Last week, the Academic Council, representing the system-wide Academic Senate, sent a report to President Napolitano and to the Divisional Academic Senates, justifying 5 recommendations for the structural reform of campus security:
- Substantially defund general campus police and redistribute those resources to the study and development of alternative modes of campus safety that minimize and/or abolish the reliance on policing and other criminalizing responses.
- Invest in resources that promote mental and physical wellbeing of the campus community, specifically support services for Black students as well as for other marginalized student groups who have been historically targeted by police violence.
- Ban firearms as standard equipment for police on the general campus.
- Dissolve any existing partnership or cooperation agreements with non-UC law enforcement agencies and terminate any agreements to allow non-UC law enforcement agencies access to campus facilities or property.
- Assemble groups at both the campus and system wide level to discuss these recommendations and how to begin implementing them within a three-year period. In doing so, these groups should prioritize the participation of those who have traditionally experienced violence and mistreatment at the hands of police. Similar steps should also be considered at the health campuses to address the policing issues identified above, recognizing the higher security needs in these
These are five simple recommendations, worthy of campus discussion and deliberation. Our Senate leadership sent the document from the Academic Council to the Divisional Council, but nothing has been heard since. It was not sent to faculty; so far it has not been made the subject of public debate. We have heard all sorts of well-meaning messages and proposals for limited reforms from campus leadership, but no serious talk or deliberation on structural reforms. Despite evidence of racially motivated killings by police, despite all the attention to policing in the media, despite all the protest in the streets, there’s been no substantial debate on this campus as to what we should do with our own police.
Chancellor Christ did establish an Independent Advisory Board on Police Accountability and Public Safety, chaired by Professor Nikki Jones, last year. We eagerly await the report on the first year of its operation and we hope that it, at least, will be subject to campus discussion.
Michael Burawoy and Celeste Langan for the Board of the Berkeley Faculty Association.