15 June 2017

Open Letter to the Toronto Police Services Board

CC: Mayor John Tory, Chief of Police Mark Saunders

"Education not Incarceration" : Letter in Support of Desmond Cole and Black Lives
Matter in their call to suspend the School Resource Officer (SRO) program and remove
police presence from Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Schools

CUPE local 3903 is a union representing over 1,700 academic works at York University. We are proud to
help educate a diverse body of undergraduate students at Canadas third largest university. Many of our
students come from TDSB schools. As Chair of this local I am alarmed by reports that the SRO program
is negatively affecting Black, Indigenous, and other racialized students.

As documents in the Towards Race Equity in Education report of April 2017, one student reported that
the police makes you feel like a criminal before you even do anything. They instill fear in the school and
change the culture. Other reports describe undocumented students living in fear of status checks and the
criminalization of situations which were once effectively handled by school staff.

There is no room to condone the discrimination and marginalization of racialized students - the SRO
program has no place in our schools.

Sincerely,

Graeme Reniers
Chairperson, CUPE 3903