As members of the Emory University faculty body, we join in solidarity with all those who seek to protect the land of the South River Forest in DeKalb County, Georgia. We oppose the plan to construct a massive, militarized police training facility, known colloquially as Cop City there.
On Monday, April 24 through early Tuesday, April 25, Emory students staged a nonviolent demonstration on Emorys Atlanta campus Quadrangle to protest Cop City. During the course of the demonstration, the students were met by both Emory and Atlanta Police Department officers with threats of arrest. We condemn the presence of Atlanta police on our campus in response to our students nonviolent direct action.
One of the largest undeveloped tracts within the area currently known as Atlanta, the South River Forest, also known as Weelaunee forest, is part of the Muscogee homelands. The Muscogee (Creek) lived as stewards and in relationship to this land for more than 13,000 years, until they were violently driven out in the 1820s and 1830s. This forest is also situated in a predominantly Black and underserved neighborhood. Many members of Atlantas Black community oppose the construction of this police training center. There are legitimate fears about the further militarization of the Atlanta police, the trauma of an increased police presence and the environmental impacts of the forest destruction. We have already seen arrests with domestic terrorism charges, as well as the use of chemical irritants, rubber bullets and live ammunition. The latter resulted in the murder of Manuel Esteban Paez Tern, the Venezuelan non-binary eco-activist known as Tortuguita.
As University of California, Santa Cruz Distinguished Professor Emerita Angela Davis recently noted in a statement condemning the building of Cop City, this movement is at the crucial intersection between movements to abolish police and prisons and those Indigenous-led movements to save our forests, and indeed our planet. She argues that a new collective consciousness regarding the structural forms of racism is taking shape, stating many of us recognize the insistence on old forms of policing as an attempt at further entrenchment of racial capitalism, promoting authoritarianism, political repression and fear-mongering.
Like Professor Davis, we stand in solidarity with all those who seek to protect the forest. We stand with all those who condemn the building of the massive, militarized police training facility in the Atlanta Forest. We stand with the Emory students who voice their opposition to the construction of Cop City. We stand with those who condemn the violence that is exemplified by the current police and state responses to Cop City protestors.
Thus, we join faculty members, students, staff and alumni from Emory and other prominent colleges and universities in Atlanta who have voiced their opposition to the construction of Cop City. These include Spelman College, Morehouse College and Georgia State. We also draw attention to two letters (June 2022 and January 2023) written by Emory physicians critical of the Cop City project, which highlight the negative and violent impact the expansion of policing has on public health. A third letter by more than 200 healthcare workers and students in the Atlanta metro area demanded Emory faculty to resign from the Atlanta Police Foundation board.
We cannot remain silent in light of this continuation of systemic racial and environmental injustice on public land in our city, Atlanta. We hereby demand
1) that the leaders of both Emory University and Emory Healthcare two leading institutions in the City of Atlanta publicly and officially denounce the planned police training facility;
and we further demand
2) that the leaders of Emory University and Emory Healthcare support the rights of its students, staff and faculty to free assembly in protest of this dangerous, unjust and unwise project, especially in light of the long history of civil disobedience in our city and country;
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with the stipulation
3) that the leaders of Emory University and Emory Healthcare urgently act on these demands in the near future, before its too late.
These demands are in line with Emory Universitys strong commitment to social and racial justice. These commitments are exemplified in such projects as the Taskforce on Untold Stories and Disenfranchised Populations, which includes plans for Twin Memorials for the purpose of honoring and memorializing the untold experiences, stories, and contributions of enslaved individuals and their descendants who lived and worked on the Universitys original campus in Oxford, Georgia, and the Universitys main campus in Atlanta, and the Indigenous Language Path to honor the Muscogee and other Indigenous peoples whose lands now support Emorys two campuses and the entire city of Atlanta. They also include the Arts and Humanistic Inquiry Initiative announced by Provost Ravi Bellamkonda, which highlights the importance of climate research, racial justice and equality and the arts and social justice; and the demands are in accord with plans to advance Racial and Social Justice at Emory and beyond, as endorsed by University President Gregory L. Fenves.
Given Emory Universitys commitment to racial and social justice, to protecting the land, to honoring the Indigenous and enslaved persons whose unpaid labor helped to create our institutions and to developing and sustaining a moral conscience alongside the acquisition of knowledge, we encourage everyone to educate themselves about these important issues and we support our students efforts to engage in direct action.
Emory faculty who wish to add their names to this open letter may do so using this form.
