Over 65 organizations wrote a letter to urge the City Council to protect free speech and student safety by opposing the new preconsidered bill to require the NYPD to develop a plan for the establishment of security perimeters around “educational facilities” across the city. While many supporters have tried to market this bill as a transparency measure–we want to be clear, this bill is not written as a transparency measure. This bill does not ask the NYPD to outline how and when police are deployed to educational facilities, but rather calls on the NYPD to create a plan that advances one particular response – security perimeters – to respond toprotests near covered facilities.
If the City Council truly wants to advance a transparency measure, we urge the Council to amend the current bill and advance a measure that requires the NYPD to publish its policies and practices for responding to educational facilities and specifies that such responses should comply with the 2020 Summer Protest Settlement Agreement and the First Amendment protections on speech, assembly, and protest. The Council should not advance any bill language that requires the NYPD to create a plan specific to the establishment of security perimeters adjacent to educational facilities.
