THREAD: A few more shocking things about Harvard University using students to test military counterinsurgency tactics on behalf of police brutalizing young people of color in Massachusetts. (1) https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1353006397106114560

Note the language in the course solicitation: prof wants to take military lessons from Iraq/Afghanistan to "clean up" Black and Brown communities. This is the language of ethnic cleansing. (2) https://twitter.com/kingavriel/status/1352671206684585985

This Harvard solicitation comes at a time when US cages Black people at 6 times the rate of South Africa at the height of Apartheid and on behalf of one of the most notorious police depts where DOJ found massive civil rights violations perpetrated. (3) https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/25/metro/one-worst-police-departments-country/(3)

Although not disclosed in the prof's solicitation, the attempt to co-opt free student labor appears to be linked to a for-profit company run by the professors' military "buddy" and state trooper. (4) https://twitter.com/sh4keer/status/1353047241636777985

The data work in this area is not rigorous. The field is overrun with conflicts of interest, pro-police propagandists, and research that asks the wrong questions (mostly on purpose) because it is designed to normalize police budgets. I wrote all about it: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/why-crime-isnt-the-question-and-police-arent-the-answer