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Building an Intersectional Racial and Gender Justice Movement through Police-Free Schools.

Ashley C. Sawyer, Esq., (she/her)

Senior Director of Campaigns,

Girls for Gender Equity

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Anti-Carceral Feminism in School Discipline

Anti-violence movement building safety from gendered violence outside of carceral systems (police & prisons).

Policing drains school and city budgets, leaving little resources for positive school climate.

Policing/Carceral Practices Are Often Weaponized Against Students of Color

Anti-Blackness and Systemic Racism impacts girls and non-binary survivors

Police & carceral practices (expulsions) don’t make girls safer in schools and mostly harm Black and Indigenous girls, and non-binary youth.

Policing and the prison-industrial complex are inherently anti-Black, examples of structural racism. When we rely on the PIC to address harassment, we reinforce systemic racism.

Black girls, NB/GNC youth do not benefit from policing

Building Positive School Climate requires Police-Free Schools

prevention → how can we punish kids for behavior when our culture (even at the highest offices in government) teaches them that sexual violence is normal or trivial?

cultures of consent (School Climate)
comprehensive sexual health education; every grade, affirming for LGBTQ students, culturally relevant, FOCUS ON CONSENT.

GGE’s Spring 2020 PFS campaign:

GGE’s Police-Free Schools Toolkit

READING LIST:

(4) Transformharm.org