Three years after George Floyd’s murder, campus safety hasn’t changed much. George Washington University’s police department will begin arming some officers this fall for the first time. Portland State University quietly moved away from a 2021 policy change that had restricted its officers’ ability to patrol with weapons. Dr. Davis said the backpedaling on reform efforts “communicates a lack of political commitment” to the racial-justice priorities colleges identified in 2020. Davis served on the aforementioned Michigan task force.
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Davis and Lab Launch #PoliceFreeCampus Podcast
The #PoliceFreeCampus Podcast engages organizers, practitioners, and scholars in discussing the challenges and possibilities for colleges and universities without the police. This public scholarship program builds on the Campus Abolition Research Lab’s ongoing research focus on campus policing (i.e., #PoliceFreeCampus Project)
Read MoreThe Latest Campus-Safety Activist: Parents →
The signs, located near the flagship campus, in Columbus, are the work of a group of Ohio State University parents that is trying to shine a spotlight on what they see as the university’s failure to curtail off-campus crime. The group, Buckeyes for a Safe Ohio State, started after a 23-year-old student, Chase Meola, was shot and killed at an off-campus residence in 2020.
Read MoreCan Colleges Reform Their Police Departments? →
A new model policy for “racially just policing,” written by the ACLU of Massachusetts and Bridgewater State University, and published on Tuesday, was designed to prevent episodes like that, which have occurred again and again. They can traumatize the victims and make students and employees of color feel as if they don’t belong on predominantly white college campuses.
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