PSU-AAUP along with AAUP Oregon and Collective Bargaining Chapters (Graduate Employees Union of Portland State University, Oregon Tech American Association of University Professors, United Academics of Oregon State University, United Academics of University of Oregon) endorses the following statement to disarm our campus police:
AAUP Oregon
by Michael Dreiling, President of AAUP Oregon
June 26, 2020
Dear Governor Kate Brown:
The American Association of University Professors of Oregon (AAUP Oregon) represents thousands of faculty, academic professionals, and graduate employees at universities and colleges throughout Oregon. We are pleased that your office has initiated calls to improve police accountability in Oregon. In that spirit, we join calls from our local chapters across the state that public universities immediately begin the process of disarming campus police units.
At Portland State University, campus police were armed in 2015, over the objection of nearly all campus constituencies. Jason Washington was shot and killed by PSU campus police in June 2018. At the University of Oregon, miscommunication between Eugene Police Department and University of Oregon Police Department officers resulted in a student having guns drawn on him at the Erb Memorial Union. At Oregon State University, Oregon State Police, working under a contract with OSU, pushed to the ground, handcuffed, and arrested Genesis Hansen, a student of color, for riding her bike on the wrong side of a residential street. While OSU and OSP severed their contract over the incident, OSU has failed to respond to calls to have their newly formed campus police force be unarmed.