Police are sending protesting students to the emergency room. Campus police will not protect us.

Police have deployed a heavy police presence on the campus of the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill in recent days to quell pro-Palestinian protests and punish students and faculty for participating in encampments.

On the last day of the spring semester, police arrived en masse in the early morning hours to break up the peaceful protest. A widely available video shows police shoving students and dragging one by his hair. The violence continued later that day, when police chased, shoved, and pepper-sprayed protesters who had replaced an American flag with a Palestinian one. A large number of campus police in riot gear surrounded the students on campus, supported by police forces from NC State, UNC Wilmington, and Appalachian State universities.

The behavior of the campus police was so disproportionate that members of the city councils of Chapel Hill and nearby Carrboro overwhelmingly condemned the police actions, according to reports from WUNCAnd thousands have signed letters calling on the school to stop punishing students for expressing their opinions freely.

These recent events at UNC Chapel Hill are a case study in how campus police, rather than making students safer, routinely create a dangerous environment.

Many news stories use campus police and “campus security” interchangeably, reinforcing a central point of pro-police propaganda: the idea that more police means more safety. Yet while police presence on U.S. college and university campuses has been increasing for decades, this trend has done nothing to stem the tide of gun violence or sexual assault it is supposed to combat. On the contrary, as police tactics have intensified and militarized, the fear and reality of campus violence have only grown greater.

Militarization of the campus does not make students safer

The success of campus police propaganda was brought home to me last summer when friends of mine who work on the UNC Chapel Hill campus described how faculty, staff, and students crouched under their desks for hours, locked the doors to their classrooms without clear instructions, and waited for word that the campus was “safe” after a gunman opened fire there.

On August 28, 2023, a UNC Chapel Hill graduate student entered campus armed and murdered a professor in the Science Building. Sirens blared. Police responded. The campus was locked down—but reportedly in a way that left many faculty and students feeling unstable and unsafe. Eventually, students were evacuated. Most were unsure how to protect themselves—some professors continued teaching despite blaring sirens, and some students described a crippling lack of communication about if and when it was safe to leave campus. After police took a suspect into custody, students and faculty were instructed to “resume normal activities.” Many were alarmed by the callousness of the university trying to return to normalcy so soon after a murder on campus.

Sixteen days later, the school was placed on lockdown for a second time in connection with a shooting, although in this case no shots were fired. Again, campus leadership gave the all-clear and urged students to “resume your normal activities.” One graduate student tweeted a widespread sense of frustration and fear: “Trying to resume your normal activities after telling your loved ones you love them for the second time in two weeks, not knowing if you will ever do that again.”

Across the country, students in high schools, universities and even elementary schools have been told to return to their normal routines after the threat of mass violence, school shootings and fear-inducing drills has increased. This is a crisis in itself, but the resources to deal with it have largely been allocated to security companies and police forces.

Rather than making campuses safer, police are taking on an increasingly militarized role in enforcing a right-wing agenda that is often tacitly supported on liberal campuses: silencing and intimidating protesters, fueling conflict, seeking scapegoats, and reinforcing a climate of fear rather than undermining it.

DEI funds are diverted to campus police

At the end of the same school year that began with two shootings in open fields, UNC Chapel Hill officials not only increased police violence against students – they also decided to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and give the police more money.

Capping off its efforts to underscore its pro-police, anti-protester stance following the chaos on campus at the end of the semester, the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Regents voted in mid-May to divert $2.3 million from funding for campus diversity, equity and inclusion efforts to campus police. During that meeting, Board Chair John Preyer threatened to call the police if anyone “disrupts, disrupts or disrupts this meeting.”

Most reports claimed the trustees were shifting funds from “DEI” to “public safety.” In headline after headline, journalists are adopting the police-speak of “campus security” and “public safety” instead of simply naming what this policy does: It defunds campus diversity efforts and gives more money to a police force that just last year became known for botching an actual school shooting situation and attacking peaceful protesters.

The situation at many other colleges and universities is frighteningly similar. At the University of Michigan, for example, police in full riot gear broke up a camp last week, sprayed students with pepper spray and arrested four people after a month-long demonstration on the public university’s famous central square. Two protesters were hospitalized.

Compare that to a protest 24 years ago, when anti-racism activists on campus occupied the Michigan Union tower for 37 days and occupied a dean’s office to protest a secret society that was storing stolen Native American artifacts in the public building and using them for private rituals. During that month-long protest, the police were never called, and the demonstration ultimately led to the university banning Michigamua, the racist secret society. Instead, it sparked a lively and intense campus-wide debate about Native American heritage and the right of students of color to feel safe on campus, a debate that deeply impacted me as a teenager growing up near that campus.

It only took a few decades for Michigan campus “security” to shift from protecting the most vulnerable to empowering police and scapegoating. Today, it’s hard to imagine a demonstration like this not being met with militarized police tactics.

“Campus security” is police propaganda

Portraying police as public safety agents is pure con. More money for police has proven effective—and it’s not that it has made communities or campuses safer. Media, university administrations, and police unions have played an active role in perpetuating a mythology that now actively puts students at risk.

Police presence in K-12 schools makes some students significantly less safe. First, sexual violence and assault by police are a serious problem, especially for young black women. At the same time, increased police presence (referred to as SROs or School Resource Officers) does not appear to have any effect on gun violence. According to a 2023 study of police presence in public schools conducted by the Journal of Politics and ManagementPolicing in schools generally leads to increased punishment, especially for groups already targeted: “SROs intensify the use of suspension, expulsion, police referral, and arrest of students. This increase in disciplinary and police actions is consistently greatest for black students, male students, and students with disabilities.”

This dynamic is reflected in campus policing as well. While increasing police numbers on campus has been accompanied by decreasing crime rates overall, the vast majority of arrests by college police are for DUI violations, marijuana possession, public drunkenness, and driving under the influence, according to a 2020 Civilytics report based on statistics from universities and police departments. While these police forces grew steadily from 1996 to 2016, Black people made up an increasingly large share of those arrested. Finally, the number of reported rapes on campus has increased as the number of police officers on campus has increased. Only a tiny percentage of rapes and sexual assaults are handled by campus police, and they do nothing to prevent them.

These statistics should come as no surprise: Police presence in schools is a cultural and political problem, driven by pervasive propaganda designed to convince people that policing is synonymous with public safety. It is not. Sexual assault prevention programs, programs to create safer spaces for Black, Muslim, queer and trans students, and increased mental health care for students and faculty are among the simple steps universities have taken and can take to curb violence. True campus safety will only be achieved by addressing the root causes of violence—one of which is the violent culture of U.S. policing itself.