DePaul students again protest university’s affiliation with Chicago police
Protesters take a knee near the Lincoln Park Quad.
On Saturday, June 28, DePaul University students gathered at the school’s Lincoln Park campus to protest DePaul’s involvement with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).
The protest was organized by DePaul Student Abolitionists, a coalition of students and organizations that denounce DePaul’s connection with the Chicago Police Department.
“It was less rooted in specific organizations at DePaul and more so, especially because of coronavirus, different students who are available and able to show up at campus,” said Students Against Incarceration member Annie Scoltock.
The FOP is the largest association of police officers in the U.S. and represents 330,000 officers nationally. DePaul has worked with the Fraternal Order of Police since 2016 to help law enforcement officers earn bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees.
The FOP endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 and issued an advisory for the president’s first 100 days in office. In accordance with those demands, Trump’s administration reversed the ban on private prisons, reinstated civil asset forfeiture and ended DACA crackdown on sanctuary cities.
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Fae Robertson, a DePaul senior, spoke at the rally and led the group in chants. She spoke about the DePaul Cohort Program which allows FOP officers to receive a 25 percent tuition discount.
“If those students do well enough, they can get their education and tuition reimbursed by the school and the city,” Robertson said. “That means DePaul University pays back 25 percent of their tuition and the city pays back the other 75 percent.
Olivia Hamer, a member of Students Against Incarceration, spoke at the rally about what she defines abolition as.
“If I see it simply as a way of driving something out but then not coming to put something back in place of that,” Hamer said. “Then I just don’t see a way to end these cycles that have made extreme and deadly inequality a part of life that people in power try to fund and try to protect.”
The DePaul Student Abolitionists ask that DePaul reallocates its resources towards Black and Brown students.
“Right now, right here, we want to contribute to this long-term vision of abolition,” said Hamer. “By cutting ties with the Fraternal Order of Police and, for once, investing in the education and support of Black and Brown students on campus and incarcerated students.”
poet1b • Jul 2, 2020 at 6:05 pm
The Chicago PD is one of the best rated big city police departments in the US, but US police force need major reformation.. Police tactics in the US are horrible.. -It is wrong to shoot someone who is running away. Call for back up and chase after the suspect.
David Chandler • Jun 30, 2020 at 8:37 am
Another sign that the snowflakes are melting into oblovion. “DePaul Student Abolitionists”. the only thing that should be abolished here is the rendering of Federal/State and and/or any other type of largesse that is being wasted on these null sets” so called education. So I suppose fostering and cultivating the hard working FOP affiliated DePaul students’ educational pursuits while simultaneously investing in “Black, Brown and incarcerated students” is dichotomous and the University cannot do both? Is that what this genious, “Hamer”, is asserting? Earth to Hamer, frankly, if it’s me, a privileged white person who I’d rather my tax dollars be spent educating FOP affiliated students than an incarcerated, likely recidivist, thug beyond hope any day of the week By the way, that same FOP affliated student that’s the target of your disdain? Be sure to resist the urge to contact him/her when a frozen water bottle collides with what little parietal lobe you have left after smoking the shit that your left leaning clueless transgender studies professors are feeding you at the next Black Lives Matter protest attended, in large part, by hapless, unemployed, angry, repressed and skill lacking dolts like you.