"Abolitionist struggle seeks to release the hold that the racial and racist carceral state has on our lives, both inside and outside the prison walls." – Steve Wilson
PLEASE NOTE NEW EVENT TIME AT 4PM
Most universities in other countries do not have their own police forces. Yet, in the US, university police forces are the norm. Why is this the case, and how are students and staff organizing against it? Abolitionist formations have expanded and deepened at universities and schools across the US in the past decade in response to police killings. As student workers and staff have organized against anti-Black racism and police violence, they have also articulated the relationship between policing and the neoliberalization of higher education, and the university's role in tuition hikes, rising student debt, militarization, gentrification, and settler occupation. What does the project of police and prison abolition have to do with the project of the university and public institutions of higher education? How has the UC system been historically complicit in the expansion of mass incarceration, anti-Black policing, and the suppression of student protest? This panel features student and faculty organizers from the California Cops off Campus coalition. Join us as we discuss how university campaigns connected to broader struggles for abolition, and to learn more about the Cops off Campus campaign and how to get involved.