Sincerely,
Dilek Huseyinzadegan, PhD, Department of Philosophy, ECAS and LGS
Sara McClintock, PhD, Department of Religion, ECAS and Graduate Division of Religion, LGS
Michel Khoury, MD, Department of Neurology, ESOM
Gautham Reddy, PhD, Emory Libraries
Adriane Ivey, PhD, Department of English, OCEU
Walter C. Rucker, PhD, Department of African American Studies, ECAS and LGS
Rose Deighton-Mohammed, PhD, Institute for Liberal Arts, ECAS
Nimmi Natarajan, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, ESOM
Janeria Easley, PhD, Department of African American Studies, ECAS
Uriel Kitron, PhD, Department of Environmental Sciences, ECAS
Thomas Rogers, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Jeremy R. Bell, PhD, Department of Philosophy, ECAS
Mark Risjord, PhD, Institute for Liberal Arts and Department of Philosophy, ECAS
Amy Zeidan, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, ESOM
Nolle McAfee, PhD, Departments of Philosophy and Psychiatry, ECAS, LGS, ESOM
Henry Kahn, MD, Family and Preventive Medicine, ESOM (Emeritus)
Jessica Lynn Stewart, PhD, Department of African American Studies, ECAS
Daniel Reynolds, PhD, Department of Film and Media, ECAS
Dabney Evans, PhD, MPH, Rollins School of Public Health
Elizabeth M. Bounds, PhD, Candler School of Theology and Graduate Division of Religion, LGS
Chad Crdova, PhD, Department of French and Italian, ECAS and LGS
Kristin D. Phillips, PhD, Department of Anthropology, ECAS and LGS
Marta Jimenez, PhD, Department of Philosophy, ECAS and LGS
Aisha Finch, PhD, Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, ECAS and LGS
Michael Kramer, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, RSPH and LGS
Eric Bulakites, PhD, Department of French and Italian, ECAS
Pablo Palomino, PhD, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, OCEU
Saed Atshan, PhD, Department of Anthropology, ECAS and LGS
George Yancy, PhD, Department of Philosophy, ECAS and LGS
Valrie Loichot, PhD, Department of French and Italian, ECAS and LGS
Neil Lava, MD, Department of Neurology, ESOM
Malinda Maynor Lowery, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Katherine Young, DMA, Department of Music, ECAS
Eri Saikawa, PhD, Department of Environmental Sciences, ECAS and LGS
Pamela Scully, PhD, Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, ECAS and LGS
Kylie Smith, PhD, SON and LGS
Clifton Crais, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Stu Marvel, PhD, Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, ECAS and LGS
Joel Rust, PhD, Department of Music, ECAS
Falguni Sheth, Professor, Womens, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, ECAS
Mariana P. Candido, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Daniel LaChance, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Aaron Anderson, MD, Department of Neurology, ESOM
Mitchell Damian Murtagh, PhD, Womens, Gender and Sexuality Studies, ECAS
Tehila Sasson, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Tara Doyle, PhD, Department of Religion (Emerita) and CST
Yanna Yannakakis, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Julio Medina, MFA, Department of Theater and Dance, ECAS
Debra Vidali, PhD, Department of Anthropology, ECAS and LGS
Peter D. Little, PhD, Department of Anthropology, ECAS and LGS
Lynne Huffer, PhD, Department of Philosophy, ECAS and LGS
Harshita Mruthinti Kamath, PhD, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, ECAS, LGS
Wesley Longhofer, PhD, Organization & Management, GBS and LGS
Judith A. Miller, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Ellen Gough, PhD, Department of Religion, ECAS and Graduate Division of Religion, LGS
Chandra Ford, PhD, MPH, Behavioral, Social & Health Education Sciences, RSPH, and African American Studies, ECAS
Joshua Mousie, PhD, Department of Philosophy, OCEU
Lisa Dillman, Professor of Practice, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, ECAS
David Nugent, PhD, Department of Anthropology, ECAS and LGS
Kwok Pui Lan, ThD, CST and Graduate Division of Religion, LGS
Jason Morgan Ward, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Anna Grimshaw, PhD, Department of Anthropology, ECAS
Karen Stolley PhD, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, ECAS and LGS
John Wegner, PhD, Department of Environmental Sciences, ECAS and LGS
Devaka Premawardhana, PhD, Department of Religion, ECAS and Graduate Division of Religion, LGS
Tanine Allison, PhD, Department of Film and Media, ECAS
Arri Eisen, PhD, Department of Biology, Institute for Liberal Arts and ECAS
David Lynn, HHMI Professor, Departments of Chemistry and Biology, ECAS and LGS
Maria Franca Sibau, PhD, Department of Russian and East Asian Languages, ECAS
Sean Meighoo, PhD, Department of Comparative Literature, ECAS and LGS
Marjorie Pak, PhD, Program in Linguistics, ECAS
Bethany Caruso, PhD, MPH, Hubert Department of Global Health, RSPH
Peter Wakefield, PhD, Institute for Liberal Arts, ECAS
Hiram Maxim, PhD, Professor of German Studies and Linguistics, ECAS
Matthew Payne, PhD, Department of History, ECAS and LGS
Angela Porcarelli, PhD, Department of French and Italian, ECAS
Roxani Eleni Margariti, PhD, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, ECAS and LGS
Michelangelo Grigni PhD, Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics, ECAS and LGS
Myra Woodworth-Hobbs, PhD, Center for the Study of Human Health, ECAS
Deanna M. Kaplan, PhD, Department of Preventive Medicine, ESOM
Roman Palitsky, PhD, Emory Woodruff Health Sciences Center
Christine Ristaino, PhD, Department of French and Italian, ECAS
Andrew J. Mitchell, PhD, Department of Philosophy, ECAS and LGS
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