On Wednesday, June 10, University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod held an online vigil in remembrance of the Black lives lost to police violence. In a letter sent to the student body written on June 9, 2020, Chancellor Girod declared this vigil “a call for the KU community to broadly affirm black lives and acknowledge and take action against such heinous injustice.”

While a nice sentiment, in the past two months alone, police have murdered George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless other unarmed Black people in cold blood. The time has passed for hollow administrative posturing. 

At a time where federal agents are being deployed to major cities across the nation, including Kansas City, and infringing on Black Lives Matter protesters’ first amendment rights, there is no place on the KU campus for over-policing and violence. 

We are calling upon Chancellor Girod, Provost Bichelmeyer, and the KU administration to take tangible steps to make KU a safer community for our Black students. 

The KU Public Safety Office (PSO) has a noted history of mishandling sexual assault cases, racially profiling students, and cultivating an unsafe and unwelcoming environment for KU’s students of color. We sent out a request for testimonies of interactions with KU’s police force, and within 24 hours, had received over two dozen responses detailing instances where PSO has mistreated students, ranging from negligence to over-policing to actively threatening students. These responses can all be found here. 

Not only does having a dedicated campus police force encourage aggressive over policing of campus and KU’s Black student population, it militarizes non-violent situations, such as wellness checks, drug and alcohol use in on-campus housing, and mandatory reporting, which could all be better handled by non-violent KU student resources. 

With KU facing a $120 million budget shortfall in the next fiscal year, Chancellor Girod forced the Student Senate to stall desperately-needed fee increases to vital student resources like Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and threatened to lay off faculty and staff integral to the University. The University has already begun offering a faculty buyout option in order to cut losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially affecting up to 600 faculty and staff members. Meanwhile, KU PSO continues to operate on a $5.8 million annual budget. In the words of the Chancellor, “KU needs to … restructure, streamline and cut programs” to address these budget shortfalls. This is Chancellor Girod and Provost Bichelmeyer’s opportunity to protect their students’ safety while conveniently improving their budget situation.

We, a coalition of student organizations and community leaders, demand that administration acknowledge the threatening environment KU campus police creates for students of color and take immediate and decisive action against it. 

Our demands are that the University:

1. Immediately dismantle the police services and patrol division provided by the KU Public Safety Office and cease all policing activities on KU campus. Prohibit any future funding towards the KU Public Safety Office’s policing division and redirect all funds to resources and departments with a focus on the wellbeing of Black students. 
2. Disarm all security personnel operating on campus through the KU Public Safety Office.
3. Prohibit all information sharing to and ban physical access to campus from Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). 
4. Prohibit the Lawrence Police Department or any other local or federal police forces from entering on-campus housing or dining facilities without a reasonable, documented emergency.

These policies would allow KU to operate as a sanctuary campus, free from the threat of over-policing and violence. The few violent crime reports would be funneled into the Lawrence Police Department, and Athletics could maintain its relationship with LPD for crowd control purposes at basketball and football games. These demands are the compromise. This is KU’s opportunity to demonstrate that it cares for its Black students’ wellbeing. 

Signed,

AbolitionKU

Meredith Shaheed, Ximena Ibarra, Azja Butler, Ife Oduniyi, Mazzy Martinez, Melek Ben-Ayed, Naomi Madu, Emily Krichati

KU Young Democrats 

Jayhawks for Bernie

KU Sunrise Movement

African and Caribbean Student Association

Muslim Student Association

Sigma Psi Zeta, Alpha Mu Charter

National Society of Collegiate Scholars, KU

International Graduate Students of KU

Egyptian Student Organization

HEAL KU

Mortar Board National Honor Society

Dean’s Diversity Leadership Council of KU Law

Students United for Reproductive and Gender Equity (SURGE) KU 

Black Law Student Association

Kansas City Democratic Socialists of America

Repetition Coffee

(full list of signatory organizations available on the petition document here.)

If your student group, community organization, or local business would like to sign on, please fill out our form here.