Dear Friends,
Did you know that since 2011, over 85% of students who have been assaulted by police in schools were Black young people? Or that police assaults have steadily increased over time?
Advancement Project and Alliance for Educational Justice have released our updated report, #AssaultAtSpringValley: An Analysis of Police Violence Against Black and Latine Students in Public Schools. Our report analyzes 372 cases of police assaults of students since 2011 along with an in-depth look at assaults in the last 2022-23 school year. In gathering incidents of police violence in schools, the data concludes that police and private security not only do not stop violence in schools, they contribute their own, including through sexualization, sexual harassment, and sexual assault of students.
Our data reveals the abuses of power police are capable of in our schools, despite false claims that police make students safer. In the last school year, not only were Black students overwhelmingly victims of police assault with over 80% of students, over half of the victims were girls, where gender was identified. Police sexual violence was the second most frequent type of assault last school year. Over time, since 2011, sexual assault has moved up as the third most frequent type of police assault against students.
Police have no place in our schools or in our communities–and students are demanding their removal. Across the country, they are leading the fight for #policefreeschools from Oakland and Phoenix to Nashville and Madison and will not stop until they have the freedom to learn and grow. They are painting a vision of a world where deep care and community are the reality, not control and criminalization.
Join us in our fight for #policefreeschools and read our full updated report #AssaultAtSpringValley: An Analysis of Police Violence Against Black and Latine Students in Public Schools today.
Thank you,
Katherine Dunn
Program Director, Opportunity to Learn
