Amherst College to consider removing armed police officers from campus
Amherst MA May 27 2021
Amherst College is hiring a consulting firm to study whether the college should remove armed police officers from its campus.
“We are trying to define what campus safety should look like,” President Carolyn Martin said on Monday. “We’re one of only two [New England Small College Athletic Conference] colleges that has armed police on our campus. We are currently undergoing some serious study to see what makes sense for the community as a whole [and] how to keep people safe while also defining safety more broadly than it often gets defined.”
Martin’s comments follow a campus demonstration this spring that included hundreds of Amherst students walking out of classes on April 13 to demand that the college abolish its police department. Campuses across the country are reconsidering policing protocols following the murder of George Floyd and a number of other killings at the hands of the police.
Additionally, some schools, including Yale University and University of Cincinnati, have come under scrutiny in recent years after armed campus police officers shot at citizens unaffiliated with the schools. About 68% of colleges and universities employ law enforcement officers, according to Justice Department data.
Davarian Baldwin, a professor of American studies at Trinity College in Hartford who studies university-community relations, applauded Amherst for considering changes to its policing approach but questioned the need for a consulting project.
“The idea of reconsidering armed campus police is right on trend and critically important, considering the national discussions to rethink or even abolish the current policing system,” said Baldwin. “Why are there armed campus police in the sleepy college town of Amherst? I hope this effort will take all constituents of town and gown into equal account.”
Martin said that the consulting firm will help Amherst research existing campus-safety models and study how institutions are changing their policing strategies in the wake of building pressure from students and communities.
“We will be doing a lot of work on that throughout the summer,” Martin said.
Amherst has not said publicly when it will make any decisions or which consulting firm it will hire. Spokeswoman Sandra Genelius did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
