Speech for April 28th Rally Against the johns Hopkins police Force
Remarks as prepared
Good afternoon everyone,
Thank you for being here for standing up when it matters most.
Let’s start by naming the moment we’re in.
Across the country, the right wing is attacking colleges and universities.
They’re banning books, dismantling DEI programs, sending police onto campuses to arrest students and professors.
They’re cutting research funding and forcing colleges to crack down on free speech.
And it’s not just happening under the Trump administration or with one political party.
Right here in Maryland, campuses and communities have long sparked real change and sparked backlash.
In 1955, Morgan State students and community members from CORE launched sit-ins that helped desegregate Baltimore, inspiring a national movement and national backlash against "outside agitators."
In 1968, Bowie State students fought racist underfunding and were arrested en masse at the State House causing then-Governor Spiro Agnew to shut the college down, because of the influence of the NAACP.
At Towson, Black debaters from baltimore who would later become Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle turned a college activity into a national engine for Black scholarship and when they became too powerful, the university tried to dismantle their program, citing again, outside forces.
And just last year, when students across Maryland protested U.S. complicity in genocide, administrations again invoked "outside agitators" to justify police crackdowns and suspensions.
Why?
Because they know the history of campus struggle.
They know that when students, workers, and communities organize, they can change the world.
The right wing forces propelling current administration policy have always understood that campuses are dangerous not because of violence, but because they are laboratories of justice.
The creation of a private armed police force at Johns Hopkins isn’t separate from this national crackdown.
It’s part of the same project: to replace community with control, to replace learning with fear.
And that’s why we are here to say: We will not let them.
First: Who is this police force really for?
Let’s be clear.
Hopkins doesn’t need a private police force to protect you students, staff, faculty, neighbors.
Hopkins needs a police force to protect itself its real estate empire, its research profits, its grip on Baltimore from you.
From students demanding divestment.
From workers organizing for dignity.
From neighbors demanding an end to displacement.
They call it “public safety,” but it’s private security for private wealth.
It is meant to separate the campus from the community and to police free speech.
If you want to know who they're afraid of, just look around you:
Students. Workers. Neighbors. Standing together.
And they should be afraid.
Second: Hopkins isn’t alone and neither are we.
When we win here and we will win it will be because we are part of a longer movement beyond Hopkins, beyond Baltimore.
Across Maryland, campuses like Towson, Morgan, UMD, and Bowie already have armed campus police forces.
Nationwide, nearly 75% of colleges do.
And in an era where free speech is under attack where colleges risk losing funding for allowing protest these police forces will be used more and more to silence dissent.
From Baltimore to Bowie, from HBCUs to private colleges, administrators who run campuses like businesses are sending the same message:
Obey or be punished. Comply or be erased.
Campus police forces are not about safety.
They are about protecting wealth, suppressing movements, and enforcing fear.
But here’s the truth:
They are not cracking down because they think resistance is futile.
They are cracking down because they know we can win.
Third: What are we fighting for?
We aren’t just here to say no to Hopkins police
We’re here to say no to campus policing, period.
If we want a world where people are more important than police, campuses are a good place to start.
Campus police do not prevent assault, theft, or dangerous drug use.
They don’t improve pedestrian safety.
They don’t offer transparency or accountability.
Instead, they add another layer of arrest, surveillance, and fear both on campus and in surrounding neighborhoods.
If we want to abolish policing as we know it, campuses are a natural place to begin.
But we are not just here to say no.
We are here to say YES to something better:
Campuses that pay their workers fairly.
Campuses that protect free speech and free thought.
Campuses rooted in democracy, not corporate control.
Campuses that pay their fair share, not launder money for corporations
Campuses that help community members solve problems
Campuses that use their experience feeding and housing people on campus to make sure no one is without a home or hungry in the neighborhoods surrounding campus.
We want campuses that build bridges to their communities not walls.
Because real safety doesn’t come from armed guards.
Real safety comes from dignity.
From democracy.
From solidarity.
We don’t need campuses preparing students to live under authoritarian rule.
We need campuses preparing students to fight for justice everywhere.
Conclusion: This is a fork in the road.
The Trump administration and the Democratic establishment too have presented us with a choice:
Authoritarian institutions fueled by fear and profit, or democratic institutions rooted in justice and community.
There is no neutral ground.
There is no middle lane.
Hopkins wants you to believe this police force is inevitable.
They want you to believe your resistance doesn’t matter.
But history tells us the truth:
Nothing powerful is inevitable when people organize.
We have history on our side.
We have justice on our side.
And most importantly we have each other.
So today:
Let’s raise our voices louder than their sirens.
Let’s build communities stronger than their walls.
Let’s make a future braver than their fear.
Stopping Hopkins police is one step.
But it doesn't stop there.
We want a better world.
And together we will build it.
Power to the people!
Thank you!