In 2019, Vice President Kamala Harris said that she supported removing police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” campuses.
Harris made the remarks at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, before she dropped out of the 2020 race to the White House. She was announced as President Joe Biden’s running mate shortly after, according to Fox News.
"What we need to do about taking…demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of schools. We need to deal with the reality and speak the truth about the inequities around school discipline. Where in particular, Black and brown boys are being expelled and or suspended as young as, I've seen, as young as in elementary school,” Harris said at the school.
🚨Vice President Kamala Harris called for the removal of police officers from schools in an effort to "demilitarize" school campuses:
— Nicki Neily (@nickineily) August 28, 2024
"What we need to do about demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of school. We need to deal with the reality and speak the… pic.twitter.com/FDHiutadDq
In Harris’ remarks, she added that she would “end solitary confinement of juveniles.”
“When we talk about reform of the criminal justice system, we've got to understand that the juvenile justice system is in dire need of reform, and I know that. And I've seen it," Harris explained,
“In so many states, children are being incarcerated for … a child being incarcerated for a couple of days is traumatic, much less the weeks, months and years that we're seeing that happen," she added.
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, many school districts across the country ended their contracts with police departments.
Last year, USA TODAY reported that more school districts were reversing course on this. Some school districts that had zero police presence decided to add officers to the schools, as well (via USA TODAY):
Days after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis in 2020, the city's school board unanimously voted to end the district's contract with the Minneapolis Police Department, prompting a wave of other districts across the country to follow suit. At least 50 districts went on to end school police programs or reduce the programs' budgets, Education Week reported last year.
But by June 2022, at least eight districts in states including Virginia, California and New York had reversed course, Education Week found.