About this time of year, most college students are focused on finals.

However, at the University of California – Los Angeles, many of them are drafting grievance demands instead.

I wonder if the grades they get this semester are dependent on the quality of their grievances.

More than 100 individuals at a student-led town hall Thursday drafted a list of demands calling for the Los Angeles Police Department to patrol all communities in equal numbers and for university police to not carry any weapons.

Students drafted several demands for LAPD, including that the agency say how it funds weapons and for its workforce to reflect the demographics of Los Angeles.

The UCLA Cultural Affairs Commission held the town hall, called “Under Protected, Over Policed,” to discuss what they described as a history of police brutality toward people of color.

The meeting was in response to recent incidents of police violence highlighted by the media, including the grand jury decisions to not indict police officers whose actions lead to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, USAC Cultural Affairs Commissioner Irmary Garcia said.

Garcia said the purpose of the town hall was to unite different factions of UCLA students who have been protesting police violence.

“I’ve noticed there are a lot of students trying to maintain this and mobilize, but it’s really difficult to do the things we want and accomplish the things we want to accomplish when we don’t have all students really working together,” Garcia said.

Town hall organizers opened the meeting with a presentation about police brutality. They also talked about ways they said structural problems in the United States and specifically Los Angeles have led to racism and the unjust treatment of people of color. Some students at the meeting called the police’s treatment of people of color “a systemic genocide.”

One student who attended the town hall, fourth-year political science student Adrena Collins, proposed that UCLA officials implement cultural sensitivity training at events such as New Student Orientation.

Collins said that after the recent controversial non-indictments, she thought other individuals used insensitive language that perpetuated racial stereotypes both online and on campus.


 
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