Our second Racial Justice Series event took place on 4/26/21. Entitled “Divesting from Campus Policing in the UC System and Investing in Community Alternatives,” this Town Hall featured Professors Paul Amar, Charmaine Chua, and Terrance Wooten. Professors Chua and Wooten illustrated the principles and horizons of the abolitionist movement, stressing the fact that abolition is not a negative act but a re-orientation towards creating the conditions of possibility for the development of a society based on community-based practices of safety and de-escalation rather than policing and incarceration. Professor Amar connected the abolitionist cause directly to the need for faculty to oppose four UCOP proposals that go directly against the current movement to divest from police forces and to invest in changing the culture of enforcement into one of community health and self-healing.
The recording of this Town Hall is now available at: https://www.facebook.com/ucsbfa/videos/1046105502583740