In 2018, Loni Frank, a faculty member at the Child and Youth Care program, was notified that her classroom would be moving. As she stood outside the new classroom with her books, pulley cart, and a handful of her students, she asked a security personnel to let her in. They said no as she did not have her lanyard which possesses her teacher ID. Once she finally fished out her ID, she received no apology or acknowledgment.

The guard opened the door, and Frank realized she was in the wrong place. The room she was trying to access wasn’t a classroom at all. The security guard was being protective over a closet.

“As a faculty member, you walk into the building and unless you visibly have your lanyard on, they don’t know you’re staff. They don’t regard me as staff,” says Frank. “And that’s an assumption of course and I assume that because I feel like I’m being watched.”

These kinds of microaggressions are commonplace for Black students and faculty, says Frank, and it has led her to believe others are treated with more trust.

“I didn’t like the way I was treated. I think, who knows, but I’m going to assume that if it was any other body who was trying to get into, and maybe not any other body, but there are particular bodies that have an easier time accessing and gaining entry, that it would not have been an issue,” says Frank.

This feeling of surveillance from campus security has manifested in many ways, from being constantly checked on, to needing to provide identification at all times, to feeling like your faculty position will never be respected.

“Being in a classroom and having [security] come by and being like ‘do you have permission to be in here?’” said Frank. “It’s like I got to the point where I no longer wanted to respond.”

Experiences like Frank’s can be heard from students and faculty alike and have been a driving force in movements to abolish campus security. Last summer, the Student Association of George Brown College cited the inequities of campus security in its demands to end anti-Black racism on campus, and, more recently, a trans student in the culinary program was allegedly harassed by a security member while using their bathroom of choice. These movements were reinvigorated even more by a February event with activist Desmond Cole hosted by OPSEU and the Black Students Success Network, in which Cole focused on the negative impact of campus security and why abolition is necessary.

“I’m going to say that for some [students] they feel safe and secure but safe and safety is relative, right?” said Frank. “What’s safe for you may not be safe for me, and I think it’s the same for the students.”

VP of student success Chris McGrath attended the event with Desmond Cole and, at the event, acknowledged that the abolition of campus security is a path that needs to be explored.

“By virtue of having campus security as sort of a punitive type of function we’re reproducing that same violence. We’re reproducing that same idea that bodies need to be policed,” says McGrath.

McGrath and VP HR and public safety and security Leslie Quinlan both acknowledge that they are trying to change the narrative of security through a system of positive reinforcement and support. They are carrying this out by reallocating some security personnel into the position of wellness ambassadors who do not wear the same uniform and serve to reward and celebrate good behaviour. But Quinlan said that feedback and input from Black and Indigenous students was not involved in carrying out this plan.

“The more that individuals in the student community feel safe and supported in their capacity to interact and invest in each other as a community then the extent to which quote-unquote ‘negative behaviour’ manifests that actually lessens over time and as that lessens then there is less of a need to think about monitoring behaviour and more about how do we actually create positive types of environments for people to thrive in,” says McGrath.

But among these changes, the idea of abolishing campus security has not come up in a meaningful way among upper management at any point.

“I think part of it is that we have to figure out is how do we balance risk management obligations as well. As I said, that’s why we have to explore it,” says McGrath.

Frank is not sure if she is looking to fully get rid of campus security but voices that changes need to be made.

“I don’t know if I necessarily want to get rid of all of them [security] but the ones who are here just be useful. Just be decent human beings,” said Frank. “Don’t harass people. Don’t cause trouble. Have skills where you can deescalate situations. Have particular skills so that when people come in they’re like ‘oh great they’re here’ rather than ‘oh gosh they’re here and It’s probably not gonna fair well for me.’” 

Frank hopes that one day there can be personnel on campus – security or otherwise – that make people feel safe and supported in non-relative ways.

“If I need help, if I need support, if I need whatever, this person over there is going to do that for me and my issue is going to be resolved appropriately and effectively with no harm done. And I just don’t think that as a college, as a community, as a greater society, I don’t think that’s a reality yet. And I think it would be nice if it could be,” says Frank.