Graduate student workers at Johns Hopkins University say the school has used its armed private police force has been used to intimidate and surveil student activists and union members, part of what organizers describe as a growing campaign of union-busting on campus and an example of how the police force is used to control students and workers in the name of “public safety.”
The Johns Hopkins University Police Department — Maryland’s first armed private university police force — has been a flashpoint since it was approved by state lawmakers in 2019. The university argued it was necessary to ensure campus safety, but community members, students and faculty protested it from the beginning, warning that as a private police force it will only be accountable to university leadership rather than local residents.
The JHUPD operates under a 2022 agreement signed with the Baltimore Police Department when it was still a state agency. But in 2024, after more than 150 years without control of its own police force, Baltimore voters returned control of BPD to the city, opening the door for more oversight on the department and its policies…