Faculty Senate Meeting November 14, 2018
PRESENTATION TO THE FACULTY SENATE IN RESPONSE TO PUBLIC SAFETY'S PROPOSED "EVOLUTION" Kristin Doughty Joshua Dubler November 14, 2018
WHO WE ARE ● Kristin Doughty, Associate Professor of Anthropology ● Joshua Dubler, Assistant Professor of Religion ● Working Group on Interdisciplinary Research on Gun Violence (2016-2018) ● Rochester Decarceration Research Initiative (2018-)
GUN VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES: A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS
THE RISE OF UNIVERSITY POLICING ● Colleges are hiring safety sector employees at a rate second only to data analysts ● There are as many uniformed public safety officers at the University of Rochester as stable, full-time instructors in the humanities and soft social sciences 134
THE “ACTIVE SHOOTER” FRAME "Every school in America needs to immediately identify, dedicate and deploy the resources necessary to put these security forces in place right now. And the National Rifle Association, as America's preeminent trainer of law enforcement and security personnel for the past 50 years, is ready, willing and uniquely qualified to help.” Wayne LaPierre Former Executive Vice President, NRA One week after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook
THE “GOOD GUY WITH A GUN”
NATIONAL TRAGEDIES AND THE “RATCHET EFFECT”
AN ALTERNATE FRAME: RISKS TO BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE, PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS, AND OTHERS
2016 COMMISSION AND REPORT
2018 “EVOLUTION”
COMMISSION ● No deans leading it ● Transparency—how people are selected, what evidence is being considered ● Representatives: ● Faculty ● Staff ● Students ● Community ● Public safety one seat at the table ● Broad charge
“ Consider the recent incident at Rowan University where campus security aimed a rifle at a student who they mistakenly thought might have been a suspect in a robbery. Such incidences have real and dire consequences. These kinds of incidences are not universally experienced across the student body. Students of color, and particularly young men of color, will undoubtedly bear the brunt of increasingly lethal policing practices on this college campus … One or two people on a committee do not represent 13% of the university. At this point, the problem that is taking precedence over the proposal is the complete denial of our voices and those of the student body. It is not just the minority community that has concerns. To know that there are limitations on how we express ourselves is disgusting. Minority Student Advisory Board
ALUMNI PETITION
We firmly believe that the University should remain a gun-free zone, “ to preserve the safety and freedom of all students, faculty, staff, and community members who utilize the resources of the River, Eastman, and Medical campuses. We recognize that armed police forces inject undue danger and fear into the lives of Black and Brown people. We stand in solidarity with members of the Rochester community - past, present and future - that oppose the securitization of the University. We believe that as an alternative to arming select officers, the administration should consider returning DPS to its pre-2013 status — an un-sworn security force which does not have the ability to arrest, investigate crime, and possess firearms. Alumni Petition
FACULTY AND UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY PETITION
FACULTY AND UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY PETITION 150 SIGNATORIES from COLLEGE of ARTS & SCIENCES UR MEDICAL CENTER WARNER SCHOOL of EDUCATION EASTMAN SCHOOL of MUSIC
Arming more DPS officers undermines campus-wide “Meliora” “ efforts to foster equity and inclusion, to improve relationships with the city of Rochester, and to increase diversity on campus. It will render non-white faculty, students, staff, and neighbors more vulnerable and unwelcome, and it will reinforce broader nationwide patterns of precarity and inequality. Faculty and University Community Petition
COMMUNITY OPPOSITION (19th WARD)
We are unequivocally opposed to any expansion of armed peace “ officers in our community, specifically the River Campus and University properties in our neighborhood. The proposal largely focuses on active shooter events, which leaves out critical aspects of the conversation such as race, disabilities, power, community safety, and representation. While any active shooter event is horrific and has become a daily reality in our culture that must be taken seriously, so too must the concerns of people of color and people with disabilities who have been disproportionately victims of police violence. 19th Ward Community Association letter
THE COMMISSION’S CHARGE As a wealthy institution in a town with concentrated poverty and racial and spatial segregation, how do we ensure “public” “safety” for everyone?
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