Activists, community organizers, and policymakers have attempted police reform for more than a century. Whether diversifying departments, conducting racial bias training, or implementing community policing, no reform effort has stopped police from harming the public it has pledged to "protect and serve." While these concerns are largely understood outside of higher education, a closer look at the role colleges and universities play in expanding the carceral state reveal a deep, long-standing relationship with the institution of policing.

On May 5, join Dr. Charles H.F. Davis III and Derecka Purnell in conversation as they discuss the policing problem and explore possibilities for police-free futures, on campus and beyond.

Dr. Charles H.F. Davis III, 2022 Anti-Racism Collaborative Research & Community Impact Fellow, Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Campus Abolition Research Lab at the University of Michigan

Derecka Purnell, Lawyer, Organizer, and Author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom


This session is co-sponsored by the Campus Abolition Research Lab (CARL); the Anti-Racism Collaborative, a strategic space at the University of Michigan for engagement around anti-racism research and scholarship and part of the provost's anti-racism initiative; and the Diversity Scholars Network, a scholarly community committed to advancing understandings of historical and contemporary social issues related to identity, difference, culture, representation, power, oppression, and inequality.