Editorial: UC’s lack of follow-through indicates low priority of police transparency
By Editorial Board
Nov. 3, 2021 9:52 p.m.
This post was updated Nov. 4 at 1:08 p.m.
Editor’s note: Editorials are intended to serve as the jumping-off point, not the conclusion, to discussion. As part of the Daily Bruin’s commitment to its readers, the board hopes to present a responsible and clear analysis of relevant events and news items affecting the lives of those we serve, but our editorials are not representative of the Daily Bruin’s views on issues as a whole. We encourage all readers to reach out to our board members and to respond to our editorials.
For a premier public university, sticking to deadlines shouldn’t be a hard task.
However, as the clock ticked past midnight Sept. 30, the University of California failed to meet the first deadline in its Community Safety Plan, an elaborate enterprise aimed at improving the transparency of campus police and making them responsive to community concerns.
The plan, which was released in August, requires campuses to create a tiered response model for crises, establish new training programs and make policing data more accessible. It comes after more than a year of student, staff and faculty demands to divest from law enforcement.
The Community Safety Plan includes multiple deadlines for the University and its campuses to implement targets. The Sept. 30 deadline required the UC to establish two systemwide working groups involving faculty, students and staff to help draft strategies in the tiered response model, evaluate the hiring of campus safety officials and provide guidance for protest response.
As of Oct. 15, the UC said it is still in the process of creating the workgroups and finalizing their members.
It is not unreasonable to ask the UC to keep the promises it made to its community. The University’s failure to do so demonstrates where its priorities lie and is a sign of things to come.
The plan is split into tiers for a reason. There are different spheres of campus safety, each requiring varying levels of attention. The Sept. 30 deadline was the first of many and called for what arguably should take the least work to implement.
For the UC to falter at the very beginning is troubling, to say the least.
Campus safety affects every student, staff and faculty member at the University. Advocates across the UC have urged the University to defund and abolish UCPD, but the University has stayed firm in its commitment to keep police on campuses. If the UC won’t heed these calls, the very least it can do is stick to its own timeline.
The UC cannot keep its students and employees safe with just words – it can only do so with concrete action.
But even when the UC has acted, its behavior has been questionable.
In April, the UC proposed alleged reforms to its campus policing policies and practices to the ire of many, including this board. These proposals would have created a Systemwide Response Team with the power to deploy rubber bullets as well as allow retired officers to carry weapons on campuses. In short, they would have expanded the power and scope of UCPD – something no campus needs.
Research has shown through consistent patterns that UCPD disproportionately targets minority groups. According to a Daily Bruin analysis of data collected between July 2015 and July 2016, around 31% of people arrested by UCPD in Westwood were Black and 23% were Latino. To put that into perspective, Black individuals make up only 2% of Westwood’s population while Latinos make up just 7%.
Officers have also brutalized students on a number of occasions, from pepper spraying protestors at UC Davis in 2011 to forcefully removing striking graduate students at UC Santa Cruz in 2020.
The Community Safety Plan isn’t revolutionary. It won’t usher in the systemic change many are rightfully asking for. In many ways, it preserves an institution that has perpetuated racial inequities and will continue doing so as long as it is allowed to police campuses.
As a board, we still firmly believe in divesting from UCPD and allocating resources elsewhere, including toward mental health services, substance use help and crisis counselors.
The Community Safety Plan doesn’t achieve that, which is why the UC’s failure to meet the plan’s earliest deadline speaks volumes.
The UC cannot allow this to happen again. There’s no excuse to leave students, staff and faculty hanging, especially when it comes to something as important as their safety.
