This Tuesday, the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions is hosting Raymond Kelly, the New York City Police Commissioner known for the controversial stop-and-frisk policy, for its Noah Krieger ’93 Memorial Lecture. The lecture is entitled “Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City,” and the event description lauds Kelly for implementing “strategies that have enabled the New York City Police Department to drive crime down more than 30 percent since 2001.” But it fails to note that this past August, U.S. District Judge Shira Sheindlin ruled stop-and-frisk an unconstitutional “policy of indirect racial profiling” and ordered it changed. Students have been circulating a petition including, among other conditions, a demand to cancel the lecture.
The Taubman Center erred in its use of laudatory language in the event description, but Brown has hosted controversial speakers in the past, and the center is not compelled to cancel Kelly’s lecture just because many students oppose his views. Rather, students seeking to protest Kelly’s practices should attend the event and question him in a civil and intellectual manner.
The numbers behind the program prior to this summer’s ruling are astounding — between January 2004 and June 2012, city police conducted 4.4 million stops. While New York City is just over 50 percent black or Hispanic, an unbelievable 83 percent of cases implicated individuals from these two groups. The vast majority of the stops — 88 percent — resulted in no further action, and weapons were discovered in only 1.5 percent of frisks. It is wholly unsurprising, then, that Sheindlin ruled that “the policy of singling out ‘the right people’” is racially discriminatory and therefore violates the United States Constitution. During the trial, a state senator told the court he had heard Kelly say the purpose of this policy was to “instill fear” in young black and Hispanic men, to teach them that “every time they leave their home, they could be stopped by the police.” While Kelly has disputed this statement, the judge “credited the account” of the senator making the allegations.
It is understandable that many students oppose Kelly’s policies and the language of the event announcement, but it is counter-productive to demand that the University cancel the lecture. Kelly should be given a platform to speak, and students who oppose him should be given the opportunity to ask questions and present counter-arguments. The evidence against the stop-and-frisk program is incontrovertible — and we are certain that students who challenge Kelly on factual grounds will meet greater success than those who focus on trying to keep the event from taking place at all.
Stop-and-frisk created a culture of fear in New York for certain groups who witnessed and experienced discrimination on the part of city officials and law enforcement officers. In this climate, marginalized groups were systemically excluded and their voices were minimized. We have an opportunity to demonstrate to the man behind this culture that it is possible to create a climate in which opposing views can be expressed, debated and analyzed. We urge students to attend the lecture, listen carefully to Kelly’s words — and speak back.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Rachel Occhiogrosso, and its members, Daniel Jeon, Hannah Loewentheil and Thomas Nath. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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