Nationwide, movements to remove police officers, or “special resource officers,” from public schools have been gaining momentum and winning campaigns—in Oakland, Portland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Madison, Seattle, Denver, and more. Built on years, even decades, of grassroots, activist organizing, these movements are earning hard-won gains in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement and growing calls to defund the police.
This panel discussion brings in organizers—both students and mentors—engaged in these struggles at the local and national level. Zon Moua and Bianca Gomez of Freedom, Inc. worked to remove SROs from public schools in Madison, Wisconsin. Andrea Ortiz and Veronica Rodriguez of #CopsOutCPS continue to challenge the Chicago Public Schools to remove SROs at the city level, while successfully expelling SROs at individual schools, like Pilsen High School. These activists will share their experiences and lessons from organizing.
This event is part of the CAS 2019-21 Initiative Abolition which examines the multiple, convergent forms of power in the at times intersectional areas of prisons, police, immigrant justice, gendered and sexual violence, environmental justice, disability justice, and more, in order to propose an abolitionist democratic present and future.
CAS Resident Associates Toby Beauchamp (Gender and Women’s Studies) and Naomi Paik (Asian American Studies) oversee this initiative which includes a 2-year-long public events series among other activities.
