Dear Whitney Young Community,

On August 12th, our Local School Council voted 8 to 5 to retain Student Resource Officers (or more plainly referred to as cops) within our school. Their decision comes after approximately two solid weeks of current and former students expressing their personal experiences through a series of surveys, email campaigns, town halls, and a rally, which took place yesterday (8/11). For many members of our community, the LSC’s decision was a big disappointment. However, we do recognize that our message reached some members. As the organizers of Tuesday’s rally, we deeply thought about what we as students could do next to express our frustration and disappointment. This is why we have created this petition, and are planning multiple immediate actions to ensure that the LSC can no longer overlook the perspective we’ve provided. 

Although the vote was 8-5, in favor of retaining SROs, of the eight there were  four who voted “reluctantly” and with the intent to reform. However, we firmly believe that there can not be reformation in a system originally created to catch and oppress slaves. In Chicago, cops were placed in CPS high schools to suppress Black students rising up in 1968 during the Civil Rights Movement. To allow cops to exist within what should be a safe and inclusive educational space is willfully ignorant of the harm they do to Black and Indigenous students, as well as students of Color. In addition to this, doing so rejects our school’s history. 

Whitney M Young High School was created in 1975 on the land of the Miami Tribe to serve its predominantly Black neighborhood. The reputation we pride ourselves on was built up, originally, by Black students and their accomplishments. Even though this history is readily available to everyone, the responsibility of emphasizing this point has been left to Black, Indigenous, and students of Color who already live with the reality of being a minority in this country. 

Black students are tired. Indigenous students are tired. WE are TIRED. We should not have to constantly share our trauma in public spaces to be given the respect and compassion all humans deserve. We spent over an hour of our time today (8/12) listening to our experiences and opinions be invalidated by educators and adults who could not understand that we don’t feel safe with cops in our school. The 90 seconds we were given is not enough time to be understood. We as a school community are due more respect than just 30 minutes out of a 2 hour town hall. 538 people shared their perspective on cops in Whitney M Young, and 93% of those opinions were for removing cops. We as an organizing team presented the LSC with multiple alternatives that could be built within our school rather than police. Despite this overwhelming community input, the LSC voted to retain. ALL of the student and alumni experiences expressed in the town hall reflect the administration's self contradicting statement of their open door policy and prioritizing of student voices above all else. Therefore it’s extremely important that we gain support from as many people within our school as possible, as well as from the media and the community, so that Dr. Kenner and the administration will be forced to listen. 

We demand that the LSC listens to the actions that we have put in place to further amplify student voices and calls for a revote before the end of the first quarter. 

Please sign, share, and support your fellow community members in every way that you can. *Do not donate to change.org, but please donate to our venmo @phiabia instead. 

Sincerely,

Cops Out of WY