Universities Need Critical Response Teams and Counselors, Not Police

We join those mourning the loss of life and the trauma campus and community experienced following yet another episode of gun violence, this time in East Lansing at Michigan State University.

We take this opportunity to caution those who would use this as justification to ramp up policing on campus. Too often more policing actually means more violence, particularly for people of color, particularly for Black people. As the “People’s University” serving so many students of color, we are keenly aware of how police presence causes fear and increases risk of violence. This is but one of the reasons why CFA members pushed for passage of Assembly Bill 1997, the bill that requires the CSU chancellor to convene stakeholders to examine alternatives to policing on CSU campuses.

While the Chancellor’s Office has completely failed to adhere to AB 1997, we are moving ahead, meeting weekly as CFA officers, CFA member activists, and CFA staff to create processes for responding to policing issues on campuses and provide faculty with alternatives to policing for the myriad situations they may encounter. Since when did campus community become synonymous with militarized policing and constant surveillance? Which of our campus community members truly feel safer in such environments? Our CSU campus communities deserve alternatives. Our CSU campus communities deserve better.

When faculty receive orientations and trainings about handling difficult students or critical incidents on campus, in the absence of critical response teams, administrators tell us to call the police. When faculty are concerned about a distraught student, in the absence of a critical response team, administrators tell us to call the police. The problem is that all too often a “policing” approach is not what is called for — a student may be in a medical or mental health crisis and need a trauma-informed therapeutic response from a compassionate team of trained professionals. All too often, students in crisis, rather than receiving care and compassion, become the target of this policing approach, and are harmed. Faculty who have witnessed this harm know it is unnecessary and due to the utter failure of the administration. Is it possible that instead of spending millions on weaponized police and surveillance systems, we could fully fund our counseling centers with a diverse team of tenure-track counselors who look like and understand our students? How can we understand, explain, and change a culture that meets mental/emotional crises with armed officers?