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Dear Decaturish,

As politicians including Mayor Dickens, Atlanta City Council members, Governor Kemp, and CEO Thurmond continue to push for the construction of a massive police training facility with global ramifications 6 miles from our campus, we are once again called to “think deeply, live honorably and engage the intellectual and social challenges of their times.” As Agnes Scott students, we believe the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center directly conflicts with our institution’s “commitment to a community that values justice, courage, and integrity.” 

We reject suggestions that the project is a done deal and must simply be “improved.” Community members deserve better than the choice between a militarized facility in their backyard and an aesthetically refined militarized facility in their backyard. Our governments must offer resources that affirm people’s lives and needs, rather than relying on the police to respond with violence once a crisis has already occurred. 

We are in alignment with the Student Government Association’s letter in support of the Stop Cop City movement and the demands it makes of the City of Atlanta and DeKalb County governments. Furthermore, as stakeholders in Agnes Scott College, which maintains ties with many of the corporations and government entities supporting the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, we urge our institution to use its position to pressure those actors to remove their support from the project. 

We understand that our corporate partnerships provide financial support for the school and professional opportunities for students, but to us, these relationships are not politically neutral. Corporations represented on our Board of Trustees, such as Home Depot, Amazon, Georgia Power, Norfolk Southern, AT&T, Delta, and Truist Bank have contributed financial support to the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF). SCALE partners such as Uber and BlackRock and donor foundations such as Woodruff and Goizueta also support the APF. What does it say to our community members who are most impacted by police militarization and environmental racism that we are happy to collaborate with organizations that are invested in state violence and ecosystem destruction? 

Additionally, our President serves on the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education, American Council on Education Board of Directors, on the Executive Committee of the Georgia Independent College Association, and on several other councils, forums, and boards. If she chooses to stand with us against Cop City, President Zak should use her influence in these spaces to denounce the project and encourage other institutions to do the same. 

Our Demands:

1. We demand that Agnes Scott College publish an open letter highlighting the values in our mission statement and encouraging its corporate, foundational, and government partners to immediately halt support for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, or “Cop City.”

2. We demand President Zak issue a public statement condemning the murder of Tortuguita and the construction of Cop City in DeKalb County or anywhere.

3. We call students, faculty, and staff to take coordinated action. We must advocate for the reallocation of the $90 million budgeted for Cop City, not to police, but to community efforts related to affordable housing, healthcare, education, green space, and land back to Muscogee hands.

Signed, 

Katy Rice, ASC ‘25

Gabriela Rodriguez, ASC ‘23

Dash Acker, ASC ‘23

Sarai, ASC ‘26 

Molly Edlein, ASC ‘23

Bee May, ASC ‘25

Audrey Partington, ASC ‘24

Elizabeth Singh, ASC ‘24 

Lila McMaster, ASC ‘26

Sammie Gautreaux, ASC ‘25

Mary Shawhan, ASC ‘25

Josephine “Jo” Higgins, ASC ‘25

Audrey Rickson, ASC ‘26

Diana, Staff

Giselle Candiotti, ASC ‘23

A’Lyah Releford, ASC ‘23

June Bloch, Faculty

Kimberly Sanabria, ASC ‘26

Belle Ewing, ASC ‘26

Adelaide Harris, ASC ‘23

Natalie Trimble, ASC ‘25

Megan Patrick, ASC ‘25

Annika Bubp. ASC ‘26

Kylie Roach, ASC ‘25

Lee Willis, ASC ‘23

Isabella Cordell, ASC ‘24

Marissa Ryals, ASC ‘24

Anya Talbot, ASC ‘26

Tavie Schoolfield, ASC ‘26

Brandy Stewart, ASC ‘26

Camryn Tanner, ASC ‘23

Malaysia H., ASC ‘26

Lily Grosshans, ASC ‘25

Syd Little, ASC ‘25

Edie Irwin, ASC ‘25

Salem Burdett, ASC ‘26

Camryn King, ASC ‘23

Fatima Sidime, ASC ‘26

Indie Patel-Lorick, ASC ‘26

Ivey Portis, ASC ‘25

Charlie Hughes, ASC ‘26

Julia Rademacher-Wedd, ASC ‘25

Charlie Hughes, ASC ‘26

Elena Isolina, ASC ‘24

Rebecca Quiroz, ASC ‘25

Jasper Potts, ASC ‘25

Kat Janssen, ASC ‘24

Isabelle Grovenstein, ASC ‘24

Insherah Qazi, ASC ‘26

Grace Payne, ASC ‘23

Abigail Gross, ASC ‘24

EV McGovern, ASC ‘24

Ny’Asia Bell, ASC ‘25

Brandy Nalyanya, ASC ‘25

Nora Fairbanks, ASC ‘26

Eva Richards, ASC ‘23

Peighton Noelle Smith, ASC ‘23

Amari Kedar, ASC ‘25

Solveig Svennevig-Brosi, ASC ‘25

Grace Phillips, ASC ‘25

Molly McGrath, ASC ‘25

Carsun Neubauer, ASC ‘24

Kira Joyner, ASC ‘23

Olivia Yanes, ASC ‘26

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