Friends,
There have been
protests against Johns Hopkins University’s weapons contracts since I came to
Baltimore, almost always organized by community members not students.
JHU’s Applied Physics Laboratory is receiving about one billion dollars to do
mostly weapons research. This includes killer swarming drones and nuclear
weapons research contracts. This article hints at the fact that JHU is #1
among universities in weapons contracts, and the title calls for
“demilitarization.” However, the four demands avoid the issue of the
weapons contracts.
On Tuesdays,
from 5 to 6 PM, we vigil at 33rd and North Charles Streets to
protest JHU’s weapons contracts. Frequently we talk with the students
protesting JHU’s ICE contract and the school’s plan to form a private police
force. Of course, I hope the students and the faculty succeed in ending
JHU’s contract with ICE which I believe is $7 million per annum. Regarding the
“private police force,” I do not foresee the dangers stated in this article.
Nevertheless, I
just do not understand why the students and faculty are unwilling to take on
the work at the APL. It is much more deadly than what ICE is doing
and what the private police force might do. THE APL is the elephant in the
room, and we members of Baltimore’s peace and justice community are the only
ones talking about elephant dung. Imagine if the City of Baltimore was
able to get that $1 billion wasted on warmongering and used it to rebuild its
infrastructure and improve its schools.
Kagiso, Max
Published by the Students
of Johns Hopkins since 1896
April 8, 2019
We must keep organizing for demilitarization
By COREY
PAYNE and PETER WECK | April 4, 2019
The
Maryland State General Assembly has passed a law allowing Hopkins to form its
own armed private police force. This marks the first time that a private
corporation in Maryland will have its own police department, authorized to use
force and make arrests.
The
University is pushing for increasing militarization even in the face of massive
opposition.
According
to the Student Government Association (SGA) referendum, 75 percent of undergraduates
oppose the private police force. More than 2800 affiliates signed a petition
against it. Students Against Private Police joined Leaders of a Beautiful
Struggle, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), UNITE HERE
Local 7 and Services Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 to testify in
opposition. A plurality of adjacent neighborhood associations voted against the
bill. Nearly 100 faculty members — including almost every black faculty member
at Homewood — penned a letter calling the University’s conduct
in promoting a private police force “undemocratic.”
While
an armed private police force is new to Maryland, such drastic militarization
is more of the same for our university. Hopkins is one of the largest academic
contractors of the Department of Defense and has long been an engineer of the
military’s deadliest weapons. Over the past year, it’s come to
light that Hopkins has held millions of dollars’ worth of contracts with the
brutal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — the organization responsible
for the violent and inhumane treatment of detainees and the targeting of
immigrants in Baltimore and beyond.
Like
the dangerous private police proposal, this dangerous collaboration with ICE
has faced widespread opposition. Hopkins students and the local immigrant
rights community joined together to hold one of the largest walkouts in university history and
delivered a petition with over 2000 signatures to stop the ICE contracts.
At
every opportunity, the University has steamrolled over any opposition to these
acts of militarization and has undermined any semblance of democracy in our
community. The administration’s conduct has been nothing short of reprehensible
and deceitful.
Anti-democratic
behavior is the modus operandi for
University President Ronald J. Daniels and his administration. In the years
since his term began, Daniels and his top officials have been centralizing
power away from faculty and departments. They ignored the calls for anti-racist action by black students in
the wake of the Baltimore uprising. They attempted to push out a unionized security firm
after they won a fair contract. They resisted calls for a living wage and displaced
worker protection for subcontractors. They have mishandled cases of sexual assault. They’ve
resisted graduate student efforts at unionization. And they have retaliated at nurses who are trying to do
the same.
But
it doesn’t have to be this way. Hopkins is not just its elite
administrators.
Hopkins
is the students who moved here for a degree but fell in love with this city.
Hopkins is the faculty and graduate students who are changing the world through
research. Hopkins is the underpaid workers cooking in the dining halls,
guarding the street corners, cleaning the buildings and driving the buses.
Hopkins is the dedicated nurses who are providing world-class care despite poor
working conditions.
Hopkins
is all of us. And we’ve had enough.
In a
newspaper, bylines are usually restricted to individuals. But these words are
written and endorsed by the thousands of Hopkins affiliates represented by
Students Against Private Police (SAPP), Hopkins Coalition Against ICE, Teachers
and Researchers United (TRU), Hopkins Students for a Democratic Society (SDS),
JHToo, Hopkins Socialists, the Black Student Union (BSU), and the JHU local of
National Nurses United (Mid-Atlantic Region, NNOC/NNU).
We’ve
come together because we believe in a democratic and demilitarized university.
We refuse to allow this administration to take these dangerous actions in our
names any longer. Another Hopkins is possible, but not unless we fight for it.
That’s
why we demand the following: one, an end to the plan to create an armed private
police force; two, a cancellation of contracts with ICE and a pledge to donate
all monies received from them to Baltimore’s immigration defense fund; three,
voluntary recognition for all workers wishing to unionize, starting with the
nurses and the graduate students; four, an elected and voting position on the
Board of Trustees for student and faculty representatives.
For
too long our voices have been marginalized and disregarded. That’s why we stood
together on Wednesday in a way that can’t be ignored. If we want Hopkins to be
a model university and a force for good in our city, then it is time for
drastic change. Our fight for demilitarization and democracy at this university
will continue. We hope you’ll join us.
Corey
Payne is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology, an undergraduate
alumnus of Hopkins and a member of Students Against Private Police (SAPP).
Peter
Weck is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a
member of the Hopkins Coalition Against ICE and of Teachers and Researchers
United (TRU).
This
op-ed was written and endorsed by the members of Students Against Private
Police (SAPP), Hopkins Coalition Against ICE, Teachers and Research United
(TRU), Hopkins Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), JHToo, Hopkins
Socialists, the Black Student Union (BSU), and local members of the National
Nurses United (Mid-Atlantic Region, NNOC/NNU).
All
Rights Reserved
© Copyright 2019 The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
© Copyright 2019 The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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