To: Columbia University
A Call to Indict: Columbia Faculty Against Injustice
We the faculty of Columbia University are profoundly troubled by the recent killings of African American men and the resistance of the government and courts to hold police officers accountable. It is a terrible indictment of our entire justice system when whole communities of our people feel more endangered when the police are present than when they are not.
Can we maintain a patina of self-congratulatory rhetoric about being a democratic society, where all people are treated equally, when such outrageous misconduct is allowed to continue?
We try to teach our students that the days of desperate, horrifying, inequality are passed; that we’ve ended slavery; that we've defeated Jim Crow; that we have stopped lynchings and other forms of physical oppression. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and other African American men and youth breath new life into familiar images from history books, making them shocking, unsettling as we recognize that some of our people are not comfortably removed from a tragic, racist past.
The fact that 300,000 minorities are imprisoned and one in four can expect to be imprisoned in their lifetimes belie ideas of freedom. The fact that police officers fatally shoot around 400 people a year—more than 90 percent of reported incidents involve white officers shooting persons of color—shatter illusions of justice and police accountability.
But while the data on “justifiable homicide” are admittedly wanting, we need mandatory surveillance and reporting of police homicide not to make the case that action is demanded now, but to mark and measure what must be a moment of sweeping change.
We call on the Federal government to closely examine and bring to justice the officers and officials who are responsible for these murders. The culture of police brutality cannot be transformed without accountability. Every instance in which an unarmed citizen dies at the hands of police must be prosecuted. And any and all burdens of policing that fall more heavily on minority communities must be treated as civil rights violations.
We demand that our own university condemn the use of deadly force on unarmed citizens. We call on the leadership of Columbia University to denounce all police practices that systematically target communities of color. We demand that our voice be heard as faculty responsible for teaching values and skills to the next generation of our citizens.
Can we maintain a patina of self-congratulatory rhetoric about being a democratic society, where all people are treated equally, when such outrageous misconduct is allowed to continue?
We try to teach our students that the days of desperate, horrifying, inequality are passed; that we’ve ended slavery; that we've defeated Jim Crow; that we have stopped lynchings and other forms of physical oppression. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and other African American men and youth breath new life into familiar images from history books, making them shocking, unsettling as we recognize that some of our people are not comfortably removed from a tragic, racist past.
The fact that 300,000 minorities are imprisoned and one in four can expect to be imprisoned in their lifetimes belie ideas of freedom. The fact that police officers fatally shoot around 400 people a year—more than 90 percent of reported incidents involve white officers shooting persons of color—shatter illusions of justice and police accountability.
But while the data on “justifiable homicide” are admittedly wanting, we need mandatory surveillance and reporting of police homicide not to make the case that action is demanded now, but to mark and measure what must be a moment of sweeping change.
We call on the Federal government to closely examine and bring to justice the officers and officials who are responsible for these murders. The culture of police brutality cannot be transformed without accountability. Every instance in which an unarmed citizen dies at the hands of police must be prosecuted. And any and all burdens of policing that fall more heavily on minority communities must be treated as civil rights violations.
We demand that our own university condemn the use of deadly force on unarmed citizens. We call on the leadership of Columbia University to denounce all police practices that systematically target communities of color. We demand that our voice be heard as faculty responsible for teaching values and skills to the next generation of our citizens.
Why is this important?
The leadership of Columbia University must make a powerful statement indicting the injustice of police brutality and lack of accountability. Columbia faculty, please sign to demand that our leadership speak out.