by abolitionist organizations. Following is a list of articles, documents, and websites that we suggest you take into consideration in deciding whether and how to participate:
About Abolitionism and the Cops Off Campus campaign
● Angela Davis, Melina Abdullah, Robin Dg Keeley, “California must lead the way in abolishing school and university campus police.” (SacBee, 1/31/21)
● “What the Cops Off Campus Movement Looks Like Across the Nation” (The Nation, 4/12/21)
● Divest/Invest Abolitionist Repository at UCLA
● Cops Off Campus Coalition website
About Abolition May and the May 3 Day of Refusal
● Abolition May Toolkit (2 page pdf infographic)
● May 3 Toolkit (6 page google doc with messaging templates)
In respect to the four UCOP proposals:
SBFA Board endorses CUCFA’s Statement on Proposed Police Reforms and concurs with the analysis and conclusions of the UCSB Council of Faculty Welfare, Academic Freedom, and Awards that these policy proposals are “out of step with the current landscape,” should be rejected outright, and the conversation “around policing policy be restarted from scratch.” That conversation should be “broadened to include all stakeholders–faculty, students, staff–in our UC community.” In keeping with these recommendations, the SBFA board wishes to add the following points for its members to consider in thinking about the argument to dismantle the UC Police. In an age in which state support for higher education has declined consistently since the year 2000, the idea that UC should continue to spend taxpayer money on having its own police force with state jurisdiction (that is, not limited to campus) constitutes an indefensible waste of resources. Since 90% of UCPD arrest activities take place off-campus, and 0% of them have proven to prevent serious crimes, the job of UCPD can and should be done by city municipal police departments. Supporters of campus police forces often argue instead that they are necessary precisely because university police officers are trained to deal with students rather than criminals. SBFA board believes that these arguments are exactly the reason why an abolitionist perspective is so timely and necessary to restart our conversation about policing. Quite aside from the fact that the repeated violent repression of dissent on our campuses has proven such statements patently false, the idea that there are good campus “peace officers” separate from “cops,” contributes to criminalizing non-campus populations. It also reinforces the identification of non-campus police with repression and violence. Abolition is not an event but a process–both mental and physical. So is dismantling campus police.
Taking all of the above into consideration the SBFA board believes that a first concrete step in the direction of dismantling campus police would be to declare our campuses weapon-, chemical agent-, and baton-free areas where no armed police forces–whether UC-hired or not–are allowed, except in life-threatening emergencies (for example, active shooter situations), authorized by Chancellors.
We invite all of our members to respond to this proposal on our website, where their responses will be published, or by email at ucsbfa@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Your UCSB Faculty Association Board
Bravo to the Board for this statement and endorsement. I’d add that these UC proposals are also in keeping with the disregard of the lives and bodies of protestors seen in measures to absolve from criminal prosecution drivers who plough into protesters! But let’s not give any one ideas for discouraging protest.