Despite abnormally high crime rates, professor wants cops off campus
On July 21, the UC Riverside professor tweeted 'Get the cops off campus!'
Campus Reform has covered similar anti-cop sentiment on college campuses in recent years.
On July 21, Brandon Robinson, Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California Riverside (UCR), tweeted “Get the Cops Off Campus!” in response to the university’s decision to include new safety personnel on campus.
New personnel will include unarmed “safety responders” and “behavioral health specialists trained to de-escalate situations.”
I work in racist, homophobic, trans antagonistic, anti-science hell. 🤡🤡🤡
They literally put the UCR police in the Health, Well-being, and Safety division - everything police are literally antithetical to. 🤡🤡🤡
Get the Cops Off Campus! @ucftp pic.twitter.com/gzDJsI5hFS— Dr. Brandon Andrew Robinson (@DrKittyGirl) July 21, 2022
Additions to the police force came at the recommendation of the university’s “Campus Safety Task Force,“ which was organized by the “Black Student Experience Work Group” that convened in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
“I work [a] in racist, homophobic, trans antagonistic, anti-science hell,” the tweet begins. “They literally put the UCR police in the Health, Well-being, and Safety division - everything police are literally antithetical to.”
[RELATED: Campus police departments in US provide crucial student programs, support to communities]
UCR is located in Riverside County, which, according to data gathered by Neighborhood Scout, “has one of the highest crime rates in America,” and where residents’ “chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime…is one in 27.”
Campus Reform has covered the trend of college students and faculty expressing anti-cop sentiment on campus.
In July of 2021, for example, Campus Reform covered an African Studies program at Davidson College in North Carolina that offers a course titled “#Abolishthepolice: Race and Policing in the U.S.”
The course utilized “Black political and feminist theories and social and political philosophies to critically examine and think through issues of race, criminalization, incarceration, police militarization, predictive policing, surveillance, and domestic security.”
In September of 2021, Campus Reform reported that the African American Studies Department at Boston University encourages and provides strategies on how to eliminate police on college campuses.
Similarly, as part of a self-defense class, St. Edward’s University in Texas includes a video instructing students to not call the police or rely on them for help.
According to Campus Reform’s report on the class in April of this year, the video accuses police of seeing minorities as criminals.
The anti-police sentiment across college campuses has been building for some time.
As late as 2021 Robinson tweeted, “This and every pride, let us remember that there is no queer and trans liberation without police and prison abolition. And then let’s continue building a world around care and not cops and cages.”
Five months before his statement against UCR in July, Robinson tweeted, “You gotta love academics who supposedly believe in science and evidence but then also believe that cops prevent crime, keep everyone safe, and solve crimes as well,” states Robinson.
Campus Reform reached out to Dr. Robinson, the UCR Police Department, and the University of California, Riverside. This article will be updated accordingly.
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