More than 100 Penn community members gathered at College Green for Police Free Penn’s Abolition Festival on Thursday afternoon.
Police Free Penn, a group of Penn community members working to abolish policing and transform community safety at the University, hosted the event to promote conversation about police and violence on campus. The festival saw participation from students, alumni, faculty, community members, and State Representative Rick Krajewski, who engaged in a small group discussion and marched from College Hall to the end of Locust Walk.
Event organizers called for the removal of police on campus, the prison industrial complex, and other institutions that disenfranchise students and members of the West Philadelphia community.
Police Free Penn organizer KC Legacion, who is a second-year environmental studies graduate student, said the group planned the event to take place at the center of campus to increase visibility since abolition is not on most students’ radar.
Legacion said the University has not been receptive to the demands of the organization, which include decriminalizing Blackness, protest, and poverty, and both defunding and disbanding the Penn Police Department.
Activists and faculty speakers called out the University for not investing in community resources such as education and fossil fuel divestment while Penn’s endowment continues to grow.
Krajewski, who graduated from Penn in 2013 and represents Philadelphia’s 188th district, which encompasses Penn’s campus, spoke to attendees on the importance of affordable housing. He brought awareness to recent efforts by city council members to stop the demolition of University City Townhomes at 3990 Market Street, which he said would contribute to gentrification in his district.
Students walking on Locust Walk stopped to listen to speakers like Krajewski and other community activists.
College first-year Connor Nakamura, who attended the event and small group discussion, said it is important for students to stay engaged and participate in events advocating for social justice on campus.
Nakamura joined College sophomore Jack Starobin, a former DP reporter, in his first Police Free Penn event. Starobin said hearing the different perspectives on abolition and connected issues of violence at Penn revealed the struggle of different communities grappling with these issues.
Starobin said he decided to attend the protest after taking part in protests outside the Psi Upsilon chapter house in September demanding University action following an alleged assault by a fraternity brother against another student at a party.
Starobin said he and other students who engaged with the Abolition Festival are new to abolition and eager for change on campus.
“Reform steps and little demands incident by incident are not going to get us to where we need to be,” Starobin said.
Assistant Professor of History and Police Free Penn researcher Anne Berg participated in the small group discussion and helped facilitate the event.
Berg said she is an advocate for institutions of higher learning to be at the forefront of what they teach and give back to the community they belong to. She urged students to use their position as Ivy League students to think about how their careers and life choices will relate to other people and communities.
“I want [students] to start thinking about what a world without police would look like and to really open up their imagination,” Berg said.
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